Author Topic: [FF7PC] Another Shot at FMV Restoration (2012-09-19)(Missing Downloads)  (Read 60810 times)

Rumbah

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I just recently found my FF7 again in an old box and while trying to get it working with Win7 I rediscovered this great forum.

I really love DLPB's FMV Restoration project but I thought it could use a bit of temporal filtering (against the noise and artifacts in the original videos). DLPB said he considers his project done so I thought I'd give it a try from scratch.


So I did the following steps:

-decode the video with jPSXdec
-some heavy Avisynth filtering
-x264 encoding

Here are some screenshots to give you an impression but bear in mind that you have to watch them to see how calm they are, free of noise and compression artifacts:
1280Sharp:

1280Smooth:

As you can see there are basically two different versions with two different video resolutions that you can download.
So you have 4 versions (ordered by sharpness):
1280x896 sharp: A sharp hd version with very little noise. But the heavy sharpening distorts the image a bit, so you sometimes get a "plastic" look.

640x448 sharp: A sharp version with little noise. Because of the downscaling the plastic look is much less pronounced. It's a good compromise between artifacts and sharpness. Also good for slow computers or slow internet download.

1280x896 smooth: A smooth hd version with very little noise. For those who don't like the plastic effect but like a calm video.

640x448 smooth: A smooth version with very little noise. For those who don't like the plastic effect and have a slow computer or internet connection for download.

You can mix all versions, e.g. if you don't like a particular video in sharp you can just switch in the smooth one.

So here are the videos in 4 variants for download that wouldn't be here without the help of UGerstl who uploaded the videos for me:


640sharp           360 mb   http://www.mediafire.com/?p3dkfo1hlwxos
1280sharp      1.255 mb   http://www.mediafire.com/?sy51gu7z1trzy

640smooth        308 mb   http://www.mediafire.com/?ko1tfxdjqn0yj
1280smooth      831 mb   http://www.mediafire.com/?89b1z31y6bujs

640sharp           360 mb   http://www.megaupload.com/?f=FF28IJS9
1280sharp      1.255 mb   http://www.megaupload.com/?f=EGYUDJKJ

640smooth        308 mb   http://www.megaupload.com/?f=F85YYXRA
1280smooth      831 mb   http://www.megaupload.com/?f=BHWNV6CP


The links between MediaFire and MegaUpload are interchangeable.
That means, if one link goes down or the download speed is terrible slow
you can use the other host.

If you use the Bootleg installer from PitBrat, you don't have to decompress the files.

If you have trouble to get the custom movies running you can try Covarr's FF7MovieDir (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=12305.0)

To get the colors right you have to use at least Aali's driver version 0.7.10 and above.

Feel free to leave a comment on the videos, if you find any errors or have other suggestions just post in this thread. I'll see what I can to to make the videos even better and hope you like them the way they are.

Greetings
Rumbah

PS: Don't get fooled by the file sizes of the 640s videos, although they are pretty small the look much better than the original PSX or PC ones.
« Last Edit: 2014-07-18 01:07:52 by Covarr »

DLPB_

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #1 on: 2011-01-15 03:21:07 »
I wish you luck with your project and when I get time I will try and look through some of em.

Covarr

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #2 on: 2011-01-15 22:03:40 »
4 looks simply stunning. Some detail is lost, but it's incredible how sharp everything is.
1 looks good, but not terribly sharp.
2 looks terrible. A ton of detail is lost, and it looks as if there aren't enough colors being displayed.

3 and five are somewhere in between. Not fantastic, not bad either.

DLPB_

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #3 on: 2011-01-15 22:39:08 »
I had had a look and I concur with Covarr, 4 is really really good.  The upsides:

- very little to no noise
- sharp
- clear

The downside

- Filter makes the video look unnatural.

But it is still a big improvement over the original.  It is a shame that we didn't work together at some point using fractals to enlarge the image and then the filter..  that might be even better.  Even so, this still looks great.  Aside from the rather unnatural look of the video,  I think this is a good mod :)

Edit:

also your codec seems to have made the video brighter...  that needs correcting?  If you plan on making a full set, also make sure all the audio is in sync, as jpsxdec puts the audio out a bit...



« Last Edit: 2011-01-15 22:45:29 by DLPB »

Terid__K

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #4 on: 2011-01-15 23:59:33 »
#4 looks amazing, like others said. I would really like to see the fmv biglight.avi with these filters.

Also, I don't think the video is too bright at all, it seems correct to me. He used H264, so the range should be set automatically to full (If you configured ffdshow that way, that is).


« Last Edit: 2011-01-16 00:02:57 by TeridKane »

DLPB_

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #5 on: 2011-01-16 01:42:33 »
Show me the sephiroth flame one with number 4 filtering. :)

Rumbah

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #6 on: 2011-01-16 20:48:12 »
Ok, I'll try to experiment with warpsharp, the filter that makes the lines thin but tends to make the picture look unnatural, more like a painting.

But as requested, Sephiroth on fire and BigLights with filterchain number 4:
http://files.mail.ru/KHN2MU

DLPB_

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #7 on: 2011-01-16 22:27:25 »
It can't really be avoided...  there is always a downside.  If you take away noise you will be taking away detail as well.  That's just unavoidable as you can't get something for nothing :)

« Last Edit: 2011-01-16 22:51:27 by DLPB »

Terid__K

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #8 on: 2011-01-17 00:32:03 »
They both look great. You should definitely go with 4 for all FMVs.


« Last Edit: 2011-01-17 01:37:46 by TeridKane »

Rumbah

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #9 on: 2011-02-15 16:23:45 »
I had some free time again, here again are 5 different shots:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UUMS9SM0

This time you should be able to view them in a media player as the colors are in tv range. Because of that the colors should be right ingame, too,  with the latest Aali driver. I will batch convert all PSX videos with the settings you choose as the best for you.

So, please tell me which one you like.

Covarr

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #10 on: 2011-02-15 21:11:57 »
I liked 2 the best, I felt like it lost the least detail. 5 was in a close second. 1 and 4 both felt like they were losing WAY too much detail, and 3 was somewhere in between.

Terid__K

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #11 on: 2011-02-16 01:04:30 »
I can't really tell the difference, so I'll just say go with whatever is the closest to #4 from the first pack. Also, looks like the colors are indeed correct in the standard range, good job with that.

Looking forward to the full pack.



Rumbah

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #12 on: 2011-02-21 00:27:55 »
Batch converting for most of the PSX videos is done but I haven't worked on the audio part, yet. In addition I try to figure out what to do with the 16:9 sequences (ending2 and 3). The videos seem to be 320x224 source videos cropped and scaled up by a point resize.

Rumbah

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #13 on: 2011-09-04 13:11:06 »
First of all: Sorry for the long absence.
I had a hdd crash and totally forgot about the movies.

I began working with them again and thought I'd try a new filter in addition to the previous ones. So I converted the movies to 30 fps.
As I currently haven't installed FF7 they are completly untested and in 640p (they look way better than the originals anyway) because my upload is very slow currenty. So if you could test them and give some feedback it would be great. I don't know if Aalis driver can handle them with 30p.

So here's the download: the intro movie and the pan shot at entering the mako reactor.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q6Q34SXR

I hope you like it and it works, else I'll have to produce 15p videos (or Aali could make adjustments :p ).


PS: If a moderator reads this, wouldn't this thread better be in the graphical mod section than in the gameplay mod section?
« Last Edit: 2011-09-04 13:13:51 by Rumbah »

PitBrat

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #14 on: 2011-09-04 14:12:45 »
The videos function in the game.
There are a few problems though.
There's a typo in the filename "openinge.avi" as it should be "opening.avi".
Also, the videos are way too bright and appear washed out and gray.
This is really noticeable in the "mkup.avi" video when it switches between the field graphics and the video.
Also, the Cloud model jitters and twitches a lot during the "mkup.avi" video.

I really like the clarity of these videos.
I still use the #5 videos from the first set you produced.
I hope you work out the issues and release a full set of videos soon!

Thanks,
-PitBrat

Rumbah

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #15 on: 2011-09-04 22:08:39 »
Ok, I guess I'll have to install it to see it for myself.

Is there any chance that you use an older Aali driver? Then the video should be wrong as Aali changed the way the colors are converted. I haven't tested with the latest one but I think 0.7.9 should give you wrong colors but work but DLPB's videos and with 0.7.10 it should be the other way round. For 0.7.11 I do not know.

Terid__K

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #16 on: 2011-09-04 23:34:03 »
I wasn't expecting to hear from you ever again lol.

The colors and brightness look fine here, and I'm using the latest version of the driver. Anyways, I'd leave the videos in the original framerate. For one, the frameblending is very noticeable in the mkup.avi video, and looks really ugly and unnatural (looks more seamless in the opening, but still a bit unnatural). Also, as the FMV models are framerate dependant, they are not going to update at the same time as the video (the red guards weren't even there when the opening video was almost ending like they were supposed to).

I'm afraid there's no way to fix this available right now. It should be possible to fix it though.

« Last Edit: 2011-09-04 23:35:34 by TeridKane »

Rumbah

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #17 on: 2011-09-05 11:16:36 »
Ok, that's sad as I really like the 30fps videos over the jerky 15 fps videos. The 30 fps videos are ready but I guess I'll just save the upload and let the 15 fps conversion run again (and hope that Aali can make 30 fps videos happen ;) ).

Terid__K

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #18 on: 2011-09-06 00:56:40 »
BTW, Rumbah, can you tell me what kind of filters you are using in these videos? I actually want to use them in other videos  :-P






Rumbah

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #19 on: 2011-09-06 11:17:51 »
Sure, no problem at all.

For upsizing I use nnedi3, simply a really great upsizer: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=147695
For the denoising and stabilizing I use MCTemporalDenoise, it is pretty slow but worth it: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=139766
For the sharpening part I use Warpsharp out of the Warpsharp package and the built in Sharpen: http://avisynth.org/warpenterprises/
As I'm producing a smooth version right now that's not sharpened but looks more natural I don't use the sharpen part.
As I final step I deband the result with GradFun3 out of the dither package: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1386559#post1386559

So the final avs script looks like this:
Code: [Select]
FFVideoSource("%A_LoopFileName%")
Assumefps(15)
MergeChroma(Spline36resize(width()`, height()`, src_left=-0.5))
Colormatrix(source=2`,dest=0`,threads=4)
nnedi3_rpow2(rfactor=4`,cshift="spline36resize"`,qual=2`,pscrn=4)
MCTemporalDenoise(settings="very high"`, edgeclean=true`, Tovershoot=2)
WarpSharp(depth=400`, blur=10`, bump=150)
Sharpen(0.8)
GradFun3(thr=0.6`,smode=2`,mask=0`,mode=0`,radius=16)

But be warned, it's slow as hell (<0.5 fps). If you have trouble finding the needed plugins I can upload you my plugin folder.

Terid__K

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #20 on: 2011-09-06 12:34:24 »
If you have trouble finding the needed plugins I can upload you my plugin folder.

That would be very helpful. Although I have Avisynth installed, I've never encoded anything with it. So, I guess I'm a newbie on this area  :P

Thanks, btw.

EDIT: Heh, you weren't kidding when you said these filters are slow. Although it would probably be much faster if VirtualDub used my Q9550 fully. Anyways, since I got the script working, I guess there's no need for you to send me the folder anymore.

EDIT2: I decided to test these filters on the PC version of the opening, and I couldn't even believe the improvement. Obviously, they don't look as good as the PSX videos, but it's still impressive:












It's amazing what some filters are capable of.

One thing I noticed is that despite the PC version having worse details, it's actually less macroblocked than the PSX version (check out how the FF7 logo is very clean compared to the PSX version). If only they used a better codec for the compression...



« Last Edit: 2011-09-06 21:23:18 by TeridKane »

Rumbah

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #21 on: 2011-09-07 00:19:36 »
Yes, especially nnedi and MCTemporalDenoise are great. And some scenes look better in the PC version, but generally the PSX versions are better.

I guess I'll get the videos done by thursday but I'll need a week for the upload with 8kbyte/s -.-

UGerstl

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #22 on: 2011-09-07 14:32:32 »
Hi Rumbah,

when you upload your files, please keep in mind that some countries blocked MegaUpload.
We get more and more user requests regarding this.
At the moment Vgr and i make mirrors on MediaFire for this requests.

BTW, the upload of FacePalmer ~3gb lasts ~18 hours (my max Upload = 640 kBit/s).

Are you using an old modem ?   :o

Rumbah

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #23 on: 2011-09-07 19:06:24 »
Ok, I'll take MediaFire then. Are there any file size restrictions as I cannot find any on the main page.

I live in Germany and outside of a town the internet connection istn't very good. I get 384 kBit/s downstream and 70-80 kBit/s upstream... It's called DSL Light and costs as much as DSL 6000

UGerstl

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Re: [WIP] Final Fantasy 7 - Another Shot at FMV Restauration
« Reply #24 on: 2011-09-07 20:08:05 »
The file size limit for MediaFire is 200mb/file.
If you search for "Share Huge Files" on the main page you will see it.

I use for more flexibility 150mb/file.