shimmermare / mlp-4k-tools

A toolkit for rebuilding MLP episodes into 4K resolution.

To use the tools, you need Python 3.8, After Effects, and Adobe Flash/Animate installed.

Use AE CS6 (11) for season 4 and AE CC 2014 (13) for later seasons.

1. Place tools, scenes folder (AFX files) and scenesetups folder (Flash files) in a new empty folder.

2. Open Config.ini and edit values:

   • upscaleFactor is how much should project be upscaled. For 4K it's default 2.0, for 8K - 4.0 an so on.
   • aerenderPath is the path to your After Effects aerender.exe file. It is located in Support Files folder.
   • renderInstances is how many instances of AE will be used in rendering at the same time. General formula is 8 GB and 2 CPU cores per instance.
   • hdr is should scenes be rendered at 16-bit per channel colors. Note that it's only applicable to AFX and manual scenes since Flash is 8 bit/channel.

3. Run BuildSceneList.py. This will create file SceneList.txt with rough scene table. The file contains information how each scene should be treated:

   • afx - rendered from After Effects as PNG sequence.
   • fla - rendered from Flash/Animate as PNG sequence.
   • swf - compiled from Flash/Animate as SWF file.
   • man - manually managed image sequence. Used for waifu2x-ed intro and credits.

Tip: insert lines START and END between scenes to tell scripts to process only part of the list. Can be used multiple times.
Tip: scene list supports # comments.

5. Run UpscaleAFXScenes.jsx from suitable After Effects version. If everything is good and no warning was shown, go to next step. Otherwise you would need to:

   • If attribute/effect is missing - find which plugin it is from and install it and try again.
   • If script sent alert about unknown effect, please report it here and check that effect for manual upscaling need.
   • If scene is failing to upscale for some reason, manually upscale it and save AE project as <original name>_UPSCALED.aep.

6. Open After Effects and create new output templates:

   • Select TIFF Sequence with Alpha output template.
   • Set Format to PNG Sequence.
   • Toggle checkbox Use Comp Frame Number off.
   • Set Starting # to 1.
   • Save it as new MLP_PNG_8 template.
   • If you intend to use HDR, also set Depth to Trillion of Colors+ and save template as MLP_PNG_16.

7. Run RenderAFX.py to render afx scenes.

8. Run RenderFlash.jsfl to render fla scenes as PNG sequences. You'll be prompted once to specify render settings. Set width/height the same as planned scene resolution.

Tip: if scene fails to render as PNG sequence, consider changing it's type to SWF.
Note: if .jsfl files aren't automatically run by Flash/Animate, open them withing app directly.

9. Run RenderSWF.jsfl to render SWF scenes. If both this and PNG render fails - good luck with manual fixing.

10. Template.aep is a basic template for composing. It has debug overlays and main comp already setup. Template is compatible with AE CS6+. You need to get an episode video file which is used as reference (iTunеs version is recommended) and replace placeholder Episode Video with it.
    If you are using non-4K resolution, use default scripts Scale Composition.jsx and Scale Selected Layers.jsx on template.

11. Use ImportScenes.jsx to import all the scenes into project. You can use the script each time scene list is modified, it will re-import changed scenes. If a scene which was used in timeline was removed from the list, item will be moved to ScenesRemoved folder.

12. Add scenes one by one to the composition and match them with the reference.

    • A large part of scenes needs to be cut in various ways, usually start and end frames are cut.
    • Some scenes are cut entirely from the episode. Just remove them from scene list.
    • Scenes can use alpha channel and overlay each other. Often with broken order.
    • If a scene just won't match and you see a lot of diff lines, check scale. Some scenes are scaled to 102% for whatever reason.

13. Add fx and other stuff:

    • Scene translations: the most common are simple fade in/out and Linear Wipe. Sometimes Radial Wipe and Wave Wipe in combination with Fast Blur are used. Also don't forget about alpha translations.
    • Titles: font is Woodrow. Don't bother with exact alignment because DHX uses custom font version.

Misc:

• Expect a full episode files to take 150+ gb.
• Some scenes can take really long time to upscale. For example, rap scenes (502, 503, etc) from episode 422 can take up to 1 hour each!
• Some FX, for example Cell Pattern on the Cutie Map, don't support 8+ bit colors.
• Random-based FX such as Fractal Noise are impossible to scale with 1:1 match.
• You can use Virtual Machine to speed up Flash rendering.
• Sometimes AE can crash while rendering at the very end. To avoid this, remove the last few black frames from episode video (after Hasbro Studios logo).
• Do draft version with difference enabled before final rendering. This way you can catch any artefacts without wasting time on re-rendering. To enable guide layers rendering, set Guide Layers to Current Settings in render settings.
• Using Adobe Media Encoder for final rendering is recommended.