Remastering Classic Games with Texture Upscaling | AI and Games #61

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The recent release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition is one of the most high profile cases of AI being used to upscale game art for higher resolutions. In this episode, we take a look at the tech that makes it a reality and the modding communities that have pioneered this new approach to remastering games.

[00:00] Intro
[01:07] Graphics in Games
[06:30] This Sounds Like DLSS?
[08:08] How Texture Upscaling Works
[12:03] Modding with AI
[15:45] AAA Super Resolution
[18:44] Closing

If you want to learn more about what's covered in this episode, check out these links:

- Learn more about super-resolution (and more) over at @TwoMinutePapers

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AI and Games is a YouTube series on research and applications of Artificial Intelligence in video games. It's supported through and wouldn't be possible without the wonderful people who support it via Patreon and YouTube memberships.

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#AIUpscaling #GameDev #DeepLearning

[AIandGames]

If you're keen to try out the mods shown in the video, be sure to check out the video description where I've left links for you to check out.
In the meantime, episode 62 on DLSS is coming your way very soon. I hope you enjoyed this episode, it's an interesting change of pace from the regular stuff we look at around here.

[KneelBBacon]

One of the things I loved about Doom 3 is that the engine would sort the level's textures according to frequency of use before applying the compression necessary to fit them in a 64 meg texture budget. So the most-used textures (like a corridoor wall texture) would get the least amount of compression and a one-shot texture (like the scanner at the start of the game) would get the most. It really made the game look terrific.

[PlebNC]

So you could say that using an AI requires alot of... Calibrations.

[lionelt.]

I'been watching the channel Two Minute Papers here on Youtube for quite some time now and it mind is blown regularly. The technology being created surpasses even recent science fiction. Up until maybe a couple hundred years ago society changing technology would come about every several generations but now it seems to happen at least once a decade. In some fashion this is also apparent in the evolution of video games over the console generations. Man what a time to be alive!

[Swtorista]

This was a super cool video thanks for sharing. It's clear you put a lot of time/research into it, and writing the script in a way players can understand!

[rlfernandes]

This is great content, people should be more aware of this. I would love to play MGS1 with this enhancement!

[fireaza]

This was a bit of a left-field topic, but one that *absolutely* applies when you consider this channel is about A.I and games! Who's to say this should always refer to the A.I that governs how games operate? ;)

[manamaster]

It has been so long since YouTube recommended one of your videos, I was checking my subscriptions and found this.
Great video.

[theMoporter]

Kind of surprised there wasn't much consideration of the pushback from artists.

Artists on older games designed the art to work for low resolutions and different screens - they knew what they were making and adjusted for it, the same way cinematographers accounted for black-and-white film. You can't get out what the art might have looked like if it was made in a different medium, because the artist would have done things differently. The set for the Adam's Family was designed with bizarre colours so they'd show up well on film - if you recreated the colours from that, it would look awful. If you recreated the colours based on what you think the intended effect was, you're just guessing.

That would be fine if mistakes were always obviously wrong, but sometimes they camouflage themselves well. Take the problems of StyleGAN - it creates fairly realistic human faces, but biases towards white features. This led to much hilarity when the PULSE Face Depixelizer, using StyleGAN, was shown to upscale a lowres Barak Obama into a poorly-lit blue-eyed, pink-lipped white dude. Pretty convincing face if you didn't know who it was supposed to be!

It's not a problem when the AI interprets a tiny texture on a soda can as baked beans if it's just used for piles of trash, but becomes concerning when, after publishing it, it becomes clear it was also used on a desk in an office or bedroom, with the worrying implication that whoever sat there was drinking beans straight from the tin.

But I'm more worried about negligent publishers throwing their old PS1/2 games at a dev team who never worked on them and telling them it's being released Q3, just get it done, the GAN knows what it's doing.

[tomc.]

Really cool stuff. Excited for the DLSS episode -- never even heard of it before but it looks incredibly promising as a way to downsize game files and texture load times

[PlebNC]

8:15 - "Neural networks"
What I heard: "noodle network"
Me: giggles and scrolls back to check I heard that right.

[Twisted_Logic]

I can only speak for Metroid Prime here, but a big problem with the AI upscaled textures for that game is that they tend to be massive, poorly optimized, and contain a ton of artifacts. There's another project working on manually recreating the Prime series' textures at a higher resolution, which promises smaller file sizes and (imo) looks much better, even if it's currently incomplete.

[coltigh]

I saw that Xbox swap out! Lmao, good stuff.

[InArneSlotWeTrust]

Just found your channel as Im interested in learning how Ai remasters old video footage?
Then I thought how Awesome it would be to have a higher quality version of Kingpin, I loved that game and Total war Shogun!!!!

[A.I-GAMING]

As the second oldest A I channel, your channel being the oldest, I really enjoy your content.

[michaelmcqueeferton]

The possibilities of deep learning texture upscaling algorithms are exciting.

[Mister-Aitch]

you mannaged to explain dlss in a one min throw away segment far better than any of the 10 min lectures ive seen manage i actualy get it now thank you

[lgzz]

I was interested in this fir a while now & u did a great job explaining thanks!

[torikazuki]

What I appreciate is how well Bioware was able to create 'Rounded Rear Curves' 17 years ago. True Artistry! ^_~

[FuriousFapper]

Could this type of upscaling possibly be done on meshes? I don't know much about this topic.
Great video !