When I was young and the Gamecube was about to be released, I was in awe. In my memories the games almost look like they were pre-rendered "Pixar" CGI, Luigi's Mansion especially.
But the problem is that on emulator or rather on PC, the particular processing and shading that gave it this coherent, smoothed-out look on console always got broken by the PC raw interpretation of graphics, which looks clearer, but also way more aliased and polygonal.
So I know the techniques used by console don't necessary mean better quality graphic, especially the annoying grey blurs, but there's just something about the way graphic were coherently smoothed on console and I want to get that effect back on Dolphin.
Is there a way, with current graphic technologies, drivers and shaders, to have some smoothing FX, gaussian blurring or shaders to have something that looks coherently smoothed and continuous in the whole scene like on actual consoles?
Thanks.
If you want it to perfectly match console, use 1x Internal Resolution, Make sure the copy filter is not disabled, and turn off all the hacks. In a game like Luigi's Mansion, this will more or less result in a 1:1 reproduction of how the game looks on console.
It's almost certainly more rose tinted memories than anything else
Most of the "blur" was due to the analogue connections and slightly fuzzy view CRTs give - the output from the gamecube console itself is the same as the output from dolphin (small bugs excepted).
If you get your old TV you used to play on, plug that into a digital->analogue converter from a modern PC, it'll look exactly as it used to. But I suspect that won't be as "good" as you remember
EDIT: You could probably get a similar effect by putting on really dirty glasses.
It may be possible to replicate some of the smoother feel using post-processing pixel shaders. There are a few additional ones provided in
the DolphinFX thread. Though I'm guessing most of the pre-installed/DolphinFX effects won't align with what you want. You might have better luck with some one of the shader injector tools (i.e. SweetFX, GeDoSaTo, GEMFX, and ReShade), though I'm unclear how well any of them work out with Dolphin.
(11-07-2018, 03:52 PM)Kolano Wrote: [ -> ]It may be possible to replicate some of the smoother feel using post-processing pixel shaders. There are a few additional ones provided in the DolphinFX thread. Though I'm guessing most of the pre-installed/DolphinFX effects won't align with what you want. You might have better luck with some one of the shader injector tools (i.e. SweetFX, GeDoSaTo, GEMFX, and ReShade), though I'm unclear how well any of them work out with Dolphin.
Thanks. I'm familiar with the different DolphinFX (although I though it was discontinued?) and shader injector, but I don't know of specific ones that could achieve what I was thinking about.
I should have mentionned the most obvious examples which are Crash Bandicoot and Spyro Trilogies remaster: they achieve an almost animated CGI look while remaining true to the originals. I wonder if those kinds of smoothing were possible on Dolphin.
Partially, you can load HD textures in Dolphin but polygons will remain unchanged. Obviously, if you have a powerful PC, higher IR and SSAA at least remove jaggies from polygons.
Crash and Spyro aren't emulation, they're fully remade games with all new assets based on the original ones.
Edit : you can also try very good CRT shaders from RetroArch, but afaik their Dolphin core is still not perfect and not really up to date. But I think it's worth taking a look considering your needs.
(11-07-2018, 10:46 PM)DrHouse64 Wrote: [ -> ]Partially, you can load HD textures in Dolphin but polygons will remain unchanged. Obviously, if you have a powerful PC, higher IR and SSAA at least remove jaggies from polygons.
Crash and Spyro aren't emulation, they're fully remade games with all new assets based on the original ones.
Edit : you can also try very good CRT shaders from RetroArch, but afaik their Dolphin core is still not perfect and not really up to date. But I think it's worth taking a look considering your needs.
Thanks although I'm not looking for CRT shader or color/pixel bleeding, but rather that new Crash or Spyro almost animation CGI feel. I read somewhere there was volumetric and pixel gaussian blur which could be the type of thing I'm searching for but I don't see any example.
If you're looking for high-poly models, unfortunately that's totally impossible. It's still a GCN/Wii, so you can't do things that they couldn't (aside from overclocking the cpu). You can get high-res texture packs though. I'd recommend cranking the IR as high as your computer can handle (but not higher than your monitor's resolution) and using an HD texture pack for the best look, depending on the game maybe increase something like AA or adding shaders.
Ishiiruka has tessellation and displacement shaders. You can increase the polygons per model with this
technique but it's very very very cumbersome for anything other than static terrain.
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-un...om-version
All this said, I guess if someone was ambitious enough they could create some sort of tessellation baker
that takes low poly models and derives the needed tessellation displacement data based on
human recommendation sets of equivalent high poly models.
It would be akin to other new AI learning based approaches like Deep Fakes or Nvidia's DLSS.
Doubtful that anyone knowledgeable in this type of AI would deign to visit here though...
(11-19-2018, 11:36 AM)SCOTT0852 Wrote: [ -> ]If you're looking for high-poly models, unfortunately that's totally impossible.
Project M did replacement models, so no. It's just hard. REALLY hard. And requires modifying the game ISO.
(11-19-2018, 03:46 PM)nbohr1more Wrote: [ -> ]Ishiiruka has tessellation and displacement shaders. You can increase the polygons per model with this
technique but it's very very very cumbersome for anything other than static terrain.
https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-un...om-version
All this said, I guess if someone was ambitious enough they could create some sort of tessellation baker
that takes low poly models and derives the needed tessellation displacement data based on
human recommendation sets of equivalent high poly models.
It would be akin to other new AI learning based approaches like Deep Fakes or Nvidia's DLSS.
Doubtful that anyone knowledgeable in this type of AI would deign to visit here though...
There is no reason to AI anything here. Tessellation is already designed to use data from higher polygon models to allow for actually adding detail. That said, there's no way to integrate that into GameCube games without rebuilding the game's engine, and that is not something Dolphin can do.
Besides, if you already have better models built, then just swap them in by editing the ISO. There's no need for AI or tesselation or game engine modding or anything! It just all comes down to the labor cost of making high quality 3D models and assets. It's just hard, and no one is willing to do that. I'm certainly not going to spend hundreds of hours on that.