Practical Tools-Make Animation From 1080p To 4k Per Second

Video is a form of media that we often come into contact with in our daily lives, such as movies, TV series, short videos, animations, etc. Among them, animation occupies a large proportion of our entertainment life. Taking me as an example, I occasionally go to the cinema to watch movies, but most of them are downloaded to the computer to watch. Most of the animations we come into contact with are 720p, and the clearer ones are 1080p. As for 4k, this concept seems to only exist in the news, but has never been exposed. This article will introduce a powerful open source tool-Anime4k, which can be real-time, High-quality in animation video, can easily make 1080p into 4k. Let’s introduce this high-quality open source project.

Anime4k

There are also many researches on image magnification in the academic field, especially the widespread application of artificial intelligence in the field of image processing in recent years. Many researchers use machine learning and deep learning to magnify video images. Although deep learning methods have achieved some amplification, but not very satisfactory in terms of speed. We all know that real-time video streaming also requires high speed. If the zooming speed of each frame is too slow, it will seriously affect the look and feel, even if the clarity is improved, but It cannot be used either.

The Anime4k introduced in this article does not use training-based methods such as deep learning, but it can achieve real-time and high-quality image magnification at the same time. There have been some animation zooming algorithms in the past, for example：

NGU：6ms
Waifu2x：1s

The Anime4k introduced in this article only takes about 3ms to enlarge a 1080p image to 2160p (Vega 64 GPU platform).

The real-time and high quality of Anime4k makes it ensure the continuity of the video while ensuring the clear image, which can fully meet our daily needs for watching animation.

Since this article mainly introduces the configuration and use of this open source tool, it will not expand the implementation process of Anime4k in detail.

At present, Anime4k can support a variety of mainstream and powerful video players. You only need to configure the player to have real-time image zooming function, which can efficiently improve the clarity of animation. The players supported by Anime4k are as follows:

PotPlayer
MPC-BE
MPC-HC
MPV
madVR

The above five players are all open source. This article will take two players that I personally think are good to introduce how to configure Anime4k.

1. PotPlayer

Potplayer is an open source, concise and popular offline video player. It is not only powerful, supports rich customization features, but also is simple to use and has no ads. This is more conscientious than most video players, so, I also recommend everyone to try this player.

PotPlayer is an excellent choice for playing music and videos on your PC. While there are plenty of third-party media players, such as VLC and KMPlayer, not a single one comes close to offering as many features as PotPlayer.

Although a lot of people prefer to stream videos and music, shoddy internet connectivity can cause issues. During such times, PotPlayer for Windows lets you listen to music and watch videos locally stored on your PC. With support for a wide range of file types, it’s a great choice for PC users.

Not much to say, now we will introduce the configuration process of PotPlayer+Anime4k.

Download and install PotPlayer

Download the PotPlayer installation package on the official website, and then double-click to install it.

Download Anime4k HLSL file

Choose Anime4K_HLSL.zip to download.

Unzip and copy to the specified folder

Unzip the compressed package downloaded in step 2 and move the HLSL file to the PxShader folder in the PotPlayer installation directory. If you install PotPlayer without modifying the installation path, the default location is C:\Program Files (x86)\DAUM\PotPlayer\PxShader.

Configure PotPlayer

Open the PotPlayer player, click the following options in turn.

video
Pixel shading
Coloring set after resizing

It must be noted that it is the adjusted coloring period, do not choose the coloring set before the size adjustment.

Then click Combine Edit and add the following 4 HLSL files.

If the original image size is less than or equal to 1080p, select Anime4K_PushGrad_Weak, if it is greater than 1080p, select Anime4K_PushGrad.

If you can’t find these options, you can restart PotPlayer.

Then click video -> pixel coloring -> resized coloring set -> combination.

2. MPC-BE

MPC-BE is an open source and simple video player with a smaller content footprint than PotPlayer. The configuration method of MPC-BE+Anime4k is very similar to PotPlayer, so some processes will be briefly introduced.

MPC-BE (Media Player Classic – Black Edition) is a free and well thought-out video player which has taken a lot from other open source projects, especially that of the original Media Player Classic.

Since the program uses the code of the ever-so-successful MPC, it is fully capable of playing almost any known video file format currently available and it is also highly capable of playing back audio files without any hitches. MPC-BE can play Blu-ray dics, DVD discs and other optical or solid state media.

MPC-BE has the following features: