Star Fox Adventures in High Definition

[Hakuhn]

Great progress GammaRay256!, about a video recorder I don't know one for Linux  .

And about that pic , never noticed  , I'm going to get that scene and take that poster  .

EDIT: Here it is:

Looking good  .

Keep up the good work.

[Showtime 1-1]

^ wait... Is that the legendary pin-up calender that's in the background of the Great Fox? For real?

All right, I can die happy now. :P

[Kursed]

Great progress GammaRay256!, about a video recorder I don't know one for Linux  .

And about that pic , never noticed  , I'm going to get that scene and take that poster  .

EDIT: Here it is:

Looking good  .

Keep up the good work.

then fox runs into which oddly is a foxie lady wearing  maybe about the same as that vixen coincidence? I THINK NOT!

[rebel_gunman]

Great progress GammaRay256!, about a video recorder I don't know one for Linux  .

And about that pic , never noticed  , I'm going to get that scene and take that poster  .

EDIT: Here it is:

Looking good  .

Keep up the good work.

That answers a 5 year old dilemma!

[Kursed]

once again My post is skipped over...

[rebel_gunman]

once again My post is skipped over...

My bad... Just had that thread in mind. The one that was around 5 years ago, and prolly another one there after, which topic was just this! The misterious poster in teh background of the Great Fox's Command Room!

[Kursed]

My bad... Just had that thread in mind. The one that was around 5 years ago, and prolly another one there after, which topic was just this! The misterious poster in teh background of the Great Fox's Command Room!

yes but look at the similairties!

[rebel_gunman]

yes but look at the similairties!

That is true though. Wild thought though, what if she was an idea for Krystal? 

Unless the developers just threw it there. Navy men DO have calendars like that (human though) on their working spaces!

[Robert Monroe]

then fox runs into which oddly is a foxie lady wearing  maybe about the same as that vixen coincidence? I THINK NOT!

Yes, its a coincidence.

yes but look at the similairties!

There aren't any aside from being pratically naked and a vixen. The costume is entirely different (and arguably skimpier), the poster is blonde, and is wearing some kind of spaced out pinup costume, not something that appears to be tribal clothing.

[Showtime 1-1]

I'm pretty sure one of the rareware guys got a kick out of putting that poster in there. It is a T-rated game, though, so it's K. :P

[Robert Monroe]

I'm pretty sure one of the rareware guys got a kick out of putting that poster in there. It is a T-rated game, though, so it's K.

Adventures does not even deserve that T rating. Wind Waker is more violent and adult than it is, and its E rated.

[Mr. Krystal]

Bump!

http://krystalarchive.com/2010/08/07/hd-adventures-screenshots/

http://krystalarchive.com/2010/08/07/great-fox-poster-mystery-solved/

Amazing work on the poster. Also, it's been a little while since the last research post. Any luck getting a frame-by-frame playthrough with image capture? I'm more than willing to manually turn the frame images into a full-speed video. I've done it before.

[Guest FoXXX]

http://krystalarchive.com/2010/08/07/great-fox-poster-mystery-solved/

Damn, I want this poster :D

[Chrono Reaper]

Now that people are able to play SF Adventures on the dolphin, can someone please Print Screen an image of that hot vixen wallpaper in the Great Fox?

[Guest Julius Quasar]

Bump!

http://krystalarchive.com/2010/08/07/hd-adventures-screenshots/

http://krystalarchive.com/2010/08/07/great-fox-poster-mystery-solved/

Amazing work on the poster. Also, it's been a little while since the last research post. Any luck getting a frame-by-frame playthrough with image capture? I'm more than willing to manually turn the frame images into a full-speed video. I've done it before.

AWESOME!!!

[Scott7]

I was finally able to get the game running, but the Frame rate was just so rediculous and like it was unplayable....

[Guest Julius Quasar]

Great progress GammaRay256!, about a video recorder I don't know one for Linux  .

And about that pic , never noticed  , I'm going to get that scene and take that poster  .

EDIT: Here it is:

Looking good  .

Keep up the good work.

^ Just found this.  Great job on finding that! Awesome!

[Guest FoXXX]

Now that people are able to play SF Adventures on the dolphin, can someone please Print Screen an image of that hot vixen wallpaper in the Great Fox?

I think that picture Mr. K posted is the poster in the Great Fox.

[GammaRay256]

Got some more news...

It appears that the latest Dolphin builds have introduced some minor technical problems... it's been awhile since I tested it, but it appeared that the OpenGL graphics plugin would cause major graphical glitches running the game in a resolution beyond the original.  The DirectX plugin (in Windows) worked, but I couldn't enable Anti-Aliasing, so it was useless to me for capturing.  At any rate, I simply downloaded the old build I was using when I first made this post and I will use that with the OpenGL plugin for capturing.

I do have some good news - I am able to capture the videos from the game with all frames at 1080p.  If I try running it in real time, I get about 85% speed.  I can also run it at 50%, but I get an occasional drop to 46% or so.  I decided that for capturing video, I would run it at 25% (which I can run steadily, it never drops below 25%) and capture the video at that speed.  Later, I plan to import the footage into a video editor and speed it up 4x.  It will have all frames at 60 FPS I believe (haven't looked close enough to be sure yet). 

I've made a few proof-of-concept examples for myself to prove that the whole process works, and it does... I've had some unrelated technical issues preventing me from getting a demo up.  I'd just upload the capture files if I could, but uploading several gigabytes just isn't practical at the moment...

I've been extremely busy in real life, and haven't really had time to do the post-processing.  However, I do have full frame 1920x1080 captures of the first few cutscenes (albiet, together, the files are currently over 20 GB and play back at 1/4 speed - I do have them, and I just need to get them into a video editor and speed them up).

It's also painful to play through the game at 25% (or even 50%) speed.  But, in real-time, I can play it at about 85-100% - so, if I simply play through up to where the major cutscenes are, I can save the game, limit the playback rate, and make the capture.

It's all possible, and soon I'll have a working 1080p demo of the first two scenes that I can post soon - but, the entire project could take a long time.

[Mr. Krystal]

Got some more news...

It appears that the latest Dolphin builds have introduced some minor technical problems... it's been awhile since I tested it, but it appeared that the OpenGL graphics plugin would cause major graphical glitches running the game in a resolution beyond the original.  The DirectX plugin (in Windows) worked, but I couldn't enable Anti-Aliasing, so it was useless to me for capturing.  At any rate, I simply downloaded the old build I was using when I first made this post and I will use that with the OpenGL plugin for capturing.

I do have some good news - I am able to capture the videos from the game with all frames at 1080p.  If I try running it in real time, I get about 85% speed.  I can also run it at 50%, but I get an occasional drop to 46% or so.  I decided that for capturing video, I would run it at 25% (which I can run steadily, it never drops below 25%) and capture the video at that speed.  Later, I plan to import the footage into a video editor and speed it up 4x.  It will have all frames at 60 FPS I believe (haven't looked close enough to be sure yet). 

I've made a few proof-of-concept examples for myself to prove that the whole process works, and it does... I've had some unrelated technical issues preventing me from getting a demo up.  I'd just upload the capture files if I could, but uploading several gigabytes just isn't practical at the moment...

I've been extremely busy in real life, and haven't really had time to do the post-processing.  However, I do have full frame 1920x1080 captures of the first few cutscenes (albiet, together, the files are currently over 20 GB and play back at 1/4 speed - I do have them, and I just need to get them into a video editor and speed them up).

It's also painful to play through the game at 25% (or even 50%) speed.  But, in real-time, I can play it at about 85-100% - so, if I simply play through up to where the major cutscenes are, I can save the game, limit the playback rate, and make the capture.

It's all possible, and soon I'll have a working 1080p demo of the first two scenes that I can post soon - but, the entire project could take a long time.

I can provide you a place to temporarily upload huge videos/sets of images online, if you're worried about ways to send them to me. If you want to do the whole of the editing yourself, could you send me the full resolution video when you finish? I have the bandwidth, I think.

[GammaRay256]

I can provide you a place to temporarily upload huge videos/sets of images online, if you're worried about ways to send them to me. If you want to do the whole of the editing yourself, could you send me the full resolution video when you finish? I have the bandwidth, I think.

Unfortunately, the problem isn't storage, it's bandwidth.  Currently, I'm on a rather slow DSL link with an upload speed of about 50 KB/s, it would take me multiple days, weeks even, to just get what I have uploaded.  Also, I'm not the only person who uses the connection - so there would be a few problems with maxing out the upstream bandwidth for a few days... 

I'm going to college in a couple weeks, I should have a faster connection there... but, I don't really want to use 24.6+ GB of their upstream bandwidth as soon as I get there...

(That 24.6 GB is just the first few cutscenes before arriving at Krazoa Palace)

Sorry about that, I'd really like to get the original capture files to you, but, it's just not technically feasible at this moment.  I will look into lossless (or near-lossless) codecs and see what I can do.  I currently just have several very large 3.9 GB AVI files with very little compression (approx. 2GB/min, and they play back at 25% of normal game speed), so, I may be able to significantly decrease their size without any noticeable quality loss.

As for me editing it... I'm using lossless and near-lossless codecs wherever possible and I *should* be able to get a final product without any noticeable loss in quality.  With proper codecs, I should be able to have the final scenes in files with sizes of only a few hundred megabytes rather than a few thousand.  Once I get a demo of the first scene working, I'll provide a near-lossless 1080p download link for it.

I'll get that first one done as soon as I can.  That should answer a lot of questions.

EDIT: Since writing this post, I think I have the process all done!  (VirtualDub is awesome by the way).  Now, it's just a matter of waiting for everything to process and upload.  I won't make any promises, but assuming everything goes smoothly, I should have the first scene online tomorrow or shortly thereafter.

[GammaRay256]

Finally! A DEMO!  It worked and it's here.

First, some notes.

* Let me reiterate that this is a DEMO, it's not a final product, it's a demonstration.  So, don't upload it to YouTube yet, wait for the final.

* The source file, uncompressed, is 49.2 GB, 1904x1042 pixels, at 120 FPS (yes, it really is 120; take that Blu-Ray and your 24 FPS!).

* This file was transcoded with 2-pass x264 at 60 FPS with a bitrate of 10,000.  It came out to about 89 MB (which is way better than I was expecting).  The 60 FPS looks incredible.

* There is some slight quality loss in the file, but it's not bad.  I will upload a similar file with a bitrate of 20,000 (should be essentially lossless) soon.

* No audio. Sorry.

* It's not exactly 1080p, but the resolution is similar; it shouldn't be a problem on computers.

* I am aware that there are some minor glitches.  I will take a closer look at them later.

* Playing this video file is probably more than twice as demanding as playing a Blu-Ray disc (due to having more than twice the framerate/bitrate).  If you experience choppy playback, try using VLC if you're not already; otherwise, your hardware may not be fast enough to decode it.

Here ya go!  Enjoy.

http://www.mediafire.com/?yd32wlef52i8cdp

[Guest FoXXX]

Alright, downloading now.

EDIT

My computer can't play it :x

[Mr. Krystal]

Got it. Can't play it. First half second looked amazing though. I think you'll have to upload it to YouTube before we can really see it.

[GammaRay256]

Got it. Can't play it. First half second looked amazing though. I think you'll have to upload it to YouTube before we can really see it.

OK, will do.

UPDATE: I'm uploading now.  YouTube doesn't do 60 FPS as far as I know, so, I'll still provide a link with the near-lossless 60 FPS footage later.  You're still going to need a fast computer to play YouTube 1080p at 30p, but, you can also take the original 60 FPS footage and transcode it down to something smaller with a lower bitrate/framerate.

EDIT: I encountered the same issue on my laptop (just tested it), I could only see the first second or two.  The rest didn't play or was extremely distorted (tried two different players).  I suppose the average CPU right now can't do 1080p at 60p.  However, there is hope for 720p footage at 60p, so, I'll look into that later too.