Author Topic: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV  (Read 23787 times)

max32

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[FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« on: 2020-05-14 22:18:14 »
It all started when I bought FF8R and wanted to use FMV mods for 2013 Steam release. It turned out that they were not compatible with the remaster. I had to recompress the videos using VP8 codec which butchered the quality. The easy way didn't work out, so I decided to do some heavy upscaling by myself and achieve the Maximum FMV quality:)

Today, I wanted to share with you some of my results. It’s my first ever FMV upscaling project, so please be nice to me ;)

To preserve compatibility the FMV resolution is 1280x896.

Unfortunately, because of severe lack of time on my part (my upscaling methodology is rather complex and it's kind of trial and error using different ESGRAN models/various software to see what looks best for given scene, and that takes ridiculous amount of time and PC resources), for now these three FMVs are more like a of a proof of concept than a true attempt at a full mod. But hopefully one day I’ll manage to upscale them all :)

Here are some comparison shots (original source BIK 2x nearest neighbor vs Remastered edition vs Maximum FMV):
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNTY
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNTc
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjE
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjA
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjI
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjQ
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjM
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNTg
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNTk

It’s not perfect but I think it’s a moderate improvement, all things considered. Sadly, there are some artifacts here and there, some "wobbly" frames and weird looking faces. Unfortunately, AFAIK nothing can be done about that without editing every frame by hand but that would be crazy (and I am not a crazy person... I think).

Unfortunately FF8R uses *beep* VP8 codec. For now, in order to preserve the quality, I used some overkill bitrate and the files are rather huge. Eg. remastered FMV was around 26mb, my upscaled FMV is around 340mb at the same resolution. This is just a test but the videos should work in the game if you use this: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=19432.0

Here are the links:
https://mega.nz/file/eOJD0aLK#6d6RjuRhCyFj4DuvRmOjPY3L3J3URkG2_EjOMCOmo_4
https://mega.nz/file/yGRXhIhD#QbPSuq8cMrfGT0cfPT9kJhRfxR8MeO8E3YJj3CRXRs0
https://mega.nz/file/XPZhTAQA#Kb0gNbvjERGkrkfIskS66U2ovDpFTfk3ndf-EfAQBJ4

ericdepositar

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #1 on: 2020-05-15 03:30:24 »
this looks good

Manakaiser

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #2 on: 2020-05-15 08:06:42 »
wow I think "looks good" doesnt even do it justice.

Considering All variables (base quality, limitations etc etc..) Imo this is absolutely fantastic.

Hope you end up doing all of them in this quality. Please do!

Maki

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #3 on: 2020-05-15 08:08:17 »
This is awesome! Wow, such quality

Yagami Light

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #4 on: 2020-05-15 08:45:04 »
I'm pretty sure those are the highest quality FMV's I have seen for ff8 and you didn't turn the sound into a distorted mess either, amazing job keep it up.

jules2609

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #5 on: 2020-05-15 09:01:34 »
Great stuff Max32!

LeonhartGR

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #6 on: 2020-05-15 09:28:21 »
Pretty dope! Looking forward to downloading the rest of 'em! Keep it up!

kaspar01

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #7 on: 2020-05-15 11:40:01 »
Impressive result. still a bit too blurry in some spot but that's huge progress for an automatic upscale..
Manual editing would require a crazy person or a very patient one..
I wonder if different upscale methods would give sharper results and that could help using animated mask to blend between different type of upscales.. that would require a lot of roto-masking but it could work maybe..



LionCerieals

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #8 on: 2020-05-15 12:24:23 »
This looks absolutely INCRDIBLE!
Hope you keep going, man!

This is by far the best FMV upscale I've seen for this game.
Really hope you'll do this for the rest of the game so we can all enjoy it in the best quality possible. :D
You modders are the heroes we need but don't deserve!

Thank you so much for fixing Square's mess. <3

LordUrQuan

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #9 on: 2020-05-15 13:07:17 »
wow I think "looks good" doesnt even do it justice.

Considering All variables (base quality, limitations etc etc..) Imo this is absolutely fantastic.

Hope you end up doing all of them in this quality. Please do!
This is awesome! Wow, such quality
When Kaiser and Maki are both hype, you're doing something VERY right  8-)

Darziak

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #10 on: 2020-05-15 14:22:12 »
Those are pretty sharp looking FMV's, what ESRGAN models are you using?

Me and MCINDUS made a custom model. I've done about 98% of FMV's upscaled to 4k, we could work together and achieve a quicker release.

Hope you don't mind I uploaded it to Youtube and unlisted it to do a comparison - https://viewsync.net/watch?v=4FdErFxN-Cs&t=0&v=LW8KlAd67eU&t=0&v=hngdPJ9hLBo&t=0

max32

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #11 on: 2020-05-15 21:53:39 »
Thanks for all your encouraging words.

Now, let's get down to business ;)
you didn't turn the sound into a distorted mess either
Audio tracks are from PS1 release. Then compressed to OGG at CBR 320kbps for quality reasons. Most FMVs are pretty short and the size difference between VBR at eg. target 128kbps is not big, so I decided I'll go for the MaximumTM quality.

still a bit too blurry in some spot but that's huge progress for an automatic upscale..
I managed to get some sharper results in some cases, but it was a mixed bag. Sometimes the objects/characters became so sharp that they didn't really fit into the background (halo-like artifacts along contours). Like they didn't belong in the scene. I tried to avoid that whenever I could.

I focused mostly on animation stability, to reduce frame-to-frame wobbliness seen in some other FMV upscaling projects. Sometimes to achieve that I had to sacrifice a bit of sharpness. Because what looks better in still images, sometimes looks worse in motion. While my FMVs are not super-stable in motion, they are stable enough (at least for me ;)) considering the source videos.

I wonder if different upscale methods would give sharper results and that could help using animated mask to blend between different type of upscales.. that would require a lot of roto-masking but it could work maybe..
Yes, I actually thought about that. For example, some models give sharper looking characters but destroy the backgrounds by turning them into oversharpened mess. Other models produce great looking backgrounds, but the characters are blurry. So it would be the best to somehow auto-combine them together to achieve the MaximumTM quality ;)

Hope you don't mind I uploaded it to Youtube
Not at all.

Those are pretty sharp looking FMV's, what ESRGAN models are you using?

Me and MCINDUS made a custom model. I've done about 98% of FMV's upscaled to 4k, we could work together and achieve a quicker release.
I use a lot of different models, software and techniques on every single frame within a scene (and some FMVs have a lot of different scenes, sometimes I use different models between the scenes, for example, I used completely different methods for upscaling the waves from the intro FMV, different ESRGAN models for Seifer vs Squall fight etc.) Like I said before, it's a trial and error process to figure out what model/technique combination works best for that specific scene. And it's very time and PC resource consuming (I hope my GPU won't die on me, since it's working some crazy hours at 100% every day :-D)

I use models from here:
https://upscale.wiki/wiki/Model_Database
JPG PlusULTRA, DeJpeg Fatality PlusULTRA, ISO denoise v1 among others. Sometimes one of them, sometimes all of them. So one frame of FMV can undergo 3-5 different ESRGAN models. IIRC overall there are about 16k frames for Disc 01 alone. It takes a lot of time for sure. Sometimes I use them directly on source BINK PNGs, sometimes I upscale first and then denoise/deblock to achieve the best quality.

I'm still in the phase of prototyping/testing different models, different techniques and different combinations of them, so I'd only slow you down. I think you should continue with our work without me, since my mod won't be ready for the next 10 years or so (if ever :evil:), given how I chose to approach the project. Your mod looks great too, and I can't wait to use it in the meantime.

max32

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #12 on: 2020-05-15 22:00:11 »
I can't seem to find the edit button to edit my first post (maybe I'm just blind), so I'll leave this short new FMV here:
https://imgsli.com/MTYzNDk
https://imgsli.com/MTYzNDg
https://imgsli.com/MTYzNDc

https://mega.nz/file/GbRC0AyT#z3mZWy5HIKP8zXH5T3DIdNeVIIERzQ4BcqIMfQoof6o

As before, the video is encoded at some overkill bitrate.

kaspar01

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #13 on: 2020-05-16 10:04:03 »
I do like your approach of aiming to the max possible quality (kinda reminds of mine for 3D reconstruction).

Hi, since you're working on that lil' project of upscaling I guess you would appreciate some better res- original source material (if you don't have it already).
Sadly you'll see a SQUARESOFT watermark and a slightly different aspect ratio (if I remember it correctly).

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nfl6y99sxm0x8ax/Dolby_Disk.7z/file
« Last Edit: 2020-05-16 10:11:30 by kaspar01 »

Darziak

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #14 on: 2020-05-16 15:59:45 »
I use models from here:
https://upscale.wiki/wiki/Model_Database
JPG PlusULTRA, DeJpeg Fatality PlusULTRA, ISO denoise v1 among others. Sometimes one of them, sometimes all of them. So one frame of FMV can undergo 3-5 different ESRGAN models. IIRC overall there are about 16k frames for Disc 01 alone. It takes a lot of time for sure. Sometimes I use them directly on source BINK PNGs, sometimes I upscale first and then denoise/deblock to achieve the best quality.

For me I do ESRGAN DeDither, x4 Rebout interpolated with Manga109Attempt, downscale nearest neighbour, x4 custom FF8 MCDINUS made and finally use Gigapixel AI to upscale to approx 4k. Quality varies but as general workthrough it works.

gunner_1207

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #15 on: 2020-05-18 20:07:39 »
this is gods work, moderate improvement my ass....impressive.

hikashi

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #16 on: 2020-05-19 03:28:52 »
this is mindblowingly impressive..

decency_breakin3

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #17 on: 2020-05-20 09:08:02 »
this def should continue to completion

max32

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #18 on: 2020-05-21 21:29:48 »
I'm not dead (yet), so here's a little update:
V29:
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzA - this one is weird, because there are some low quality shadows in the scene, which isn't the case with the remastered version (but it's visible in the original BINK video - see the comparison). Maybe I'll manually smooth it out one day... maybe.
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzE
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzI
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzM
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzQ
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzU
https://imgsli.com/MTY2Mjk

V04 - this vid is a little bit wobbly in motion (you will have to take my word for it) but looks acceptable. I was able to get less flickery results but the details were also less, well, detailed:
https://imgsli.com/MTY3MDE
https://imgsli.com/MTY3MDI

V18 - short and sweet :-D I'm talking frames. Only 192 of them:
https://imgsli.com/MTY3MDM
https://imgsli.com/MTY3MDQ

V00 - I hate this one, because the second part of the video is a flickery mess in motion (after countless hours of using different upscale models I decided to accept that, for now). Probably gonna have to redo it at some point (like never :P because it might give me PTSD). Still frames look nice, though:
https://imgsli.com/MTY2Mzg
https://imgsli.com/MTY2Mzk
https://imgsli.com/MTY2NDA
https://imgsli.com/MTY2Mzc

Here's an in-game screenshot. Perfectly aligned of course  8-):
https://imgsli.com/MTY2NDE

No download links this time. Probably gonna post something when I'm done (with Disc 01 at least) in 2027(?). Sorry :)

decency_breakin3

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #19 on: 2020-05-22 08:28:39 »
Appreciate all your work. a bummer you wont be updating along the way though.

max32

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #20 on: 2020-05-30 21:42:36 »
Here's the big one. The intro FMV.

Let's start with the most controversial change that will probably upset every Final Fantasy VIII fanatic trve fan! Check this out:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwODE
Yes, that happened. No, I won't change it. Now move along. (long story short - a high quality Remastered edition logo with alpha channel was available on SE website, while the upscaled one looked like crap, that was no brainer). With that out of the way, let's continue.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get rid of macroblocking (well, mostly), so it's a little bit soft (sadly, that happens with all fast moving camera scenes from the intro)
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTA
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTE
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTI

I'm not happy with this one, but check out the remaster. Yeah, that bad. I might try to blur out the grass/flowers or maybe something else, because it still looks kinda bad.
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTM

Remember to wash your hands thoroughly:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTQ

Grass/flowers again, that's never good.
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTU
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTY

Round one. Fight!
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjI
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTc
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTg
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTk
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjM
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjU
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjY
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjc
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjg
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjk
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzA
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzE
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzI
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzM
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzQ
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzY

Some Rinoa:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjA
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjE
https://imgsli.com/MTcwOTk

The One Ring:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzU

I decided to follow SE's policy to protect our innocent children. Therefore all gore (Al Gore?) has been replaced with green jelly:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzc

Let's hug it out:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzg
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzk
https://imgsli.com/MTcwODA

It took the entire week to upscale this video. Now I'm gonna have to take a little break before the next one because my upscaling process is exhausting (for both me and my GPU... I feel like some filthy bitcon miner with my GPU at 100% for hours every day, it simply cannot die before Nvidia releases their next gen GPUs :))

In the next few days I will upload the intro video (encoded at some game-ready bitrate, because it's over 1 GB now). So if I'm not gonna finish my project, at least the intro will look a little bit nicer than the original remaster. I'll also try to upload another version with 4x scale (that is 2x of my current upscale, 4x overall which is 2560x1792) but no guarantees on that one (it depends if it still looks good with some simple 2x upscale).

For now enjoy the screenshots :D

Please be excited 8-)
« Last Edit: 2020-05-30 21:49:40 by max32 »

LordUrQuan

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #21 on: 2020-05-30 22:05:30 »
Absolutely incredible.  What you're doing to these FMVs is the same level of awesome as Jusete's work on FF7 fields.

Aavock

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #22 on: 2020-05-30 22:44:16 »
Wow, most of these screenshots looks like actual wallpapers! Fantastic job max32, keep up the great work!

rartart

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #23 on: 2020-05-31 01:35:34 »
excellent improvement :D , because for now only the psx version have the decent fmv , and talking about the mediocre pc porting, does anyone remember the transition effect of the psx version when the fight against a boss is about to start? because in the pc version that effect is substituted with a lausy and shitty transition effect without that nice distortion

decency_breakin3

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Re: [FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV
« Reply #24 on: 2020-05-31 04:34:13 »
I am VERY excited. You're my hero. Don't stop~!