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Jannak

Does anyone play software mode anymore? (and Sprite Clipping)

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1 minute ago, Edward850 said:

N64's/Doom64's texture filter is a custom three-point filter. If it was just bilinear or even trilinear, we wouldn't have had to implement our filter. :P

 

Huh, that goes under "Things about Doom you just found out" I guess :p.

 

That actually explains why it doesn't ruin the game since the original hardware version doesn't look bad at all with it (from my POV at least), which makes it a conscious decision on Midway's part.

 

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1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

I’m actually not fundamentally against filters, it’s more that the default ones for some ports seem to be really blurry. There are others that try to round out the pixels a bit while still maintaining the sharpness - those ones are cool, and I can see how people who came to Doom off the back of newer games might like that. I just wish the default/common ones weren’t quite so blurred, it goes past the point of just smoothing it out to full blown blurriness, unfortunately.

Right, this is an all too common mistake people make regarding filters. They need to be combined with some form of high quality resize to get back some of the sharpness lost during the smoothing process. It's unfortunately not intuitive unless you enjoy nerding it out and messing with various menu settings.

 

Let's observe Scythe 2 map30: The first image is my default setup for GLBoom+, using nearest texture filtering, 4x Anti-Aliasing, and 16x Anisotropic Filtering. The above settings are so image quality does not deteriorate with distance.

Spoiler

XGpBTyl.png

 

Now let's look at what people usually think of when somebody mentions filtering. Same setup as above but, instead of nearest, the texture filter is cranked up to trilinear. While visuals further away look similar, textures and sprites up close are very much blurred.

Spoiler

TzZloIj.png

 

Now, we apply Scale3X resizing to the above settings to make that detail pop! And we get back the detail seen in the pixelated first image, but smoothed and rounded for the modern audience. You can see the individual pixels, but they are curved and blended for the 21st century visual experience. GZDoom has an even better resize in the form of xBRZ. You can also do resizing besides the 3X I used as an example, but I think 3 is the perfect balance between looking too blurry or looking too sharp.

Spoiler

K8Amo2l.png

 

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i dislike that too tbh

 

what's the goal?

 

is it to look more real? because doom will never look real, and it's not even desirable.

 

is it to look more detailed? what does that mean, really? why is that an improvement?

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yeah. it looks cartoonish (in a bad sense), with jagged edges (like somebody badly painted it). yes, i know that there is no perfect rescaling algo. that's why i think that rescaling low-res pixel graphics is even worser than bluring it. ;-) the only way to rescale such gfx is to manually redraw it.

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To me the first screenshot looks far and away the best, but the third's oil painting look still has a level of clarity that's missing with the second's 'compressed jpeg' look. I never understood the aversion to pixels personally, even when it was the hot thing to not have visible squares in a game.

 

I can't help but wonder if the semi-common pixel aversion (for lack of a better term) is strictly down to people being told they are bad by late 90's/early 2000's game marketing, when hardware limitations were rapidly rising, or if there's more to it than that and some people just genuinely have an in-built distaste for the aesthetic. From an artistic standpoint, pixelated images of course seem just as valid as 'smoothed' ones.

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31 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I can't help but wonder if the semi-common pixel aversion (for lack of a better term) is strictly down to people being told they are bad by late 90's/early 2000's game marketing, when hardware limitations were rapidly rising, or if there's more to it than that and some people just genuinely have an in-built distaste for the aesthetic.

We could find out by making a "Why do people prefer using filters?" thread. Though I predict the amount of legitimate responses from people who dislike pixels will get overshadowed by drive-by shitposters flexing their retro-cred. "Go play a modern game if you hate pixels!" etc.

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1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

To me the first screenshot looks far and away the best, but the third's oil painting look still has a level of clarity that's missing with the second's 'compressed jpeg' look. I never understood the aversion to pixels personally, even when it was the hot thing to not have visible squares in a game.

 

I can't help but wonder if the semi-common pixel aversion (for lack of a better term) is strictly down to people being told they are bad by late 90's/early 2000's game marketing, when hardware limitations were rapidly rising, or if there's more to it than that and some people just genuinely have an in-built distaste for the aesthetic. From an artistic standpoint, pixelated images of course seem just as valid as 'smoothed' ones.

 

Ya I love the first picture too. But nah, like I said, it's just personal preference, probably mixed with simply not liking the pixelated look, similar to how we loathe blurred sprites, but in reverse. I doubt that has anything to do with others criticizing the look in the past.

 

And yea, like other said, to make texture filtering look even remotely decent and retain at least a bit of that clear, pixelated look, you also need to use a rescaling method, and maybe combine that with one of those neural upscale packs. Unfortunately though, no option is good enough. In order to have sprites look good with filtering you have to manually redraw them youself.

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i, for myself, know for sure why i HAET texture filtering. the reason is very simple: i have a very poor eyesight. like, it is very poor, i cannot clearly see things several meters away. and with that blurring i can't clearly see things even right before my nose! ;-) so i am automatically trying to better focus my eyes (which is, of course, impossible), and that causes both eyeache and headache.

 

that's also why i hate font antialiasing too.

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