It saddens me deeply to say it, but I think I'm putting this project on hold. Possibly indefinitely, I may still find solutions, but for now, I'd say on hold with no expectation of completion at this point.
It's not that I can't complete it per se, so much as I won't be happy with the final product.
I will try to explain.
My process for filtering the images actually uses many layers upon layers, three of those layers are three different AI Neural Networking generated images that everyone is all in hype over these days. My computer spent the past 20'ish hours generating over 40K images so they're created and can be simply merged into my own filtering process at this point. However, to complete the final filtering would take my system well over 2 months according to my math, although there are shortcuts that can be taken that could easily decrease that time down to about a week and most people wouldn't even notice that those shortcuts were used. But would require me cataloging every single file into a database, which would probably take me a few days if not even a dedicated week (and honestly this probably needs to be done any way).
Although this isn't a comforting thought by itself, it's not the problem (there's still a couple others also, but again, they're not what's stopping me).
The heart of the problem, and why I'm putting this project on hold: There are many background images that include npc's standing around. They aren't modeled characters, but part of the background images. These npc's simply do not scale well and really look out of place, even with neural networking, in fact, neural networking makes them look FAR worse. We could simply choose to ignore these handful of screens, but we'd be dealing with the same issues overall that we have now. HD images mixed with low-res or uterly destroyed npc's standing around that look horrible. These graphics require an artists touch. Maybe I'm wrong, but the only way I can see to repair this is to have someone actually redraw them or use those HD models/textures that many of the characters are using in game. I don't know how to work with the models at all right now, so I can't simply position characters with the HD textures that have been made and 'rebuild the scene' with them and take a picture or however it would/should be done. The tools for this might exist and I just haven't noticed or come across them yet, but without doing this (or something similar) to bring these characters up-to-par, there's simply no point in going thru all the effort required to rebuild these screens, at least I don't think it's worth it. I could complete the project regardless and hope that someone would 'fix' these out of place characters at some point, but then their own graphics might not 'fit' with my own and feel out of place yet again, better, but still out of place.
So for now, until I can figure out how to correct the characters in the game to also do the HD upscaling justice, I'm putting this on the back-burner. I will likely keep trying to finish it when I get bored and dig into the character problem as much as I can, but so far I'm not aware of how to fix this.
There aren't many screens like this that I'm aware of, but it simply destroys all the efforts I've been doing. If anyone is aware of what I'm talking about and knows how to fix it and/or is willing to help please pm me. I've never been against working with others on this project, and at this point, it would certainly help speed things along even if the character issue could be resolved just having more people also generating the final images. To help with this task all you would need is GIMP with Python-fu and G'MIC installed. Now that I have a 'mass' storage of files to work with I'm also altering my script to build them all instead of just one at a time, so I'd have to complete that as well as merge a couple scripts into one. I will/could probably have that completed in a few days likely at most, it's what I'm currently working on.
Also if someone is familiar with the naming convention with Pupu for identifying the files, I believe there is a structure there that can be used to help assist with automating rebuilding the backgrounds, but still haven't quite figured it out - any information regarding that would be very helpful and could save me from having to go over each file and catalogue what type of file it is. The Deling program also autobuilds the files as well from what I just noticed and am now using that as a base for my backgrounds, but it requires manually opening each background and saving them, and even then, there are a few that need to be placed in a 'fix' folder for further review before running thru my filter.
Either way, I think I need a break for a bit from this project regardless. I'd love to see this completed and can now see what needs to be done for the most part. There are shortcuts, but I'd rather do it right and complete it with something I'd be happy to play with, otherwise, I think I'd rather just play the game as it was originally designed tbh.
I'm sure I'll keep working on this project regardless, but I want to do it right and slow and steady wins the race. I really would like to see this project at least come to fruition to the point where I could run around even at the start of the game with all updated graphics just to say I could see it. But those npc characters, like I said, imo, destroys any hope of a fully fleshed-out final product imo, it's not impossible to fix, I simply don't believe I have the artist skills to do it, or the modeling knowledge required to rebuild them.