[FF8:Remastered] Project Maximum FMV

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Here's the big one. The intro FMV.

Let's start with the most controversial change that will probably upset every Final Fantasy VIII fanatic trve fan! Check this out:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwODE
Yes, that happened. No, I won't change it. Now move along. (long story short - a high quality Remastered edition logo with alpha channel was available on SE website, while the upscaled one looked like crap, that was no brainer). With that out of the way, let's continue.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get rid of macroblocking (well, mostly), so it's a little bit soft (sadly, that happens with all fast moving camera scenes from the intro)
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTA
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTE
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTI

I'm not happy with this one, but check out the remaster. Yeah, that bad. I might try to blur out the grass/flowers or maybe something else, because it still looks kinda bad.
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTM

Remember to wash your hands thoroughly:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTQ

Grass/flowers again, that's never good.
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTU
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTY

Round one. Fight!
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjI
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTc
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTg
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNTk
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjM
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjU
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjY
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjc
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjg
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjk
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzA
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzE
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzI
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzM
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzQ
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzY

Some Rinoa:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjA
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNjE
https://imgsli.com/MTcwOTk

The One Ring:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzU

I decided to follow SE's policy to protect our innocent children. Therefore all gore (Al Gore?) has been replaced with green jelly:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzc

Let's hug it out:
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzg
https://imgsli.com/MTcwNzk
https://imgsli.com/MTcwODA

It took the entire week to upscale this video. Now I'm gonna have to take a little break before the next one because my upscaling process is exhausting (for both me and my GPU... I feel like some filthy bitcon miner with my GPU at 100% for hours every day, it simply cannot die before Nvidia releases their next gen GPUs :))

In the next few days I will upload the intro video (encoded at some game-ready bitrate, because it's over 1 GB now). So if I'm not gonna finish my project, at least the intro will look a little bit nicer than the original remaster. I'll also try to upload another version with 4x scale (that is 2x of my current upscale, 4x overall which is 2560x1792) but no guarantees on that one (it depends if it still looks good with some simple 2x upscale).

For now enjoy the screenshots :D

Please be excited 8-)
 
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Absolutely incredible.  What you're doing to these FMVs is the same level of awesome as Jusete's work on FF7 fields.
 
Wow, most of these screenshots looks like actual wallpapers! Fantastic job max32, keep up the great work!
 
excellent improvement :D , because for now only the psx version have the decent fmv , and talking about the mediocre pc porting, does anyone remember the transition effect of the psx version when the fight against a boss is about to start? because in the pc version that effect is substituted with a lausy and shitty transition effect without that nice distortion
 
or better yet. open a patreon. you deserved to be compensated.
 
This looks absolutely INCREDIBLE!
Can't wait until this project is finished.
Even if you never finish it completely, please upload the FMVs that are done so this amazing work doesn't go to waste.

Good luck on the next FMVs and please keep going! :D

PS: I love that you've changed the logo to the new remastered one. Looks a lot better and shinier! ^^
 
Absolutely incredible.  What you're doing to these FMVs is the same level of awesome as Jusete's work on FF7 fields.
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Thanks, but please, let's not overhype my project to avoid disappointment ;) Still images look great, but remember that in motion and with higher compression rate it might not look as good. So let's just manage our expectations :wink: I think Jusete's work is on another level compared to this little project of mine.

because for now only the psx version have the decent fmv
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Well, the original PC version overall had better FMV quality than the PS1 release. It was twice the resolution and (I think) it was rendered again for the PC release (some videos have different amount of frames, which I have to take into account when matching the audio from PS1). The only problem is worse macroblocking in motion compared to the PS1 release because BINK wasn't very good at handling fast motion AFAIK.

or better yet. open a patreon. you deserved to be compensated.
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I don't know the first thing about how to set up a Patreon and I don't think enough people would even be willing to donate anyway. Not to mention the extra pressure. For now passion is going to fuel my efforts  :lol:

Now time for some action  8)

The first part of the video (especially camera flying over the grass and flowers - I hate those scenes) might not look very good, but I don't think that there's anything that can be done about that.

I encoded the intro FMV at 7mbps (2x upscale) and 14mbps (4x upscale). As usual, audio is from PS1 version encoded at 320kbps. I feel that the files are still a bit too big for the final release, but for now it's ok. 'Movies' directory is about 0,98GB in the remaster, so with the same compression ratio it would be about 3,05 GB for 2x upscale and 6,1 GB for 4x upscale. Seems like too much.

I don't know how it will run on some lower specs PCs. When I was doing 4k tests at 50mbps, the FMVs were stuttering (but only in game, VLC and Media Player Classic had no problem, so it's probably game engine's fault). At 14mbps 4x everything worked great, but it might not be the case for everyone. Please use 2x version if that happens to you :)

Use Maki's awesome tool and place the video in the following directory (you might want to backup the original file first):
<Path to Steam>\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY VIII Remastered\DEMASTER_EXP\data\movies\

Here's the 2x upscale at 7mbps:
https://mega.nz/file/aeJGiSJB#vy5RDIEXKg3YwQpZ8tDowcU17wJ_Txld4M8q7LNi7-w

Here's the experimental 4x version at 14mbps (due to additional 2x AI upscaling it might exhibit even more artifacts, however I think it looks good in game, probably better than 2x)
https://mega.nz/file/mbQU0KJL#3dl0m9ZSyz7LeyKrQ-4T8T9mbxm9UaO-2K1H001mT5U

Enjoy!

I know I will enjoy my break  :-D
 
Dude this is EPIC!
By far the best upscale I've seen for the FMVs of FF VIII and ESPECIALLY its intro.

Thank you so much for doing this!
The hard work really payed off!

Looking forward to the release of the other FMVs.
Would be nice if you could give us a download link for the FMVs in the ballroom as well.^^
 
I love how crispy that looks! I kept pausing frame by frame to notice any previously unnoticed details! Maybe you should collab with Jusette to bring on the best possible result.

If you can please do the "Rinoa in space" and the ending scene next? I need that detailed view on that ring. A friend of mine is working in a crafting project about that. I already have ordered the Fenrir earring from him and he's the  only one who managed to create an original fmv design of the Griever ring. But we need to see a more detailed image since your videos make little details more obvious to distinguish! Thanks!
 
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I encoded the intro FMV at 7mbps (2x upscale) and 14mbps (4x upscale). As usual, audio is from PS1 version encoded at 320kbps. I feel that the files are still a bit too big for the final release, but for now it's ok. 'Movies' directory is about 0,98GB in the remaster, so with the same compression ratio it would be about 3,05 GB for 2x upscale and 6,1 GB for 4x upscale. Seems like too much.
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Are you saying just the intro movie would be 3GB, or you're estimating the finished pack would be?  Obviously your codec choice will play a large role in how big the files end up being, but if you aim for compatibility with FFNx, you've pretty much got the whole world of choices (including x264)
 
what about the distortion and transition effect at the start of the bosses battles i mentioned ? is there anyone else who noticed that it doesn't exist in ANY of the pc version?
 
This thread has me checking daily. Such pristine work.
 
At the cost of repeating myself.. you're doing an amazing job!

I kinda noticed that faces tends to get blurried/distorted sometimes and that gave me an idea...

You're using AI for upscale purpose but would it be possible to use machine-learning face-swapping technologies to fix those faces?
We kinda have a lot of near shots of many character faces and I wonder if a trained model of Rinoa or Squall could help when upscaling a "small face" since we can't pretend miracles when we start from a very few pixels..

It's just an idea but I think it could work.
 
Would be nice if you could give us a download link for the FMVs in the ballroom as well.^^
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You mean this?
https://mega.nz/file/XPZhTAQA#Kb0gNbvjERGkrkfIskS66U2ovDpFTfk3ndf-EfAQBJ4
It's in the first post, I believe. It's 2x with overkill bitrate, but it should work in-game.

If you can please do the "Rinoa in space" and the ending scene next? I need that detailed view on that ring. A friend of mine is working in a crafting project about that.
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I haven't extracted FMVs from other discs yet, unfortunately. The entire project takes about 275 GB (yup) on my HDD already and I'm slowly running out of space (I'll probably have to buy a new HDD soon  ;D), so I'd rather finish disc_00 FMVs first before ripping and upscaling FMVs from other discs. I'll also have to delete some of the failed attempts, which is a shame (since I could learn from them), but the damn thing just takes way too much space.

However, I could try upscaling some still images of the ring if that helps. Just give me the video name (preferably the filename from data\movies\ directory, eg. disc00_00h.avi) and a timestamp of the scene you're interested in.

Are you saying just the intro movie would be 3GB, or you're estimating the finished pack would be?  Obviously your codec choice will play a large role in how big the files end up being, but if you aim for compatibility with FFNx, you've pretty much got the whole world of choices (including x264)
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The entire thing would be about 3GB at 2x and 6GB at 4x. As for the codec, the game only accepts VP8 which isn't great (VP9 is much better). I tried H264, HEVC, VP9 but the game always crashed. FFNx? Isn't that for the 2013 Steam Release? Unfortunately, I don't own that version of the game.

what about the distortion and transition effect at the start of the bosses battles i mentioned ? is there anyone else who noticed that it doesn't exist in ANY of the pc version?
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I don't know if anything can be done about that, sorry.

I kinda noticed that faces tends to get blurred/distorted sometimes and that gave me an idea...

You're using AI for upscale purpose but would it be possible to use machine-learning face-swapping technologies to fix those faces?
We kinda have a lot of near shots of many character faces and I wonder if a trained model of Rinoa or Squall could help when upscaling a "small face" since we can't pretend miracles when we start from a very few pixels..

It's just an idea but I think it could work.
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Like a deepfake?

I'm planing to do some "face jobs" by hand in the future, but only the absolute worst cases :)

I already did some face transplants based on the previous/next frame for about 4 or 5 frames from the intro, in the scenes where Rinoa's face was messed up beyond all recognition (I didn't really put a lot of time in it, but it looks okay-ish for now):
https://imgsli.com/MTczNjM

BTW I managed to get better results (at least I think it looks better?) on that scene:
https://imgsli.com/MTczNjQ
But there's a catch. I'd have to do a "hand transplant" from the old version manually for every frame (and there are about 65 of such frames, the frame from the above example is done). With the new upscale approach the field looks better, however the hand can be rather disfigured, so the "hand transplant" is the only viable way (but rather very time consuming).
 
The new results on that grass field look much better! Definitely worth the extra effort!
Looking forward to the updated intro FMV. :D
 
Like a deepfake?
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Yeah exactly! I do think it may save some time if it works..I played with one of those tools once just to see how it works and they should be able to "find the faces" and export already masked replacement frames (with transparency) with not too many steps..

P.S.
I sent you some extra interesting source material :)
 
The entire thing would be about 3GB at 2x and 6GB at 4x. As for the codec, the game only accepts VP8 which isn't great (VP9 is much better). I tried H264, HEVC, VP9 but the game always crashed. FFNx? Isn't that for the 2013 Steam Release? Unfortunately, I don't own that version of the game.
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Size - That's not too bad... cmh175's FF7 movie pack weighed in at 3.5GB, though I'm not sure if it's a 2x or 4x.  Either way, you're right in the ballpark.
FFNx - Will work with the original CD release and the original Steamn not sure about Remastered.  The only thing that's missing is direct texture replacement.  Regardless, TrueOdin doesn't like taking 'no' for an answer, and I wouldn't be surprised if he'll have texture replacement cracked before long.  It's amazing when someone gets an itch and can't stop scratching :mrgreen:
 
I don't know if anything can be done about that, sorry.
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don't worry with the interest in that aspect the solution will come , i already noticed that somewere in the .zzz archives there is the lausy transition effect for the pc version , so maybe it would only be a matter of extract the transition effect from the psx version , do the necessary conversion and then the problem will be solved , and thanks for replying to this, whatever there is an answer or not currently this is still better than stand there without have an answer and waiting for it
 
Ok got it from Darziak's version (file name is disc02_20h). Increased gamma levels a bit. Here's the result:
https://imgur.com/a/BNZWM4N
I wish I had  more detailed pictures and more fmv showing the ring though.


Well this is my merch collection with the only FFVIII original crafted ring by Devyatkin (Артем Девяткин is the original creator). Even SE wasn't able to create the exact ring design from their own game. There's been many years since I've posted this video though. I used to own 3 versions of the ring from which only one was my favourite of which one of the wings is broken. So now he is designing a new ring to craft for a future delivery. He also crafted Cloud's Fenrir earring for me.
 
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