[Phredreeke]

Tile 150 before and after touching up the keypanel

[Tea Monster]

Modern problems require modern solutions.

Still WIP, but looks promising.

https://i.imgur.com/js2Gan2.jpg

[darkprince227]

It's all looking cool so far B)

Does anything think we'll be seeing Version 1 or download of this new pack anytime soon? (I forgot what it was called)

Gods know we need something to look forward to this year

Whatever the case, keep up the good work everybody

[Phredreeke]

Sharing a couple of upscales

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/HHx5dk9.png
(dedither + detoon/sourcetex2 interpolation upscale, 50% downscale, unresize, custom palettisation script)
https://i.imgur.com/szBXBPA.png
(50% downscale, Nickelback upscale, custom palettisation script)
https://i.imgur.com/z7QvWwE.png
(dedither, fatal photos upscale, 50% downscale, FFT denoise, gamma adjusted noise, palettisation)
https://i.imgur.com/Wbk6vSL.png
(palette swap (pal17->pal13), dedither, fatal photos upscale, color copied back in, 50% downscale, custom palettisation script)

Image 1, 2 and 4 use a new palettisation script which divides both original image and upscale into smaller tiles, and palettises the upscale using the colors in corresponding tile in the original image.

[MrFlibble]

Tea Monster, on 14 January 2021 - 04:09 PM, said:

Modern problems require modern solutions.

Still WIP, but looks promising.

Awesome work on the pistol model, but I can't but point out the stark contrast between the crisp detail on it and the blurry upscale of the trooper himself. I think it would not become much more noticeable if you put that pistol on the original, low-res sprite.

I guess the idea is to sharpen the base sprite and blur the pistol to get them to some kind of common denominator, but at this point I think it becomes obvious that sprites made from high-resolution models would look better than upscales, no matter how much effort is put into refining them.

I know it's a lot to ask, but what do you think of making a full model that would be faithful to the low-res original and then using it to produce high-res sprites? Possibly leaving ESRGAN upscales for textures only? Or at least leaving the upscaled sprites to be gradually replaced?

[Tea Monster]

Cheers. It's still WIP, so we are playing with lighting and how much blur to apply to get it looking right. Not at all finished yet. Lots of farting about to be done.

The modelling idea is great and probably the best way to get ultra-sharp sprites that look like the originals.

I've just finished making a ton of models for the HHR mod and they weren't well received. I don't really feel like spending another two years or so making all the enemies (yet again). I might finish my Cycloid model one of these days. He's done to look like Chuck Jones' model.

[Phredreeke]

Keep in mind the sprite in Tea Monster's screenshot is of the upscale before it is downscaled to the final size. This is how it looks after downscaling/sharpening/palettisation (without the new gun)



(I need to undo the eyes for the "ERP" version)

Also, I really don't want to burn out Tea Monster.

[Phredreeke]

An attempt I made at tiles 0505-0509



anyone know where this one is used in game?

[Jimmy]

It's the animation for glass maskwalls breaking.

[MrFlibble]

Phredreeke, on 18 January 2021 - 08:52 AM, said:

Keep in mind the sprite in Tea Monster's screenshot is of the upscale before it is downscaled to the final size. This is how it looks after downscaling/sharpening/palettisation (without the new gun)

Unfortunately downscaling/palettising does not entirely solve all the issues with AI upscales that we have.

Don't get me wrong, your result is very good. But with what ESRGAN can do at this moment, whatever resolution the upscale ends up at is still low on details compared to a hypothetical image that was created at the target resolution from the start (e.g. from a hi-res model). I think this might partially account for the slightly "blurry" look of the resulting sprites.

ESRGAN sharpens/brings out the details that are present in the source image, but can't add more than that. That was my point. The trick here is that when the source has enough detail the upscale might look "bland" but since the image is complete (e.g. you see the complete shapes of the Trooper's head, torso, limbs etc.), it is not as noticeable. But with the pistol, it was reduced to a handful of pixels in the original sprite so ESRGAN has trouble bringing up a coherent shape, hence it becomes apparent that the upscale is imperfect. But this imperfection is implicitly present in the entire image, not just where it stands out. But that's how I understand the entire problem, currently.

[Phredreeke]

Jimmy, on 20 January 2021 - 11:28 PM, said:

It's the animation for glass maskwalls breaking.

I'm a fucking idiot. that's the tile preceding those... I thought for some reason it was some kind of screen static

Edit: Did another attempt at it


Edit 2: Recorded it in game. This is slowed down to 20% speed

[Jimmy]

It's okay. It's something you only see for a split second at any time. Most people probably don't even know there's an animation there.