Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy HD Retexture

[Niosai]

Updated link as of 6/27/2024: https://github.com/Niosa/D012FFRT

I've been working on this on and off for a couple of weeks, now. I'm trying to stay as close as I can to the original artwork and style as possible by remaking most everything from scratch myself.

Some art I don't have the skill to remake, in which case I've been sourcing it from the highest possible quality source. In some instances, no source exists and as a last resort I've used AI upscaling algorithms. Fortunately, I've only had to use this for the art in the menus and part of the actual game's logo, but I do plan on attempting to mitigate this in the future.

To put it simply, I'm avoiding plugging the art into an upscaler unless it is an absolute last resort.

Because of the way Dissidia handles text, I'm not sure if it's feasible to replace all of the text in the game. At least, not by myself.* However, I will be doing all of the important text in menus, battles, etc.

*So in most games, there's a font table. Essentially, it's a big picture that has every letter and character used in the game. Games like Crisis Core use a table like this. Replacing the table with a higher quality one would be simple and require modifying one file to make it all HD. However, Dissidia seems to have a different image file for each individual line of text. This means that every spoken line, every bit of dialogue, etc. has its own image that would have to be replaced and fixed. That's tens of thousands of files and it would take actual years to do. If anyone knows of a simpler solution, please let me know as it would be a shame if that's the only hurdle I hit with this project.

I've attached some screenshots of my progress as of a few days ago. Keep in mind that everything here is WIP and subject to change, and feedback is 100% encouraged. Keep in mind that the artwork is not going to be 100% identical to the original unless there is a high-resolution (not just upscaled) version of the original artwork out there. In remaking new artwork, I've done my best to keep the style as close as I can to the original game while making it look crisp and new.

EDIT 3/11/2021: These are SUPER old screenshots and not at all representative of what's there now. Leaving them up until I can get some newer shots.









I hope you enjoy what you see so far, and I'm 100% open to feedback! I'll be realistic here and say upfront that this project may not ever be 100% complete. I'm only one person and this game doesn't exactly have a big audience anymore. (ie. no one would actually use this)

I've mostly been doing it for fun and at this point it'd just be a novelty for most people. But it is still cool to see the game up-rezzed a bit.

[AkiraJkr]

This is looking really nice, and I'm loving how the textures were redone for the UI! Any plans in adding a download link or hosting it in GitHub in the future! Also, if you're looking for the Final Fantasy logos, feel free to fork over for yourself the ones I have in my repository! This game deserves the attention.

But I'm liking how most things looks like they were redone, when there isn't a feasible source or way to make them look right. If you end up finding textures that change dynamically, I recommend not wasting time with those, as they are nigh-impossible to replace, let alone not accidentally make them static.

[Ren71]

aaku suka dissidia and aku suka karya lu

[Ren71]

I like your project

[Fiend]

Hey there just letting you know this looks dope and I look forward to seeing updates in the future!

[Niosai]

0.1 is out!

I'm calling this "Alpha 0.1" because it's nowhere near done. I've finished all character select portraits (unless I can source higher resolution art for a couple of the characters) and Character select names, along with battle UI elements. Some stuff is still missing, including the avatar icons, but I'll get around to it one of these days. This is all 100% remade, no upscaling used outside of one single element in the main menu's background that you can't even really see. Remember, it's nowhere near done.

Here's the link! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YjaH1Yo...sp=sharing

[AkiraJkr]

Question, how many x is the size of the textures compared to original? Just asking incase they are above 3x, to see if a 3x version could be provided, as higher than that can be kinda overkill for monitors of 1080p or below.

PS: I also recommend you check the official texture pack guides and more, so you can learn how to make your texture pack installable(in multiple versions of the same game) and more.
https://forums.ppsspp.org/showthread.php?tid=25054

[vannessqn]

cant wait to test it!

[Niosai]

For anyone wondering: This project is still going! It's just been a rough year. Slowly, but surely, I've made lots of progress.

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(10-27-2020 05:59 PM)AkiraJkr Wrote:  Question, how many x is the size of the textures compared to original? Just asking incase they are above 3x, to see if a 3x version could be provided, as higher than that can be kinda overkill for monitors of 1080p or below.

PS: I also recommend you check the official texture pack guides and more, so you can learn how to make your texture pack installable(in multiple versions of the same game) and more.
https://forums.ppsspp.org/showthread.php?tid=25054

Apologies for the late reply. The textures are all 4x native. If need be, I could maybe find a way to make them 3x instead. 4x seems to be the sweet spot for 1080p, though. Also the sweet spot for hi-res source artwork.

[AkiraJkr]

Yeah, that is fine, if it's the sweet spot for what you're working on, there's really no problem, it's just unusual for things to need to be over 3x most of the time, if even a little too much for the emulator.

[Niosai]

Here's the "I bet you thought this was dead" post lmao

I've made some progress. A HUGE chunk of the UI is done. Some of it is still the original artwork, but it's very much improved. Only character portraits missing are the ones in story mode and some of the assist portraits.

Download link here

[DrakeyC]

Great to see this updated, very nice!

One glitch I noticed in the original pack that is still in this one, there is a slight discoloration on edges of highlighted slots when selecting things in the menu. I included screencaps so you can see.







On the matter of the stage icons, I could offer some help, possibly. I have some (slim) knowledge of model viewers, so I could plausible recreate the icons. I can't give a timeframe on that though, some may need a lot more worth than others and I've my own stuff going on. But as a test, I tried my hand at recreating the World of Darkness icon.



Note the black around the grind bars is because I'm not sure if Noesis can export textures with transparency, if it can't then we're out of luck sadly.

Alternatively, if you're not committed to exactly recreating the stage icons, there is another option - the stage backgrounds used for text cutscenes. Here's another example using World of Darkness.



I already have all of these screencapped for FFWiki, and it would be a simple matter to brighten them up and resize and crop them to make a stage icon that, while different from the original, is still perfectly demonstrative of the stage. And IMHO for this one, I think it looks better than the icon made from the actual World of Darkness map model, lack of transparency aside.

If you want either, let me know and I'll what I can do

PS - I personally prefer the old EX Mode text, the white outline on the new text ruins the look imho.

[Niosai]

(03-11-2021 04:01 PM)DrakeyC Wrote:  Great to see this updated, very nice!

One glitch I noticed in the original pack that is still in this one, there is a slight discoloration on edges of highlighted slots when selecting things in the menu. I included screencaps so you can see.







On the matter of the stage icons, I could offer some help, possibly. I have some (slim) knowledge of model viewers, so I could plausible recreate the icons. I can't give a timeframe on that though, some may need a lot more worth than others and I've my own stuff going on. But as a test, I tried my hand at recreating the World of Darkness icon.



Note the black around the grind bars is because I'm not sure if Noesis can export textures with transparency, if it can't then we're out of luck sadly.

Alternatively, if you're not committed to exactly recreating the stage icons, there is another option - the stage backgrounds used for text cutscenes. Here's another example using World of Darkness.



I already have all of these screencapped for FFWiki, and it would be a simple matter to brighten them up and resize and crop them to make a stage icon that, while different from the original, is still perfectly demonstrative of the stage. And IMHO for this one, I think it looks better than the icon made from the actual World of Darkness map model, lack of transparency aside.

If you want either, let me know and I'll what I can do

PS - I personally prefer the old EX Mode text, the white outline on the new text ruins the look imho.

Oh hey, it's the person from YouTube!

The edges are due to the game handling the slots as basic gradients, meaning that actually updating those textures is going to end up being impossible unless someone can come up with a clever solution. I'm eventually going to remove my remade texture from that.

As far as stage icons go, I have considered using a model viewer to make it happen, but it's not super high on my priority list right now since there's still work to do for the UI, characters, etc.

As far as EX mode goes, what do you mean? I just tested it out and it looks nearly identical on my end, albeit the original's is slightly bolder. Unless I misunderstood what you meant by EX mode text?

[DrakeyC]

I misspoke, I meant the Bravery text. I think it was better in the original version.

Regarding the gradient in the menu colors - if you did a gradient that went darker from left to right, maybe when the game applies its innate gradient the two would cancel out?

[Niosai]

(03-12-2021 12:04 AM)DrakeyC Wrote:  I misspoke, I meant the Bravery text. I think it was better in the original version.

Regarding the gradient in the menu colors - if you did a gradient that went darker from left to right, maybe when the game applies its innate gradient the two would cancel out?

The bravery text? It's pure white, though. If I added a white outline, it wouldn't make a difference?

Unless you mean the purple, in which case the white outline is actually accurate to the original game. I'm doing my best to keep everything as accurate as possible.

As far as the gradient goes, I fiddled with it for hours to no avail.