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MrFlibble

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Posts posted by MrFlibble


  1. Here's a little hotfix for Aleona's Tales sprites: tales-quick-fix.zip

    It repairs some extra transparency in Peasant, Fawn, Knight and Gryphon sprites, and adds shadows to Footman and Archer sprites. Additionally, I replaced Footman and under attack voice with higher quality alternatives by David Slimp which I found in the old CVS repo, plus I attempted to repair some other speech and sounds with clicks and noise using Audacity.


  2. On 9/10/2012 at 5:49 PM, MrFlibble said:

    Warcraft II
    o Aleona's Tales

    Recently I discovered that the latest version of Aleona's Tales (bundled with Wargus 2.4.3) does no work out of the box - in fact, no 2.4.x release does.

    I figured out that this is caused by errors with PNG files, which I was able to correct and threw together a fix for the latest version: tales-2.4.3-fix.zip

    To use, first install the 2.4.3 release from GitHub, then unzip the contents of the fix archive, overwriting the files.


  3. On 9/08/2021 at 9:51 AM, Plokite_Wolf said:

    Wow, did he by any chance intend on making this a free engine project like he did with AGS?

    It's not clear because the game eventually fell into obscurity. I think about trying to contact him and ask, it would be fun to have the source code and the extra mission--building tools.

    The game looks like a nice counterpart to Freecraft/Aleona's Tales (you know, I've come to appreciate Aleona's Tales art lately, I just can't run the latest Windows build that comes with Wargus 2.4.x).


  4. Recently I found, via the Wayback Machine, this little and apparently highly obscure gem: Future Conflict.

    image.png.023d4772824041f1fba782d6ec0c2cc3.png

    It's a free (technically shareware) DOS RTS game, lovingly copied almost verbatim from Command & Conquer and Red Alert (and not in the least ashamed of that mind you!) by Chris Jones, better known for being the author of the Adventure Game Studio toolkit. If you look past the "programmer art" level graphics (that aren't very bad, actually), it's a fully-fledged game with a single-player campaign (only one side though), skirmish mode against up to three AI opponents, and functional multiplayer mode. There's even an equivalent of Red Alert's rules.ini.

    The author accepted registrations, which would endow the user with a mission builder, a unit editor and a campaign editor (no idea if anyone registered). But otherwise the unregistered game is fully featured and has no limitations. Oh, and it fits on a single 3.5" floppy disk too. It's a bit tricky to get it work with sounds in DOSBox though, but a pre-installed version is available here. Make sure you use the current SVN build of DOSBox, not the latest stable version (0.74-3) from the DOSBox website.


  5. Did a major update/overhaul of the first post. I decided to focus on accurate recreations of non-free games, and ditched those free projects that can be thought of as an Ersatz of several games in a certain genre, but aren't specifically emulating any particular title (like Cube, MegaGlest or Annex: Conquer the World). Note that direct unauthorised/unofficial remakes which use proprietary data or other content are not included in the lists.

    The games are now grouped based on completely different principles that hopefully reflect the field in a more meaningful way than before. I corrected some classification errors too -- previously some games that were not engine recreations with free data were labelled as such (e.g. Dave Gnukem -- it does not use original Duke Nukem 1 data).

    I updated links where necessary, and added Wayback Machine links if project pages are no longer available. Abandoned projects that have not reached any meaningful stage of development are no longer features in the lists.


  6. Apologies for the noobish question, I'm trying to configure the game to run in 4:3 aspect ratio as shown in the screenshots on the site, but so far without success. I haven't played C&C in a long while admittedly, and never used CnC-DDraw before. Any advice on how to to it? I'm using the portable version and picked the ddraw.ini which said "full screen aspect ratio with shaders", and set the correct resolution, but it does not render the image at 640x480 but at 640x400. Or is it not possible at all?


  7. @PurpleGaga27Thanks! I'd love to (once I settle on what is the optimal upscale model that is), but alas my current computing power is not suitable for processing even a single FMV in a reasonable time frame.

    Theoretically, it would be optimal to first make 4x upscales with a model that gets the image right, then do a second iteration of the upscaled images with either the same or maybe a different model and then scale them down a bit whilst correcting the aspect ratio (the DOS version videos are "squashed" vertically to account for the 320x200 image stretching to 640x480 on a typical 4:3 display).


  8. 5 hours ago, MilkeyWilkey said:

    the effect is most noticable on greenscreen footage. Look for hair, fabric and other things that supposed to have uneven or harsh border - they look too smooth and flat.

    @MilkeyWilkey I always appreciate constructive criticism, so I ran tests with a different model interpolation that does not accentuate the edges so much (I believe the one responsible for that effect is LyonHrt's Fighter Alt 2). Here are the results, what do you think of them? I also believe the pure CGI elements like the MCV truck now look less plastic-ey as @Plokite_Wolf said.

    Nod officer in a guard tower

    GDI Orca mission briefing

    Nod desert sweep

    GDI engineer at the construction yard entrance

    Construction yard unpacking

    The model for these is a 0.5 interpolation of Spongebob v6 De-Quantize and DeviantPixelHD, which was then interpolated at 0.9 with 4xMisc. All these models are available from the Model Database.


  9. I'll just show you what put me off in the Reastered videos:pl3EcnG.png

    These jittery lines appear because the model chosen for the upscale was not optimal. For comparison, here's more or less the same image upscaled by the model that I used:

    GGKPG4M.png

    The straight lines here look more or less what they're supposed to be.

    1 hour ago, MilkeyWilkey said:

    @MrFlibble your upscales have very unnatural sharp edge around every object.

    I'm assuming that the effect you're talking about stems from the CGI nature of most images. Let's take one for which we have a high-res render released by Westwood:

    TLQmwhr.png

    I used a variation of the same model as above but which makes images even sharper, then scaled to 640x480 with Paint.NET (best quality method). And here's the original render:

    warehous.png

    I'm not noticing any edges, e.g. of the crates, being sharper compared to the high-res original.


  10. On 14/04/2020 at 4:46 PM, Nyerguds said:

    @MrFlibbleYou have to realise that, despite the comparison shown, the right side is not, in fact, an upscale of the left side. They used the PSX videos, which are mpeg format. Mpeg lends itself better to such upscaling, since it has less sharp edges

    Well, after a bit of playing I can definitely say I don't like the upscaled videos at all. Having less sharp edges is actually a non-issue with neural upscales, whereas MPEG compression leaves a ton of JPEG artifacts in frames like mosquito noise and ringing, which are all too noticeable in the upscaled videos.

    I ran a few tests of my own in ESRGAN with frames from the PC/DOS FMVs, and I think the results are pretty decent:

    Gen. Sheppard

    Col. Morelli

    GDI engineer at the construction yard gate

    Construction yard unpacking

    Gen. von Esling

    A GDI soldier ambushes Nod trooper in a forest

    I added some HSV noise in GIMP at default settings to the upscaled images but otherwise no editing or pre-processing was involved. Also here's the interpolated model I used, this is for the "old architecture" ESRGAN.


  11. On 18/05/2020 at 9:25 PM, ApornasPlanet said:

    I just replayed the TS Nod campaign and in the end, when Kane achieves his goal and just before the tiberium bomb transforms earth he disappears into the air.

    Any idea on what he does and how? Where does he go? He obviously don't won't to be there when the missile hits the planet.

    I don't think there was ever consistent lore developed by Westwood for Kane's origins and nature. His final pose in the ending FMV seems more like a nod (no pun intended) to the original C&C's GDI ion cannon ending, while the missile itself is a kind of downer ending for the player ("You just blew up the Earth. Have a nice day!"), and at the same time an unexpected surprise because the Nod campaign narrative in TS went away from portraying the Brotherhood straight out evil to something more of "they have their own cause to fight for", only to find out that they were ultimately manipulated by Kane to wipe out humanity (apparently).

    The Nod ending in TS was probably not intended to be canonical for the planned sequel so they just went with what seemed cool I guess.

    Also in C&C Renegade (IIRC), Kane almost straight out states he's the biblical Cain, when the player discovers the tomb of Abel under the temple in the final mission.

    BTW, it's your best explanation of why Kane is immortal, and you could give it a sci-fi twist in the style of Stargate if you wish.

    • Like 1

  12. On 14/04/2020 at 4:46 PM, Nyerguds said:

    Mpeg lends itself better to such upscaling, since it has less sharp edges, but it does blur out details.

    I wonder what models were used for the upscale (if it was ESRGAN). As I mentioned elsewhere, there are some models which are better suited for upscaling certain types of images than others.


  13. I have mixed feelings about this. The neural upscale certainly did a great job, but the Allied cutscene shown in the reveal made a slightly odd impression on me. As if the upscale somehow made the live action part look less professional and more of a homemade VHS tape. The actors seem to stand out more against the digitized background compared to the low-res originals (maybe some sharpening was involved during upscale), and generally I got the feeling almost as if you're looking at raw footage that has not been processed yet, and not the final product.

    Also some parts of the frames appear blurry in the upscale, e.g. in certain frames Von Esling's eyes look very blurry.

    If this is not my imagination overall, perhaps the upscaled videos may yet be improved with some post-processing while staying true to the originals.


  14. The game data still has an almost complete set of voxel versions of Tiberian Dawn vehicles. I believe they might have been made either for testing purposes or during a very early stage of development as valid TS units. Either way, only the Mammoth and the Flame Tank make any appearance in the final game missions (both used by the mutant faction IIRC), and the Mammoth can also randomly spawn as an Easter egg unit from crates in skirmish/multiplayer.

    I have no idea if Nod was supposed to get Mammoths as some kind of tech tree reversal compared to TD (i.e. GDI gets futuristic stuff like mech walkers and hovercraft while Nod has to stick with previous generation hardware) or this was just a promo shot thrown together with no real tech tree philosophy behind.

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