AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
10 million might have been the original budget (possibly) but the game cost a lot more than that in the end and was heavily advertised as costing (at least) 12 million - even on game magazine covers.
I've Created a WC4 HD Video Pack
- Thread starter ODVS
- Start date
10 million might have been the original budget (possibly) but the game cost a lot more than that in the end and was heavily advertised as costing (at least) 12 million - even on game magazine covers.
Panther1.0
Commodore
👍 thanks guys !
Hannibal_Barca
Spaceman
Hi OVDS, just wanted to put up a quick message to let you know that I think your work is great; it's really breathed new life into WC4 and WCP, especially WCP where the original video quality was just so hard to watch lol!! Well done!!! I know you're tired with working on videos lately after a solid month of doing this, but do you have any thoughts of applying your talents in the future to Priv2 FMV?
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
I'm pretty sure you could do a bit of a pass on the actual videos, but the trick with Priv2 will be making a patch to actually play the updated videos in the game.
ODVS
Captain
Thanks, @Hannibal_Barca 🙂
I'd be happy to take a run at it but, as @AD said above, the catch would be getting the remastered FMV to run in-game. WCIV and WCP have both been patched and modified by people who know what they're doing 😝
EmuMusicFan
Commodore
That's really impressive！
Shades2585
none
WOW! Just...WOW! Very good indeed! Looking forward to seeing more.
From what source did you scale this?
ODVS
Captain
I forget where it came from, to be honest - I just have a bunch of MP4s on my drive from when I was experimenting with WC3 videos a while back because people asked me to. I think they're probably downloaded from the Holovids section on wcnews. Certainly I haven't ripped any sources myself.
They're H264 320x160 15fps 250kbps yuv420p, if that helps narrow it down
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Judging how un-noisy the image is, it's almost for sure rips and conversions I did of the PSX footage. I did some WC3 upscale stuff just for fun the other day and the results were kind of a mixed bag since I was using a free program, but it was promising. IT wouln't work at all with the PC footage though as I guess it didn't like the lack of color depth.
ODVS
Captain
Yeah, I've said from the outset it would be a lost cause trying to work with the PC footage. It was only thanks to all you lovely people I was even aware of the PSX and 3DO versions! If that is your rip, @AD, lovely job - it has great edge definition 🙂
If that comparison footage looks at all PC-like, it'll be because I turned off any scalar upscaling on the source footage and locked it to nearest neighbour (hence the pixelation). I wanted to get a clear example of how much new pixel data was being created, which is harder to see when the encoder is doing its best to make the bilinear upscale of the source footage look smooth.
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Just taking a look here... It would probably be worth working from the rips themselves. When you extract the movies from the PSX verison you either need something that can read the videos themselves or you need to convert them to raw video/audio files and then covert to the format of your choice. So it would definitely be better to work with the raw AVIs just to avoid any compression issues caused by converting to MP4. The file size does make it a bit of an issue for file sharing though.
The issues I'm having with the free AI Upscalers though are with edge detection, especially around eys. Hair also alternates between great looking and painted on, but I'm definitely getting better results working from the raw files than the converted ones. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JnxYpC8SmSyvb-pl-ZpWCcIm3ludNOMI
The issues I'm having with the free AI Upscalers though are with edge detection, especially around eys. Hair also alternates between great looking and painted on, but I'm definitely getting better results working from the raw files than the converted ones. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JnxYpC8SmSyvb-pl-ZpWCcIm3ludNOMI
ODVS
Captain
Yep, I find I have to use different AI models for different scenes then edit them back together. Sometimes different models between jump cuts. It can be time consuming.
From my observations, it's not so much that the software has more trouble with eyes than anything else - it's just that our brains are way more attuned to eyes. We're really looking for detail there, and we're far more sensitive to things like irises, eyelid curves, specular shines etc. in eyes either not looking realistically round, or distorting a bit when they move through an area that used to be a transition between pixels and the software hasn't done a perfect job of tracking the shape/motion between frames. If you're really looking for it, there's a lot of that going on throughout the image - we just really notice it on eyes.
Hannibal_Barca
Spaceman
Ahh, I see, makes sense. I see that Priv2 uses TGV files and the patch would have to force the game to accept mp4's. I understand now.
Hannibal_Barca
Spaceman
wow....well done!!!!!!
Pedro
Admiral
*If* someone wanted to try putting them into WC3 the path forward would start with the DVD patch HCl put up for WC4. It'd be a heck of a starting point because it's just intercepting a play request. Yes the movie formats are different but the act of inserting those hooks should be similar.
It's not a task I'd relish, but perhaps others would?
The WC4 remake is trying to support WC3 formats as it goes, this kind of thing is a good incentive to try and support both realspace engine games.
It's not a task I'd relish, but perhaps others would?
The WC4 remake is trying to support WC3 formats as it goes, this kind of thing is a good incentive to try and support both realspace engine games.
Can you enhance the AI algorithm by inserting keyframes? E.g say you were to photoshop some of the images to provide a higher-resolution source material. Can the algorithm blend those enhancements into the video? (from the Youtube clip one of the obvious things is the glyphs on the Emperor's throne) We have some high resolution still shots from Wing Commander 3's cutscenes that were released as part of promotional materials. We could also attempt to enhance some of the 3D models in some of the shots if the AI engine is capable of blending those improvements into the output.
gr1mre4per
Rear Admiral
The problem is that prophecy loads a dll which uses a Windows api call. Wc3 is a dos program and that api probably isn't available. It may be possible with the kilrathi saga version...