@Devs: Fundamental Issue with Sprite Scaling - Interpolation Comparison

[Sp00kyFox]

while I appreciate the new filter options, they don't fix the underlying fundamental problem of the sprite scaling in this game. that's why I made a comparison to show the problem.

https://image.frl/i/fjn33z6e6nc1r14i.png
https://image.frl/i/af54593ve3x9dkxp.png

the sprites themselves need to be upscaled to have the proper size on the screen. but unless you're playing the game at a very high resolution (like 4k) one can notice some nasty sprite scaling issues like irregular staircase patterns. as far as I know previous BlazBlue games also had this problem.

for this comparison I picked the Ragna character sprite and assumed a 1080p target resolution. this results in an increase factor of around 150% (derived from size comparison with ingame screenshots). I don't know the exact inner details of the engine, but it looks like as if the game is using nearest-neighbor-filtering for all its sprite upscaling.

in my comparison I also did one with bilinear filtering and one where I first upscale the image with nearest neighbor and downscale it then with bilinear to the target size. this gives the optimal result. bilinear alone gets very blurry if the scale factor increases further (with the target factor in this comparison it looks rather similar to the last variant).

the new filter options would also benefit from this if they don't have to work on sprites that already introduced errors.

tl;dr: don't use nearest neighbor, it creates artifacts when used with non-integer upscale factors. instead use nearest neighbor with the minimal integer factor so that you can downscale it afterwards with bilinear to the target size.

[Shini]

Will forward this to my programmer, thank you for the feedback.
Although, I think this might actually be outside of my scope (might be not steam-related).

[Sp00kyFox]

Originally posted by Shini:

Will forward this to my programmer, thank you for the feedback.
Although, I think this might actually be outside of my scope (might be not steam-related).

yeah, I suspected this since apparently every version is affected from this. could you maybe forward this to the original devs of the game? I don't know, maybe it's still something that the PC-team can fix on their own since it shouldn't affect the game in any other way. I don't have a clue about the technical backgrounds of the game of course, so I'm just speculating here. but I appreciate the quick response and acknowledgement of the issue. fingers crossed that my input will help :)

edit: just to add something though that I do know. you can get clean sprite output at very high resolutions, like I said above. this suggests the sprites are present in their unscaled original resolution. so at least the unaltered graphics are there. they only have to be displayed properly at normal resolutions too.

[Krackatoa]

Hey. If it's any consolation OP, I learned something.

[serresiete]

Originally posted by Sp00kyFox:

Originally posted by Shini:

Will forward this to my programmer, thank you for the feedback.
Although, I think this might actually be outside of my scope (might be not steam-related).

yeah, I suspected this since apparently every version is affected from this. could you maybe forward this to the original devs of the game? I don't know, maybe it's still something that the PC-team can fix on their own since it shouldn't affect the game in any other way. I don't have a clue about the technical backgrounds of the game of course, so I'm just speculating here. but I appreciate the quick response and acknowledgement of the issue. fingers crossed that my input will help :)

edit: just to add something though that I do know. you can get clean sprite output at very high resolutions, like I said above. this suggests the sprites are present in their unscaled original resolution. so at least the unaltered graphics are there. they only have to be displayed properly at normal resolutions too.

The switch version isn't affected by this since it uses 720p sprites.

This game has some weird stuff where there's 2 types of sprites, 1080p upscaled (the bad ones) and the original 720p sprites somewhere in the files. PS4 and PC use the 1080p upscaled ones. There's no toggle to go back to the 720p sprites and let your graphics card upscale them for you, thats the problem.

So far, the cleanliest version is the Switch version.

Arcsys really did a poor job, nearest neighbour is in the 80% of the cases a bad result lol

[Sp00kyFox]

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

The switch version isn't affected by this since it uses 720p sprites.

This game has some weird stuff where there's 2 types of sprites, 1080p upscaled (the bad ones) and the original 720p sprites somewhere in the files. PS4 and PC use the 1080p upscaled ones. There's no toggle to go back to the 720p sprites and let your graphics card upscale them for you, thats the problem.

So far, the cleanliest version is the Switch version.

at least in docked mode it demonstrates the same artifacts like the PC version. see 1:18:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iFq-ijE1ao

like I explained above, the PC version uses the original sprites, otherwise they wouldn't look clean at 4k. I'd assume it's also the case for all the other versions including Switch. it's just the way the game scales them to the target resolution which is the problem.

maybe in portable mode the sprite and display resolution match. but then the RWBY sprites look wrong because they are drawn for 1080p. here, I made 2 screenshots of the PC version at 720p and 1080p:

https://image.frl/i/6eebnve644vk4dt2.png
https://image.frl/i/we6jx8r7nwe67vud.png

Ragna looks better at 720p but one can still notice artifacts. Ruby on the other hand gets messed up at 720p but is perfect at 1080p. from what I can see the Switch version doesn't behave any differently.

[serresiete]

Originally posted by Sp00kyFox:

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

The switch version isn't affected by this since it uses 720p sprites.

This game has some weird stuff where there's 2 types of sprites, 1080p upscaled (the bad ones) and the original 720p sprites somewhere in the files. PS4 and PC use the 1080p upscaled ones. There's no toggle to go back to the 720p sprites and let your graphics card upscale them for you, thats the problem.

So far, the cleanliest version is the Switch version.

at least in docked mode it demonstrates the same artifacts like the PC version. see 1:18:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iFq-ijE1ao

like I explained above, the PC version uses the original sprites, otherwise they wouldn't look clean at 4k. I'd assume it's also the case for all the other versions including Switch. it's just the way the game scales them to the target resolution which is the problem.

maybe in portable mode the sprite and display resolution match. but then the RWBY sprites look wrong because they are drawn for 1080p. here, I made 2 screenshots of the PC version at 720p and 1080p:

https://image.frl/i/6eebnve644vk4dt2.png
https://image.frl/i/we6jx8r7nwe67vud.png

Ragna looks better at 720p but one can still notice artifacts. Ruby on the other hand gets messed up at 720p but is perfect at 1080p. from what I can see the Switch version doesn't behave any differently.

I'm afraid not, just saw on my copy of switch incase I was going crazy, but the Switch definitely uses 720p sprites, and has no artifacts, they might look edgy but thats what you get with 720p sprites.

The PC has original sprites(720p, 1080p files basically) on the files, but they are never used, instead the game uses upscaled ones, you can actually look for it yourself with mod tools.

When you render this game(PC ver) on 720p you don't get much artifacting because you're rendering them at their native res, problem is, you're basically downsampling the badly upscaled sprites instead of just being 720p, so it is still a little rough. The switch also has this problem with RWBY on undocked, where they are downscaled with nearest neighbour and they look bad (same as the images above). Also remember that the game on pc always renders on 1080p unless you use mods.

https://i.imgur.com/UYklOtO.png
https://i.imgur.com/lfSRXtt.png
The easiest way to check if the sprites is wack on any version is to look at Linne's spats lol

Also PS4 uses some kind of morphological filtering and its very aggresive(it applies to everything, even menus, making entire game look blurry), but it smoothes out the nearest neighbour images kinda good. Sadly, for us and PS4, there's no option for native untouched sprites.

And no idea why would you get "clean" sprites on 4k, it could be a pixel per ratio thing on screens, where its basically 720p for you or something, sadly I can't test.

Also maybe the Switch has another way of dealing of sprites and its not fully native, but that would be weird as they look exactly as when I play CF on PC

(Btw, sprites of dlc characters not yet revealed are also upscaled in the files lol, its kinda crazy)

[Sp00kyFox]

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

I'm afraid not, just saw on my copy of switch incase I was going crazy, but the Switch definitely uses 720p sprites, and has no artifacts, they might look edgy but thats what you get with 720p sprites. [...]

thanks for the explanations and pictures. yeah, I got something wrong. thing is that the original sprite work for BlazBlue was 768p. which was the resolution of the Taito Type X2 arcade system it was designed for. maybe that changed in later BB revisions or they reworked them for this game. either way, the BB sprites in BBTAG seem to be 720p judging from the staircase patterns when using this resolution. I falsely assumed that the game uses the original 768p sprites, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

And no idea why would you get "clean" sprites on 4k, it could be a pixel per ratio thing on screens, where its basically 720p for you or something, sadly I can't test.

if the sprites are either 720p or 1080p (in the case of the new RWBY characters), the lowest resolution which properly display both types is the least common multiple of the two which is 2160p. then the nearest-neighbor-scaling only uses integer factors (3x720p = 2160p, 2x1080p=2160p) and doesn't produce artifacts. well at least in theory. while it does look very clean, by closer inspection there are still irregularities with the staircase patterns. don't have a clue why, maybe related to subpixel positioning of the character. but it's nonetheless way better than at 1080p.

I don't have a Switch but I took a screen from the comparison video I posted above which shows that the Switch also has this problem. you basically choose which sprites you wanna mess up. in docked mode the BB sprites look wrong, while in handheld mode the new RWBY ones do.

here is another comparison I made. for the sake of comparison I properly scaled all screenshots to 1080p. especially focus on the staircase patterns of Ragnas blade and his hair.

https://image.frl/i/af54593ve3x9dkxp.png

and the unscaled screenshots I used for this:
https://mega.nz/#!bBwzEQYD!Wiqhtcjs2YsgTnO5G-U48T15k7PpViudLHAr8pOSL80

[Red]

Yup, I agree implementing bilinear or bicubic filtering should be possible and better than nearest neighbour scaling as well.

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

I'm afraid not, just saw on my copy of switch incase I was going crazy, but the Switch definitely uses 720p sprites, and has no artifacts, they might look edgy but thats what you get with 720p sprites.

Just to make sure, is your Switch set to render in 1080p in docked mode? IIRC the default setting is 720p, that's why I'm asking... Unless the game forces the rendering in 720p.

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

The PC has original sprites(720p, 1080p files basically) on the files, but they are never used, instead the game uses upscaled ones, you can actually look for it yourself with mod tools.

What tools did you use please? When I first checked the game's files out, it was an utter mess (and it's still the case) with hexadecimal file names without any extension. Finding the opening for instance was guesswork (though it was easy since it's the heaviest file).

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

Also PS4 uses some kind of morphological filtering and its very aggresive(it applies to everything, even menus, making entire game look blurry), but it smoothes out the nearest neighbour images kinda good. Sadly, for us and PS4, there's no option for native untouched sprites.

Maybe the PS4 version uses an aggressive form of FXAA then, since IIRC it affects the whole screen (and not just the sprites).

[serresiete]

Originally posted by Sp00kyFox:

here is another comparison I made. for the sake of comparison I properly scaled all screenshots to 1080p. especially focus on the staircase patterns of Ragnas blade and his hair.

https://image.frl/i/af54593ve3x9dkxp.png

Nope, Switch has the original sprites, if they look "bad" is because they are being upscaled to 1080p (so basically 720p sprites dont look good when you up the res :thonk:), check Ragna's hair and you can see that on the Switch he doesn't have the artifacting as everyone else

You can also get the sprites from somewhere like spriters-resource or datamine them yourself, they'll be 720p while RBWY's will be 1080p

Also ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 4k looks good wtf

Originally posted by Red:

Just to make sure, is your Switch set to render in 1080p in docked mode? IIRC the default setting is 720p, that's why I'm asking... Unless the game forces the rendering in 720p.

Yeah, Switch at 1080p and the game renders at 1080p, tho the Switch has adaptive resolution(both docked and undocked) for some heavy scenes, but that only triggers on specific supers and projectiles.

Originally posted by Red:

What tools did you use please? When I first checked the game's files out, it was an utter mess (and it's still the case) with hexadecimal file names without any extension. Finding the opening for instance was guesswork (though it was easy since it's the heaviest file).

Ask on BB's improvement discord server https://discord.gg/KCEGM5

Originally posted by Red:

Maybe the PS4 version uses an aggressive form of FXAA then, since IIRC it affects the whole screen (and not just the sprites).

Probably. If you enable morphological filtering on an AMD card you get basically the same effect as PS4.

[Red]

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

Also ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 4k looks good wtf

Methinks it's because "4K"/UHD is 2x1080p or 3x720p in width or length, so both resolutions upscale well with nearest neighbours scaling as it's integers.

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

Originally posted by Red:

Just to make sure, is your Switch set to render in 1080p in docked mode? IIRC the default setting is 720p, that's why I'm asking... Unless the game forces the rendering in 720p.

Yeah, Switch at 1080p and the game renders at 1080p, tho the Switch has adaptive resolution(both docked and undocked) for some heavy scenes, but that only triggers on specific supers and projectiles.

Eh, that's weird... Sp00kyFox's screenshots (from a YouTube video, but still) showed the artefacts on the RWBY sprites in portable mode and on the BlazBlue sprites in docked mode, that's why I was wondering if there wasn't something causing that mismatch. Guess I'll try to count the pixels manually to make sure of the resolution then x)

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

Originally posted by Red:

What tools did you use please? When I first checked the game's files out, it was an utter mess (and it's still the case) with hexadecimal file names without any extension. Finding the opening for instance was guesswork (though it was easy since it's the heaviest file).

Ask on BB's improvement discord server https://discord.gg/KCEGM5

Thanks a lot! I'll do that :D

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

Originally posted by Red:

Maybe the PS4 version uses an aggressive form of FXAA then, since IIRC it affects the whole screen (and not just the sprites).

Probably. If you enable morphological filtering on an AMD card you get basically the same effect as PS4.

That would make sense since the PS4 uses an AMD GPU... Just did a bit of research and it looks like FXAA and SMAA are better than MFAA though, since the induced blurring is pretty noticeable.

[Sp00kyFox]

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

Nope, Switch has the original sprites, if they look "bad" is because they are being upscaled to 1080p (so basically 720p sprites dont look good when you up the res :thonk:), check Ragna's hair and you can see that on the Switch he doesn't have the artifacting as everyone else

if you could provide screenshots from Ragna in portable mode, we could analyze them. but right now I can only judge it from docked mode footage. and there you can clearly see similar artifacts to PC @ 1080p. really doesn't make much sense that the different ports of the game would use different assets. I'd assume both version use the same 720p sprites which is basically what you see in the PC @ 720p screen (download the screenshot pack for exact pixels because I had to upscale the smaller resolutions in the overview). at least judging from the pixel staircases is seems to be the cleanest version so that's probably the source but I can't confirm it for sure.

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

You can also get the sprites from somewhere like spriters-resource or datamine them yourself, they'll be 720p while RBWY's will be 1080p

already got'em for Ranga, which I used for my initial post here. thing though is that they don't seem to match with the ones used in BBTAG. maybe they reworked them, since the original sprites were intended for a 768p display. so far I haven't seen any sprite rips from BBTAG but feel free to provide them.

[serresiete]

Originally posted by Sp00kyFox:

-things-

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/422108966462685187/472314973872324609/rg000_00.png

This is a 1080p sprite straight from the game files of BBTAG, as you can see it looks like total ass. The game doesn't render them bad, its just that they are straight up bad for starters.

The switch doesn't have those (I believe, pretty sure), but still upscales them badly (undocked look straight from the game, as if it were from UNI or P4A). I've also found out something, the Switch doesn't exactly have them clean 100%, still upscales them to nearest neighbour tho definitely not as bad as this lol.
(I also believe they are 720p as the game uses adaptive resolution and in heavy scenes it looks like the actually original sprite, and I don't think the game wants to replace the entire spritesheets on the go.)
Anyways every sprite is apparently trash and it seems everything is just wrong.

btw the guy who did that image also tried to upscale the sprite(original) on photoshop
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/422108966462685187/472315086422278144/rg000_00_PS_Scaled.png

As you can see, Arcsys could have done a waaaaaaaaaaaay better job.

Anyways this is kinda pointless sadly as they won't fix them, there is a good upscaler to put the original 768p sprites into the 1080p sprite file tho but nobody that I know has done anything yet, and the dlc also meets the same fate of bad sprites :(

Btw I don't have a capture card so I can't compare and show them to you exactly, sadly.

[Sp00kyFox]

Originally posted by NEED AN ARCADE STICK:

This is a 1080p sprite straight from the game files of BBTAG, as you can see it looks like total ass. The game doesn't render them bad, its just that they are straight up bad for starters. [...]

Anyways this is kinda pointless sadly as they won't fix them, there is a good upscaler to put the original 768p sprites into the 1080p sprite file tho but nobody that I know has done anything yet, and the dlc also meets the same fate of bad sprites :(

Btw I don't have a capture card so I can't compare and show them to you exactly, sadly.

no problem. that was very informative, thanks! I pinned your comment. would be of course great if they could replace the bad upscales with the original untouched sprites but that's something the PC team probably can't do on their own. but improving how the game handles them would also help, as one can see it looks a lot better somehow when rendered at 4k. which is kinda weird if the sprites are already made for 1080p.

anyways, maybe modders can replace the assets. that'd be great. the RWBY sprites should be clean since they are already made for 1080p and everybody else could be extracted from their original games respectively. don't know if the tools for this already exist. is there a special mod community for BlazBlue or Arcsys games in general?

Originally posted by Shini:

Will forward this to my programmer, thank you for the feedback. Although, I think this might actually be outside of my scope (might be not steam-related).

I think we gathered a lot of information here that could be helpful. the PC team probably can't get the original assets but the way the game filters could be improved. as one can see from the second comparison in my initial post the sprites look way better when rendering the game at 4k. they should look this good at other resolutions as well.

[ele]

If they fixed the sprites it'd probably be a purchase from me. Dog ugly at the moment.