snobel on 18/1/2020 at 11:37
Quote Posted by Akven
Example of good looking Thief 3 texture upscaling
That does look very good. :thumb:
Broken link?
Quote Posted by Akven
I couldn't see the specular effect on the bow either.
So the only thing we need is normal maps for everything. Cause game looks very flat on textures without them.
Right, I'll have a go at that.
Akven on 18/1/2020 at 14:37
Proof of low resolution concept
ESRGAN 4x vs ESRGAN 2x
(
https://imgsli.com/MTExNTk/1/2)
I preprocessed images by DXT-BC 1x removal model and downscaled them 2x of their size.
After that I ESRGANed them, getting 4x upscale (so it is 2x from the original size)
And now the comparison: 2x texture (1024x1024) looking better than 4x texture (2048x2048)
This is vanilla vs ESRGAN 4x texture. ESRGAN even can't do anything because developers used upscaled textures
(
https://imgsli.com/MTExNTk/0/1)
Recreation of additional details from vanilla to 2x
(
https://imgsli.com/MTExNTk/0/2)
Now it's getting more complicated because I need to upscale every texture twice and see if there will be improvement in 2x mode. So a lot of hand work as always.
Some textures can be improved by combining in photoshop parts of 2x and 4x upscales (like wooden signs with different quality of wood frame and sign itself).
P.S. Also I think we need to use minimaps. First of all Collective Texture Pack uses them.
Second - I read about minimaps and it seems they improve perfomance of the game. The cost is increazed texture size for about 1/3. But since a lot of textures will be 2x instead of 4x - I can allow that.
Akven on 19/1/2020 at 18:44
Interesting example of combining 2x and 4x results. I found that wooden frame upscaled 4x just excellent. But painting was really ugly (clearly developers used upscaled low-resolution painting with normal looking wood texture).
So I combined wood from 4x upscale and painting from 2x upscale. And it's looking much better that just 4x upscale.
Vanilla vs combined 4x image
(
https://imgsli.com/MTExOTQ)
snobel on 19/1/2020 at 20:40
Apparently artificial intelligence still needs some assistance from non-artificial intelligence, but the end result is impressive. :)
hRafnagud on 19/1/2020 at 21:08
Looking good, thanx for all the hard work :thumb:
Akven on 20/1/2020 at 07:05
Edited 77 frames in drepts_tale_engl_none_30 video, removed strange square light box post-effect.
(
https://imgsli.com/MTEyMDk)
snobel on 21/1/2020 at 17:00
Some success with adding normal maps: (GIF, should animate.)
Inline Image:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b4co9ifl1ng81sd/new_normals.gif?dl=1This is GENfloorA_D with a renamed GENfloorC_N.dds added, via an external .mlb file. It's going to take a small tool to produce the override .mlb from a list of map names, but it looks promising.
I first tried modifying the material info in memory while reading in the .ibt files - would have been nicer because you'd only need to supply .dds files following a naming convention - but unfortunately it crashes...
Akven on 21/1/2020 at 21:25
Excellent.
I upscaled 254 textures so far. Can upload them for tests tomorrow. (There are about 488 world textures ingame not counting normal maps). Also upscaled 11 movies out of 22.
BTW, how to create screenshots in Thief 3? Print Screen is not working. And what is the magic with Bloom setting overriding Multisampling setting in menu (I can only get Bloom with Multisampling: 1 or Multisampling 16 but without Bloom)?