dawnstream on 22/10/2025 at 13:33
Hi everyone,
After years of experimenting with different AI models and restoration techniques, I've finally reached a point where
Thief Series' original videos can be restored without losing their authentic look and feel.
Of course, this wasn't a one-click process. Each AI model produced very different results across the footage. Some handled certain sequences beautifully, while others completely failed on the same ones.
Because of that, I had to experiment with multiple models for different parts, choosing the best result from each and carefully stitching everything back together by hand.
Once that was done, I added an additional pass of denoising and upscaling to bring consistency across all scenes.
In the “
Tools of the Trade” trailer, the in-game UI elements (like weapon icons and the health bar) looked terrible after AI upscaling, so I had to remove the entire interface and reinsert it manually afterward.
For the more artificial-looking in-game captures, especially those recorded directly from gameplay back in the day, I added a bit more film grain to soften the overly clean, plastic look and bring back a nostalgic tone closer to how the footage originally felt.
The Intro video was particularly tricky. The animated letterbox areas originally had intentional film grain, but the AI models kept interpreting it as noise and tried to correct it.
During the final restoration pass, I masked those regions and manually reintroduced the proper amount of grain to keep them visually consistent with the rest of the image. I also recreated the subtle jagged animation effect on the borders.
YouTube itself has been a nightmare. To prevent its heavy post-encoding compression from ruining the image, I ran at least a hundred upload tests using different codecs, bitrate settings, and varying levels of added noise.
After all that, the only reliable solution was to keep the grain slightly higher in some videos to preserve texture and avoid blocky artifacts once YouTube re-encodes them.
When the entire set is finished, I'll provide high-quality downloadable versions of every video, and if possible, a version that can be used directly inside the game.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE:
Thief: The Dark Project and
Thief Gold have been fully restored, beware the dawn of the
Metal Age.
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(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUdgf6np8Gv_Vr2RXXsHOIql2_Q3OQAtk) [PLAYLIST] Thief: The Dark Project | 4K Restoration<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MI1TNpuOhzc?si=1eRkks4cN1eCMXmq" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t6zgQi9ieGw?si=A4U9VMTDnUUU__J4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GyI_7QELatw?si=0kgVsKYhL09BUoZF" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HkOqhfzC2SI?si=WnlyJCJtrsjSI_zb" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KOgZvWtelFs?si=8jpHVh7Iu05zUYet" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NiNDXpM9PkE?si=10Pj-tWbJBRnLvdX" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dkqS-DJ3l68?si=mBT6ArVq9i8oRrsb" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AYm6PHayTWU?si=3s07mKUzS0jeRSgi" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/beoYcmqv9eI?si=SIvSE0CuDXsMz58j" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jvFjOwaPRb0?si=QfxedhnITxkExH3W" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q9VMjkns8oY?si=DvOjLmUab9XOXPUC" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NiC6C6DMkSc?si=-hdaNlJRu323VoDR" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xp9CKdanZQA?si=2jjtjT_7O_uxlZ3d" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N3z2FNg2F24?si=0vCRLTK_QI2R9mFy" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JVW6jb0LoeU?si=W1sAg1UaNx5UTGbA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KSNDyuZIR2o?si=gN7pOzwQc3Op7qch" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dV-oQ6cVjUY?si=tI4KDYCSkr-G0D_f" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GDClVForV98?si=prPBTfqDWA3CjI_8" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k7SoKm1nvUU?si=xNQJEG2-QWpq0dz_" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X2IYsFOYCbE?si=86B6BvARKaYnomJU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUdgf6np8Gv8WhcLwpP9KvQfqG8TVBFRe) [PLAYLIST] Thief Gold | 4K Restoration<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1nEqNel0rQg?si=CWiyILv0zqJMsMqh" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CXuByHGK8W0?si=XHSnKhVK8bmUSw-I" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/67rdrgqwa5M?si=RM97OARMvD3JEMti" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IElJi05qsDI?si=o3nB-a6oq_9Cq-GQ" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bJnYoz4uq48?si=E-ya_YMiioxbsV2N" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qC5tE9lCc4E?si=i_3eeF7LRwGSLLKm" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YdtVSqVILcM?si=1y9Zi5TUWicxUDWU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="427" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8a8Zy30_R_s?si=ya6gFsgjm5A340lb" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
downwinder on 22/10/2025 at 16:08
wow that was impressive, that fire arrow with the visible fire inside the crystal was so cool, the keeper ring scene where the ring has a glinting part was epic, it so detailed you have to look very closely to see a lot of the details, well worth it
thank you so much for that, made it so much more real and wow on your youtube name "kathra" = "yeah i always spell it wrong"-din is my amazing for cannon lore
bassoferrol on 22/10/2025 at 21:07
And the original Thief Gold intro video is also in the waiting room?
mungomango on 24/10/2025 at 11:52
Beautiful work Dawnstream!!! The reworking really does come across as a lot more polished and modern without losing a drop of the original style. It all seems like a lot of work and dedication - can I ask what is the intention? Maybe your new videos could replace the current ones in the official download on Steam? Just asking ..
dawnstream on 24/10/2025 at 22:19
Quote Posted by downwinder
wow that was impressive, that fire arrow with the visible fire inside the crystal was so cool, the keeper ring scene where the ring has a glinting part was epic, it so detailed you have to look very closely to see a lot of the details, well worth it
thank you so much for that, made it so much more real and wow on your youtube name "kathra" = "yeah i always spell it wrong"-din is my amazing for cannon lore
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it.
dawnstream on 24/10/2025 at 22:20
Quote Posted by bassoferrol
And the original Thief Gold intro video is also in the waiting room?
Yes.
dawnstream on 24/10/2025 at 22:29
Quote Posted by mungomango
Beautiful work Dawnstream!!! The reworking really does come across as a lot more polished and modern without losing a drop of the original style. It all seems like a lot of work and dedication - can I ask what is the intention? Maybe your new videos could replace the current ones in the official download on Steam? Just asking ..
That really makes me happy to hear. I’ve been very careful not to break the original style. There isn’t really a specific intention behind it, it’s more about respect and passion :)
I don’t think these will ever replace the official videos, and I don’t think they should. It could work as a mod for those who want it, but I think the original shouldn’t be touched.
dawnstream on 24/10/2025 at 22:30
The Hammerites have unknowingly committed a grave sin.
Outsider One on 25/10/2025 at 01:39
Quote Posted by dawnstream
The Hammerites have unknowingly committed a grave sin.
Yeah. But they still have a chance to make it right.
The restoration looks amazing. If they ever do a remaster and do not hire you, that would be a crime.
