Messages

26

Graphical / Re: Upscaling pre-rendered backgrounds

« on: 2014-09-07 18:30:36 »

Thanks I am however a diplomat and I get that this is really hard work. It's almost like it would be better to actually recreate the scenes in 3d and render them out again. It's a shame Square didn't keep the source material, it's actually amazingly stupid that they didn't.

But, have you seen the lost art from FF9? Evidently, Square outsourced some of the work to other people, and this guy kept his original hi-res versions of some of the art he did back in 1999. And what amazes me is that, yes they look good. But they look like paintings really. Meaning, it's not realism that's the aim. And most likely wasn't with FF7 either. That means that the general art direction shouldn't be realism, but rather making everything fit together, just like yarLson says.

I can't promise that I'll get that much work done, but I'm going to research some more. Trying different things.
And I just thought about something, digital pixels aren't at all like analog points. Meaning, you can't get information where there is none. So all you have to work with are the original pixels from the 320x backgrounds. But what if they were printed and then scanned? And then run the filters through it? Just a thought, I'll try a few things out

And yarLson, I do realize the magnitude of work this involves. That's why I can't really promise anything. But I want to have a go and perhaps make some guidelines on how this might be automated as well. The real dream is to remake FF7 like it originally was intended, only in hi-def. And I don't want realism, I don't want voices, and I actually don't want super hi-poly characters either. It just doesn't fit the style. And lastly, I want fixed camera, like the pre-rendered scenes offer. There's something really special about those huge scenes where you hardly even see Cloud, only that pointer above his head It's the magic I would want to recreate.

I realize why Square hasn't remade this game yet. Because the general style and direction would impact everything. If they would recreate it with FF15 quality, they'd never be done. Because FF7 is such a huge game. And it's huge because it was possible to create that much content without spending 40 years making it. And that's because of the pre rendered scenes and text speech.

So yeah I'll update whenever I can. Btw, what are the tools I'd need to actually insert the new backgrounds into the game? Can I do it with the PSX version?

Btw: Did you know that there exists a DVD of higher def versions of some of the movies from FF7?
http://www.videogameauctions.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ff7dvdcomparison.jpg

Looks bloody brilliant.

27

Graphical / Re: Upscaling pre-rendered backgrounds

« on: 2014-09-07 11:56:48 »

Yeah, I've noticed that upscaling the backgrounds might not fit well with the sharp characters. So art direction would be key here. What might be better is to aim for a painting-ish style. Something along the lines of this https://db.tt/VsTEhIwq

It's still blurry though. And just sharpening it doesn't do any good either, because of white lines along edges that are hard to remove. So there's a balance that you can't just automate either. What works on one scene might not work on others. So this would be a pretty time consuming process to say the least! I have a friend of mine who's a graphic designer who has some ideas. So we'll whip something up and do some testing on what might work or not

28

Graphical / Re: Upscaling pre-rendered backgrounds

« on: 2014-09-03 22:37:20 »

Yeah, well I haven't even installed the game on my computer yet :p And I've yet to get into the whole modding as well.
Here are a few more. I find they work better when scaled a bit down again. Not too huge.

Here are a few more:

https://db.tt/G1OYtWjW
https://db.tt/OwboK4Qb
https://db.tt/3vCdKpY4
https://db.tt/lm6aKzlm
https://db.tt/YAxJYf3w
https://db.tt/ePWeXKsB
https://db.tt/Xg4DaSd6

Some of these are better than the other, I guess I messed up the initial smart blur a bit on a few of them.
But the 7th heaven ended up pretty good!

29

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.