Author Topic: [FF7] Dramatically improved pre-rendered backgrounds - FacePalmer (v3.0) (Read 129686 times)

Marc · « **Reply #25 on:** 2011-07-21 02:12:29 »

Quote from: Omzy on 2011-07-20 16:36:57

Does it? I've got the full version , but I thought their full image-editing software suite has the watermark and perfect resize alone is a fully-featured trial.

The only answer I could find was ona mac trial download page saying it "may" add a watermark. Not very clear.

Guess I'll have to try it when this is released and let everyone know. Photoshop definitely has a trial version which I'll also use but I know that one isn't limited except for time (or it wasn't last I tried it). Too bad perfect resize doesn't work with gimp.

Omzy · « **Reply #26 on:** 2011-07-21 05:22:12 »

Now keep in mind, since I'm simply recording the Perfect Resize action and plugging that into a function, the specific software version of Perfect Resize probably needs to be exactly the same. What this means is that it is better to get whatever version you can get ahold of (even the older Genuine Fractals), record the action, and then overwrite the perfectResize() function. That does require a bit of know-how (easily searchable on the net), but there's no better way I know of to do it.

Edit: Posted new version of script above. (v2.4)

The algorithm has narrowed it down to 20 special cases (out of 689). I have implemented yarLson's resizing methods and a foreground smoothing method I came up with. So far, the script should work on 669/689 fields = 97%. This is counting the backgrounds, foregrounds, animations, alpha layers, and parallax layers.

DLPB_ · « **Reply #27 on:** 2011-07-22 15:46:56 »

I request you go back to Face Palmer!!!!

Aali · « **Reply #28 on:** 2011-07-22 16:05:41 »

Seconded

Hellbringer616 · « **Reply #29 on:** 2011-07-22 17:01:07 »

Third

Since i lack all the required tools other than photoshop (which is only cs4..) is there any chance someone will upload the .png's for use for those like me? Or... is that against the rules since they are. kinda Square soft things?

Omzy · « **Reply #30 on:** 2011-07-22 17:26:56 »

Haha can't argue with that, FacePalmer it is then.

Hellbringer, I think thats the plan, but I would like to get it 100% before I do that, which isn't far at all now, thank god.

Hellbringer616 · « **Reply #31 on:** 2011-07-22 17:46:23 »

Can't wait, I'll post up a video if you'd like when i'm finished (full 1080p of course

)

DLPB_ · « **Reply #32 on:** 2011-07-22 18:27:19 »

face palmer is back!

Omzy · « **Reply #33 on:** 2011-07-22 22:06:52 »

Added a demo (only 4 fields), see above

Edit: I think I set the film grain a little too high. yarLson, when you said 15%, contrast unchanged, where did you find those options? They aren't the same as in Filter->Artistic->Film Grain or the one in Perfect Resize.

Kemlin · « **Reply #34 on:** 2011-07-23 08:09:06 »

Yet another miracle worker shows up to further the goal of highest quality graphics possible...

Good job, old bean. Very good job.

yarLson · « **Reply #35 on:** 2011-07-23 18:06:43 »

I used filter>noise>grain

are you using the Perfectum filter? If not I wouldn't recommend adding grain because it is too noticeable without the smoothing plugin

Omzy · « **Reply #36 on:** 2011-07-23 19:50:28 »

Quote from: yarLson on 2011-07-23 18:06:43

I used filter>noise>grain

are you using the Perfectum filter? If not I wouldn't recommend adding grain because it is too noticeable without the smoothing plugin

Yes, I'm doing the Perfectum at the default setting of 40 after applying the film grain. I think we have slightly different versions of photoshop though, because I don't have the grain option in noise, but there is one in filter->texture with similar options to what you've mentioned, so I set those to intensity 15 contrast 50 (default) and type = soft because the regular seemed too much. The result looks pretty damn good as far as I can see at 4x resolution.

I replaced the samples in the first post with real output from this technique, compared to the original blown up to the same size. The difference is kind of ridiculous.

yarLson · « **Reply #37 on:** 2011-07-24 01:13:37 »

yeah actually your right, it is texture, my bad

its been a while, for some reason that picture doesn't look quite right to me, I will double check my settings, I haven't plugged in my old hd in months. I'll try to double check in the next couple of days and get back to you. The smoothing might be set a bit too high or something like that

Omzy · « **Reply #38 on:** 2011-07-24 02:25:54 »

Ok, I'll continue to iron out the special cases in the meantime...

Edit: I think I'm just going to use the algorithm to resize the majority of the special case files and simply do the portions that don't work by hand and release an archive separately. It will take too long to add all of them into the script. I coded an exception for chorace & chorace2 and that added like 200 lines. Plus, i have to start med school monday and i'd like this finished before then

yarLson · « **Reply #39 on:** 2011-07-24 19:37:55 »

if I like the way your script turns out I'll work on the special cases by hand for you. Then we can finally have a finished product

If they are anything like some of the special cases I've come across, you won't finish by Monday...absolutely no way. One of the shinra building backgrounds took me a total of about 9 hours.

Do you know if this script would work on a mac or am I gonna have to high jack my friends computer to test it out?

Omzy · « **Reply #40 on:** 2011-07-24 19:56:52 »

Quote from: yarLson on 2011-07-24 19:37:55

if I like the way your script turns out I'll work on the special cases by hand for you. Then we can finally have a finished product

If they are anything like some of the special cases I've come across, you won't finish by Monday...absolutely no way. One of the shinra building backgrounds took me a total of about 9 hours.

Do you know if this script would work on a mac or am I gonna have to high jack my friends computer to test it out?

If it was blin69_1, which actually requires the lights to be on to fill in the background's edges, I finished that one yesterday. It was pretty tricky, but the script took care of all except 00000000 and 00065664 / 00065665 (lights), so I was able to get it done in about 2 hours. If it was blin66_2 and blin66_6 (shinra meeting room), the script took care of almost every image in that one except a couple which look simple to fix. I also wrote chorace into the script, but we might want to do that one anyways because there is a tiny anomaly if you look close enough.

I don't see any reason it wouldn't work on a mac since I'm pretty sure all javascripts for photoshop work for any platform (but don't hold me to that). So if you've got perfect resize and perfectum, you might be good to go. I'm not sure if it works on anything other than cs5.1, but I wouldn't be surprised as almost all functions I use are basic ones.

Edit
I was comparing:
Film Grain 15% + Perfectum 40: Loss of too much detail, right amount of noise
Film Grain 15% + Perfectum 20: Right amount of detail, too much noise
Perfectum 40: Loss of too much detail, not enough noise
Perfectum 20: Right amount of detail, slightly not enough noise

So my conclusion is that between 10 and 30 smoothing is probably best in Perfectum, while less film grain should be used (~10). The film grain does add a little to the realism of the scene but given that the characters themselves are simply shaded polygons I think its best that the backgrounds match, so I've opted to go with Perfectum 20 without film grain. Tell me if you think this is the right choice. At this point I need to make a hard decision because once I start doing the special cases I don't want to have to redo them with different settings.

yarLson · « **Reply #41 on:** 2011-07-24 22:29:52 »

well if I end up using your script I can just change it to my liking, but I am thinking now that I used a setting of 30. I personally really love the grain with perfectum but its up to your taste. I am not using film grain however, just regular grain. I don't want to hinder your artistic opinion but I will say that when I made the decision, I had the Team Avalanche high res field models in mind (which are unreleased at this point) and not the originals.

Omzy · « **Reply #42 on:** 2011-07-24 23:20:50 »

Quote from: yarLson on 2011-07-24 22:29:52

well if I end up using your script I can just change it to my liking, but I am thinking now that I used a setting of 30. I personally really love the grain with perfectum but its up to your taste. I am not using film grain however, just regular grain. I don't want to hinder your artistic opinion but I will say that when I made the decision, I had the Team Avalanche high res field models in mind (which are unreleased at this point) and not the originals.

Fair enough, I tried to make it easy to modify the script by placing all adjustable parameters at the top, although the perfectum filter needs to be re-recorded and pasted into the script if you want to change it from 20 since it has a weird way of coding its parameters (seemingly random numbers). Everything else, including the grain option (i meant grain, not film grain) is in there and needs minimal effort to be changed. The worst part is running a machine for hours to get all the images processed, but that can't really be avoided.

Also, if anyone has downloaded the script today, you might want to wait until tomorrow to get the most recent one because i've been constantly changing things and fixing bugs and have reuploaded the file several times.

Edit
Its getting late and I need to wake up early for my orientation, so it looks like I'm done. yarLson, if you've got the time and equipment, can you fix the rest of the special cases? I've fixed the ones that have strikethrough font and will upload that file when I find the best method to upload the rest of the images. There may be some special cases that I've missed, but those will most likely be figured out by playing the game. If there is something wrong with the script let me know and if I can find the time to fix it I will. This marks the end of my dedicated effort on this project, but I'll pop in when I can to check on things. Expect the images (all non-special cases and the special cases I've fixed) to be uploaded in the next week or so unless someone else with the required tools decides to beat me to it

Azrael_SEt · « **Reply #43 on:** 2011-07-26 01:32:42 »

I always get:

Error 24:folderList.getFiles is no function
Line:107
-> fileList = folderList.getFiles("*.png")//List of all layers in texture

Any ideas?

I have Photoshop CS 5.1 Extended 12.1 or do I need a different version?

-----------------

Fixed it by using the 32bit Version. Seems like 64bit doesn't work.

Template · « **Reply #44 on:** 2011-07-26 04:15:21 »

Just wanted to say thanks for your work on this Omzy. Seem like soon we will have at least 1 version of a comprehensive field bg overhaul. very exciting.

Omzy · « **Reply #45 on:** 2011-07-26 22:36:20 »

Quote from: Azrael_SEt on 2011-07-26 01:32:42

I always get:

Error 24:folderList.getFiles is no function
Line:107
-> fileList = folderList.getFiles("*.png")//List of all layers in texture

Any ideas?

I have Photoshop CS 5.1 Extended 12.1 or do I need a different version?

-----------------

Fixed it by using the 32bit Version. Seems like 64bit doesn't work.

Glad to see you got it working. I haven't tested it on any other machines so let me know how it is doing.

And I will upload the images probably next week since I'm totally swamped this week. Can barely write replies here.

yarLson · « **Reply #46 on:** 2011-07-28 01:01:35 »

I have decided to post pone work a bit longer, I am finally going to be getting a new PC. This baby was designed specifically for graphical applications so I am pretty excited. The reason I decided to wait is because I'd rather not fiddle with trying to get this stuff to work on a Mac. I should have it within the next week or two if everything goes through okay. If it doesn't I'll just use the bloody Mac. But anyway, once I start work again I will be testing out your script. I wanted to ask, if I like its function, would you mind if I used it on my project. Also if you could provide me with a list of all the special cases that need to be done by hand that would be great.

Omzy · « **Reply #47 on:** 2011-07-28 06:10:53 »

This script can be used by anyone for anything, totally open source. You can also modify it to your liking and include credits if you so choose. The special cases I've found off the bat are listed in the first post, however there may be more minor ones I missed that will surface when the game is played.

To add to that, there are a few backgrounds that the script stops on for some reason. For the time being, just skip those when they crash the program and consider them special cases.

Azrael_SEt · « **Reply #48 on:** 2011-07-29 01:30:59 »

I rendered some backgrounds, how do I get em to work with Aali's?

Omzy · « **Reply #49 on:** 2011-07-29 01:34:36 »

Quote from: Azrael_SEt on 2011-07-29 01:30:59

I rendered some backgrounds, how do I get em to work with Aali's?

You've got to batch import them in Palmer 0.6b (the Palmer Frontend makes it easier, see the Palmer thread for those). After you've done that, you can drag and drop the files into your mod folder and they will work if you've set the paths up right in the config file.