[Phredreeke]

Anyone want some more Duke Nukem 3D upscales? I've upscaled most of the enemies from Total Meltdown. Note that this does not come with a way to use these in-game

Two sets are provided, a sharper one as well as a smoother one with a stronger pre-upscale AA applied.

Spoiler

https://files.fm/f/8y68whc6

[Trooper Dan]

What I would like to have is sprites (not textures) that are not enemies (since those are done already), and also which we don't have voxels for. So that includes things like wires, pipes/broken pipes, trash cans, projectiles, explosions and other hit effects, etc. Some of that stuff such as trash cans I do expect to have voxels for eventually, but who knows when that will be. As you know, there are already upscales for debris and gore, which turned out nicely. Some of these will turn out better than others. For example, I kind of doubt that upscaling the fire animations will look good, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to try.

[Phredreeke]

Funny that you mention fires as Blood have the same fire animations which are in my recent upscale pack

[Phredreeke]

I'm reprocessing the masks for the upscale pack. Here's a preview (new mask on the right)

[MrFlibble]

Phredreeke, on 05 March 2019 - 04:31 AM, said:

However, I still got issues with tiles with text on it such as this and the order sign above.

https://i.imgur.com/yQIKTZo.png

If anyone wish to take on the role of "fixing" such problem tiles please either DM me or reply in this thread. (this also applies to Blood as well as potentially other Build games once we got an adequate source port)

I run a quick test with the two-pass xBR/xBRZ method (original and 2x image "zoomed" to match the rightmost 4x upscale):
https://i.imgur.com/R9cRIAZ.png https://i.imgur.com/Sv1kb6H.png https://i.imgur.com/s0R6N4q.png

Also with one of the posters:
https://i.imgur.com/Qhuh1GR.png https://i.imgur.com/OQPt5mo.png https://i.imgur.com/GR0NIny.png

The difference from my previous attempts is that after scaling up I use the G'MIC layer blend function to compose the upscale (this time it's an interpolation of Manga109 and PSNR_4x at 0.5) with the xBR/xBRZ 4x image. Before that, the neural upscale result is run through Kuwahara-Nagao blur at two pixel radius (no detail protection) and converted to the original palette.

[Phredreeke]

I've actually done some edits of my own for those - where I cut out an XBRZ upscale, blurred it a bit and overlaid on the Manga109 upscale.

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[MrFlibble]

The girl looks angry and somehow her head feels tilted to the side :) I'm noticing that all the models have this tendency to change straight lines for some reason.

Admittedly the xBR/xBRZ two-pass creates quite some noticeable blur that Kuwahara-Nagao doesn't offset completely, which results in some detail loss.

[NightFright]

I always thought that "girl" was Duke with a wig, fake tits and women clothes...

[MrFlibble]

For a test, I tried a greater alpha value (0.8) instead of Kuwahara-Nagao blur:
https://i.imgur.com/LpmlaxN.png https://i.imgur.com/l0agSUG.png

It isn't really much of an improvement over the raw upscale result:
https://i.imgur.com/I7Rtqda.png

[Mark]

I've been surprised at the quality of many upscales but that poster is a huge fail IMO.

[Borion]

MrFlibble, on 17 April 2019 - 10:00 AM, said:

For a test, I tried a greater alpha value (0.8) instead of Kuwahara-Nagao blur:
https://i.imgur.com/LpmlaxN.png https://i.imgur.com/l0agSUG.png

It isn't really much of an improvement over the raw upscale result:
https://i.imgur.com/I7Rtqda.png

IMHO in this particular case, no combination of algorithms will handle this sprite well. IMO all letters and outline of girl need to be redone manually in higher resolution. Easier said than done, right :)

[Phredreeke]

IMO the Sister Act poster fares worse.

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[Borion]

Phredreeke, on 18 April 2019 - 05:14 AM, said:

IMO the Sister Act poster fares worse.

What happened to their hands? Poor creatures :unsure:

[Phredreeke]

Yeah, I've been trying out new methods. This is the most recent one (combining my own antialiasing method with XBRZ)




Here's the new tank upscale - which is probably the worst looking sprite in the released upscale pack



Finally, here's the man himself!

[Borion]

Nice work!
I really like this Duke sprite upscale. I did my own little upscaling experiments, end never could get that good alpha edges.

[Phredreeke]

I've put together an upscale pack for Total Meltdown - surprisingly it works better than the PC upscale pack in regard to underwater enemies.

http://s000.tinyuplo...412741375397751
https://files.fm/f/uvng46y3

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[Hendricks266]

Phredreeke, on 22 April 2019 - 01:05 PM, said:

surprisingly it works better than the PC upscale pack in regard to underwater enemies.

That's not surprising to Fox and me. :) The 64 & TM mods replicate colors accurately to the consoles and they do not use lookup tables or palette swapping for water/slime/nightvision.

[Fantinaikos]

I think it worked better because the enemies from Playstation are somehow an upscaled version already, the different image capturing technique they used and the less post-working on the sprites has keeped the original pre-rendered models aspect with less imperfections.

[Hendricks266]

"in regard to underwater enemies"

[Phredreeke]

Fantinaikos, on 22 April 2019 - 03:23 PM, said:

I think it worked better because the enemies from Playstation are somehow an upscaled version already, the different image capturing technique they used and the less post-working on the sprites has keeped the original pre-rendered models aspect with less imperfections.

With exception of the battlelord the enemies of the PS1 and PC versions are roughly the same size. Each enemy typically has its own 64 color palette (some frames of corpses are just 16 colors), while on the PC version 256 colors are shared with everything. I feel that overall the PC version's sprites have cleaner edges.

The pigcop is significantly changed over the PC version (I don't know if other enemies can be explained in differences in lighting but clearly not this one)



The death animations in the PS1 version are gorier most of the time (the exception being the regular pigcop, where they seem to have missed drawing bloodspurts as he falls, curiously the blood is there on the pigcop variants used in the Plug n Pray episode)

These differences are reasons I chose to do the regular enemies as well, and not just the new ones from PNP :)

[Fox]

Fantinaikos, on 22 April 2019 - 03:23 PM, said:

I think it worked better because the enemies from Playstation are somehow an upscaled version already, the different image capturing technique they used and the less post-working on the sprites has keeped the original pre-rendered models aspect with less imperfections.

It seems they practically didn't retouched the sprites on the PC version. They just calibrated their rendering program so the output image could be imported directly into Editart. You must have seen a few scans of highres rendering of the models which match the sprite perfectly.

Phredreeke, on 22 April 2019 - 05:02 PM, said:

The pigcop is significantly changed over the PC version (I don't know if other enemies can be explained in differences in lighting but clearly not this one)

I think the model is the same. There are a few differences in the texture, however. The L.A.R.D label with a blood splat is around the chest area instead of the belly. There are a few other differences, also in other enemies.

[Phredreeke]

Fox, on 22 April 2019 - 05:43 PM, said:

It seems they practically didn't retouched the sprites on the PC version. They just calibrated their rendering program so the output image could be imported directly into Editart. You must have seen a few scans of highres rendering of the models which match the sprite perfectly.

Wow, I wouldn't have expected that. As I said, the edges of the PC sprites are very clean. The PS1 version looks closer to what I'd expect an unretouched render to look like.

[Borion]

Thanks for all great work, Phredreeke! Today I downloaded package from first post & quoted one, and its unbelievable how good those upscales look.

I would like to request rescale of all skies. Thank You in advance!

Phredreeke, on 03 April 2019 - 04:06 PM, said:

Anyone want some more Duke Nukem 3D upscales? I've upscaled most of the enemies from Total Meltdown. Note that this does not come with a way to use these in-game

Two sets are provided, a sharper one as well as a smoother one with a stronger pre-upscale AA applied.

Spoiler

tile1755.png
tile1850.png
tile1962.png
tile3870.png

https://files.fm/f/8y68whc6

[Phredreeke]

If you scroll a few posts up I posted an upload of upscale pack compatible with the TM TC.

As for skies, they involve piecing together lots of smaller tiles, not really something I feel like spending time on when Fox already made a very nice skybox set - or alternatively you could load the skyboxes from the HRP.

[Phredreeke]

I've been updating the upscale pack, here's an example. Two things can be seen here. 1. I have separated the fullbrights and overlaid on the upscaled sprite. they are now more consistent with the original. 2. color noise is reduced by creating a mask based on just the brown colors of the original sprite. this makes palswaps a viable option for mods.



This will mainly be an improvement for Alien Armageddon, as palswaps (outside of the premade ones) aren't supported in my upscale pack for now.

[Borion]

Phredreeke, on 09 May 2019 - 01:37 PM, said:

I've been updating the upscale pack, here's an example. Two things can be seen here. 1. I have separated the fullbrights and overlaid on the upscaled sprite. they are now more consistent with the original. 2. color noise is reduced by creating a mask based on just the brown colors of the original sprite. this makes palswaps a viable option for mods.

protectordrone-newupscale-comparison.png

This will mainly be an improvement for Alien Armageddon, as palswaps (outside of the premade ones) aren't supported in my upscale pack for now.

That is quite inventive way of dealing with color artefacts. Nice, Phredreeke!

[Phredreeke]

[Trooper Dan]

It reminds me of Robot Chicken.

[MusicallyInspired]

Missed the one with blowing up the alien queen at the end of ep4.

[Phredreeke]

Yeah, I stopped after the Ep4 intro last night because I was tired.

BTW can anyone tell me 1) what FPS they are meant to play at. 2) How to go about loading the upscaled sequences in-game.