Anime AI-enhancing graphics for low-res games - the thread

[spekkio]

BROs, since there was some testing , I've decided to create a separate thread to avoid clogging the "Emulation" thread. Let's hope it will come in handy...

I'm playing Fire Emblem - Awakening ATM, and the low-res models and textures give me probably even worse AIDS than the writing.

I mean, check this shit out (native internal):

But how about this (4x internal + HQ textures by saavy internet people and yours truly):

Yeah - much better. UI - related stuff is not my work (see below). But I've enhanced both "portraits" and this cute chibi "animated doll" in unit list. And it's glorious.



As you can see, the only thing still missing are the "weapons" textures (still low-res). Everything else is done. As far as this one menu goes, OFC.

So how do you get from option 1 to option 2?

Well, you don't.

1) There's no complete HD pack for FF13 available yet. So far, there were only two attempts:

Fire Emblem: Awakening HD Texture Pack (Alpha)

111 AI-enhanced textures. Not terrible, but inferior when it comes to the quality to the second one:

Project reAwakening by rdnc & Steamsweet

"Only" 71 textures "resized", but IMO the majority of the most difficult ones has been done. These guys didn't fuck around with AIs, but re-made the UI elements most likely from scratch.

And these look glorious:

Let's compare a single UI texture:

a) vanilla texture:

b) 4x texture from Project reAwakening:

b) 4x texture created with Real-ESRGAN (realesrgan-x4plus (default) model)):

Not THAT bad, since it looks like this ingame:

But it cannot compare to the previous texture / this:

But how about trying other tools?

c) 4x texture created with waifu2x-caffe (2-D illust (CUnet Model) + Denoise & Magnify mode):

And other models / modes look even worse...

So, to sum this part up - for UI-related stuff you have to either make texture from scratch, or use some really good AI enhancer (Real-ESRGAN >>> waifu2x-caffe IMO).

....................................................................................

2) So, why aren't these two packs complete? Well, authors wrote that "enhancing character art would be very difficult". Which is a fucking lie, as long as you use realesrgan-x4plus-anime model.

I mean, check this shit out:

a) vanilla texture:

b) 4x texture created with realesrgan-x4plus-anime model:

waifu2x-caffe is inferior for this job as well (or I'm doing sth wrong). 2-D illust (CUnet Model) + Magnify & Auto Denoise:

To further prove my point, another attempts with 2 textures from DeSu2 (1. vanilla, 2. real-esrgan, 3. waifu2x-caffe):

So, AI-enhancing 2D portraits is piss-easy. As long as you have time to dump all these textures, find the art and batch-enhance it.

.....................................................................................

3) How about ehnancing the textures for 3D models? Well, it can be done, but IMO it's totally unnecessary / waste of time. Compare (you have to DL both pics probably) the screenshot with default textures:

And 4x textures (realesrgan-x4plus-anime model):

IMO much bigger problem is the "ghosting shader" effect in higher resolutions, which doesn't have official fix ATM (it's been fixed for FF14 last year). Some dude posted this code @reddit, but it doesn't work for EUR version + some people report that it brakes some things.

This "bug" can be visible in my screenshots as well.

1) vanilla internal:

2) 4x internal, default textures (both 2D & 3D):

As you can see, there's a slightly visible "halo" around the character.

.
.
.

So, to sum all this shit up. ATM the HD Texture pack for FE13 is quite doable. Most UI-related textures have been created by Project reAwakening's authors. And other shit can be AI-enhanced.

You just need a lot of free time to do this, and even I'm not autistic enough to try...

:doitfaggots:

Drama Queen out.

 

[Zarniwoop]

ur moms a temp

 

[mushaden]

Came here thinking I would see some upscaling of actual good (probably psx) games

 

[Duraframe300]

I have said it in the emu thread, but while I do feel the same about the need to recreate UI textures rather than upscaling, I'm not sure about the need of modders to change rather than recreate. From straight up changing entire patterns to backgrounds to removing depth for readability to whatever.

It's not a huge enough issue to bother when you play, but whenever you actually compare, it jumps out to me. The example given by spekkio is fine btw., its just a thing that irks me in general in those packs.

A more drastic case in point (From the Digimon Adventure PSP HD Pack)

https://imgsli.com/NTgxMjg

Just a completely different feeling.

 

[spekkio]

IMO much bigger problem is the "ghosting shader" effect in higher resolutions, which doesn't have official fix ATM (it's been fixed for FF14 last year). Some dude posted this code @reddit, but it doesn't work for EUR version + some people report that it brakes some things.

I've tested this code on USA version. There's slight issue indeed when you turn it on. Namely, lighting gets disabled / borked.

code off (vanilla):

code on:

So, it's not a "viable solution" for the ghosting. Yet.

 

[spekkio]

BROs, having FE13 covered (HQ texture pack can be done, but good luck with it), let's move onto something better. For example Devil Survivor - Overclocked.

As mentioned in the "Emulation" thread, this game already has a HQ Texture pack by Kierk.

Which has been created "mostly with ESRGAN’s 4x_NMKD-UltraYandere_300k". And looks fantastic:

Except one thing: fonts.

Which is mentioned by the author:

Some UI elements cannot be upscaled consistently, most notably part of the status screen, the fusion/auction menus and the help banner at the bottom of the screen.

The reason for this is a weird way of generating text by DeSu1 & 2. Almost all text used in dialogues / help / UI is generated by the game on the fly. So, when dumping, you get a million textures like these (swapped for clarity):

WTF is this? Well, this:

If you re-arrange characters' skills in any way, another texture will be generated by the game.



So, what can be done? ATM: nothing, or not much. But I think there can be a solution, depending on what exactly is going on in the game. I mean, there are two possibilities:

a) Game uses some code to generate text. It would've been super weird / rare, but I think possible. It would also mean, that nothing can be done with this game's text, 'cuz upscaling the font would require a modification of game's code.

But there's also:

b) Game uses some "internal" texture to generate UI textures. This texture isn't sent to the graphical output, so can't be "dumped" by the emu. But it has to be somewhere inside the game files, right?

Well, let's dig for it. :D

1) Extracting contents of the .3ds / .cia file.

- Grab the HackingToolkit9DS by Asia81 (V9 is the last "good" one)

- Run "SetupUS.exe" to install required files.

- Extract contents of your rom using 1st or 3rd option:

And voila:

Let's look inside two folders: "ExtractedExeFS" (2,8 MB) & "ExtractedRomFS" (1,1 GB, so it's teh goods).

2) ExtractedExeFS

4 files inside:

code.bin is a "proper" binary file indeed:

so good luck with editing it.

Other files are not important (too small). But icon.bin can be viewed / edited with Every File Explorer:

3) ExtractedRomFS

Now that's where all the good stuff is:

Wait, "dfont16.bmp"?

That's not what we're looking for.

- bgm folder has bgm music in .bcwav format

- voiceUS folder contains voices in same format (877 MB of useless crap - but that's how you make undubs, kids)

- se folder (7,6 MB) has some data files (?), i'm not sure what these are:

So, there are only 2 interesting things left:

a) model folder (51,8 MB). It contains 3D models + textures (.bcmdl), skeleton animations (.bcskla) and material animations (.bcmata). Examples:

We can find some "fusion" textures here, plus some small terrain textures. Interesting, but not what we need.

b) Target.bin file (181 MB) + corresponding .idx & .ndx files.

I think that's the shit we're looking for. Target.bin is a binary / archive:

While Target.ndx looks like an index file for the .bin:

And lookie here:

Sadly, until someone makes a script for QuickBMS or sth similar, we won't be able to acces contents of this file, or - what's also necessary - edit and "re-compile" it.

Some dude requested exactly this @ GitHub, but that's all I can find on the matter. Unless I'm missing something here.

And that concludes my investigation into DuSu Overcocked.

Looking forward to more comments from fags who either don't have a fucking clue WTF is going on IT(or any)T, yet simply MUST REPLY!, or fags who don't contribute anything worthwhile and only post to show how FUKKEN HARDCOER they are.

After all, it's the 'Dex - "You can say shit and fuck and you won't get banned, mom!. Wheee!".

Spoiler

And I'm not talking about BRO Duraframe300 here...

 

[Gerrard]

the low-res models and textures give me probably even worse AIDS than the writing.

OP is a faggot.

Your "superior" scaling loses a ton of detail that waifu doesn't, and literally makes up shit that doesn't exist in the last example.

 

[spekkio]

^
Yeah, after some testing of different enhancers / models / models, I've realized that creating HQ packs is simply not my cup of tea. I salute all the people brave enough to deal with this shit and make HQ packs, but it requires way too much effort. You would have to test every "type" of texture in a game ("character texture" in our case) using every available method. And risk that two months later somebody comes up with "even better" method.

 

[spekkio]

BROs, checked also the file structure od DeSu 2, and it's indeed p. much the same as DeSu1. I mean, folders are different:

But the most important thing content-wise is once again the "Target" trio (.bin, .idx, .ndx). There's also another "font" file ("ascii32.bmp"), but I don't think it's something used ingame:

But at least I was able to remove everything inside the "Voice" folder (ENG dub is fucking horrible, but JAP undub isn't that great either - character voices feel totally out of place in these games), creating two "unvoiced" roms, which are much smaller than "vanilla" ones:

Both these roms work fine, games won't crash with voices enabled.

 

[Gerrard]

^
Yeah, after some testing of different enhancers / models / models, I've realized that creating HQ packs is simply not my cup of tea. I salute all the people brave enough to deal with this shit and make HQ packs, but it requires way too much effort. You would have to test every "type" of texture in a game ("character texture" in our case) using every available method. And risk that two months later somebody comes up with "even better" method.

I doubt that it will ever be that easy, the best way would probably be combining both images by manually editing the end result, which obviously would be a lot of work.

 

[Duraframe300]

^
Yeah, after some testing of different enhancers / models / models, I've realized that creating HQ packs is simply not my cup of tea. I salute all the people brave enough to deal with this shit and make HQ packs, but it requires way too much effort. You would have to test every "type" of texture in a game ("character texture" in our case) using every available method. And risk that two months later somebody comes up with "even better" method.

I doubt that it will ever be that easy, the best way would probably be combining both images by manually editing the end result, which obviously would be a lot of work.

It's what mods like (for example) Moguri for FFIX did. Upscale, then fix everything wrong with it. And that's still going to necessary for quite a bit of time.

Still preferable to where we were before (AI) upscalers (and still are in some cases). HD Mods of old just chose a completely different textures that may look similar in tone and colour, but ends up being something else.

That we can nowadays point to small(-er) details that differ is already an accomplishment in itself.

 

[deama]

Thanks for brining up a new ai upscaler, this one is pretty nice.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

resource you might be interested in:
https://upscale.wiki/wiki/Main_Page

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Probably not exactly the same thing but I think the algorithm used to create HD textures from old ones in Metroid Prime for emulation was first rate. Certainly far better than these monkey modders who create their own all-new textures for games that look nothing like the original's art style.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The original menus on that Fire Emblem game look better, even if they are low resolution. That Project reAwakening one smooths it out and drains all the detail to the point it looks like some display element on a cheap iOS game. Gives it kind of a Flash look. The others have more texture to the colors but they've also got little wonky things going on with the font.

The in-game models on the other hand seem to look good. The portraits seem to have a similar problem to the font, the black outline becomes a smear in places and jettisons out in places. It is a sharper image, but it also don't seem to know what to do with any of the black outlines.