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About this mod
This mod is a WIP (WORK IN PROGRESS). This is a graphical update for Final Fantasy 8. Currently, it updates all of the background files for the game by using a GAN I trained to generate the images. You will need Tonberry for this mod. You can download it from the Qhimm forums. This mod only contains images which Tonberry will use.
- Permissions and credits
First off, if you're looking to play the game, I do not currently recommend this mod, it is not ready for that. If you're looking for a good stable background mod I would currently recommend AngelWing, I believe it is probably the best to use atm, but there's at least two or more to choose from on Qhimm or possibly somewhere else.
AI Neural Networking is being used for a tremendous amount of tasks these days. I recently began playing the FFVIII game, which I bought on Steam a year'ish ago but still haven't played. I was happy when I realized that they were modding it. I played it many years before, but only on the playstation. The mods that were available were nice, but everything felt like a 'patch work' of mods. The models, although still very low quality now had some rather nice high res graphics to go with them, and much of the graphics had been updated using a waifu filter. But none of it seemed to 'fit' together. While digging into this a little further I became introduced to the concept of using a neural network to generate images. I used a few of these models as a base for upscaling my own images for the backgrounds and then applied filters using GIMP and some python scripting to generate new backgrounds, which, personally I liked. However it takes a long time to do that, so when I decided to try to teach a GAN to upscale an image using similar methods I used to produce the final image I was pleasantly surprised that not only was it doing it, it was doing it pretty good. My current GAN has only been training for about 130K iterations so far using a rather limited image store to learn from, but already the results are very promising. What previously would of taken me months to complete, I could now accomplish in less than a day using the GAN I trained and basically doing it all at once. This mod is the results of doing that. Nothing has been done to the images so far, this is simply what my GAN produced for all the background images.
This mod is not complete, but still a work in progress. What the mod currently provides is every background image upscaled using the GAN I trained, however, not all the backgrounds produced are 'finished', as the process tends to not work well with some images, and in some situations leaves a 'checkered line' mark on some backgrounds, and although I have identified the cause of the problem, the solution is rather time consuming. I'm also expecting there to be some issues with the visual effects files, but so far have only come across a couple of situations. I have still barely looked at or even played with this current version, but it does include an update for the entire game and not just a section of it. I am releasing this simply in case some people would like to play with it, but mostly to get feedback on where issues are in the game so that I can more easily locate and correct those issues. So please, if you find a screen that obviously isn't right, I would love to know about it. A simple screenshot of the improper/overly ugly screen(s) would be perfect to figure out what needs to be fixed. The masking is much better than it was in my first few attempts, but still not perfect by any means. In my opinion, I don't think this can be fixed without actually going over the masks again by hand, which is a lot of work. I have spent a few days on this single issue at least, trying to come up with a better solution and although I doubt one exists, I would love to know of a better method if one is available. My current method generates a vector image of the mask and then overlaps that on top of the original mask. Which tends to smooth out the masking, but clearly is not perfect.
There are also some 'lines' on the screen that are still rather blocky. It can be hard to determine at times if this is due to a bad mask or because the GAN hasn't learned to do it (yet). Before an alpha release, I am hoping to train my GAN to do a better job on these lines, but I have no idea if that will work or not.
To Use This Mod: You will need Tonberry and hashmaps. I believe I obtained my hashmaps from the AngelWing mod and then simply overwrote my own textures over AngelWing. Eventually, I am sure I will provide my own hashmaps, but for now, that should work afaik. You can obtain both of these mods from the Qhimm Forums.
AI Neural Networking is being used for a tremendous amount of tasks these days. I recently began playing the FFVIII game, which I bought on Steam a year'ish ago but still haven't played. I was happy when I realized that they were modding it. I played it many years before, but only on the playstation. The mods that were available were nice, but everything felt like a 'patch work' of mods. The models, although still very low quality now had some rather nice high res graphics to go with them, and much of the graphics had been updated using a waifu filter. But none of it seemed to 'fit' together. While digging into this a little further I became introduced to the concept of using a neural network to generate images. I used a few of these models as a base for upscaling my own images for the backgrounds and then applied filters using GIMP and some python scripting to generate new backgrounds, which, personally I liked. However it takes a long time to do that, so when I decided to try to teach a GAN to upscale an image using similar methods I used to produce the final image I was pleasantly surprised that not only was it doing it, it was doing it pretty good. My current GAN has only been training for about 130K iterations so far using a rather limited image store to learn from, but already the results are very promising. What previously would of taken me months to complete, I could now accomplish in less than a day using the GAN I trained and basically doing it all at once. This mod is the results of doing that. Nothing has been done to the images so far, this is simply what my GAN produced for all the background images.
This mod is not complete, but still a work in progress. What the mod currently provides is every background image upscaled using the GAN I trained, however, not all the backgrounds produced are 'finished', as the process tends to not work well with some images, and in some situations leaves a 'checkered line' mark on some backgrounds, and although I have identified the cause of the problem, the solution is rather time consuming. I'm also expecting there to be some issues with the visual effects files, but so far have only come across a couple of situations. I have still barely looked at or even played with this current version, but it does include an update for the entire game and not just a section of it. I am releasing this simply in case some people would like to play with it, but mostly to get feedback on where issues are in the game so that I can more easily locate and correct those issues. So please, if you find a screen that obviously isn't right, I would love to know about it. A simple screenshot of the improper/overly ugly screen(s) would be perfect to figure out what needs to be fixed. The masking is much better than it was in my first few attempts, but still not perfect by any means. In my opinion, I don't think this can be fixed without actually going over the masks again by hand, which is a lot of work. I have spent a few days on this single issue at least, trying to come up with a better solution and although I doubt one exists, I would love to know of a better method if one is available. My current method generates a vector image of the mask and then overlaps that on top of the original mask. Which tends to smooth out the masking, but clearly is not perfect.
There are also some 'lines' on the screen that are still rather blocky. It can be hard to determine at times if this is due to a bad mask or because the GAN hasn't learned to do it (yet). Before an alpha release, I am hoping to train my GAN to do a better job on these lines, but I have no idea if that will work or not.
To Use This Mod: You will need Tonberry and hashmaps. I believe I obtained my hashmaps from the AngelWing mod and then simply overwrote my own textures over AngelWing. Eventually, I am sure I will provide my own hashmaps, but for now, that should work afaik. You can obtain both of these mods from the Qhimm Forums.