News
‘DOOM’ Mod Uses AI to Enhance Original Graphics
Okay, we all know DOOM turned 25 earlier this month, and we know how legendary the modding community is with the game. But, as you know, a 25-year-old game’s graphics are usually not going to compare to today’s games. So, what’s a DOOM fan to do?
Enter Doomworld user Hidfan and his mod, which features upscaled graphics for all of the textures in the game. The cool (and scary) thing about this mod is the fact that it uses Nvidia’s GameWorks SuperResolution in conjunction with Photoshop plugin Topaz AI Gigapixel to upscale the graphics. In other words, an AI was able to take 1993 graphics, scale them up 8x, and then all Hidfan had to do was downscale them to 2x size and do some cleanup.
It’s not a perfect process, mind you. “A lot of textures have been manually cleaned of AI artefacts [sic] and all transparency masks have to be manually enhanced (because AI don’t [sic] know what to do with binary Black & White yet).”
Still, it’s certainly better-looking than what the longtime process entailed of making old-school pixel-based graphics look higher res than they were ever intended. And it doesn’t have that smeared Vaseline look, either.
News
One of Clive Barker’s Final Convention Appearances Will Be at New Jersey’s Monster Mania in August
We told you earlier this month that horror legend Clive Barker is leaving the convention scene behind to focus entirely on his writing, with various upcoming projects in the works.
A series of final appearances from Barker will begin at Days of the Dead Chicago this month, and we’ve learned Barker will also be coming to Monster Mania in New Jersey.
Clive Barker will be signing at Monster Mania 59 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which runs from August 2 – August 4, 2024. Stay tuned for more info from the convention.
Barker’s official statement earlier this month explained, “… it’s time to focus entirely on writing. I’m not stopping public events because I’ve lost delight in meeting you all over the years. I’m as passionate as ever about sharing my imagination with readers and moviegoers around the world. In the very room where I’m writing these words, I have the manuscripts for a very large number of projects (Thirty-one of them), some very close to completion, others still telling themselves. There are some wild projects in this collection of works, whether close to finished or done. There are also stories that you all knew I would be finishing.”
“Abarat IV and V are amongst the books at my feet,” he continued. “So is the Third and final book of The Art and the sequel to The Thief of Always. There are also return visits to characters and mythologies you may have thought I would never return to.
“I hope I am still able to surprise you in the decades ahead.”
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