![topaz simplify gimp topaz simplify gimp](http://www.pxleyes.com/images/contests/childrens-drawing/fullsize/childrens-drawing-5840524023754_hires.jpg)
The only way to get rid of this is to process a second, set of the same sprites against a neutral grey background (again, as I described above), then extract the pink mask from the first image and paste it onto the second one.Īs for the softened versus non-softened sprites, the only way to achieve middle ground I can think of ATM is to only select parts of the non-softened sprite that are not near the edges and paste them on top of the softened one: In addition to this, scaling against a pink background results in odd colours at the sprite's edges, such as the visible green at the top of the helmet in both images above, which shouldn't be there. While sharpening before scaling up kinda defeats the purpose of softening in the first place.
![topaz simplify gimp topaz simplify gimp](https://www.waimg.com/510/topaz-simplify-9-9.jpg)
You can sharpen the result but as far as I can tell it won't quite match the non-softened image. the folds of the trousers have become less pronounced, you almost can't see the right side of the helmet's breather etc.). Now the outline of the sprite is much smoother, at the same time the entire image has become blurrier, with some detail faded (e.g. If you process a sprite this way and then scale with waifu2x you'll get this: After trying out several methods of softening input images I came up with the "xBRZ blur" I described above.
![topaz simplify gimp topaz simplify gimp](http://www.yx12345.com/fujians/2020/0816/20200816095804308.jpg)
The sprite edges are not processed at all (for a more extreme example check this).Īt the same time waifu2x is rather good at resizing photos and 3D rendered images, which led me to believe that it can't handle sharp contrasts between pixels well. If you scale up raw sprites against a solid colour background the result will be bad (all images below zoomed at 2x using nearest neighbour for better visibility): This is probably a good time to elaborate on how waifu2x works. On that note: Did you think about "sharpening" (somewhere in the process)? Maybe that could help as well, to give them that last "punch" to the details. So, you agree, that a more hand pixelled look would be preferable, right? Your second examples without image smoothing look at least a bit better to me, than the smoother versions. T_Tįourth: If somebody is doing this crazy thing, wouldn't Smoothdoom be the only way to go as a basis? :p I am just not good at all this texture sorting, naming and lumping stuff. I would take it upon myself to manually edit them and - maybe in a year - we could make a. I just think your current process is already quite an improvement, to the really lowres original Doom textures. Third: Really, your last method is actually quite okay already and I would love to have all those assets in these versions. Second: So, you agree, that a more hand pixelled look would be preferable, right? Your second examples without image smoothing look at least a bit better to me, than the smoother versions. Here's the same set of character sprite samples scaled up with waifu2x without prior softening (not converted to the Doom palette):įirst of all Thank you really, really much for your work. UPD: I think I indeed placed undue faith in the softening method. (It's not like an artist's work can't be true to the originals, what I mean to say is that the art which is automatically scaled is, in my opinion, basically the same stuff but smoother, while a creative element by an artist produces something definitely different.) Otherwise the results of scaling could serve as a basis or reference of a complete graphics overhaul, but that will require much more work than just editing a few pixels here and there, and will end up as original art while straightforward scaling at least remains more or less "true" to the source material. For this purpose, I don't believe that much editing is needed, at least for the sprites. a pixel-thin line will become two pixels thick at 2x scaling with xBRZ, without any colour transitions or the like). I think it's definitely better than using other types of sprite scaling like xBRZ which essentially smooth pixel edges but don't otherwise alter an image in any way (e.g.
TOPAZ SIMPLIFY GIMP MOD
I believe that the scaled up sprites can be used in some kind of "crispy" mod which retains the original look and feel of the art while making it sharper. I'm guessing this is simply due to how the low-res art worked, but after scaling it up it looks weird. It's not just about limited detail, there seems to be some idiosyncrasies that are not easily avoided no matter how you scale up the images.įor example, you can notice some pretty odd changes to the Zombieman head's shape in the frontal view firing animations.
![topaz simplify gimp topaz simplify gimp](https://live.staticflickr.com/3428/3938956172_0ef60fe6c2_b.jpg)
Anyway, I was thinking about the whole thing and came to the conclusion that there is no easy way to upscale low-res assets because of the inherent limitations of the low resolution.