thanx for sharing!
this is relevant to my interest...

i think this also says something about the quality of super mario sprites.
the converted SMW sprites look better then all the others. and im a huge fan of
the secret of mana, but they just dont look as good.

ugh one of the eyes is always fucked up and thats creepy

in a humorous twist:

i can't read the punchline. lacks zoom & enhance.

Did someone say zoom and enhance? 'cos I think I heard someone say zoom and enhance...

i think i figured out what the "intended application" for this is... and its pretty creepy: http://people.csail.mit.edu/celiu/FaceH … on/fh.html

ZOOM & ENHANCE

BLASPHEMY!

I found out something cool.... a nsf converter that converts to gbc files

that's called virt

Bear in mind though, this whole thing is less "Check out this technology that we created specifically for videogames" and more "Check out how fuckin awesome we are at math and stuff".

I'm pretty sure the choice of game sprites was arbitrary at best, or maybe because they are simple enough to prove the algorithm with little error.

[edit] The choice to use game sprites as an example though will probably catch the eye of a lot of developers who have been trying to to the same thing (and kind of sucking at it) for years now, though.

This is basically one step closer to that silly "ENHANCE" button in every cop procedural coming true.

Midi is not orchestra

http://www.zophar.net/utilities/convert … 2midi.html

Ridiculous or not, there's a whole bunch of emulators that already do upscaling (hqx or eagle algorithms for example), and a lot of users enjoying it. Whether you (or the original artists) like what it does to the original artwork or not, there's obviously a demand for effortless upscaling.

There is a whole lot of effort put into upscaling photographic images (in terms of research and programs), but this is not one of them. As explained in the paper, this algorithm is not particularly useful for (relatively) low-contrast images (like the doom face example). It's designed for the no-nonsense kind of pixel art you find in old video games (read 4.1). It's a very specific algorithm for a quite narrow field of interest.

Even if most current games use 3D graphics (a dubious claim, IMO, especially since you're talking about ports of old video games), the (potentially few) applications it DOES have aren't affected.

next up:

Converter for NSF songs to make them sound like they were played by real orchestra.

To apply it specifically to video game sprites seems ridiculous. Video game sprites aren't downscaled, they're hand drawn specifically to fit the color requirements of the console or computer. If you were to test an algorithm for upscaling, it would make much more sense to actually work with downsized, pixelated photos, where the technology would be practically applied.

True, rather ignorant of me to do so, but in my defense, 3:30 am is not the my optimal time for reading research papers, let alone expressing rational opinions about them. The one useful application I could find was porting video games to other systems, but even that reason still makes little sense to me, as most video games currently utilize 3d graphics. Even when not using 3d graphics, it's probably more consistent to hand draw new sprites instead of relying on an algorithm that will always have some percentage of failure. Brand new art would also gives the creators a chance to renovate the game's design and keep interest in the franchise.

EDIT: Though, yes, it did pop into my mind that an HD cartoon-y remake of Super Mario World and other classics would be pretty neat. I just think developing an algorithm to do all the work seems like the wrong way to go about it.