Doing an HD Remake the Right Way

#22

Hi,

I jump in, to react to the UI art style, I don’t know if there is any plan to improve it for the HD version, but it’s pretty messy in the current state, and considering how far you’ve come, it could use some rework I think.

on this screenshot http://www.fortressofdoors.com/content/images/2015/09/dq1080sprite-1.png
I count :
4 different text colors, (white, black, yellow, grey, what an original mix)
6 different backgrounds (including buttons), (2 textured grey, 1 textured brown, 2 grey gradient, 1 gradient blue, yet again, an original mix)
plethora of different text size
It doesn’t feel like there is any art coherency in the UI.

I love your game, (regardless of what I said) keep up the good work.

Aequi

#23

I think the UI is great as it is. The colorful text and buttons make it much less boring and bland. At least it’s all consistent in each of the “sections” (party menu has a style, the waves menu has another, etc.)

#24

It’s been a month and a little bit. Any progress on fixing the upscaling? I’ve been kind of excited to see the results of your struggles.

#25

I’ve been tackling some more mundane aspects of the engine at the moment, but this is on my todo list. Next week I’ll probably get to it, and I should also have some fancified overworld art from our cleanup artist soon, too.

#26

I’ve been doing an HD remake the hard way for several months, and recently realized I can use this technique to streamline the process. The issue I’m having is when I upscale using xBR the edges are all anti-aliased using a semi transparent color. This would be fine except for some reason the color is whatever the previous background color for the sprite sheet was before I cut them off and put them onto a blank transparent image. So I’m getting a pink “aura” around every sprite. Even if I save it onto a new background color, then cut the sprites again, and then onto a new transparent image the results are the same. I couldn’t find anywhere else to ask this question, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

#27

I just realized you’re probably using the “No Blending” option which is why I’m not getting the same results. Is there any way to upscale with xBR without getting the grey, or pink Anti-Aliasing hue on the hard edges of an image with a transparent background?

#28

Yes there is, I mention this in the article actually.

What you need to do is go into photoshop and split your image into two – the RGB color channel (basically combine it with a flat white or flat black background and flatten it), and the Alpha channel (reveal the alpha channel, save that out as a monochrome black & white image).

Then you XBR each of those images separately.

Then, you go back into photoshop, and recompose the image, taking the new upscaled RGB image, and setting its alpha channel to use the new upscaled Alpha channel. Then save that.

That’s a tedious process of course, which is why I automated it in my home grown tools. How many images do you have to process?

#29

Brace yourselves.

A likely garbage mobile port of FF6 is on the horizon.

Square-Enix could get away with shoving out FF3 and FF5 in their bastardized forms. There’s quite a few rabid FF6 fans, though. If I planned to give them an FF6 port with the quality of FF5, I’d have to go into the witness protection program to avoid the oncoming hate train.

#30

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Oh god… what? What did they do to you? Why do you look like that?

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Did the lowest bidder get the right to make these character icons…?

:cry: They even screwed up the script.

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General Leo is a coked out zombie…

God, don’t let this be the version coming to Steam. People’s first experience with FF6 shouldn’t be… that. I hear FFV and FFVI Mobile look so terrible is because Square-Enix outsourced them to Matrix?

#31

I hate when I’m right. :frowning:

Those pillars…?

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Oh god no… why would you put that on your store page to advertise your game? It’s like a dog making a mess on the floor and then trying to show it off with pride.

Mobile UI coming to PC. Awesome.

#32

At least tell me nobody’s buying this.

#33

@Quote_a:

You still around? Eventually I just buckled down and made 19x19 versions of all the tile & doodad art, it seems like the only consistent way around the problem, and with a little bit of scripting and photoshop actions to lighten the workload, didn’t take too long.

The new public demo build should have some improvements:

If you have some time I’d appreciate some feedback on how it feels to you, and whether your scrutinizing eye can find any other little details to fix :smile:

I’ve built up a lot more material for a follow-up to my original article, and FFVI’s “HD” re-release seems like another golden opportunity for a post.