AI Upscaled Textures

[MasonFace]

So if its not a problem to just batch the rest of the 8x frames, it would be cool. So the resulting package is as high res as possible.

It shouldn't be a problem. I'll consolidate all the needed frames and send them on to Phredreeke and see if he wouldn't mind generating the 8x masks for them. It's all batchable so it's really no trouble at all.

For the frames that I think I may have gone a little overboard on the sharpening, I'll blend the results with the unsharpened 8x upscales until it looks about right. I want to see how they look in game first though so I can see how compression effects it.

[phredreeke]

Is it really a worthwhile improvement though? Could you present some side by side comparison of the 8x upscale vs the 4x upscale?

[MasonFace]

Is it really a worthwhile improvement though? Could you present some side by side comparison of the 8x upscale vs the 4x upscale?

It's perfectly reasonable for you to ask. I'll try to get some in game comparison screens of what I have and we can make a determination from there. My personal opinion is that it probably won't be worth the massive increase in memory, certainly not for the purpose of PVE, but I haven't seen yet how much better it looks in game.
I'll also take a look at how the silhouettes look after the last round of upscales. If I can alpha threshold down the soft edges to decent looking contours, then I won't bother you with generating 3000+ 8x resolution masks (believe me, I felt bad enough asking you for that last round you did).

[King of Worms]

Is it really a worthwhile improvement though? Could you present some side by side comparison of the 8x upscale vs the 4x upscale?

From my experience, the mobs I created for my mod look sharper ingame than the 4x ones. And my are 8x
But ofc, it can be caused by different approach for the upscalling. Im not sure. I did just the XBR upscale.
But I suppose the difference will be there when the resolution goes up twice.

Yes, it would be cool to have comparisons screens. It wont be super easy to get two same screens Im affraid...
Maybe with the command to disable enemy AI ? Spawn it and make it stand still...
And the images should be in png...

Also, my outline is soft. Im not sure if it blends better than the hard one you guys using?

Ive noticed your approach gives awesome results on some of the models.

265 naked lady
266 fish
the bear
all dedras with the particles effects around them

I need more time to compare it better but these really stand out! Awesome job

I think you should try to upscale the magic effects!
Archives 376 to 379
Maybe the animals archive 201
Or the naked dancers. Archives 176, 178, 179, 181
But this all will be in other parts of the mod I guess..

Anyway, here is a frame from my mob, so u can see the soft outline, not sure if its good for anything
Thanks!

256_0-0.png (183.86 KiB) Viewed 1899 times

[MasonFace]

Anyway, here is a frame from my mob, so u can see the soft outline, not sure if its good for anything.

I was originally using your xBRZ 8x upscales to use as masking layer back in January, but unfortunately it relied on over trimming and feathering which left semi-transparent pixels that are not compatible with the batch billboard shader, and using alpha threshold gave inconsistent results. Also, the xBRZ does a great job with the outline except for lines at particular angles which makes otherwise contoured sections straight (the sprite's thighs and horns for example). I may try MrFlibbles' workaround and see if I could get a little better results.

I think you should try to upscale the magic effects!
Archives 376 to 379
Maybe the animals archive 201
Or the naked dancers. Archives 176, 178, 179, 181

Most definitely! After I take a break, I'll be looking for what to dedicate my attention towards. I'm leaning towards townsfolk since most of our methods can just be directly carried over and they should go pretty quickly. Then maybe the first person weapon frames, then the items in your above list, then maybe common prop sprites, then back to textures.

[phredreeke]

If I can alpha threshold down the soft edges to decent looking contours, then I won't bother you with generating 3000+ 8x resolution masks (believe me, I felt bad enough asking you for that last round you did).

...oh crap. DFU supports partial transparency? I've been working with a eduke32 mindset where transparencies are binary (and while buildgdx supports multiple alpha transparency, I've limited it to all or nothing for consistency with the original game)

Edit: I've uploaded masks at 1x scale. you may ask why? well, they've been antialiased then left as is without posterising. http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi ... 4180967402

[MasonFace]

...oh crap. DFU supports partial transparency?

No, I'm afraid DFU doesn't support partial transparency, that's why I was needing to use alpha threshold to cull the semi-transparent pixels below a certain alpha value.

[Nystul]

would be interesting to see upscaling results of the horse back

would be awesome if one of you guys could try that out

[King of Worms]

would be interesting to see upscaling results of the horse back

would be awesome if one of you guys could try that out

Im not sure where to find it tho
Ive also upscaled the casting magic hands, but it does not appear ingame (upscaled flying spells do)

[MasonFace]

I didn't have time to post comparison screenshots, but I do have the 8x upscales ready to download:

8x Upscaled MOBs

8x Upscaled MOBs - Forward Facing Frames Sharpened

You can pick and choose from the sharpened frames. Most of them look better than their unsharpened counterparts, but some of them are too extreme and don't blend well with the unsharpened frames so use your own discretion. Also, the masking isn't perfect on the sharpened frames, but in most cases it isn't very noticeable.

Please note that I saw some atlas overflow issues on some of them. You may need to choose a couple unimportant frames and scale them down a little to ensure they fit properly in the allocated atlas space.