Well, since it's the same engine as in Thief: Deadly Shadows. And all the tools from snobel are working here as well. So I can try to improve textures and cinematics in this game.
I already dumped all the materials file from the game and extracted all the textures. They are all the the same quality as in Thief 3 - so a lot of 2x downscaling/4x upscaling will be done in time.
Will try to post news and examples as the work goes.
Materials dump:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...-foNMty-zm6XV0
First textures upscaled using different models. Only the best results are shown
https://imgsli.com/MTYzNTA
https://imgsli.com/MTYzNTA/2/3
https://imgsli.com/MTYzNTA/4/5
https://imgsli.com/MTYzNTA/6/7
The results are like with Thief 3 - they look better, but overall not so better. Commonly, blurred and jagged lines more looks like lines.
Final results in game will be slightly more crispier in environment with better signs/portraits/character textures.
Example of good results from ESRGAN
https://imgsli.com/MTYzNTQ
https://imgsli.com/MTYzNjM
Last edited by Akven; 15th May 2020 at 15:46.
One more
https://imgsli.com/MTYzODQ
Give it a try
https://mega.nz/file/r1sE0SgQ#Si6PRs...oDFnrezVRPqL8I
312 upscaled textures (of overall 1800) complete
Will test!
Folder Structure?
I think it
\Games\Deus Ex - Invisible War\Content\DX2\Textures\DynamicallyLoaded\
Interesting thing about the cinematics:
There are 3 copies of each cinematic in game files, all slightly different in size. I think they were used in localizations. GOG version of the game
For example:
Intro with 29,97 fps, english sound
Intro with english hardcoded subtitles and engligh sound, 30 fps
Intro with 30 fps, english sound
Anybody knows what was the original framerate? I don't think it is neccessary to upscale all 3 cinematics, Just upscale one with subtitles and one without.
Also I think I will convert 30 fps to 60 fps. DAIN is working pretty fast on my PC.
Thief DS's intro (the one found in DXIW) is only one or it got several versions too based on DXIW version? It is using hardcoded subtitles or no? So do the same of the one you're using for Thief!
I don't think you'll found subtitles in Thief Trailer)))
Here is the list:
I think I will upscale the one cinematic from each duplicate with higher bitrate.
As for subtitles... I don't want to reupscale the whole video just for subs. Maybe I'll insert them in srt files and check if it works ingame.
In case you are still interested - I still work on Deus Ex 2)
1134 textures are upscaled (it's all the DXT1 textures with the exception of 300 normal maps which I'm doing just now)
Basically only 152 DXT3 textures left
And 141 DXT1 textures, but they are from HUD so I can't say without tests if they even will work ingame (I doubt).
Comparison to Thief 3 this game is much structurally solid with precise names and overall order in files. Much easier to mod. It's strange cause Thief 3 released later but with chaos in game files.
There is also MatLib editings to do, but after a while. I think they will be easier too.
And very strange thing - for some reason Deus Ex 2 with ESRGAN textures loads muuuuuch faster than Thief 3. Like with no impact with or without textures. And it's a 700 Mb Deus Ex 2 ESRGAN Pack vs 1Gb Thief 3 ESRGAN Pack. Not a big difference.
Of course we're interested man!
First test. I upscaled all the DXT1 textures (1430 completed). Only 151 DXT3 textures left and some optimization.
https://imgsli.com/MTg4Njc
As with Thief 3 changes are not so visible. There are less square artifacts on the ceiling. And the wall edge near the bottom of the screen is much crispier.
And loading time increased after I inserted upscaled normal maps
You know that .dds textures are compressed and have compression artifacts? That applies to normal maps in particular. By upscaling and saving them again, you introduce even more artifacts. Also, from what I've seen so far, upscaling to 2k and above doesn't make much sense, because no algorithm can guess what kind of surface details authors had in mind when doing low-res textures (128 and 256 px in particular). That's why it just makes big textures with blurry shapes.
DDS textures uses DXT1, 3 or 5 compression. BUT: there is a ESRGAN model that mostly removes whose compression artifacts.
And saving bigger resolution texture make fewer visible compression errors than saving smaller one. I'll post an example
Examples from Thief 3: original textures vs filtered upscaled textures already compressed to DXT1
https://imgsli.com/MTg5NzE
https://imgsli.com/MTg5NzE/2/3
https://imgsli.com/MTg5NzE/4/5
https://imgsli.com/MTg5NzE/6/7
https://imgsli.com/MTg5NzE/8/9
https://imgsli.com/MTg5NzE/10/11
https://imgsli.com/MTg5NzE/12/13
The bigger the resolution the fewer artifacts are visible cause they occur on 4x4 blocks.
It's clearly visible on the examples. Upscaled textures compressed too, but you don't see such big blocks of artifacts like in the original.
Last edited by Akven; 12th Jul 2020 at 17:08.
Are you re-compressing in DXT5 (if there's an alpha channel) to minimize the artifacts?
I recompress textures with alpha channel to DXT3 (as they were ingame originally). I can do DXT5 if you want but I don't think it will be much difference
Your call man, if you think there's no visual difference do as you prefer!
Last edited by lowenz; 13th Jul 2020 at 04:44.
It's still kind of brute-forcing through it, as you get a large and blurry textures with sort of like emboss filter applied to them. With textures this large you can easily have really detailed surfaces, but you'd have to author them manually. At some point, increasing the texture size will just increase strain put on your hardware, not much else.
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