Using hq4x filter to process textures

[Rice]

I said before that hq4x filter could be very handy to enhance some type of textures.

Someone may ask: why bother? why can I just enable the hq4x filter in the plugin instead of using it manually to make hires textures?

The reason is that such magnify filter only work well for certain type of textures, not all types. If you use the filter in the plugin, it will work pretty good for very few textures, and it will screw most other textures. Using it with Mario 64, it will make the sky very blocky.

But it is useful in some cases. What is it good for:

- textures without blur, without gradient

Another reason to use external hq4x application to manually enhance texture is that you can modify the generate texture in your image editing softwares. The filter does not always work as you expect. Manually modify generated texture will make the texture much better look.


Best place to use:
- Zelda maps
- font textures without blur

I will post some examples later.

[Rice]

Some shots with the font text pack I made for SM64 by the help of hq4x filter.

SS 1 to 4 are using hires textures, and SS 5 to 8 are not using hires textures.

[Rice]

The SM64 font texture pack I just made with the hq4x help. I did some not major manual modification on the generated textures. Anyone is welcomed to do further modification on these textures.

EDIT: Manually fixed a few font textures, and added textures for letter "q" and "x".

[Rice]

Other examples with Zelda maps. These two maps are generated without manual modification.

[optimus$prime]

Other examples with Zelda maps. These two maps are generated with manual modification.

great idea; it looks perfect and saves a lot of time....

[Clements]

Tried the font pack out, and it looks great. Much less of a need to turn hq4x on which can distort some of the textures. I did notice that the lower case 'q' is missing when I talked to one of the Toads on the second floor of the castle.

[V-King]

Looks really cool ^^

But I have a question:
Where can I get such external hq4x plugins?
I hope that question sound not too stupid ^^"

EDIT: Thanks, JinXD ;)

[JinXD]

Looks really cool ^^

But I have a question:
Where can I get such external hq4x plugins?
I hope that question sound not too stupid ^^"http://www.hiend3d.com/hq4x.html >> I take it you meant this :P

[Federelli]

Call me stupid, but i need a GUI version of HQ4x since all that the executable does is open and close.

[Rice]

Federelli

They came out only the DOS version, and you have to convert PNG to BMP(or TGA) in order to use it, then you may have to convert BMP back to PNG.
Doing conversion in the PSP batch processing mode could be a little help for you.

But I went another way, directly with the debugger version of the plugin.
1. With hq4x filter disabled, run the game and find a texture you would like to be filtered by hq4x.
2. Pause the emulator, go to video plugin options and enable hq4x filter.
3. Resume the emulator, you should see the texture is filtered by hq4x.
4. Use debugger to step through until the drawing primitive in which the texture is used.
5. Use the debugger to dump RGBA of the texture. The debugger will dump the original texture, together with the filtered texture. The debugger should open a window to show you the texture in use which is the filtered texture. The filtered texture filename should end with "_all_debugger.png", and the file is located at your "D:\".
6. Grap the file, and do manual modification if you want.
7. Move the file to hires folder, rename it correctly for it to be loaded as a hires texture.

[Federelli]

Oook... what exactly is a "drawing primitive"

[Rice]

Just try to step by pressing the [Next] button, select the "Flush Tri" in the drop down menu on the left. Each time you press [Next], the plugin will stop at the next drawing. It could be a group of triangles, a texture rectangle, and so on.

So just use the [next] button to step through it.

[Federelli]

I'll see what i can do, when there's less studying to do :P.