Monday 24 September 2012

Beating aliasing.


Crysis 2 includes FXAA filter (an old version). In MaLDoHD 3.0 I included a FXAA tweak to improve  FXAA sharpness using "FXAA ultra" in the Config Tool. A few months ago, I talked with Jorge Jiménez (SMAA creator) to include the injector in version 4.0 of the mod. SMAA offers very good results. The best results of SMAA in Crysis 2 occur when the in-game FXAA is completely disabled. The problem is that the effect of rain in Crysis 2 is tied to r_postMSAA=1, which activates the FXAA. That is, if you disable FXAA in Crysis 2, the rain disappears. There are three levels (I remember now) where it's raining: Intro (when you leave the submarine), Times Square and City Hall. I don't want to lose rain effect, and I think is a bad idea to ask users to activate FXAA only in those levels through command console.

Last week I discovered the SweetFX injector. It uses Jorge Jimenez SMAA as the basis adding some new effects on top. Thinking about the filters again I took up an old battle, and I decided to spend this weekend to get rain effect while disabling FXAA. And I did it. So now MaLDoHD 4.0 has an amazing image quality using the SMAA injector, with internal FXAA completely disabled and visible rain. This week I will test SweetFX and perhaps replace the SMAA injector. I have to find a good setup because I don't need more sharpness and do not want to modify saturation values because are ​​already slightly modified in my TOD.

Do not worry, this is not the only mod thing I've done this weekend.

30 comments:

  1. Nice, keep it up.

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  2. wow, thx maldo you are the best :)

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  3. Great news!
    We never worry, Maldo. You do amazing work :)

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  4. I want to see PICTURES!!

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  5. It is beautiful. Handles aliasing almost perfectly and with a lot less performance hit than the other AA's the game uses. I have used the injector and can confirm that it works. Fucking amazing IQ. This is a huge treat for us on top of this great mod, that MaLDo is dropping this injector into his mod. The man doesn't stop. You guys will not be disappointed.

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  6. I have been using the SMAA injector for a long time now, and I have recently switched to SweetFX from the SMAA injector, and all I have to say is...

    Bravo MaLDo, bravo indeed.

    You are truly a person that shares the same vision as true hardcore PC gamers. Image Quality is something that has been sacrificed too much lately, and the SMAA + LumaSharpen filters (provided by SweetFX) simply cannot be beaten in terms of quality/performance right now. I am so glad you are bringing this to the masses :)

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  7. Impressive! That's all I have to say. Keep it up!

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  8. They should get you to put the final touch to C3....;)

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  9. As long as it is optional. I'm not particularly a fan of SMAA 1X or using things like FXAA tool or SweetFX to alter things like Saturation or add unnecessary effects.

    If only you could get SMAA T2X or something like that in there. Then we could talk. Because SMAA 1X barely helps with aliasing.

    Sharpness and more aliasing vs more blurry and less aliasing.

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    1. I think SMAA works flawesly reducing aliasing and don't add noticeable blur. I will take some screenshots but I think you're maybe testing some other filter. T2X is a lot better but only works if it's inside the engine pipeline, so I can't add in the mod.

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    2. Yes! Screenshots would be great. I love what you did for the highest AA option in 3.0 - and I haven't been able to get SMAA to work with any of my games. I'm probably doing something wrong.

      Hey, you should help Jorge with a proper installer for SMAA - I'd really love to use it with the original Crysis games. Driver MLAA is okay with the in-game 4xAA, but performance cost is rough, and the trees still look wierd. (I'm at 900p.) I'd love to get a 1200p monitor, but I lack the funds for that and a GTX 660 or better.

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  10. It's people like you that make PC gaming win over console any day of the week. The attention to detail you've applied to this project speaks volumes regarding your dedication to perfection. On top of that, having the vision beforehand of what you want to achieve to bring something of this scope into fruition is impressive to say the least. Any development team would be lucky to have you.

    - Locke

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  11. SMAA work with transparency aliasing? (tree, leaves, etc).

    FXAA vs MSAA.
    http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o240/walkingdog/fxaa%20smaa/GOTHIC3.jpg

    MSAA is way better to high resolution texture, FXAA blur all little details.

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  12. just to complement.... MALDO, put a option to SMAA 4x , not just 1x and T2x.

    Thanks!

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    1. SMAA 4x does not exist.

      http://www.iryoku.com/introducing-subpixel-morphological-antialiasing

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    2. Actually, SMAA 4x is SMAA T2x + MSAA 2x.
      A mix between SMAA T2x and SMAA S2x.

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    3. Could be, but SMAA 4x does not exist XD

      Normally I use to play with SMAA + 1.5 downsampling 2880x1800 -> 1920x1200

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    4. Yes it's indeed an hybrid.

      So, SMAA T2x doesn't exist either because it's temporal SSAA 2x + MLAA XD

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    5. I'm the poster about SMAA 4x. Yes, SMAA4x exist.

      See this PDF presentation from Jorge Jimenez at Eurographics 2012.

      http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/downloads/SMAA-Enhanced-Subpixel-Morphological-Antialiasing.pdf

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    6. Just do complement.... the version 2.7 implemented this.

      http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/#downloads

      January 16, 2012: version 2.7 released, featuring SMAA S2x and 4x. Checkout the new Eurographics paper and supplementary material in the downloads section!

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    7. Thanks! I'm obsolete about this. Thank you and sorry. I had already read that document a long time ago, so there is no forgiveness for me. I'm old, then.

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  13. Hola Maldo,

    Me alegra que finalmente hayas decidido implementar esta excelente herramienta en tu mod (o dar aviso de ello)... Pero quiero decirte que me hubiera gustado mucho que me respondieras algo cuando entre Junio y Julio, tanto por mensajes en tu blog, como por un correo electrónico que te envié, te hablé del método SMAA creado también por un español; antes de que nadie más lo hiciera o tú lo anunciaras (si es que ya lo conocías).
    Hay ocasiones en las que respondes incluso los comentarios más irrelevantes, cuando en mi caso no te dignaste siquiera a escribir un simple “gracias, lo tomaré en cuenta”.

    En fin, sea como sea, me pone de buenas al fin leer algo al respecto... Se acerca la recta final y todos estamos cada vez más ansiosos! Como siempre, admirable tu dedicado y asombroso trabajo ;)

    Que estés muy bien. Saludos desde México!

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    1. Hola Víctor, si se me pasó tu mensaje te pido disculpas. Pero la inclusión de SMAA en el mod es anterior a las fechas que dices. En concreto, a principios de febrero es cuando tuve contacto con Jorge para preguntarle si podía añadirlo. Es el SweetFX el que descubrí hace muy poco. Gracias igualmente.

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    2. Maldo,

      Muchas gracias por responderme en esta ocasión. Créeme que el intercambiar palabras contigo, para mí es como el equivalente a si una persona común y corriente, logra establecer alguna clase de contacto banal con cualquiera de sus frívolas e idolatradas celebridades ;)... jejeje xD
      Aunque quizás exageré un poco con lo de enviarte un e-mail aparte de los mensajes dentro del blog! (Sin saber que ya lo conocías, en verdad me emocionaba la posibilidad de darte a conocer dicha información).

      La verdad no imaginé que desde Febrero ya estuvieses al tanto del SMAA, y menos en contacto con Jorge... Pero ahora que recapacito, es lógico y normal que alguien como tú, quien tan apasionadamente se dedica a estos menesteres, se encuentre más y mejor informado que un "simple fan" que al final sólo se regocija (agradecido) con proyectos así geniales y generosos.

      El SweetFX también parece prometedor; ya nos informarás sobre qué tan buenos resultados finales ofrece en comparación a la última versión del SMAA (excluyendo el “filtro” de colores que parece incluir).

      Mucho éxito!

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  14. hello maldo really like your mod graphics have become more beautiful in some places even better than in the 1 part of the cool and on hello maldo the PIF is not influenced by what pleases hope in the 4.0 version of the same will remain stable фпс. on my system Phenom 965 (video 7970 sapphire at a resolution of 1920 1080 in 3 versions of fashion subsidence of the minimum PIF below 32 are not noticed in severe stages of the same as in the official version of crytec for DirectX 11. when will the version 4.0? and SAG whether the PIF in this picture. your fan from Russia

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  15. I need visual stimuli!

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  16. Very excited about better antialiasing. Another question, could you put a reduced tessellation option for the DX11 water? It often makes the game crash on my PC, but it looks so good!

    There has to be some happy medium between tessellation factor 10 and 85... (Extreme vs. Ultra)

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  17. Excellent work, Maldo! I love SMAA.

    Keep up the good work, and take your time. Make this as good as you can.

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  18. BUG: can't start level "semper fi or die"
    this is the debug info:
    http://i49.tinypic.com/5d32j8.jpg

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  19. Hey Maldo! First I would to say great work on this mod! Just spent $1000 on a new rig and this mod just justified it. Everything looks AMAZING.

    Anyway, I love the SweetFX injector but the sharpness is just a bit much. I would like a bit of sharpness however. Where is the config file for SweetFX so I can tweak it myself?

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