Digitally-upscaled remakes of classic pixel art games are usually a crime against eyeballs, but these incredible Doom sprites — generated with the help of neural networks — Ware proof that maybe that won’t be the case forever.
Hidfan over at the Doomworld forums has run original Doom textures through two different neural networks specifically designed for image upscaling: letsenhance.io and Nividia’s GameWorks SuperResolution.
The textures are artificially upscaled to 8x, then downscaled to 4x, then downscaled again to 2x fit the pixellated aesthetic, with any rough edges cleaned up manually.
The end result is a game that, while maintaining the spirit of the original game’s aesthetic, is now looking a lot sharper:
Neural net upscaling is getting scary good https://t.co/3LBpYBHfc7 pic.twitter.com/PUOMgby4So
— doom_txt (@doom_txt) November 11, 2018
If you want to try it out yourself, this thread will get you started.
Comments
4 responses to “‘HD’ Doom Is Looking Very Nice”
That’s quite impressive. From the forum, it sounds like we’re seeing the results of manual touch ups after the machine learning based upscale process. So it’s not just the algorithms to credit here.
I remember reading a review of Doom when it first came out in Megazone. What these look like now, is what I remember it looking like to me back then.
Is cool.
Easily 5% better overall.
Will this version allow me to aim up?
Sacrilege!