Home of the HD graphics mods FF7 Remako Mod and Half-Life ReSrced, as other upscaling projects using machine learning.
Remako is cancelled It is with great sadness that I have to tell you that I have decided to cancel Remako 2.0 and cease development of the mod entirely. I am pulling the plug on this project for various reasons, which I will detail in the rest of this blog post. For those wondering what will happen to everything I made for the Remako 2.0 patch, please see the end of this post. Why am I cancelling…
I had already started work on redoing the text and menus in Final Fantasy VII for Remako Mod, but I couldn't get it to look just right. Then I came across someone else who had already redone a large part of the regular text and menu boxes in the game. So I reached out to Aavock, the creator of the mod, and he was gracious enough to let me integrate his mod into Remako. In this video you'll see…
Random command line image I found for macOS :) A wonderful fellow named Sam shared a really cool creation of his. I'll let him do the talking: One of the frustrating things is the lack of command line tools (on macOS). After wanting to do this for a while, I finally broke down and wrote some command-line automation for Gigapixel using AppleScript. This tool will call Gigapixel AI directly from the…
It's been a while guys. After a bit of a hiatus on the project I have started again with work on the Remako 2.0 update. The project seemed to daunting when I saw everything as just one big job. This time I'm just doing it one folder at a time. I posted this a couple of weeks back on my YouTube channel, which I do update more regularly. Wanted to post it on my blog too, as someone of you might not…
I have been using Video Enhance AI a lot recently and I wanted to make a little review/tutorial for other people interested in the program. So I've selected a range of video types (SD, HD, VHS, etc.) and upscaled them. Hopefully, this will be a good benchmark, so people can see if Video Enhance AI is suitable for what they want to do. You can use coupon code CAPTROBAU15 at checkout to save 15% on…
Upscaled to 4K using the AI-powered Video Enhance AI software by Topaz Labs. This is an improved version of the 'DS9 Intro in 4K' video I did over a year ago. That version was made by upscaling each frame individually using Gigapixel AI, another Topaz product. Video Enhance AI is a new program that is designed form the ground up for video AI upscaling. There are some noticeable changes between the…
Resident Evil, Chrono Cross, Blade Runner are all games with pre-rendered 3D backgrounds that looked great in the 90s. But in this day and age, these low-resolution backgrounds detract from the experience. Here's how they would look if they were a bit more high-res. These images of pre-rendered backgrounds have been upscaled with Gigapixel AI, a program that uses neural networks to upscale…
This week I wanted to tackle the original Star Wars. Will it upscale nicely? Let's find out. The movie Star Wars, released 1977, has since become A New Hope and have only released in high-definition in the heavily edited Special Editions. Fans have tried to manually re-edit the Star Wars movies into their original form. Another way might be AI upscaling. I used a Laser Disc release I found onine,…
There were dozens of licensed and unlicensed NES Zapper games. This video also contains the games made for the other two light gun accessories for the Nintendo Entertainment System, namely the Bandai Hyper Shot and the Konami LaserScope. Let's get on with and take a look look at every NES light gun game ever released. Editorial note: I think this is new, but because I'm using timecodes in my video…
I have been working on the next update for my mod Remako. Remako 2.0 will see a lot of new features compared to 1.0. One of them is HD magic textures, upscaled 4 times with the use of AI upscaling. Here is a sneak peek of the new magic textures in action. I plan to regularly (weekly) post a quick video update like this, showing off progress on version 2.0 of Remako Mod. So subscribe to my channel…
I wondered if I could find out what the longest SNES games are. So I delved into HowLongToBeat.com and tried to come up with an objective list of the 12 SNES games that take the longest to complete. I based the list on the Main Story metric, as nearly every game has this metric and it is the fairest comparison. If a game had a 50h storyline, it would lose out to a game that is only 11 hours long…
I found myself with some unexpected free time yesterday and I don't know what it was, but I wanted to see if I could produce a "Every Game'' video quickly, about a current topic. So I decided to make this: Enjoy!
In my previous post I showed off my first video. The response was nice. People liked the format, so it's definitely something I want to continue doing. Since then I have released three more, shorter, videos. I'm trying different things, just to see what people like (and what I like to make). I only have a couple more videos left of my original batch, which I'll release somewhere in the next couple…
As I mentioned in my previous post , I'm alternating between working on my mod Remako and doing some new stuff with my YouTube channel. Below you'll find that first video. I hope you like it? The Game Boy Advance is often called a ‘SNES you can carry in your pocket’. Everyone knows the handheld featured dozens of ports from the Super Nintendo. But how many SNES ports were there exactly on the GBA?…
Remako now officially supports 7th Heaven 2.0. This new version of the mod manager for Final Fantasy 7 PC was years in the making and it was worth the wait! Here are some of its features: Super easy install 1-click to enjoying your game Single download with everything built-in Built-in replacement for FF7Config Keyboard and gamepad control options Auto mounting game disc No more game converter…
When I talked to you guys in my previous blog post at the start of March, I mentioned there were some health issues in my family. Well to make a long story short, my dad passed away a month after I wrote that post. His sickness and passing all happened in the space of a few months, which was pretty short. At the same time, it was long enough to eat, talk, laugh and cry together as a family. I even…
It's been a while hasn't it? In the past two months I had started working on and I had hoped to finish the next update for Remako by now. I wanted people to play a remastered FF7 one last time before the much-hyped FF7 Remake was released. Sadly, life got in the way. Between work and a very severe health issue in the family, I did not have the time or energy I needed to finish up this thing. The…
Hello, I hope you all enjoyed the December holidays. I come to you with an exciting bit of news: Remako HD Graphics Mod won Editor's Choice for Best Graphical Overhaul in ModDB's Mod of the Year Awards 2019! I can honestly say, that I didn't see that coming. I am honored! Future of Remako Now that Half-Life: ReSrced is behind me, I can look towards working on Remako again. I know it's been a long…
Half-Life: ReSrced is a mod for Half-Life, Opposing Force and Blue Shift that gives the game HD textures upscaled from the original low-res textures. This is accomplished by using state-of-the-art neural networks to upscale the game’s graphics. Combined with detail textures and support for a variety of HD model packs for Half-Life and its expansion packs, ReSrced makes the classic game look sharp…
Did you know the Reliant in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was originally designed in reversed orientation? The nacelles were above the dish and there were two torpedo launch pods below the dish. I wanted to see how this original design would have looked on screen. So I edited the following together. Enjoy! If you are wondering what the status of Half-Life: ReSrced is, I am planning on releasing…
NOTE: View this on a larger device. The difference will be hard to notice on a mobile screen. The 4K resolution on a 1080p gives better results than YouTube's actual 1080p resolution. So even if you don't have a 4K screen, you can still see the difference. Turns out Stargate SG-1 is great for doing some more AI upscaling experiments on. It was never released on anything better than DVD, so…
Quick update: real-life has been pretty hectic lately, so I haven't had much time or energy to spend on Half-Life: Resourced or Remako. I'm at the point with these mods, where it's a lot of repetitive tasks that can't be automated. That's not something you want to spend an entire evening on after a long day's work, so I do a little bit here and there. Slow and steady wins the race :D. I promised…
Just another quick experiment with Gigapixel AI for Video. The analysis of the good/bad parts is in the video itself. Enjoy!
I recently stumbled upon Gigapixel AI for Video, a new cloud-based upscaling service from the makers of Gigapixel AI, the software that I have used for my upscaling projects Remako Mod , DS9 Enhanced , and Half-Life: ReSrced . I decided to experiment a bit with it, and here are the results. So what does it do? If you know a little bit about AI upscaling, then you know that it's slow. This is…
The Ultimate AI Gigapixel Tutorial (2020) Last updated: 01-01-2020 | Tutorial for Gigapixel AI version 4.4.0+ People have been asking me to share more about Gigapixel, the AI-powered program that I use for my AI-powered upscaling projects, such as FF7 Remako Mod and DS9 Enhanced. While I have written a tutorial on how to upscale video using AI Gigapixel, I felt there is a need for a more general…