Topics

1

Troubleshooting / FF9 Memoria Mod - Widescreen shifted to the right?

« on: 2019-01-21 12:37:53 »

I might have misunderstood something, but how exactly does the widescreen support for Memoria actually work?
My resolution is set to 1920x1080, but the results are like this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kCaGeNTnnNrcUXnVllIJ9z9bHhrcjjvs/view?usp=sharing

Edit: Seems as though there's an issue with Memoria in conjunction with the latest HD backgrounds mods

2

Graphical / Upscaling pre-rendered backgrounds

« on: 2014-09-03 20:26:36 »

New user here I haven't been active in FF mod communites, but I've been lurking for years.

I've been a fan of pre-rendered backgrounds ever since FF7 first came out. It's so brilliant and I can't see why more game developers don't use it. It saves up so much more power for super detailed actual 3d models in game. I don't mind a fixed camera at all.

And upscaling pre-rendered backgrounds has been an issue for years, and still is. Why Square didn't keep their source material is beyond me.
But I've been doing some tests on how the upscaling could be done, and came onto a technique by accident really, but I think it looked kinda good :p

Step1: Scale up the image 400%, ending up at 2560x1920, with Bicubic smoother
Step2: Smart blur with 100 radius, treshold about 50. This gives sharper edges, while blurring the "insides" of objects
Step3: Here's "clever" bit. Merge the image down and copy it, go back in history before Step2, and paste it. Set blending mode to Dissolve and 50% opacity.

The result is this:
https://db.tt/c3zujLhP

I think it looks surprisingly good. It does add some noise, but that kinda masks the flaws as well. Haven't seen this with actual 3d models on there though. And I haven't actually done this with any real game assets. But I think it might be a good starting point. So I threw that image into Illustrator
And some really interesting stuff happened after live tracing it.

Step1: Use preset High Fidelity photo and adjust so paths is 50%, corners 50% and noise 5px.
Step2: Click expand and copy that sh*t to Photoshop as a smart object.
Step3: Add on top of and/or mix with image from the first method. I tried playing with opacity on there as well.

The result is this:
https://db.tt/mJEyI5TD

This is also pretty good, but takes a bit more work. And takes a bit longer, depending on the computer's horse power. Mine is shait so it took a few minutes.

Downscaling it again to 1920x1440 using Bicubic sharper:
https://db.tt/pXdUl9I6

What say you?
I've always wanted to upscale the backgrounds and add new 3d models in the game, but not those Advent Children models, I don't think they look good when the backgrounds aren't really top notch. What I'd like to do is to basically take the battle models and put those inside the game. Or remake them, using Bravely Default's character designs as inspiration. Slightly chibi, bit not too kawai. And upscale all backgrounds using a method like these above.