NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Lithtech 2.1 / 2.2

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AkvenJan
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NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by AkvenJan » Sun Jan 30, 2022 11:03 pm

I saw a pack for NOLF 2, so I wonder if anyone was doing the same for NOLF 1 or CJ?
As a proof of concept I upscaled character textures and inserted them ingame - and it works.
So the way I see it:
1. I use WinRez LT Studio and dtxutil to unpack REZ file and convert textures from DXT to TGA
2. I'm using ESRGAN. First of all I use 1x_BCGone_Detailed_115000_G model to get rid of DXT compression artifacts.
3. After that I upscale texture's size by x4 using different models
4. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but dxtutil does not convert textures back to DXT if they are larger than 1024x1024. So I convert several larger 2048x2048 textures to 1024x1024
5. I use WinRez LT Studio to pack new textures back to new REZ

Things I wasn't able to test yet:
-dxtutil convert textures to 32bit/pixel, after upscale I get 24bit/pixel, don't thing it matters ingame besides texture size
-I didn't yet tested transparent textures, but as I understand - they need to be converted to 32bit/pixel TGA where 8bits/pixel used for alpha channel. And maybe use special argument with dxtutil for that matter.

I see it as good and rather easy way to improve games on LithTech engine like NOLF or AvP 2

Example:
https://imgsli.com/OTM1NDQ

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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by Spawn » Mon Jan 31, 2022 9:12 am

Hello there :)

I have not tried to convert large textures with dxtutil, I usually just import new textures using Dedit. However, I would be careful with using textures that are larger than 1024x1024px with this engine since it can only handle so much..

But going from 512x512 to 1024x1024 for characters for example would be a huge improvement I suppose.
as for the rest of the textures where the average is 32x32, 128x128 and really "detailed" textures are 256x256 I would say that 1024x1024 would do just fine. Anything larger would take a eternity to load in dedit.

As for compression, rezfiles have a upper limit of 2gb.
So normal non alpha textures can be compressed as S3TC DXT1 while textures that contains a alphamask needs to be S3TC DTX3 or S3TC DTX5 in order to work. I would never leave them as 32 bit due to file size.
But yeah, the greyscale used for alphamask is 8bit.

Winrez is a good program to use for sure :)
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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by AkvenJan » Mon Jan 31, 2022 5:48 pm

So you say where is a way to use DDS files for LithTech engine without the need to mess around with DXT format? Or I don't understand something.
Upscale mod for NOLF 2 I saw used DXT format with every 1024x1024 textures being about 3-5 Mb in size

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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by Spawn » Mon Jan 31, 2022 8:40 pm

AkvenJan wrote:
Mon Jan 31, 2022 5:48 pm
So you say where is a way to use DDS files for LithTech engine without the need to mess around with DXT format? Or I don't understand something.
No, you can use Dedit to import pcx or tga files and create dtx files is what I meant.
You may have noticed that the dtx file also contains 'flags' for which sound to play when the material is interacted with. Command strings for environment maps etc. See attached screenshot from dedit.
AkvenJan wrote:
Mon Jan 31, 2022 5:48 pm
Upscale mod for NOLF 2 I saw used DXT format with every 1024x1024 textures being about 3-5 Mb in size
Nolf2's jupiter engine can handle more than Nolf1's v2.2 can.

The upscale mod for nolf2 uses uncompressed (32bit) textures by default which is totally ok when file size don't matter. So you're not doing anything wrong if you don't compress textures at all.

But by applying dtx1 compression they become 8x smaller in filesize.
(and 4x smaller when using dtx3 or dtx5 compression for alphamask textures)
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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by AkvenJan » Tue Feb 01, 2022 4:30 pm

Well, something like that (only CHARS upscaled for now)
https://imgsli.com/OTM3MjY
It may seem that overall texture has fewer details, but it was compression artifacts not details) But all the lines are crispier

I uploaded it for tests
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/bWTV-l9r6hlbBA

I'll try to use Dedit to import tga files.

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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by AkvenJan » Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:55 am

I have one more question regarding transparency.
How does game treats it?
I understood there is an alpha channel in dxt/tga file
But for example I see textures in Guns/Skins folder, for example for some solid weapon - and it had images with part of the image being transparent or the whole image being transparent (solid black alpha). I don't think the game had fully transparent weapon, so I think transparency doesn't being used in that cases.
Does the engine have some flag for this cases?

Also, there are two folders for Guns (skins_pv and skins_hv as I remember) with the same texture but in different size. I think I can make both folders use the higher res version of the texture for better quality, am I right? It's also the same for player_action/hero_action textures in CHARS

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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by Spawn » Wed Feb 02, 2022 9:51 pm

AkvenJan wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:55 am
I have one more question regarding transparency.
How does game treats it?

I understood there is an alpha channel in dxt/tga file
But for example I see textures in Guns/Skins folder, for example for some solid weapon - and it had images with part of the image being transparent or the whole image being transparent (solid black alpha). I don't think the game had fully transparent weapon, so I think transparency doesn't being used in that cases.
Does the engine have some flag for this cases?
The general rule is that white is 100% visible and black is 100% invisible, however I believe that some menu items and guns are using alphamasks in a different way. Not that I know exactly how it works there. I suspect that the more greyish area of the alpha shows more reflection than the black ones do. My theory is that these alphamasks filter these reflective effects.
I have never really spent a lot of time looking into that.
AkvenJan wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:55 am
Also, there are two folders for Guns (skins_pv and skins_hv as I remember) with the same texture but in different size. I think I can make both folders use the higher res version of the texture for better quality, am I right? It's also the same for player_action/hero_action textures in CHARS
I think one set of textures is the one shown to the player and the other set is shown to other players. HH would translate into "hand held" and "PV would translate into "Player view".
Weapons.txt inside the attributes directory should explain what everything is in the comments.

My experience with textures is that they usually scale alright but you need to keep identical settings for the new dtx, I have seen textures mirror themselves sometimes after a edit and I am not totally sure why. Never experienced this with nolf2

I'd do a test and see what happens...
AkvenJan wrote:
Tue Feb 01, 2022 4:30 pm
Well, something like that (only CHARS upscaled for now)
Very nice! You clearly see the crispyness on the floor texture :thumb:
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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by TP555 1981 » Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:35 am

Hi

@AkvenJan

Thats Cool , Follow after the AI Models Upscale , the Main Textures From Nolf 1 ?
That will be Cool , i have never seen a Full Texture Pack for Nolf1 !
This will only Works with Nolf-Modernizer ?

Because it is still Beta and 21:9 Support isn't perfect ! , and i have heard in some Videos , the Music have some issues. , so im prefer still the Original Patch Goty 1.004 ! + Widescreen Patch from Jackfuste wsfg.org !

Reshade can improve the Graphic too alot. and with Upscaled Texture much More :insane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DLJuSYBxAY

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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by Spawn » Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:53 pm

Textures doesn't require a specific game version, so a texture pack should work with any version of the game. So you can use it with the old widescreen patch as well.
Modernizer has its flaws, its the first time I have heard about problems with the music though.
For me 1.004 is unplayable on my main computer.
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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by TP555 1981 » Tue Feb 08, 2022 11:57 pm

Hi

With this both it works good for me + Reshade of course !

http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/bin/dgVoodoo2_53.zip newer Version cause FPS Drops !
https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/file ... r-fov-fix/ !

Ah ok thats good , i had think the Texture Size is bigger , the Lithtech Engine is very Limited for Texture Sizes , Same for Nolf2/CJ , first Fear 1 did Support higher , and this Texture Pack looks very good :D

https://www.moddb.com/mods/fear-xp-riva ... d-textures

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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by AkvenJan » Thu Feb 10, 2022 3:58 am

I upscaled guns (slightly visible on the screenshot)
But what I can do about this???
https://imgsli.com/OTUwMTI

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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by Spawn » Thu Feb 10, 2022 5:54 pm

I am not sure why that would happen, I take it that both doors use the same texture and one them scale while the other one doesn't? Where does it happen and could you send the dtx file to me?
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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by AkvenJan » Thu Feb 10, 2022 9:05 pm

Still upscaling, Phonebooth example
https://imgsli.com/OTUwOTY

Textures for Doors are in HD-GUNS.res
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/bWTV-l9r6hlbBA

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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by Spawn » Fri Feb 11, 2022 2:30 am

I had a suspicion that this might have been related to the brush itself, but I don't have enough knowledge about the engine itself. Luckily, there are awesome people out there that can answer :)
I guess that the easy way out of the issue would be to keep the original textures where this happens.

https://github.com/haekb/godot-dat-read ... /bspv66.bt
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Re: NOLF1 AI Upscale Pack Attempt

Post by AkvenJan » Wed Feb 16, 2022 10:51 pm

New test, same link. Make sure to redownload all three files
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/bWTV-l9r6hlbBA

HD-CHARS.REZ contains only CHARS
HD-GUNS contains ATTACHMENTS, GUNS and POWERUPS
HD-PROPS contains only PROPS
I removed doors for now.

So before I try to upscale another world textures or the GUI, these three files works as intended and can already be played.
I wouldn't even try to edit levels themselves so if all world textures works the same as the doors - it would be dead end.
So maybe I'll try to upscale GUI and see if it works out.

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