[FF7PC] Remako HD Graphics Mod (AI enhanced field backgrounds) - [cancelled]

[Manakaiser]

No Im not talking about original vs remako im talking specifically about examples that show the changes/improvements between beta and 1.0 and if possible in full resolution.

[Kuraudo.]

Good job CaptRobau, thanks for delivering this to the whole FFVII community.

[AssailantLF]

The yuv.frag link seems to be down.

edit: Nevermind, the link is fixed now.

Until Capt fixes the link, there's a simple workaround for the missing yuv.frag:

Rather than replacing [FF7-install-dir]/shaders/yuv.frag, just open it in a text editor like Notepad replace everything with this:

Code: [Select]

#version 110

uniform sampler2D y_tex;
uniform sampler2D u_tex;
uniform sampler2D v_tex;

uniform bool full_range;

const mat3 rgb_transform = mat3(
1.0,    1.0,   1.0,
0.0,   -0.344, 1.77,
1.403, -0.714, 0.0
);

void main()
{
float y = texture2D(y_tex, gl_TexCoord[0].st).x;
float u = texture2D(u_tex, gl_TexCoord[0].st).x - 0.5;
float v = texture2D(v_tex, gl_TexCoord[0].st).x - 0.5;

if(!full_range) y = (y - (1.0 / 255.0) * 16.0) * (255.0 / (255.0 - 16.0));

vec3 yuv_color = vec3(y, u, v);
vec4 rgba_color = vec4(rgb_transform * yuv_color, 1.0);
gl_FragColor = rgba_color;
}

source: CaptRobau's post history

[satsuki]

Thanks for this update but i've tried it and it's always the same than before, not your fault, but gigapixel is not designed for processing this type of pictures so long story short :
-The quality is very unconsistant between files and also across a single scene
-The texture are messed up with gigapixel as it's using a database of texture so the texture used (mainly for rocks, grass,.. all "natural" elements) are not at all the same as in the original game design
-The "straight lines" desing as in buildings or houses are messed up with lost of blurry noise
-Most of the low quality source fields are overfiltered so it's realy blurry
-Lots of chromatic aberations

Also you don't have done a playthrough of the game so there's lots lighting bugs and no optimised part, for me it's not realy a 1.0 version but a beta+.
You realy should have go for esrgan or sfgan your results would have been realy better (for me better, is more natural, constant and close to original design)

To my mind my pack and the one from Manakaiser (witch is WIP) are clearly the bests choise right now and i think once the one from Manakaiser will be final it will be better than mine.

Sorry to be hard in my observations but as you relased the first an "IA" pack, it's watched by other forum and direct users, and to my mind they must know that there's alternatives...


Some exemple (click on the pictures for a full screen version):

Look at the light and the wheel :



Look at the ground, the doors and the wood in houses faces:



Not realy need to look at a specific part... :

[kekko1285]

Thanks for this update but i've tried it and it's always the same than before, not your fault, but gigapixel is not designed for processing this type of pictures so long story short :
-The quality is very unconsistant between files and also across a single scene
-The texture are messed up with gigapixel as it's using a database of texture so the texture used (mainly for rocks, grass,.. all "natural" elements) are not at all the same as in the original game design
-The "straight lines" desing as in buildings or houses are messed up with lost of blurry noise
-Most of the low quality source fields are overfiltered so it's realy blurry
-Lots of chromatic aberations

Also you don't have done a playthrough of the game so there's lots lighting bugs and no optimised part, for me it's not realy a 1.0 version but a beta+.
You realy should have go for esrgan or sfgan your results would have been realy better (for me better, is more natural, constant and close to original design)

To my mind my pack and the one from Manakaiser (witch is WIP) are clearly the bests choise right now and i think once the one from Manakaiser will be final it will be better than mine.

Sorry to be hard in my observations but as you relased the first an "IA" pack, it's watched by other forum and direct users, and to my mind they must know that there's alternatives...

I disagree with your observations. I still feel the remako bgs are more natural and closer to FF style. Your bg, imo, are too "sharp" and "perfect".

[AssailantLF]

Thanks for this update but i've tried it and it's always the same than before, not your fault, but gigapixel is not designed for processing this type of pictures so long story short :
...

Sorry to be hard in my observations but as you relased the first an "IA" pack, it's watched by other forum and direct users, and to my mind they must know that there's alternatives...

I disagree with your observations. I still feel the remako bgs are more natural and closer to FF style. Your bg, imo, are too "sharp" and "perfect".

I think many of Satsuki's observations/criticisms are spot on, but I don't think they make one style inherently better than the other. Ultimately, everything boils down to personal preference, and clearly preferences go both ways for whatever myriad of reasons people come up with.

Personally, I agree that Remako is often too blurry/rough/noisy in places, but I think it looks more natural overall. Satsuki's has far more polish, sharpness, and accuracy, but when I look over all its screenshots it can look a little too smooth or too sharp in places, which feels unnatural.

I guess my main point is that both of these projects are amazing, like 1000% better than the original textures, and any flaws that you can find in either are incredibly trivial and insignificant compared to the massively pixellated textures we're used to.

edit: Actually after using both for a few hours, I gotta say Satsuki's is much better overall, especially the movies.

[Manakaiser]

I disagree with your observations. I still feel the remako bgs are more natural and closer to FF style. Your bg, imo, are too "sharp" and "perfect".

Ill preface this with dont take it the wrong way mate im just genuinely curious/confused;
In what world is false, and more importantly inconsistent false detail, janky lines across the board, large noise and heavy chromatic aberration (that couldve been cleaned easily; how do you disagree with that observation btw, chromatic aberration is either present or not this is hardly up to preference) closer fo ff7 "style" ?

Did you mayb not watch the screens in full size? Btw imo satsuki was actually pretty charitable in his choice of what fields to post comparison shots for

[tracido]

Ill preface this with dont take it the wrong way mate im just genuinely curious/confused;
In what world is false, and more importantly inconsistent false detail, janky lines across the board, large noise and heavy chromatic aberration (that couldve been cleaned easily; how do you disagree with that observation btw, chromatic aberration is either present or not this is hardly up to preference) closer fo ff7 "style" ?

Did you mayb not watch the screens in full size? Btw imo satsuki was actually pretty charitable in his choice of what fields to post comparison shots for

All I know is, I no longer use Remako, at all, I hadn't even checked about an update and I'm still using Ark's with Satsuki's /char folders..

[sylandro]

The world upscale pack has the same transparency issues as satsuki's: the Chocobo's dust trail when it runs and the Highwind's exhaust smoke look weird in comparison to the original version. Everything else looks pretty good though!

[indrema]

I have some problem on install the battle texture, I’m try in any way but can’t load these ones. I’ve unpacked the .iro files into the mod folder/texture and everything else work well.
I’ve try on my already modded ffvii (reunion .03, hard mode, magic texture, 60fps battle) and with a clean install to but not fixed it.
Really need some advice. TNX.

[tracido]

Well, I downloaded it and took the field .iro apart for the field mod and the minigame bits are definitely improvement over the community mods versions and I'm going to try them together and see if yours will override just those little bitty changes on top..

I'm not messing with anything else, but I definitely see how important it is to have all of the field mods, and check updates, because they all can have some areas looking better than another.

Also, definitely can already see some /char folder improvements here and there..

As I had originally said, I think we all need to try to put together some mixes for the community. I'm seeing little things here and there in about all of them that could be shared together..

Also, thanks for all the work you've put into this project CaptRobau.

[Eresus]

Greetings, I have started a new playthrough of FF7 to check some of the changes in the 1.0 version and I want to point out that there is no movement or effects with the waterfall in Aerith's House.

https://imgur.com/ruwIC2e

Sorry for the low quality gif, but it should be enough to notice the lack of moving elements within the waterfall in Remako versus the original version.

There are some other effects that I remember not being displayed correctly in the beta version of Remako, but I'm not there yet to check it .

I don't have a clue about how the system that it is being used to improve the backgrounds work, and whether the loss of these effects can be avoided or not. I'm just pointing it out.

Anyway. Keep up the good work.

[iDerek759]

Greetings, I have started a new playthrough of FF7 to check some of the changes in the 1.0 version and I want to point out that there is no movement or effects with the waterfall in Aerith's House.

https://imgur.com/ruwIC2e

Sorry for the low quality gif, but it should be enough to notice the lack of moving elements within the waterfall in Remako versus the original version.

There are some other effects that I remember not being displayed correctly in the beta version of Remako, but I'm not there yet to check it .

I don't have a clue about how the system that it is being used to improve the backgrounds work, and whether the loss of these effects can be avoided or not. I'm just pointing it out.

Anyway. Keep up the good work.

[Manakaiser]

Thats actually not the reason. The waterfall animation cannot be animated under any circumstance through palmer generated (banded/cut) field files. Even if you export the waterfall, dont touch it and reimport it the animation is lost. Assumingly because it is generated through palette cycling or a similar technique that is being interfered with by the way external textures are injected. Doesnt really matter why, just thought id mention it.

[EQ2Alyza]

Would that be a problem for the Whirlwind Maze then? You won't be able to see its animation to jump through at the right time.

[satsuki]

As this pack use my tool for cutting and as my tool with default setting deletes those files (and the da-tio cave flammes too) thoses Fx won't be filtered but won't bug ^^

[Kaldarasha]

both need scanline effect and they'll look great.  Which is what I do.

A dotmask is much better.


The mask in mds7_w2 is messed up and parts lattice fence are not correctly visible when a 3D object is behind it.

[tracido]

Alright for everyone and the whole community who want to mix and match stuff, I did something..

First, I made the Remako Field mod have the Minigames and Char folders as secondary on off options.

(Link) https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FUmTtwDi1Ny7U0asLtc05PBaLJSZT89b



Second, I added the minigame stuffs to all the separate mingame folders in the community iro file..

(Link) https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RUpDuaypWP_S5dunUTWv5gKBGV7vzn5C

[BahamutSIN]

Your movies are generally great quality. Even better than satsuki's.

But some movies like funeral, boogdemo, boogdown, boogstar, boogup, sqlogo are arguably worse than satsuki's.

phoenix movie has sound issues that you should fix
gold1 has chipping sound around 00:07- 00:09

Great work though and I'm using a mix of yours and satsuki movies.

[Cloud’s Stripe]

A dotmask is much better.


The mask in mds7_w2 is messed up and parts lattice fence are not correctly visible when a 3D object is behind it.

Hello,

What do y’all use (and in what configuration) for scanlines or a dot mask in combination with the upscaled backgrounds (remako/satsuki’s/manakaiser’s)? Seems like an excellent combination indeed!
I only know of Reshade’s scanline option; i have no idea where to find a dot mask, searched mds7_w2 for clues but didn’t find anything.

Thanks

[tracido]

Alright for everyone and the whole community who want to mix and match stuff, I did something..

First, I made the Remako Field mod have the Minigames and Char folders as secondary on off options.

(Link) https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FUmTtwDi1Ny7U0asLtc05PBaLJSZT89b



Second, I added the minigame stuffs to all the separate mingame folders in the community iro file..

(Link) https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RUpDuaypWP_S5dunUTWv5gKBGV7vzn5C

Links all set..

[Kaldarasha]

Hello,

What do y’all use (and in what configuration) for scanlines or a dot mask in combination with the upscaled backgrounds (remako/satsuki’s/manakaiser’s)? Seems like an excellent combination indeed!
I only know of Reshade’s scanline option; i have no idea where to find a dot mask, searched mds7_w2 for clues but didn’t find anything.

Thanks

Sadly I could play the game with dotmask only on epsexe with Pete's opengl plugin. For pc I haven't seen this feature.

[CaptRobau]

Your movies are generally great quality. Even better than satsuki's.

But some movies like funeral, boogdemo, boogdown, boogstar, boogup, sqlogo are arguably worse than satsuki's.

phoenix movie has sound issues that you should fix
gold1 has chipping sound around 00:07- 00:09

Great work though and I'm using a mix of yours and satsuki movies.

Thank you. I looked through the fmvs for issues, but it's easy to miss the forest for the trees with bugs. You kinda stop hearing what everything is supposed to sound sometimes.

Alright for everyone and the whole community who want to mix and match stuff, I did something..

First, I made the Remako Field mod have the Minigames and Char folders as secondary on off options.

(Link) https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FUmTtwDi1Ny7U0asLtc05PBaLJSZT89b

Second, I added the minigame stuffs to all the separate mingame folders in the community iro file..

(Link) https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RUpDuaypWP_S5dunUTWv5gKBGV7vzn5C

That's a great idea that I had not thought off. Will make them on/off options in the next update.

[Kuraudo.]

Hi CaptRobau,

What about animations? Is it possible to fix it?

[daghda]

On the png error issue I think I found the problem.  When you are installing the prerender background mod, it may seem like 7thheaven is locking up and froze.  Leave it alone for a good 20 seconds and it will install the prerender patch.  If you force quit it while its frozen, the mod won't install correctly and you will get that png missing error.  Try uninstalling it and reinstalling but waiting this time for it to unfreeze on its on.  Hopefully this works!