Low-res screenshots (Página 1 de 4)

The first subject is not something that I'd like to talk about in here, so I'll mail you later or something. LOL at "insistence", anyhow.

Xenofex 2 is a Photoshop plug-in, and Irfan View can use any of those plug-in's. I can't recall exactly how it was, but it had to do with letting Irfan View know which folder Xenofex 2 is installed in, I guess. From the help tool:

.

Get this:

irfanview_plugins_395

install them and then check it out.

.

So I just went carefully through all the "properties/settings", and did not manage to find any option to tell IrfanView to use Photosop plugins. There is even a "PlugIns" tab, but it's useless.

Then I checked the "Installed PlugIns..." option under the "Help" menu, which gives you a list of all the installed plug-ins, and their location. So I went to that location and copied the Xenofex 2 DLL and 8BF files, then restarted IrfanView, and when I checked the "Installed PlugIns..." option again I saw the following, right at the very bottom of the list of installed plug-ins:

PlugIn                                                  Version            Info/Formats
XENOFEX 2 DEMO CORE.DLL                  Unknown          Unknown

Does that mean that I have installed it now? How do I use it to make sure it's working?

I would be very surprised if it worked since -- apart from the 2 files I copied -- all the rest of the Xenofex 2 files are in the separate folder where I installed it, and IrfanView does not seem to know its location.

Man. I don't know if I am the one who is stupid, or the people who made this program. See, as long as I had not opened a file all those option menus were "grayed out", so I could not click on them. But when I opened a random image they all became available, and I was able to use the options you showed me in your last post to tell IrfanView where to find the Xenofex 2 folder.

So I am all set! Next step whenever you are ready.

So I've been messing around with Irfan View and a couple of emulators these past few days and I've got a ton of questions. Some of them are of a theoretical nature while others are more practical, but I must also confess that several of your instructions don't quite make sense to me at this point. I am hoping you won't mind explaining to me the reasoning behind your choices.

I guess my number one question would be this: Why take a capture of the emulator window with Irfan View instead of saving the screenshot with the emulator and THEN working on it? The only possible answer I've been able to give is that you prefer the emulator adding the scanlines instead of an external application... However, my experience with screen-capturing applications is that they degrade the image quality. Isn't the image I get from capturing using Irfan View worse than the emulator's native output? Irfan View seems to save in .bmp format, so perhaps not...

But the problem here seems to be that many emulators do not allow me to resize a window to exactly twice the size of the original resolution. I was able to use ZSNES with no problems as you instructed me, but I had no such luck with MAME32. In MAME32 I can only get a window the size of each game's original resolution, but resizing is done manually by using the mouse and enlarging the window, and if I do that I have no clue when I've exactly doubled the screen size. Kega Fusion allows me 640x480 in windowed mode, but that is not the correct doubled resolution for any Mega Drive games. And with ePSX I wouldn't even know where to begin -- the video options in that emulator are so complicated they give me a headache. Not to mention that -- apart from MAME, which tells you each game's native res -- I wouldn't know how to figure out the native res for most games running on other emulators. I mean, how do you know at what res a Super Famicom game runs? I am sure there must be a way to see this; I just don't know it yet.

Since I was only able to use your tutorial with ZSNES, my snapshot was 512 x 448 so there were no added borders. Still the game ITSELF (R-Type III) has black borders at the top and bottom. Am I supposed to crop those off?

What I found strange about this menu is that, by default (i.e. the first time you click on it) it adds a whole load of effects to the image. Here they are:

Scanline Strength
Scanline Thickness (pixels)
Vertical Shift
Curvature
Static
Ghost Strength
Ghost Offset
Breakup

All these sliders were at random values and I had to set them all to zero. Then I selected 8 for curvature.

Is this what I should be doing? All the sliders at zero except curvature?

And do you have any idea what the "Random Seed" option is at the bottom? I try to set it to 0 but it automatically resets to 1 when I exit the menu and re-enter it.

Also, why are you choosing such a low curvature number? I was always wondering about that. I know that different monitors have different curvatures and all, but the curvature you are adding is so imperceptible you might as well not bother, no?

This is where I got stuck. The Resize/Resample menu has no option for automatic resizing to 4 : 3 aspect ratio. I have to set the size manually by entering pixel numbers... Frankly, I am completely lost here.

Here I have to ask: Do you really add blur to your screenshots? They look crystal-clear to me... And if you do add blur, do you really think it's necessary/desirable? I guess you are doing it to get closer to what you'd see on a real monitor?

Again, I am completely lost here. So lost that I feel like a complete moron. I mean, why mess with the colors? You say that we darkened its "original colors" by adding scanlines, but I don't understand how this works. Scanlines are just lines added between the regular lines, they are not added on top of the regular lines. So how did we darken the image?

Besides, the Enhance Color menus scares the hell out of me. How am I supposed to figure out the best positions of all those random sliders? I don't even have a clue as to what I should be aiming for.

How do I tell if more blur is necessary?

So anyway, here's one of my tries:

This is 512 x 448 including the game's own borders, with a curvature of 8 and one dose of blur. I have not resized the image to 4 : 3 because I couldn't figure out how to do it, and I have not messed around with the colors because I wouldn't know where to start.

So... let me know what you think about all this... It sure is a more complicated business than I would have imagined. (I am still loving the results, of course!)

Uhh, if I gave you a couple (6) screens could you do me a favor and convert them to CRT style?  I don't think I can do this right now.

Sorry, I just have the raw captures.

It took me a while to get the 2P screens.  It had to set each player up a little at a time and use weird button configs to control them.  I noticed you have a lot of muli-player screens, is this how you do it or do you have friends to help out?

You could always find some random guy in Kaillera, if you know how to port forward.

I don't know why the file wouldn't work, it had the right permissions.  Here are the images.

I will need to check on another moniter, the CRT one I'm using makes the scanlines hard to see.  I remember you adding scanlines to an image NFG posted and it didn't look bad.

It would be a pain to try and get some of those again (mainly the stage 2 boss screen) so I don't think I want to do that.  Best I could do is use Paintshop's blind effect at 1 pixel and 50% transparency but I'm guessing you already use a similar technique.

That's awesome.  I like that style the best.

Also, could you replace the final screen with this one:

Next time I'll risk the malware and download a keygen somewhere so I can use your guide.

Recap, I'm going to take some captures of Shatterhand now, but first I wanted to know your opinion about Nestopia's bilinear filter as an option instead of outright blurring the picture.

This is how the game looks without the filter, with 33% blur and brightness, contrast and color saturation at 16, in that order:

And this is using bilinear filtering, without blur, all sliders at the same values as before:

I also used the emulator's TV size switch rather than correcting the aspect ratio manually. What do you think?

Pasting this here too:

http://i48.tinypic.com/97s4cx.png

It's been made by Ronan and edited by myself from an unaltered emulation screenshot using Eboshidori's models as reference. Close to perfection.