[MrFlibble]

Phredreeke, on 12 November 2021 - 07:50 AM, said:

BTW, please see if there any other textures you think needs redoing. I've already redone some (outside of the HRP hybrids)

I'd probably suggest to use as many suitable HRP textures to produce hybrid versions as possible (provided that you have the time for that) and see if the result is better than solo AI.

BTW, have you tried to produce 2x textures from HRP textures alone, without resorting to any ESRGAN additions, in cases where they are more or less direct matches to the originals at least? It appears that some might need colours tweaked before palettising, and possibly some other edits.

[Phredreeke]

I attemped tile 0294 using the hybrid method https://imgsli.com/ODE4NzA

Better? Worse?

Edit: Tile 0459

[Phredreeke]

Oh, and I just realised I never posted these here. Some new frames for the alternative liztroop



Also, an update to the Vaca commander the ring around him was smoothened by upscaling with Pixelperfect then downscaling back before upscaling again with Manga/DeviantHD interpolation.

[warezeater]

Phredreeke, on 15 November 2021 - 12:43 PM, said:

I attemped tile 0294 using the hybrid method https://imgsli.com/ODE4NzA

Better? Worse?

Edit: Tile 0459

The new one is definitely better! Much cleaner.

[MrFlibble]

Phredreeke, on 15 November 2021 - 12:43 PM, said:

I attemped tile 0294 using the hybrid method https://imgsli.com/ODE4NzA

Better? Worse?

It looks blurry and the straight lines are very uneven in both cases. The look that this is some kind of metallic surface is completely lost in both versions.

Maybe just downscale and properly palettise the HRP version?

Phredreeke, on 15 November 2021 - 12:43 PM, said:

Edit: Tile 0459

The new one seems like an improvement.

[Phredreeke]

Ok, how about this one? https://imgsli.com/ODIzNTk

[Dzierzan]

It is still blurry, keep trying!

[Phredreeke]

This one obviously needs further edits. Posting this so you can make a judgement on whether it is better or not than the previously posted versions



Edit: TBH, it starts to look like a slightly smudgier version of the already existing tile...

[Phredreeke]

Alright, new attempt. This time using a blend of SWDQ and PP25 (which I also used on the blood upscale pack) for preprocessing, then upscaled with Sourcetex2, scaled to half size and run through farthestneighbor before palettising

https://imgsli.com/ODI2MDQ

Obviously needs some things edited, but of the ones I've posted, this comes out the best IMO


Also some new tiles unrelated to the above (all from the birth)

[MrFlibble]

Phredreeke, on 19 November 2021 - 08:17 AM, said:

Alright, new attempt. This time using a blend of SWDQ and PP25 (which I also used on the blood upscale pack) for preprocessing, then upscaled with Sourcetex2, scaled to half size and run through farthestneighbor before palettising

https://imgsli.com/ODI2MDQ

Obviously needs some things edited, but of the ones I've posted, this comes out the best IMO

I don't know why ESRGAN has such problems with upscaling simple horizontal lines, but looks like it's be easier to redo this tile by hand than try to convince the AI to do a decent job.

I know that the different shading across said horizontal lines is the likely cause that confuses ESRGAN into turning them into uneven lines that sometimes bend at an angle, but still it just means that the model(s) you're using are terribly unreliable in what is superficially a pretty easy task.

UPD: Man, this texture is a tough nut! Here's the most decent (IMO) version I could come up with:

It's a blend of two upscales: 2x_Faithful and reboutblend (I think that version which I used has been replaced at Upscale Wiki with something else). The latter was scaled down to 2x using MSPaint, then blended the two using G'MIC's Blend [median] and palettised with mtPaint's Dithered (effect) method.

It's still ugly mostly, but at least most of the lines are straight.

UPD2: Guess what, I blended the above (before palettising) with the downlscaled HRP version, and it actually looks fairly decent (IMO)!

[Phredreeke]

You're forgetting one option: not using ESRGAN. I could use an XBRZ upscale or similar for the straight lines, then place those one whatever is the best upscale of the texture

[MrFlibble]

You could actually try interpolating whatever model of your choice with 4x_Archerpolation_NXbrz which does a very good XBRZ "impression". But in this case XRZ looks hardly better than the AI upscales.

I would really be beneficial to remake the whole thing by hand than to resort to a patchwork method, although I'll stress again that the HRP version, with proper colour tweaking, seems to be a good candidate for at least a composite version as shown above.

Here's one more attempt where I blended HRP, 2x_Faithful and reboutblend as separate layers using the Blend [Average All] method:

[Phredreeke]

I'd much rather get the ep 4 tiles finished but here goes another attempt of tile 294 (mixing of an upscale using XBRZ and Sourcetex2, and another using SWDQ512+PP25 and Sourcetex2, where a mask was created by duplicating, applying a 2.0 gamma correction then filling with grey with a difference blend mode in PSP)

https://imgsli.com/ODI4MzA

[MrFlibble]

Phredreeke, on 20 November 2021 - 03:40 PM, said:

I'd much rather get the ep 4 tiles finished

Sorry for distracting you from important work

[Phredreeke]

No I'm sorry, that came out the wrong way.

[Phredreeke]

One of the remaining Area 51 display tiles. This mostly use XBRZ-downscales followed by Typescale and palettisation. The frame around the screen was made before for the upscale pack (and I don't remember the model used for it)

https://imgsli.com/ODM3MDc

[darkprince227]

I' m back! What'd I miss?

[Phredreeke]

I released Blood Upscale Pack 2.1 and a compatibility fix for running Merlijn's latest episode

Other than that not much.

[GemaH]

Phredreeke, on 10 December 2021 - 10:20 AM, said:

I released Blood Upscale Pack 2.1

Can't seem to get this working on Raze. Tried the autoload function in the ini or drag & drop in the exe and it won't work.

[Phredreeke]

Alright, did you drag and drop the file you downloaded, or did you drag and drop the file inside it?

[GemaH]

I dragged the zip file i downloaded. There are several files inside anyway so i didn't unzip them. Same thing i did with the other mods like the voxel pack and smooth animations (these worked).

[Phredreeke]

Yeah, you have to unzip it. The reason is to keep it modular so users can easily disable SmoothBlood or switch to the alternative weapon set.

The files you need to load are in the autoload directory

[GemaH]

Phredreeke, on 26 December 2021 - 03:59 PM, said:

Yeah, you have to unzip it. The reason is to keep it modular so users can easily disable SmoothBlood or switch to the alternative weapon set.

The files you need to load are in the autoload directory

Oh, thanks, now it's working. Looks good also.

[darkprince227]

So, happy 2022. Have I missed anything?

[Phredreeke]

Upscales and widescreen in DOS Duke

[Phredreeke]

Ok, some good news for you. Indexed hightiles are being merged into mainline EDuke32.

[Phredreeke]

Back to the subject of using HRP textures. Here's an attempt I did at adjusting a texture from the DC HRP to better match the original tile

https://imgsli.com/MTAwMDc1

Thoughts?

[Aleks]

Phredreeke, on 17 March 2022 - 04:25 AM, said:

Back to the subject of using HRP textures. Here's an attempt I did at adjusting a texture from the DC HRP to better match the original tile

https://imgsli.com/MTAwMDc1

Thoughts?

There's something about the custom version that makes it look more like prison bars in that window rather than just a glass framing. The original texture doesn't give me that impression - maybe because the grey colour and slightly thinner bars bring the impression of metal? Also the pitch black "glass" behind it looks more like there's some dark empty space there (yeah the original is very dark grey here, so not much difference here though). Maybe it would be a good idea to make the whole window a bit more white/brighter and make the frame elements a bit thicker?

[NightFright]

Using HRP textures as base material for upscale projects is NEVER a good idea.

[MrFlibble]

NightFright, on 17 March 2022 - 05:30 AM, said:

Using HRP textures as base material for upscale projects is NEVER a good idea.

Yet is was found a while ago that actually, sometimes it is.

We could discard HRP textures altogether like that only if AI upscales could produce something of quality matching high-res images made by hand, which they currently don't (at least, ESRGAN doesn't). As it stands, ESRGAN by no means guarantees that its output is somehow more "accurate" or "true" to the low-res originals, compared to hand-made HRP textures with a degree of artistic liberties thrown in by its authors. What ESRGAN produces is effectively a rough piece to be refined, which is sometimes purely automated per the scripts of Predreeke's devising, and sometimes requires manual touch-ups by an artist.

Also I think it is perfectly OK that the version shown above is not a 100pc match of the original art. It could be closer -- the original walls look like they're made of marble, and the upscale looks more like stucco (?) -- but I believe that at the end of the day, this version will work just as fine for the purposes that it serves.