Are Some of the Scenes Upscaled?

[jkoz]

I know they don't...everyone will buy the damn thing anyway, but I spent a good chunk of change importing this and to find out that half the movie isn't in its advertised quality really sucks.

 

[RPG Tony]

I too was pretty pissed off. Another reason why the added scenes are noticeably different is because the original scenes were rendered with the White Engine, whereas the new scenes are rendered with Crystal Tools (basically a newer version of the White Engine, which is currently being used for the FNC games). This is the reason why Cloud's new face render looks a lot like Noctis' if you haven't noticed, mostly in terms of the eyes and nose.

Square definitely won't do anything about it now, they've already got my money. :/

 

[CloudStrife1992]

Well, the new scenes article is 'a bit long', too, . Just let me know when you're ready and whatnot. It might take a bit of practice to get to know the systems though, but at least the image management is good - i.e. you can upload all your imagery (if any) in one go.

Also, Dacon's post is pretty conclusive, lol . The new scenes do look a lot more detailed and pretty and whatnot than the original ones, really.

Yes, it is pretty conclusive

Thanks, I posted what I've got so far. Though you'll probably notice that before this post.

 

[Cthulhu]

Say, should we do an article on this subject for the frontpage? It's not all informative or good news we have to bring, .

If someone could compile a few scenes that were just upscaled and put them next to a new scene, and/or an 'original / ACC' comparison, that'd be awesome.

 

[jkoz]

I think that'd be a great idea. I can try and see if I can do some screens tonight.

This really needs to be broadcasted for people to know.

 

[Tetsujin]

I'm going to go ahead and say that no movie really needs upscaling. Live action movies on 35mm film? Perfectly HD capable with a master in good condition. There's still room for higher resolutions even.

And CG?

CG movies are always, and I mean ALWAYS rendered at REALLY high resolutions. The source material is most likely rendered at a much higher resolution than just 1080p.

They even commented in an interview that the original material already was HD etc.

The Crisis Core FMVs also were already in HD when they rendered them originally (what, you think they actually work with 272p there? )
And it's a shame, really. The CC ending you've seen there gives us a glimpse at what ALL of those CC FMVs look like on the computers they're rendered on - and it all had to be compressed to that itty-bitty format. =/

You can't just upscale movies. That wouldn't be any different than having an upscale feature for DVDs in you BD player. There's no upscaling procedure that allows to create additional detail if the detail wasn't there in the first place. CG movies would have the advantage of being re-renderable, but yeah as I said...not necessary.
There's nothing to "upscaled" when the original resolution of movies like that is already a couple of thousand by a couple of thousand pixels. You could make it even more HD without re-rendering it.

If any of you think the older scenes look different compared to the rest of the material than it's probably just because they used different techniques/improved technology and had some extra time to make them extra shiny.
But it's foolish to think they just "upscaled" them when they have the original HD material all over their computers. It also wouldn't look any different than a DVD then. And it's definitely much sharper than that.

I too was pretty pissed off. Another reason why the added scenes are noticeably different is because the original scenes were rendered with the White Engine, whereas the new scenes are rendered with Crystal Tools (basically a newer version of the White Engine, which is currently being used for the FNC games). This is the reason why Cloud's new face render looks a lot like Noctis' if you haven't noticed, mostly in terms of the eyes and nose.

They don't use these engines for those pre-rendered graphics, I'm pretty sure.
That's a graphics engine for consoles etc. They use programs like Maya for CGI movies.

 

[Max Payne]

Some of the scenes really don't look much better than the original DVD man.

Rpg Tony, do you have a source on anything you just said?

 

[Tetsujin]

Eh, they do. That's bullshit.

 

[Max Payne]

Look at the scenes I posted man.

They don't look much better than they originally did. If I had a copy of the original film handy, I take pics of the DVD version to compare alongside it.

You're not really proving me wrong by just saying "that's bullshit".

 

[Max Payne]

note that I said not THAT MUCH better. Not that they didn't look any better.

It's just that it looks a lot like it did the last time I saw AC upscaled to 1080p on an HD tv.

 

[jkoz]

Say, should we do an article on this subject for the frontpage? It's not all informative or good news we have to bring, .

If someone could compile a few scenes that were just upscaled and put them next to a new scene, and/or an 'original / ACC' comparison, that'd be awesome.

Here's two pretty good comparisons:

Rufus:
Upscale:
HD:

Marlene:
Upscale:
HD:

 

[SausageofPower]

But it's foolish to think they just "upscaled" them when they have the original HD material all over their computers. It also wouldn't look any different than a DVD then. And it's definitely much sharper than that.

I disagree. Ever hear of the Downscaling-Upscaling Test?

This is where you take a screen shot from the Blu-ray at 1920x1080, downscale it to 853x480 and then upscale it back to 1920x1080. If there's no noticeable loss in detail between the original 1920x1080 picture and the image you just created, then chances are the original master was created at 480p.

Honestly, did Advent Children get created at a higher resolution? It's very possible, but for whatever reason SquareEnix decided to simply upscale existing footage for some scenes. It's extremely obvious, and now it can be proven on a technical level. Any difference you see, in terms of improvement, between the BD and DVD in these scenes can easily be attributed to higher bitrates and a more efficient codec. It doesn't mean the master was a higher resolution.

-Corey

 

[Tetsujin]

Of course it was created at higher resolution. As I said, EVERY CGI movie is. As are special effects for movies etc.
There's absolutely no reason as to why they should use SD material when they have the HD stuff on their comps. And they said that AC already was HD in an interview once.

 

[SausageofPower]

Of course it was created at higher resolution. As I said, EVERY CGI movie is. As are special effects for movies etc.
There's absolutely no reason as to why they should use SD material when they have the HD stuff on their comps. And they said that AC already was HD in an interview once.

...did you read my post at all, or are you just in "broken record" mode?

-Corey

 

[Tetsujin]

Well prove me that it is actually just upscaled.

 

[SausageofPower]

Well prove me that it is actually just upscaled.

Okay, sure:

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s31/majinvejitaxv/pdvd060r.jpg
New Scene, original 1080p resolution from BD.

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s31/majinvejitaxv/pdvd060rdu.jpg
After Downscale-Upscale test. Notice some loss in detail, like Cloud's earring in particular (it's a fine detail, so it suffers more). Verdict: New scene was encoded from an HD master.

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s31/majinvejitaxv/pdvd058c-1.jpg
Old scene, original 1080p resolution from BD.

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s31/majinvejitaxv/pdvd058cdut-1.jpg
After Downscale-Upscale test. Notice it's exactly the same. No detail was lost because it didn't exist to begin with. Verdict: This scene was upscaled from an SD source.

Good enough?

-Corey

 

[jkoz]

I had a post with pics, and it told me that it would have to be screened by the mod and it never showed up...... o.O

 

[Tetsujin]

Okay, sure:

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s31/majinvejitaxv/pdvd060r.jpg
New Scene, original 1080p resolution from BD.

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s31/majinvejitaxv/pdvd060rdu.jpg
After Downscale-Upscale test. Notice some loss in detail, like Cloud's earring in particular (it's a fine detail, so it suffers more). Verdict: New scene was encoded from an HD master.

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s31/majinvejitaxv/pdvd058c-1.jpg
Old scene, original 1080p resolution from BD.

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s31/majinvejitaxv/pdvd058cdut-1.jpg
After Downscale-Upscale test. Notice it's exactly the same. No detail was lost because it didn't exist to begin with. Verdict: This scene was upscaled from an SD source.

Good enough?

-Corey

Wow, that's incredibly ghey then.

I mean, fact still is that they MUST have high-resolution renders on their workstations. So why would they upscale SD material? I don't get it. That's just....bleh. =/

I demand ACCC.

 

[Max Payne]

That's why we were complaining Tet

They had plenty of time, and the resources to rerender the whole thing.

 

[Cthulhu]

That downscale / upscale test is something I should remember, actually. Neat.

And yesh, they could re-render the whole thing easily. But then, I dunno, but wouldn't the 'old' textures look terrible on high-res then?

 

[Max Payne]

Pretty sure the same textures where used in the new footage bub.

 

[jkoz]

That downscale / upscale test is something I should remember, actually. Neat.

And yesh, they could re-render the whole thing easily. But then, I dunno, but wouldn't the 'old' textures look terrible on high-res then?

Square would not have gone through the trouble of making this movie without creating extremely high resolution textures. The movie was technically made in HD; the polygon count used to create the characters didn't matter since it just translated over into video. They rendered it and just downscaled the video's resolution to DVD specs. There's no relation to the resolution of the textures and the resolution of the video (DVD/BR), since to get the level of detail in the characters that they did, it would have had to be modeled at an extremely high poly count anyway.

 

[Tetsujin]

Yeah, that's what I've been saying too.

Though that makes me wonder why the old scenes seem to be no different from upscaled scenes apparently...

 

[Channy]

I was watching it just now, and scenes in the Forgotten City, when Cloud and Marlene walk off are unchanged, and look just.. blurry in comparison to a new scene, say when Kadaj and Loz are talking about Jenova and the Materia, and you can seeeee texture in their clothes.

 

[jkoz]

Yeah, that's what I've been saying too.

Though that makes me wonder why the old scenes seem to be no different from upscaled scenes apparently...

I don't think you understand upscaling, from your statement. Upscaling is simply taking the standard definition content and using technology to "add" pixels to make it look a bit better. If you played the original DVD on your PS3 or any upscaling DVD player, it would look the same as the old scenes in ACC's Blu-Ray. Essentially, they might as well have pasted in the old DVD scenes and then incorporated the new ones. The "upscaled" scenes are only 480p (~720x480 or 852x480 depending on the source), which is exactly what the DVD is. The product they release is more or less half DVD and half Blu-Ray. The old scenes are no different. That's why they look no different.