[MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

A curated forum for compatible and maintained mods. Users are unable to create new topics in this forum but can reply to existing topics. Please message a moderator to have your mod moved into this forum area.
Post Reply
User avatar
MasonFace
Posts: 543
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2018 7:28 pm
Location: Tennessee, USA
Contact:

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by MasonFace »

Here is the latest MOBs pack. This is my submission for DREAM: 8x MOBs with ghosts and some emissions

I will continue to support it as I can with any incremental improvements, but I will mostly focus on other graphics in the meantime.

TheLacus proposed using an XML file to control transparency for select MOBs. Once he has that implemented, we can make the ghosts and wraiths transparent!

User avatar
King of Worms
Posts: 4752
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:18 pm
Location: Scourg Barrow (CZ)
Contact:

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by King of Worms »

Much appreciated!! Downloading, will check thoroughly this evening and report back ;)

EDIT: 1st fast check, could not wait till evening :D

Ive noticed that the bear (259) has majority of the frames missing
Other than that, It all looks very clean! The new outlines helped a lot!

Can you tell me, what kind of sharpening you used on the front facing mobs? Do you use photoshop to do so?
And was the sharpening applyed before or after the upscalling?

I ask because Id might try to sharpen the rest of the frames to keep it all more consistent (eventho the consistency was greatly improved in this realese IMHO) but Im not sure I can achieve the results you did with the front facing frames :oops:

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

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by MasonFace »

Ive noticed that the bear (259) has majority of the frames missing
Please rename the "457" records to "259" to add it to the rest of the bear frames. Sorry about that.

I actually just now noticed that 457 has a lot of extra frames that 259 doesn't have and it produces odd results if you try to use all of them. May just want to copy over the frames from 457 that look like what 259 is using (roughly every other animation frame) until we have control over animation frame counts.

@TheLacus: Speaking of which, could you add modder access to the animation frames using an XML file?
DaggerfallMobileUnitRecordFrames.PNG
DaggerfallMobileUnitRecordFrames.PNG (23.79 KiB) Viewed 2940 times
I'm interested in interpolating extra animation frames for other MOBs, later on. ;)
Can you tell me, what kind of sharpening you used on the front facing mobs?
I used Gigapixel A.I. Sharpen. You can get a free 30 day trial which should give you enough time to crank out the majority of the MOBs. If you run out of time, then just use another burner email address and start the trial over again. ;)

Like I said before, the program doesn't support batching which is a HUGE bummer... :cry:

According to their product FAQ:
Since sharpening is a step most take during regular editing workflow we wanted the ability to use Sharpen AI within your existing workflow to provide, Our other batch processing tools we have are outside normal editing workflow, like enlargement or jpeg quality improvements so it makes sense to have those operational tools that usually do not have to be adjusted individually per image.
Since you can't batch them, it is quite tedious to do them one at a time... 3,700 times... And their workflow doesn't really help. Each time to load in the next frame, the settings you had selected for the previous sharpening reset to their default values, and so do a lot of the save settings which means a LOT of clicks for each and every frame, which is obviously not convenient.

For most of the frames, I ended up using the "Stabilize" processing mode with "Remove Blur" set near the maximum and "Suppress Noise" set near the minimum.
And was the sharpening applied before or after the upscalling?
After.

User avatar
King of Worms
Posts: 4752
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:18 pm
Location: Scourg Barrow (CZ)
Contact:

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by King of Worms »

Thanks for info and explanation, Ive merged the bear archive to 259 and u are right, more animation frames causes problems now, so back to 50..

Ive noticed the corpses from archive 096 are missing, can u pretty please upload them as well?
Also, not sure if you still have the basic - non sharpened - variants of mobs as well? Id like to download them if that is possible to experiment with some mobs/frames

These 14 frames are missing :
255_15-0
260_15-0
293_0-0 to 293_0-3 (4 front facing frames)
295_0-0 to 295_0-3 (same issue) - Ive used front frames from the other fairy dragon archive so its solved
299_0-0 -------------(same issue)


Also, u did a huge task, so feel free to ignore my requests, that would be completely understandable ;)

And the Mobs look kick-ass man! Ive compared all frames with mine and this is really a step up.
I will hand correct some mobs and when its done ill ping it to you back.

Thanks a lot!!

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

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by MasonFace »

I just realized something. Some of the frames are way bigger than others for seemingly no reason (1.3 MB vs 300 KB), but I just realized that some of them got converted to 64 bit color precision (16 bits per channel) and I have no clue why, but I'm betting it has to do with Topez AI Sharpen because it seems mostly isolated to the AI sharpened frames... I've got them downgraded so their color precision is back to 32 bit (8 bits gamma per channel) to save memory with no noticeable difference in quality.

I'm going to fix the issues that you've brought up and reupload a new collection.

A few notes:
Ive noticed the corpses from archive 096 are missing, can u pretty please upload them as well?
I completely overlooked those. I've got them added now!
Also, not sure if you still have the basic - non sharpened - variants of mobs as well? Id like to download them if that is possible to experiment with some mobs/frames
Here you go. Unfortunately, I don't think I have them with the improved masks so their outines are pretty rough.
These 14 frames are missing :
255_15-0 - Noted. Frame has been added.
260_15-0 - Noted. Frame has been added.
293_0-0 to 293_0-3 (4 front facing frames) - Noted, frames have been added.
295_0-0 to 295_0-3 (same issue) - Yes, archive 289 I believe is the one that's used and 295 is not. I will consolidate the frames and remove any redundancies.
299_0-0 -Same as previous. Archive 299 is not used. Use record 283 instead. I have removed 299 now.



Note: I've consolidated all the bear frames into 259. You will need to rename some frames to get it to fit into the reduced frame count version. You can either just copy from the ones you've already fixed, or you can wait and see what TheLacus says about using XML files to modify animation frame counts.
And the Mobs look kick-ass man!
Thanks! :D

I've got all these edits done and I'm uploading the results now. I'll post the link in the morning.

Edit: Here is the newest version - MOB 8x Upscale 4-28-19.rar

User avatar
King of Worms
Posts: 4752
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:18 pm
Location: Scourg Barrow (CZ)
Contact:

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by King of Worms »

Hi mason,

yes Ive noticed for example the rats files are unusually big, was wondering what is going on, the 64bit depth will indeed be the case.

Ill have a look on the basic unsharpened files, but Im affraid without the masks, it wont be much of a benefit. I think for example the scorpion is oversharpened, but that can be handled manually with slight blur I guess.

I have a idea of separating the un-sharpened files and just batch sharpen them a bit in photoshop, I experimented with the smart sharpen and you can deffo set it up so it brings some details and clarity up without too much distortion. That would make the whole set a bit more compact further (yet you did a nice job on this one, its much better than old 8x ones)

I have topaz, but I was not able to find the "stabilize" mode. And yes, hand processing 3700 files aint no joke...

Thanks for taking care of the missing frames and corpses!

I did exactly that with the bear, deleted 2nd frames from walking sets, renamed the files and works perfectly. Lets wait for lacus, 70frames would be nice :D

Downloading!!

BTW: Found out the animation of the blue fish is not correct, but thats not because of the upscale, but something is off in the code. When it faces you, you will see that... I guess I have a idea of what is going on, will have to ask Lacus again .) -the front facing animation should go back and forth to create a fluid movement.

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

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by TheLacus »

MasonFace wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 6:18 pm @TheLacus: Speaking of which, could you add modder access to the animation frames using an XML file?

DaggerfallMobileUnitRecordFrames.PNG

I'm interested in interpolating extra animation frames for other MOBs, later on. ;)
There are four implementations of billboards (DaggerfallBillboard, DaggerfallBillboardBatch, DaggerfallMobileUnit and MobilePersonBillboard), which come with their own needs for animation frequency, orientation etc that require some considerations. I agree it could be a good idea to open animation behaviour to mods, but I personally don't think i'm going to work on this right now.

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

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by MasonFace »

Perfectly understandable. We will put a pin in it for much later on down the road.

User avatar
King of Worms
Posts: 4752
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:18 pm
Location: Scourg Barrow (CZ)
Contact:

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by King of Worms »

Im working on the corpses, found out its beneficial to merge yours and mine results, but in a way my IMG is a background and your is a foreground with 100% opacity, will share laters when all is done.

But Ive found out the 400, 401, 405, 406 archives are just 4x (rest was 8x)
Do you have these 23 images in the 8x res pls?
If you have it only with bad masks, I can live with that in this case :)

I still think your outlines somehow are too sharp and it does not work so well as my smooth lines when you use trilinear filtering and antialiasing ingame, but I need to test it more. One thing is sure, my images have perfectly smooth outlines (antialiasing plus trilinear) and yours have sharp edges and appear a bit blocky when in close up. The reason behind this needs to be further investigated - I will do so and report back.

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

Re: [MOD] Pure Vanilla Extract

Post by MasonFace »

I still think your outlines somehow are too sharp and it does not work so well as my smooth lines when you use trilinear filtering and antialiasing ingame, but I need to test it more. One thing is sure, my images have perfectly smooth outlines (antialiasing plus trilinear) and yours have sharp edges and appear a bit blocky when in close up.
If you want the absolute best results on the edges, then we could feather them. TheLacus is working on implementing transparency via XML files. I could batch modify all the edges to have a very very slight blur with partial transparency which would effectively help to hide the blockiness of the outline. Bear in mind that transparency comes with a decent performance cost; although I think people with graphics cards sufficient enough to run DREAM should not experience any issues. Also, I don't recall that TheLacus has given a time frame for when he might be able to implement this feature so this is a "future" solution.
Im working on the corpses, found out its beneficial to merge yours and mine results, but in a way my IMG is a background and your is a foreground with 100% opacity, will share laters when all is done.
Sounds like what I was originally doing:
Basically, I wanted the outline of KoW's orc with the inside texture of the AI upscaled stuff.
And here:
Using your xBR upscales as a base, I downscale them from 8x vanilla resolution to 4x vanilla resolution, I do get smooth silhouettes but the xBR interprets some diagonal lines as odd melted stair steps which look weird... It does provide a good starting point though, and cleaning those issues is fairly easy to do manually, just time consuming and not possible to batch. For the most part, the results look pretty good, but up close the edges still look a little murky without a lot of careful editing to get clean the silhouette.
If I recall correctly, when it worked, it worked really well. But in certain situations, the xBR stair stepped angles really showed through and required a lot of manual touch ups that just can't be done quickly en masse. I'd suggest just feathering at this point, but feel free to experiment. One MOB that would demonstrate this method's efficacy is the Skeletal Warrior (270). I think the xBR outlines struggled around the shield, thin bone portions, and diagonals. This was the one MOB that made me decide that different option was necessary in order to batch the outlines.
But Ive found out the 400, 401, 405, 406 archives are just 4x (rest was 8x)
Do you have these 23 images in the 8x res pls?
I'll take a look. If I can't find them, I'll try to upscale them to 8x.

As an aside, I'm getting ready for the MOBs to be done and released! After that, I think I'll either take a break for DFU entirely, or work on Spriter again for a while.

Post Reply