I tried my luck at AI-Upscaling textures for different models in FF7 Remake. -results included!-

[Altezein]

So, I wanted to see what happened if I upscaled some low quality textures in the game with AI and see how it goes. I did this by importing the game models to Blender and correctly aplying the ESRGAN-Upscaled textures to each surface. Here's one example, the bar counter at 7th Heaven, which had blurry menues and notes hanging around. The results seem very positive!!

Of course, it's no game-changer, but it allows for better detail (try to zoom to look for changes!) Going by this, a mod to upscale blurry textures when the game releases on PC seems viable. Here is the juxtaposed render comparison:

https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxt...html?uid=aa56a896-b2de-11eb-b7bf-95443c729a29

Maybe Intergrade will handle textures better and fix things, but it's good to know this is possible, as the game issue with texture streaming is pretty wide known.
(btw...had lot's of fun importing other models to to play around, like the infamous textureless door :P)

Edit: plain images included, for people who can't open the link

Before:

After:

 

[Dest]

You know what to do. The door. Give it to us.

 

[Smash-It Stan]

I'll show you the door...

 

[ShroudOfFate]

I had this idea before FF7R released and people were upset about the switch to action combat for someone to take the assets from 7R and use them to remake the backgrounds in the original game and this makes me want that even more just given the angle of the example pics.

 

[Rendering...]

Man, devs need to get on this.

 

[Makoto Yuki]

I can't tell the difference honestly.

But as others have already said... Door please.

 

[Altezein]

I had this idea before FF7R released and people were upset about the switch to action combat for someone to take the assets from 7R and use them to remake the backgrounds in the original game and this makes me want that even more just given the angle of the example pics.

Click to shrink...

That sounds like years of work for a single person. Just look at Jusete's project edge... it's amazing modeling work, and after several years he only finished like 5% of the entire game areas.

I can't tell the difference honestly.
But as others have already said... Door please.

Click to shrink...

The juxtaposed comparison helps a lot! Look for text, wine labels, signs, notes, the menu, etc. The wood areas already had good quality textures before, those will show little to no diference at all. Will try to render the door tomorrow. I found the texture, but it's too late in the night over here :P

 

[Benzychenz]

I can't tell the difference honestly.

But as others have already said... Door please.

Click to shrink...

All the menus and signs on the wall are pretty drastic.

 

[Teeth]

Are eggs and chips something people actually eat together?

 

[Altezein]

I know it would have been better to show a sign upclose to see the difference, but I like that 7th heaven bar counter too much

Are eggs and chips something people actually eat together?

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Maybe it's the Midgar special?

 

[Falk]

Man, devs need to get on this.

Click to shrink...

i guess if developers had access to the original assets before they get downsampled for space or performance or whatever this might still be worth doing so it looks familiar to gamers the way bad autotune is familiar to the average person listening to top 40 stuff

 

[Big Boy]

Are eggs and chips something people actually eat together?

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Yes? Egg and chips . Proper chips not what America thinks chips are

 

[Stalker]

Are eggs and chips something people actually eat together?

Click to shrink...

 

[Altezein]

i guess if developers had access to the original assets before they get downsampled for space or performance or whatever this might still be worth doing so it looks familiar to gamers the way bad autotune is familiar to the average person listening to top 40 stuff

Click to shrink...

If they did that for space it would be criminal xD. The game has the ending CG video (which sits at 3.8 GB) 4 times inside the disk, 1 time for each language (Japanese, English, French and German). 15.2 Gb in total, so... 17% of the full game size.

 

[Dreamboum]

If they did that for space it would be criminal. The game has the ending CG video (which sits at 3.8 GB) 4 times inside the disk, 1 time for each language (Japanese, English, French and German). 15.2 Gb in total, so... 17% of the full game size.

Click to shrink...

maybe data streaming?

 

[Kaguya]

Man, devs need to get on this.

Click to shrink...

Devs are already mostly making much higher res textures than what makes it in, res get lowered for space and performance.

If they did that for space it would be criminal. The game has the ending CG video (which sits at 3.8 GB) 4 times inside the disk, 1 time for each language (Japanese, English, French and German). 15.2 Gb in total, so... 17% of the full game size.

Click to shrink...

For "space" isn't just to save the game size, smaller data get's loaded faster, and the game already suffer badly from texture streaming issues and load times.

 

[Alecs27]

Where's the door OP?!

 

[Falk]

optimization passes are hell of a thing too- there's usually some kind of balance between 'looks good enough' and 'don't want to spend too much time on this because lol deadlines' and 'i don't know why the engine isn't behaving the expected way, just go harder on cutting down stuff to brute force it' or some kind of unholy combination

you don't really think someone sat down and put in a blurry door texture to begin with (because somehow that's all they had to work with) and called it a day, do you lol

 

[Altezein]

you don't really think someone sat down and put in a blurry door texture to begin with (because somehow that's all they had to work with) and called it a day, do you lol

Click to shrink...

The door thing just gained a funny status among the player base. Surely no one here is blaming square for anything.

 

[entrydenied]

The door thing just gained a funny status among the player base. Surely no one here is blaming square for anything.

Click to shrink...

There are still quite a number of people who think that the door is a bug, or that SE deliberately do not want to fix it because they want to sell a bug fix to us in the form of a PS5 upgrade.

 

[Altezein]

There are still quite a number of people who think that the door is a bug, or that SE deliberately do not want to fix it because they want to sell a bug fix to us in the form of a PS5 upgrade.

Click to shrink...

Lol that's some conspiracy level shit xD

You know what to do. The door. Give it to us.

Click to shrink...

This particular object has format that can't be extracted as a model with the usual tools (the same one used for characters), but I can show you the proper texture that goes on it! Here you go! (click image for better resolution)

 

[craven68]

I hope integrade will have better texture on ps5 and pc ! And there will no need to patch this :(
Awesome work by the way.

 

[Falk]

The door thing just gained a funny status among the player base. Surely no one here is blaming square for anything.

Click to shrink...

it's a direct response to the notion that blurry textures are what there are to go on, i.e. "devs should get in on this"

 

[s1lver]

Before:

After:

Click to shrink...

EDIT: Honestly, I can't see any difference except the last one seeming to be a little brighter

 

[Deleted member 81269]

The door??

 

[Graefellsom]

EDIT: Honestly, I can't see any difference except the last one seeming to be a little brighter

Click to shrink...

The headers on the chalkboard seem slightly sharper, I think?

 

[Necromanti]

Maybe people need to zoom in more if they can't see a difference.

Before (on the left) vs. after (on the right):

EDIT:

In GIF form:

 

[sumo]

Are eggs and chips something people actually eat together?

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Don't attack my culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_and_chips

 

[War95]

Are eggs and chips something people actually eat together?

Click to shrink...

Are you kidding right

 

[SaitoH]

Maybe people need to zoom in more if they can't see a difference.

Before (on the left) vs. after (on the right):

EDIT:

In GIF form:

Click to shrink...

It looks like they used a high pass filter in photoshop.

 

[Makoto Yuki]

Maybe people need to zoom in more if they can't see a difference.

Before (on the left) vs. after (on the right):

EDIT:

In GIF form:

Click to shrink...

Ahh now I see,

Lol that's some conspiracy level shit xD

This particular object has format that can't be extracted as a model with the usual tools (the same one used for characters), but I can show you the proper texture that goes on it! Here you go! (click image for better resolution)

Click to shrink...

The infamous door texture. We can finally see it in all it's beauty.

Lol, at this point they should capitalize on it and go full-on alternate universe conspiracy nonsense where this version of FFVIIR has a nice door and another does not.

 

[Altezein]

This is somewhat related but not thread worthy imo. Browsing through the game files, I found that several scenes that appear to be in-game are actually prerendered with in-game graphics. These include:

• First Nibelheim flashback inside the reactor
• Cloud sees feather inside reactor
• Cloud in nibelheim fire
• Cloud sees nibelheim fire again, but in first person view
• Tifa: I'm sick of all of this scenes
• Cloud and tifa entire child promise scene at Nibelheim
• All TV or comm scenes, including Aerith speaking to the party besides Tseng, Wedge doing the same, Scarlett interview, etc
• Cloud and Claudia strife entire scene
• All kinds of future flashes. White materia, final boss, etc.
• Leslie talking to his fiancee in a flashback
• Whispers around midgar tower in Chapter 18
• All Zack scenes, the price of freedom speech, and surviving scene
• Even the people at Sector 7, the Biggs reveal, and Marlene watering flowers are all pre rendered videos.

This has to do with Hard Drive speed limitations I think, because these scenes involve quick scene switching. By being pre-rendered, load times are eliminated. Good thing we have SSD's in next gen consoles.

 

[headspawn]

I like the added clarity though I feel like some would take issue with the slight color/contrast being a bit different.

 

[Feep]

This is somewhat related but not thread worthy imo. Browsing through the game files, I found that several scenes that appear to be in-game are actually prerendered with in-game graphics. These include:

• First Nibelheim flashback inside the reactor
• Cloud sees feather inside reactor
• Cloud in nibelheim fire
• Cloud sees nibelheim fire again, but in first person view
• Tifa: I'm sick of all of this scenes
• Cloud and tifa entire child promise scene at Nibelheim
• All TV or comm scenes, including Aerith speaking to the party besides Tseng, Wedge doing the same, Scarlett interview, etc
• Cloud and Claudia strife entire scene
• All kinds of future flashes. White materia, final boss, etc.
• Leslie talking to his fiancee in a flashback
• Whispers around midgar tower in Chapter 18
• All Zack scenes, the price of freedom speech, and surviving scene
• Even the people at Sector 7, the Biggs reveal, and Marlene watering flowers are all pre rendered videos.

This has to do with Hard Drive speed limitations I think, because these scenes involve quick scene switching. By being pre-rendered, load times are eliminated. Good thing we have SSD's in next gen consoles.

Click to shrink...

I'm actually currently pre-rendering many of my current game's cinematics because of this reason. It sucks, but it's also kind of nice, since we no longer have to worry about performance, either. PARTICLE EFFECTS EVERYWHERE WOOOOOO