Interesting new ESRGAN illustration model

[Azteca]

Here is a new model that seems especially good at dealing with dither and pixilation. I don't think it would beat the current methods used for DFU upscales outright but it is another tool in the toolbox, perhaps for difficult textures that won't upscale neatly. Also, there are tools that allow you to blend different ESRGAN models which could lead to a better result.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GameUpscale/co ... ons_for_a/

This was upscaled using ESRGAN after trained using a fork of BasicSR by victorca25 of the GameUpscale discord community. The training dataset consists of high resolution pinups and paintings with smooth, mostly textureless finish from DeviantArt & other imageboards. After 200,000 iterations, it transfers the painting style well while trying very hard at anti-pixelation of the input images, to varying degrees of success.

EDIT - You can download the ESRGAN model here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aip-EMByJHY20xsc9EvnxVZ50Ja7

There are multiple galleries and sliders in the original post but these two seemed relevant to DFU.
https://imgsli.com/NDg3Mw
https://imgsli.com/NDg3NA

[King of Worms]

Interresting find, thank for info. It looks really good on the previews!

If only I knew how to train a model...

I think I will leave this for other ppl, to make a 100% AI version of Daggerfall. Im quite ok with what I did in dream, its a mix of everything, thanks to the AI team and their Mobs, which are crazy good. I did the commoners with AI, and rest is hand drawn and textures are new, created in photoshop.

Still, I will experiment with this new model, downloading

[King of Worms]

It makes nice clean results, not bad... will depend on the image u want to upscale ofc, but its a nice tool

Cartoonpainted

6-3.final.png (317.99 KiB) Viewed 3831 times

Lady (new one)

6-3.final lady.png (378.34 KiB) Viewed 3831 times

[King of Worms]

Yeah lol, look at the color gradients, here the new Lady model shines!!!! Awesomness
But the new model requires more work to cut the image out of the background, its always some tradeoff...
I think I will try to remake the horse this week.

Cartoonpainted

01.final.png (217.98 KiB) Viewed 3829 times

Lady

01.final lady.png (232.82 KiB) Viewed 3829 times

[Azteca]

Quite a few comparisons:



And reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/GameUpscale/co ... e_fate_of/

Dangerism, author of Lady, says in the comments "I need to work on getting more details in for v2 of this model." So there will be a v2 eventually.