AI Upscaled Textures

Show off your mod creations or just a work in progress.
Post Reply
User avatar
King of Worms
Posts: 4747
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:18 pm
Location: Scourg Barrow (CZ)
Contact:

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by King of Worms »

Beautiful, I hope you guys can come up with a way which will allow you to batch-process the sprites to the level you presented here.
I think its possible. Everything is...

IMO the greatest results are on the MOB sprites. Those are 100% awesome. The STATIC NPCs are nice as well, but are lets say comparable to what Ive created, with the help of a artist who did the last pass of shading etc... but enemies like you do - no way in hell I can do that. And animated NPCs as well... too much work to do them manually.

User avatar
MasonFace
Posts: 543
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2018 7:28 pm
Location: Tennessee, USA
Contact:

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by MasonFace »

MrFlibble wrote: Sun Jan 27, 2019 7:40 pm
Recently I started using C'MIC's Layers -> Blend [median] function to some neat effect. Here's a little sample of random Daggerfall sprites I use for testing, this is a blend of the RandomArt/Manga109 interpolation and the waifu2x+SFTGAN method. In both cases the original image was xBRZ-softened (with the pixelise filter).
https://imgur.com/a/AmTxh8p
Very nice results! Since your upscales can't operate on CUDA, I can batch upscale them all for you if you don't mind handling all the pre-processing (xBRZ-softening and Waifu2x) and sending it to me. I can run all of them through RandomArt/Manga109 and SFTGAN, then send you back the results in one zip/rar file for you to experiment on blending the results.

I think all the results you've produced would work great with even the slightest artistic touch-ups.

User avatar
Jukic
Posts: 68
Joined: Sun May 13, 2018 5:51 pm

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by Jukic »

@Fibble: results are superb!
@Mason: Batch-wise, I can do image interpolation and alpha blending no prob. Just edge detection - edge smoothing is not satisfactory currently (without upscales - smooth and downscales)! But I can use more testing material so just do all the sprites guys and then we can worry about what layers to blend and how to process the edges. I think a workflow without human artist intervention is the goal :)

User avatar
King of Worms
Posts: 4747
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:18 pm
Location: Scourg Barrow (CZ)
Contact:

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by King of Worms »

Guys, just a note, the travel map can now be upscaled and injected into the game... can we get some decent results on this image pls?
It would be great to have it, as we spend a lot of time on this screen. 1920x1200 reso would be nice.
But I have a feeling this one will be complicated
Lets see...
Thank you :)
TRAV0I00.IMG.PNG
TRAV0I00.IMG.PNG (48.1 KiB) Viewed 2953 times

User avatar
Midknightprince
Posts: 1324
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2017 6:51 am
Location: San Antonio TX
Contact:

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by Midknightprince »

King of Worms wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2019 5:31 pm Guys, just a note, the travel map can now be upscaled and injected into the game... can we get some decent results on this image pls?
It would be great to have it, as we spend a lot of time on this screen. 1920x1200 reso would be nice.
But I have a feeling this one will be complicated
Lets see...
Thank you :)

TRAV0I00.IMG.PNG
I've been waiting for this map to get hooked up for a long time, this is going to be something to see!
Check out my YouTube Channel!

User avatar
TheLacus
Posts: 1305
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2016 6:22 pm

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by TheLacus »

King of Worms wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2019 5:31 pm Guys, just a note, the travel map can now be upscaled and injected into the game... can we get some decent results on this image pls?
It would be great to have it, as we spend a lot of time on this screen. 1920x1200 reso would be nice.
But I have a feeling this one will be complicated
Lets see...
Thank you :)

TRAV0I00.IMG.PNG
Arl already made an awesome map as part of his UI up-scaling project; just wanted to point this out before someone spend time on a duplicate. I don't think anyone worked on local maps instead ;)

User avatar
King of Worms
Posts: 4747
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:18 pm
Location: Scourg Barrow (CZ)
Contact:

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by King of Worms »

Well, he made this one, but its not very vanilla (but good, Im not dissing his work, its in general a high quality production)
Spoiler!
n1cy8l.jpg
n1cy8l.jpg (612.6 KiB) Viewed 2940 times
I think we might try this new AI upscale option, because it was not available before. Just a test....

The local maps... Ive done em all and have em on my HDD.
Basic XBRZ upscale but it works well with these simple images Id say...

PS: thanks for making travmap available Lacus :)
FMAP0I17.IMG.png
FMAP0I17.IMG.png (45.09 KiB) Viewed 2940 times

User avatar
Midknightprince
Posts: 1324
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2017 6:51 am
Location: San Antonio TX
Contact:

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by Midknightprince »

King of Worms wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2019 6:11 pm Well, he made this one, but its not very vanilla (but good, Im not dissing his work, its in general a high quality production)
Spoiler!
n1cy8l.jpg
I think we might try this new AI upscale option, because it was not available before. Just a test....

The local maps... Ive done em all and have em on my HDD.
Basic XBRZ upscale but it works well with these simple images Id say...

PS: thanks for making travmap available Lacus :)

FMAP0I17.IMG.png
You know me, I like the classic look too, and I am not dissing either, his looks fantastic, I'm just too old and Goofy.

Yesss, a new map, I been waiting for this :D :D :D
Check out my YouTube Channel!

User avatar
MrFlibble
Posts: 410
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2018 10:43 am

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by MrFlibble »

Here's a little something about the sprites.

I've shown the test results with the Orc frames in the ESRGAN thread in the Duke4.net forums. Specifically, I noted how the upscale, whatever the method, ruined the scaly look of the Orc's skin because it was achieved by arranging the pixels at exactly the resolution of the original sprite, which did not properly translate into the upscales. To this, a fellow user named Mark suggested an interesting solution:
You could try adding the scale look back in with a texture filter. Heres a quick example.
Here's the original sprite I posted (left) and Mark's edit (right):
Image Image
I think that a definite improvement at least on the right arm and left leg.

I wonder if a similar technique could be applied to get better results with other upscaled sprites too?

User avatar
MasonFace
Posts: 543
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2018 7:28 pm
Location: Tennessee, USA
Contact:

Re: AI Upscaled Textures

Post by MasonFace »

You could try adding the scale look back in with a texture filter.
@MrFlibble:

I'm not familiar with texture filters, but it sounds like a "texture mask" or "detail texture," in this case, using a color as a mask, then filling it with a pattern. Looks like in his example the scaly pattern bled into the armor in a few places, but looks really good on the skin.

My only reservation about this how it might handle animations. It looks great on the single image, but once it's animated I anticipate that the scaly pattern will look inconsistent from frame-to-frame. It's worth testing on at least a walking animation to see. But I think this technique will work great on static sprites. I've actually been using a similar technique on upscaling some textures.

Speaking of which, I'm working on finishing upscales on all the textures in Privateers Hold (a rather arbitrary starting point). I'm using Freak2121's GigaPixel upscales as a base; I attempt to upscale using our methods, and blend the results if it helps to enhance the details some. I then upscale to a more appropriate resolution (i.e. 1024 vertical resolution for wall textures) using the new "NoHalo" interpolation in Gimp2.10. I attempt to use some basic image filters to enhance slightly if it helps. I repair the seams for textures that need to tile. Then in many cases I'll add a detail texture which sounds a lot like what you've described above. Often it's just a rough or dirty pattern overlaid with high transparency to just add some slight detail.

What I'm working on now is generating advanced materials and packaging it as a mod for download. They look great with normal, metallic, and heightmaps. I'll try to post some screenshots tonight and release the mod sometime this week. I'll need feedback on the materials: they will need some tweaking to make sure they aren't too dark, shiny, or too embellished on the normal and heightmaps. Once we reach a consensus, I can proceed to expand the finished texture/material set.

I really like packaging this as a mod since it gives me full control over the materials. I can save quite a bit of memory by sharing normal and heightmaps between similar textures (like those that are just simple recolored variations of each other). Also, I can use secondary maps to draw out fine detail like a cloth texture on the flag/banners with a very small 128x128 normal map which makes them look great up close with just a tiny cost of VRAM.

Guys, just a note, the travel map can now be upscaled and injected into the game... can we get some decent results on this image pls?
It would be great to have it, as we spend a lot of time on this screen. 1920x1200 reso would be nice.
But I have a feeling this one will be complicated
@KoW:

I've made a few attempts at this before when I was upscaling the UI panels for you, but the map portion just really didn't work well at all. I may try to attempt this again soon, but I want to finish the Privateer's Hold textures first.

Post Reply