AI Upscaling Process - March 29, 2023
I am in the process of using AI software to upscale some of the textures for Swat 3. To keep costs low I am using free open source software that can be buggy and lacking features.
I was using Cupscale but that it hasn't been updated since 2001 and is pretty buggy. You can't rely upon it to work when you are in the mood to do textures.
Recently I switched to Upscayl that seems to be a lot more stable but has file format limitations (only PNG, JPG, WEBP). This means I am forced to convert the .BMP files to 24-bit .PNG files using FastStone Photo Resizer.
Upscayl comes with 3 models for upscaling that have proven useful: real-esrgan, remacri, and ultrasharp. Most times I use a combination of all 3 to make a single texture.
real-esrgan gives the best result generally but will frequently give strange artifacts in textures that have repetitive fine details. It also tends to make the texture look "plastic" and fine details will be lost. I will often delete parts of the image (or make it partially transparent) and use sections from the ultrasharp and remacri versions of the same texture.
the ultrasharp model creates a noisy texture with a lot of grain. I usually combine it with the remacri version to help keep details in the texture.
the remacri model is somewhere in between real-esrgan's plastic look and ultrasharp's grainy image.
Forum Reactivated and File Uploads - March 20, 2023
I took the forum down for a few days when I noticed it was displaying birthdates that people provided in the forums. Perhaps it always did this and I never noticed. Either way it seems like a potential complaint from users who don't know that they would be public so I did an override on the template to hide them.
Since I am now paying for website hosting myself I have unlimited file space (in theory). I started to upload the custom chat mods into the file section that I had stored on my hard drive. This is a time consuming and boring task so expect me to do it slowly over a period of time.
One additional file that I recently uploaded was MPEG4 versions of the Swat 3 movies. The original movies that I re-encoded years ago were done in XVID format. The new MPEG4 versions are probably bigger but more compatible with modern versions of Windows. You only need to download these if you had problems still with the XVID versions.
New Website Host - March 15, 2023
First off, I want to thank Haystakk (co-founder of the former Swat 3 website "Toc Code 4") for generously hosting this website for over a decade free of charge. The only cost I had was the domain name registration. Even though he has moved on from PC gaming he still wanted to help what is left of the Swat 3 community.
Now a brief explanation why the website has been down for a week:
Since I have some free time I decided to tackle the problem of updating the website software. Joomla version 3 is set to no longer have security updates after August so I needed to deal with it sooner rather than later. I also had to choose and modify a new template for the site because Joomla 4 wasn't compatible with the old template. A time consuming task.
I discovered when I tried to upgrade to Joomla version 4 there were some problems with the database that required me having access to phpMyadmin. I didn't wanted to bother Haystakk with all the fixes so it was easier for everyone if I just paid for a host account on my own.
I am happy to say we are now fully updated and have a new template that I am slowly improving. Please report any issues with the website that you spot in the forums.
Another year - January 10, 2023
What, another year has passed? Impossible! The next version of the Last Resort mod still isn't done yet? I can't believe it either!
Happy new year everyone! I worked a little on the mod over the Christmas holiday but didn't get as much done as I would have liked. Specifically I was concentrating on making new textures for Mission B (Getts house). Not all textures are good enough to use AI software to upgrade and need to be rebuilt from scratch. This process is very time consuming because frequently I also need to tweak the mission's .SCN file with Furrycat's brilliant SCN editor.
As previously mentioned in older blog entries I am currently really busy working full time on a Canadian television show. This season we shoot for 10 months of the year (very grueling run) but by mid-February we will finally be wrapped. After a week of recovery I hope to get back to working on the mod.
Random thoughts:
It looks like the NeuWon network is dead for good. The website hasn't been up in a while and the creator of NeuWon doesn't seem to respond to emails. Such a shame since it would have been really nice to have a way to play Swat 3 online like the old days.
I got a notification from the company that I buy the domain name for this website that all .info website domains will have a price increase of over 15% next year. Don't be surprised if I move this website to new domain in the future to save money. Luckily I have already renewed for a year before the price increases.
At some point this year I also must build a new template for the website. I have avoided upgrading the CMS that the website runs on but eventually they will stop releasing security patches for this existing version.
Domain Renewed - November 13, 2022
Still working 12 hour days on a Canadian TV show so don't have much free time for the mod right now. Don't worry though, today I renewed the domain name for this website for another year. I am still planning on working on it more in December and from February on (when the season stops shooting).
What the heck is going on - June 11, 2022
Yup, I disappeared for a long time and you haven't seen progress updates in a while.
My deepest apologies that I haven't released a new version of the mod. I should have taken advantage of all my time off from work during the winter but unfortunately now I am back full time at IRL work.
The good news is that I see the NeuWon network is back online. For the longest time it was down and I was starting to get discouraged that we would never see it back up. However the Swat 3 server is non-functioning until the owner of the network works out his CD key authentication.
I work on a Canadian TV show that is syndicated around the world and we just started a new season of filming. Normally we are given 4 weeks to rig the studio but this season we only had 2 weeks due to complications. Needless to say things are going to be crazy for a few more weeks until we catch up. After this time I hope to actually have some energy at the end of the week to actually work on the Last Resort mod. Right now my weekends are spent crashing.
This mod may look dead, but it isn't.