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

[Sp00kyFox]

I already posted an older version of this a while back in "Death Egg's HD Sprite Project" thread (links: doomworld / zdoom). but I did it only for doom and it was splitted in too many different files which was inconvenient to use. this time it's for all iwads and I didn't convert it back to the original palette. so in gzdoom it benefits from better color transitions, in the software renderer it maps it to the original palette anyway. since it was probably overlooked in the original threads I hereby create an official release thread for it.

Update 11/19/2013:
- added 3xBR-pack for brutal doom v19

Update 09/21/2013:
- updated all 3xBR packs with an improved version of the scaler (level3 -> level4)
- since 2xBRh doesn't look too good in the actual game I removed the packs

Update 09/18/2013:
- there were some minor issues with the doom item graphics, missing transperancy and other things.
you can download the item graphics as a separate pack here.

Update 09/16/2013:
- replaced item graphics of doom1&2 with handmade hires ones provided by NightFright.
- added 3xBR packs for all iwads. it only uses colors from the original palette and doesn't blend them thereby keeps the image sharper.

downloads:

(Ultimate) DOOM
DOOM 2
Heretic
Hexen
Strife

Brutal DOOM v19

Brutal Doom, (Ultimate) DOOM, DOOM 2 and Heretic requires Revenant100's Sprite Fixing Project to be loaded first:

Doom 2 Minor Sprite Fixing Project - v1.3 Release (updated 6/26/13)
Heretic Minor Sprite Fixing and Widescreen-Friendly Project - v1.0 Release

For everyone that don't know what xBR is: xBR is a pixel shader created by Hyllian over at the bsnes / retroarch forums. It made a huge impression with it's edge interpolation which easily beats hqNx, scaleNx and others. Hyllian helped me and created a standalone executable of this shader, which I used to batch convert all the sprites. yeah that's pretty much it.


here are some examples (3x Nearest Neighbor, 3xBR-noblend):








Feel free to report weird looking sprites but I also appreciate help in fixing them.

[Gez]

I'd rather see this handled directly by the engine than download packs...

[Sp00kyFox]

I'd rather see this handled directly by the engine than download packs...

the shader is fairly recent so there aren't too many tools/emulators out there which have implemented this shader, especially the obscure xBRh variant.
you can check out the code though of the cg shader if you want:
https://github.com/libretro/common-shad ... 5-gamma.cg

or you could contact hyllian in the mentioned boards and ask for the sources of the standalone executable I used.

[Sp00kyFox]

Update 09/16/2013:
- replaced item graphics of doom1&2 with handmade hires ones provided by NightFright.
- added 3xBR packs for all iwads. it only uses colors from the original palette and doesn't blend them thereby keeps the image sharper.

[TheRailgunner]

Did you just throw all of these in a filter?

I'm going to use an old Mugen-community adage regarding sprites:

Sprite + filter =/= HD/HR

It just smudges them up a lot. That, and ZDoom and GZdoom can handle sprite and texture filtering directly - this isn't even necessary.

[wildweasel]

That, and ZDoom and GZdoom can handle sprite and texture filtering directly - this isn't even necessary.

I think the point of these is that ZDoom/GZDoom does not contain this specific filter.

[Sp00kyFox]

@TheRailgunner
yup, that's exactly the point. it isn't supposed to be HD and it doesn't even try to compete with handmade sprites. it's just an alternative for users who wanna use upscaled sprites with the superior edge interpolation of xBR and aren't satisfied with hqNx/scaleNx. of course this becomes totally obsolete as soon as zdoom integrates xBR as a resize option.

[phi108]

I'm using the filter in the Kega sega Genesis emulator, and I'd say it's better than the 2 GZDoom options so far.

But I can't get your files working. The .7z files can't be unpacked by my 7zip, and they don't work loaded directly into ZDoom.
EDIT: I get "_data_anonfiles..." .7z files that say they have the Pk3 file inside.

[Sp00kyFox]

if you can't uncompress the 7zip files your archiver is probably outdated. please try the latest version, I used 9.30 alpha. after that you should get pk3 files which you can directly use with (g)zdoom. don't forget that doom1&2 and heretic requires revenant100's sprite fixing project. you can find the links to them in the start post.

[Average]

Though I'm not a huge fan of filters I have to say that this works much better than I thought it would. The static sprites (pickups and the like) look really fantastic. They look like bona fide hi res sprites. The monsters still obviously look filtered though. All in all, this is pretty impressive for a filter system that doesn't really hit the CPU much. Nice work.

[Sp00kyFox]

nice to hear. the item and pickup sprites (at least for doom) are actually handmade ones which NightFright uploaded back then in the old thread. I didn't touched them with the scaler cuz they're good as they are.

[Sp00kyFox]

updated the doom packs.

[Sp00kyFox]

well I just don't come to an end. hyllian updated his xBR shader to level4, which detects lines in more angles. here is a little graphic which explains it:



and to show you that it's really a big improvment which justifies just another update:

3xBR: Level3 - Level4


ps:I removed the 2xBRh packs, since the algorithm generates some weird colored pixels here and there and it doesn't look too good ingame.

[Bashe]

I don't think it looks too bad honestly. I'm glad that this is being toted as upscaled sprites rather than OMG ULTRA SUPER HI RES SPRITES x16 with like a sharpen filter applied to a bilinearly filtered sprite.

[Nash]

Looks decent, would be great if added as an in-game GZDoom filter.