[FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV

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It all started when I bought FF8R and wanted to use FMV mods for 2013 Steam release. It turned out that they were not compatible with the remaster. I had to recompress the videos using VP8 codec which butchered the quality. The easy way didn't work out, so I decided to do some heavy upscaling by myself and achieve the Maximum FMV quality:)

Today, I wanted to share with you some of my results. It’s my first ever FMV upscaling project, so please be nice to me ;)

To preserve compatibility the FMV resolution is 1280x896.

Unfortunately, because of severe lack of time on my part (my upscaling methodology is rather complex and it's kind of trial and error using different ESGRAN models/various software to see what looks best for given scene, and that takes ridiculous amount of time and PC resources), for now these three FMVs are more like a of a proof of concept than a true attempt at a full mod. But hopefully one day I’ll manage to upscale them all :)

Here are some comparison shots (original source BIK 2x nearest neighbor vs Remastered edition vs Maximum FMV):
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNTY
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNTc
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjE
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjA
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjI
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjQ
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNjM
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNTg
https://imgsli.com/MTYyNTk

It’s not perfect but I think it’s a moderate improvement, all things considered. Sadly, there are some artifacts here and there, some "wobbly" frames and weird looking faces. Unfortunately, AFAIK nothing can be done about that without editing every frame by hand but that would be crazy (and I am not a crazy person... I think).

Unfortunately FF8R uses *beep* VP8 codec. For now, in order to preserve the quality, I used some overkill bitrate and the files are rather huge. Eg. remastered FMV was around 26mb, my upscaled FMV is around 340mb at the same resolution. This is just a test but the videos should work in the game if you use this: https://www.ff7catalog.com/threads/13601/

Here are the links:
https://mega.nz/file/eOJD0aLK#6d6RjuRhCyFj4DuvRmOjPY3L3J3URkG2_EjOMCOmo_4
https://mega.nz/file/yGRXhIhD#QbPSuq8cMrfGT0cfPT9kJhRfxR8MeO8E3YJj3CRXRs0
https://mega.nz/file/XPZhTAQA#Kb0gNbvjERGkrkfIskS66U2ovDpFTfk3ndf-EfAQBJ4
 
wow I think "looks good" doesnt even do it justice.

Considering All variables (base quality, limitations etc etc..) Imo this is absolutely fantastic.

Hope you end up doing all of them in this quality. Please do!
 
I'm pretty sure those are the highest quality FMV's I have seen for ff8 and you didn't turn the sound into a distorted mess either, amazing job keep it up.
 
Pretty dope! Looking forward to downloading the rest of 'em! Keep it up!
 
Impressive result. still a bit too blurry in some spot but that's huge progress for an automatic upscale..
Manual editing would require a crazy person or a very patient one..
I wonder if different upscale methods would give sharper results and that could help using animated mask to blend between different type of upscales.. that would require a lot of roto-masking but it could work maybe..
 
This looks absolutely INCRDIBLE!
Hope you keep going, man!

This is by far the best FMV upscale I've seen for this game.
Really hope you'll do this for the rest of the game so we can all enjoy it in the best quality possible. :D
You modders are the heroes we need but don't deserve!

Thank you so much for fixing Square's mess. <3
 
wow I think "looks good" doesnt even do it justice.

Considering All variables (base quality, limitations etc etc..) Imo this is absolutely fantastic.

Hope you end up doing all of them in this quality. Please do!
Click to expand...
This is awesome! Wow, such quality
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When Kaiser and Maki are both hype, you're doing something VERY right  8-)
 
Thanks for all your encouraging words.

Now, let's get down to business ;)
you didn't turn the sound into a distorted mess either
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Audio tracks are from PS1 release. Then compressed to OGG at CBR 320kbps for quality reasons. Most FMVs are pretty short and the size difference between VBR at eg. target 128kbps is not big, so I decided I'll go for the MaximumTM quality.

still a bit too blurry in some spot but that's huge progress for an automatic upscale..
Click to expand...
I managed to get some sharper results in some cases, but it was a mixed bag. Sometimes the objects/characters became so sharp that they didn't really fit into the background (halo-like artifacts along contours). Like they didn't belong in the scene. I tried to avoid that whenever I could.

I focused mostly on animation stability, to reduce frame-to-frame wobbliness seen in some other FMV upscaling projects. Sometimes to achieve that I had to sacrifice a bit of sharpness. Because what looks better in still images, sometimes looks worse in motion. While my FMVs are not super-stable in motion, they are stable enough (at least for me ;)) considering the source videos.

I wonder if different upscale methods would give sharper results and that could help using animated mask to blend between different type of upscales.. that would require a lot of roto-masking but it could work maybe..
Click to expand...
Yes, I actually thought about that. For example, some models give sharper looking characters but destroy the backgrounds by turning them into oversharpened mess. Other models produce great looking backgrounds, but the characters are blurry. So it would be the best to somehow auto-combine them together to achieve the MaximumTM quality ;)

Hope you don't mind I uploaded it to Youtube
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Not at all.

Those are pretty sharp looking FMV's, what ESRGAN models are you using?

Me and MCINDUS made a custom model. I've done about 98% of FMV's upscaled to 4k, we could work together and achieve a quicker release.
Click to expand...
I use a lot of different models, software and techniques on every single frame within a scene (and some FMVs have a lot of different scenes, sometimes I use different models between the scenes, for example, I used completely different methods for upscaling the waves from the intro FMV, different ESRGAN models for Seifer vs Squall fight etc.) Like I said before, it's a trial and error process to figure out what model/technique combination works best for that specific scene. And it's very time and PC resource consuming (I hope my GPU won't die on me, since it's working some crazy hours at 100% every day :-D)

I use models from here:
https://upscale.wiki/wiki/Model_Database
JPG PlusULTRA, DeJpeg Fatality PlusULTRA, ISO denoise v1 among others. Sometimes one of them, sometimes all of them. So one frame of FMV can undergo 3-5 different ESRGAN models. IIRC overall there are about 16k frames for Disc 01 alone. It takes a lot of time for sure. Sometimes I use them directly on source BINK PNGs, sometimes I upscale first and then denoise/deblock to achieve the best quality.

I'm still in the phase of prototyping/testing different models, different techniques and different combinations of them, so I'd only slow you down. I think you should continue with our work without me, since my mod won't be ready for the next 10 years or so (if ever :evil:), given how I chose to approach the project. Your mod looks great too, and I can't wait to use it in the meantime.
 
I do like your approach of aiming to the max possible quality (kinda reminds of mine for 3D reconstruction).

Hi, since you're working on that lil' project of upscaling I guess you would appreciate some better res- original source material (if you don't have it already).
Sadly you'll see a SQUARESOFT watermark and a slightly different aspect ratio (if I remember it correctly).

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nfl6y99sxm0x8ax/Dolby_Disk.7z/file
 
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I use models from here:
https://upscale.wiki/wiki/Model_Database
JPG PlusULTRA, DeJpeg Fatality PlusULTRA, ISO denoise v1 among others. Sometimes one of them, sometimes all of them. So one frame of FMV can undergo 3-5 different ESRGAN models. IIRC overall there are about 16k frames for Disc 01 alone. It takes a lot of time for sure. Sometimes I use them directly on source BINK PNGs, sometimes I upscale first and then denoise/deblock to achieve the best quality.
Click to expand...
For me I do ESRGAN DeDither, x4 Rebout interpolated with Manga109Attempt, downscale nearest neighbour, x4 custom FF8 MCDINUS made and finally use Gigapixel AI to upscale to approx 4k. Quality varies but as general workthrough it works.
 
I'm not dead (yet), so here's a little update:
V29:
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzA - this one is weird, because there are some low quality shadows in the scene, which isn't the case with the remastered version (but it's visible in the original BINK video - see the comparison). Maybe I'll manually smooth it out one day... maybe.
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzE
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzI
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzM
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzQ
https://imgsli.com/MTY2MzU
https://imgsli.com/MTY2Mjk

V04 - this vid is a little bit wobbly in motion (you will have to take my word for it) but looks acceptable. I was able to get less flickery results but the details were also less, well, detailed:
https://imgsli.com/MTY3MDE
https://imgsli.com/MTY3MDI

V18 - short and sweet :-D I'm talking frames. Only 192 of them:
https://imgsli.com/MTY3MDM
https://imgsli.com/MTY3MDQ

V00 - I hate this one, because the second part of the video is a flickery mess in motion (after countless hours of using different upscale models I decided to accept that, for now). Probably gonna have to redo it at some point (like never :P because it might give me PTSD). Still frames look nice, though:
https://imgsli.com/MTY2Mzg
https://imgsli.com/MTY2Mzk
https://imgsli.com/MTY2NDA
https://imgsli.com/MTY2Mzc

Here's an in-game screenshot. Perfectly aligned of course  8-):
https://imgsli.com/MTY2NDE

No download links this time. Probably gonna post something when I'm done (with Disc 01 at least) in 2027(?). Sorry :)
 
Appreciate all your work. a bummer you wont be updating along the way though.
 
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