14 replies to this topic

[Senjougahara]

Summary

 

I have used a deep convolutional neural network to upscale plane textures by a factor of 4 without quality loss, in most cases this results in a texture with dimensions of at least 4k pixels (sometimes up to 8k for larger planes).

 

The main benefit of this is for modders it's much easier to add small details onto the texture or changing colours etc.; and if you want to keep the files at reasonable levels you can downscale and most of the time achieve a better result than working on the smaller file from the start, even when going all the way back to vanilla texture sizes. The file sizes of the full textures are very large now so I highly recommend downscaling (you can downscale by 50% and still be twice the size vanilla to get a middle ground). I have included the alpha channel in files where it is used - there are some vanilla files with empty alpha channels so I've removed those to save file space (about 8MB per file).

 

That being said even if you're not a modder you can still use these files just as they are and see an improvement in detail, most noticeable is where camouflage changes colour (see attached screenshot, using full 4K texture file). Though given how large these files are there will probably be a significant impact on performance.

 

The new file sizes vary from about 8MB to 64MB per skin.

 

Use these files as you wish for yourself or in your mods, no need to ask permission or credit me if you are creating mods from these.

 

If more skins are added to existing planes I won't always notice so if you see any missing please let me know and I can get them done.

 

Download

 

Completed all planes in the client as of 2.1.0.0

 

In the interest of uploading/downloading faster I've used the maximum compression available on the zip, so it may take a while to unpack. To give an example: the size for the German zip is 1.46GB compressed vs 7.5GB uncompressed.

 

All German plane textures in 4K

1.46GB Download

All USA plane textures in 4K

1.29GB Download

All UK plane textures in 4K

780MB Download

All Japan plane textures in 4K

592MB Download

All China plane textures in 4K

233MB Download

All France plane textures in 4K

96MB Download

All USSR plane textures in 4K

1.58GB Download

All Czech plane textures in 4K
20MB Download
All Swedish plane textures in 4K
19MB Download
All Israeli plane textures in 4K
13MB Download
All Polish plane textures in 4K
12MB Download

 

Previews

https://puu.sh/BpuKW/4671379ddc.png

https://puu.sh/BpuXI/69def4b07f.png

Edited by Senjougahara, 13 July 2019 - 02:39 PM.

[Oleqsa]

Nice work!!
Are you batch converting them or by hand?
I'd convert all files into PNGs in XNView (it has option to show all files in subfolders, so you can do them all at once with RMB menu Convert Into option). Then move all files with folders structure using total commander move just certain file types option. Then upscale them, then batch convert back into dds.

It still will take a heck lot of time just to manage it all. 

[Senjougahara]

Updated with USA planes

[Senjougahara]

Oleqsa, on 11 September 2018 - 02:01 AM, said:

Nice work!!
Are you batch converting them or by hand?
I'd convert all files into PNGs in XNView (it has option to show all files in subfolders, so you can do them all at once with RMB menu Convert Into option). Then move all files with folders structure using total commander move just certain file types option. Then upscale them, then batch convert back into dds.

It still will take a heck lot of time just to manage it all. 

 

Most of it is done with batch work. Batch convert all textures to .png (~10 minutes), then batch upscale (~8 hours), then batch convert back to .dds (~4 hours due to compression). The only problem is this doesn't get the alpha channel so I need to extract the alpha channel manually from each texture that requires it (maybe 10% of them), then I can batch upscale those, and then manually add them back into the textures. Then I use further 7zip compression to make the whole lot as small as possible since my upload speed sucks.

[Oleqsa]

Senjougahara, on 11 September 2018 - 08:39 AM, said:

 The only problem is this doesn't get the alpha channel so I need to extract the alpha channel manually from each texture th

 

You don't have the alpha channel in DDS cause you are saving in DXT1 subformat that can't have alpha channel. 

So after upscaling PNGs, you should batch save skins that don't need A-channel in DDS DXT1 and those that need it batch save in DDS DXT5. 

That's how you avoid extra step of manually upscaling A-channels

[Senjougahara]

Oleqsa, on 11 September 2018 - 10:33 AM, said:

 

You don't have the alpha channel in DDS cause you are saving in DXT1 subformat that can't have alpha channel. 

So after upscaling PNGs, you should batch save skins that don't need A-channel in DDS DXT1 and those that need it batch save in DDS DXT5. 

That's how you avoid extra step of manually upscaling A-channels

 

It loses the alpha channel when I convert to .png, I can't find a way to convert from .dds to .png while preserving the alpha channel, any method I try removes the alpha channel.

[Oleqsa]

Senjougahara, on 11 September 2018 - 12:08 PM, said:

 

It loses the alpha channel when I convert to .png, I can't find a way to convert from .dds to .png while preserving the alpha channel, any method I try removes the alpha channel.

 

use this viewer https://www.xnview.com/en/

go into a folder, select dds files, rightclick and choose 'convert into'

 

then in total commander use MOVE command and type *.png in second field

 

this way you get all PNGs with A-channel and then move only all PNG files with folder structure kept.

 

Also i wonder why don't you upscale _detail.dds? It contains all nuts, bolts and small stuff that makes the plane more detailed. It might have some max allowed size, but also makes a plane more interesting. Same with _crash.dds

[Senjougahara]

Oleqsa, on 11 September 2018 - 01:45 PM, said:

 

use this viewer https://www.xnview.com/en/

go into a folder, select dds files, rightclick and choose 'convert into'

 

 

then in total commander use MOVE command and type *.png in second field

 

 

this way you get all PNGs with A-channel and then move only all PNG files with folder structure kept.

 

Also i wonder why don't you upscale _detail.dds? It contains all nuts, bolts and small stuff that makes the plane more detailed. It might have some max allowed size, but also makes a plane more interesting. Same with _crash.dds

 

I was experimenting with different file formats and found .tiff saves the alpha channel fine with the programs I'm using so I'll just use that as an intermediary file format for the next batches to save myself some work.

 

I can do the other files like detail.dds and crash.dds too, but I wanted to start with just this stuff to see how well it would work.

[Senjougahara]

Updated with UK planes

[Senjougahara]

Updated with Japan planes

[Senjougahara]

Added French and Chinese planes

 

Added new planes to previously uploaded packages:

 

Germany:

• Tier 8: BV P.203

USA:

• Tier 5: B-17D
• Tier 6: B-17G & XP-55
• Tier 7: B-32

Japan:

• Tier 5: Ki-45
• Tier 6: Ki-102
• Tier 7: Ki-93

[ComradeZ]

How does this effect performance? Also it noticeable even at 4k fullscreen?

[Senjougahara]

Added new planes to previously uploaded packages:

 

Germany:

• Junkers Ju 288 A
• Junkers Ju 288 C
• Junkers Ju 287
• Junkers EF 131
• Horten Ho 229

 

UK:

• Hawker P.V.3
• Hawker Typhoon
• Hawker Tempest
• Hawker Sea Hawk
• Hawker Hunter
• Bristol Beaufighter V IM

 

Japan (reupload as they appeared to be missing from the previous package):

• Kawasaki Ki-45
• Kawasaki Ki-102
• Rikugun Ki-93

 

I'll work on the USSR planes next

 

ComradeZ, on 28 November 2018 - 12:53 AM, said:

How does this effect performance? Also it noticeable even at 4k fullscreen?

 

I haven't tested running ALL skins in full 4K textures, but I can imagine it would consume more graphics memory and take longer to load. But ultimately it depends on your specs, I have a RTX 2080 with 8GB of graphics memory so using these doesn't really affect my performance as much as it would somebody playing on a laptop. The main benefit of this is for modders who want to edit small details onto the plane, I find you get a better result if you edit a 4K texture file then downscale to the original size, than you would if you tried editing the small details straight on the original size texture. And you can downscale these to 2K and still have larger more detailed textures than the originals at less of a performance cost than the full 4K textures.

[Senjougahara]

All USSR planes completed.

 

I'll continue to add planes/skins as they get added to the client, but let me know if I miss any.

[Senjougahara]

Updated for 2.1.0

 

Added:

• Avia Bk-534, а Czechoslovakian (European) Tier III fighter
• PZL P-38 Wilk, а Polish (European) Tier III heavy fighter
• Avia S-199, an Israeli (European) Tier VI multirole fighter
• SAAB J 21RB, a Swedish (European) Tier VIII multirole fighter
• P-82B Twin Mustang, an American Tier VIII heavy fighter