Upscaling Texture Maps?

Masterstroke

What would be the results like, if I'd upscaled [texture maps] them with AI tools in e.g. Photoshop?
Does it make sense to do it?
Are the results done with AI tools really look better in renders?

Richard Haseltine

They wouldn't look much if any different unless the texture was actually smaller than the area of the final render that it occupied, which woukld usually require a huge render or a very close zoom. If the view and image size were such that a lack of pixels showed then the results might be an improvement, depending on the nature of the materials and the effectiveness of the upscaling.

RawArt

like Richard said...and since the AI is upscaling and does not see the intended final use, I can imagine alot of seam issues creeping in

WendyLuvsCatz

it looks great on really lowrez textures 

I have done it on some ancient Poser products 

anything over 1024 I don't see any point, the ones I did were 512 and they were quite large props such as furniture and buildings not a pencil or a mug

barbult

I've also had good luck with Topaz Gigapixel AI. Some textures seem to benefit a lot.

It also sometimes helps to reduce the size (downscale) with Gigapixel, to reduce jagginess and compressionl artifacts.

PixelSploiting

If you are upscaling G3-G8 character textures then it's better to rebake it first to single UV tile with uniform density, else there might be seams showing because of different texel density between different body parts.

 

Otherwise, I had good results with Topaz AI and even with the latest Photoshop uspcaling.

Masterstroke

PixelSploiting said:

[...]
else there might be seams showing because of different texel density between different body parts.
[...]

This is exactly why I'm asking. I have found only one resource for 8k displacement maps, but it shows visible seams. 

PixelSploiting

Masterstroke said:

PixelSploiting said:

[...]
else there might be seams showing because of different texel density between different body parts.
[...]

This is exactly why I'm asking. I have found only one resource for 8k displacement maps, but it shows visible seams. 

 I'm not sure if geometry maps like displacement or normal maps can be simply upscaled without producing seams because when an AI algorithm upscales images it fills space between pixels if there isn't enough detail. In Topaz  AI this works for things like specular or bump maps if you play a little with preserving detail settings, but for geometry maps probably it's better to rebake it in higher resolution in 3d editor.  Which is more time consuming.

Sven Dullah

If we're talking grayscale maps (displacement, bump), you'd probably benefit more from converting 4k maps to 16bit png:s, than using 8bit 8k maps...