3xBR-noblend Sprite Upscales [Update: It's getting BRUTAL!]

[Hellser]

The problem is, people think filtered sprites = better quality. What people don't realize is that sprite artists spend many months to make the sprite look great without it being upscaled or filtered. Stick with the artists vision of what looks great. Not your clouded vision of upscaled = OMG AWESOME.

[IMX]

that 6 month bump, tho

[Ashenwraith]

The problem is, people think filtered sprites = better quality. What people don't realize is that sprite artists spend many months to make the sprite look great without it being upscaled or filtered. Stick with the artists vision of what looks great. Not your clouded vision of upscaled = OMG AWESOME.

HD sprites done by sprites artists = waste of time and money. If you want to start a kickstarter go for it. I would never hire a single 'sprite' artist for anything and would use 3D renders if I wanted new content.

Upscaled and filtered sprites is simply trading RAM for processing power. A lot of cards have limited shader instructions per model and it could be used for something much more efficient than blurring an image to fit in with HD textures. That's the point of this thread and I completely get it. All these other posts are superfluous critiques that don't matter.

[wildweasel]

All these other posts are superfluous critiques that don't matter.

Does this entire thread even matter? I am honestly asking. Especially since Spookyfox hasn't been online in months.

[Ashenwraith]

All these other posts are superfluous critiques that don't matter.

Does this entire thread even matter? I am honestly asking. Especially since Spookyfox hasn't been online in months.

He's been online just not on this thread/board getting the, "Your filters cannot compete with our imaginary legion of sprite artists!"

Brutal Doom v19 is about to come out and there is also the Smooth Doom mod which builds on some of Mark IV sprites. Upscaling them as was done previously in this thread makes sense. Why start a whole new project?

Also the performance of upscaled sprites VS Hq4X (which isn't even as good) is massively better. Literally playable vs unplayable on integrated graphics.

Does that 'matter'?

[wildweasel]

The upscaling utility and filters are not the exclusive domain of the thread starter. I imagine, with some work, you could do it yourself.

[DoomRater]

The real question is... will the filters ever be implemented in ZDoom/GZDoom?

[Blox]

Your "make look good" filter is broken, you should consider getting a fixed one.

[Hellser]

See. I'll take that rather than a filtered sprite. Nice work, Blox... *Uses it as an icon for Doom*

[leileilol]

Next time on "People miss the point on this one particular topic again"...

+1. this "stop preferring what i don't prefer" adds nothing. This is a thread about a filter, and you don't preach manual labor in a thread dedicated to a filter. Given how much of those "doom hd!!" projects turn out as vapor it's clear no one has the time or will to do that. (not to mention the awful creative liberties some take also destroying the 'oldschool faithfulness' being the same blanket complaint about filters) ... therefore, justifying the existence of the option to use the filter.

It'd be nice if this were added to the texture loader backend along with the other upscalers so there's no need for having to wait for someone to batch process everything

[Enjay]

Indeed.

Every time there is an "I've used filters to make bigger images" thread, someone chips in with "give me properly hand drawn hi-res sprites over filtered ones any day". Well, yes, obviously. Getting such sprites may well be an understandable desire and, of course, individually hand-crafted sprites are going to be much better than ones made from an automated algorithm-driven process. I don't think that's disputed at all. But no one, in over 20 years, has come up with a full set of those high quality hand-cranked sprites. They don't exists. They are unlikely to. Many people have started. No one has finished. I'm not even sure that a full set for one enemy has been done. Even if they ever do appear, people will have varying opinions on them, how they "should" have been done and whether they capture the "true feeling" of the original sprites.

Filters can, and have already been able to, produce sprites right now. Some people like them and consider them to be better than the original sprites. Some people don't. For those who do like them, great, go on and use them. For those who don't like them, great, don't use them, you haven't lost anything. Either way, going on about how much better hand edited sprites are is not helping (not in this thread anyway). A full set of sprites like Blox's Caco would be great but hand-cranked high quality sprites do not exist and are not being made by anyone. Hand crafted sprites is not what this thread is about. It is about filter-produced sprites, improvements to the filter and thereby to the resulting sprites. The download links for the results are in the first post. I await similar links for hand crafted sprites (in their own thread ).

[Ringman]

While I love your Cacodemon, I disagree blox. My "Make Look Good" filter works just fine!

CacoHiResHalf.png (131.67 KiB) Viewed 1331 times

Unfortunately, "Looks Good" is completely subjective. Plus mine was created using the DnD cover.
I will add, that I respect the time that you put into yours.

[Nash]

Blox's version looks more true to the sprite version. Ringman's version is far too realistic to fit the original game's art style. Both look cool, but Blox's would fit better in-game. #opinion

[Hellser]

The problem about this thread is it's sort of an oxymoron: As pointed out by leilei;

This is a thread about a filter, and you don't preach manual labor in a thread dedicated to a filter.

From what I'm seeing, you have to do some 'manual labor' to get these sprites working for ZDoom. It's not like GZDoom has these filters built in, thus; manual labor free.

Now, filtering CAN be useful in some situations. I can see them being useful for textures rather than sprites. But that's my opinion - as my previous posts on this thread has been. An opinion.

[Blox]

I will add, that I respect the time that you put into yours.

it took like 55 minutes to scratch out

(good thing i can't just sit down and scratch entire spritesets out huh)

You should also seriously consider reducing the intensity of all those specular lights, for once it actually looks like it's plastic-wrapped.