BioWare used AI scaling to remaster Mass Effect’s original textures

BioWare is the latest studio to turn to AI to revive a game based on old technology. The studio revealed to media that he used AI to upgrade all the textures in the upcoming Mass Effect: Legendary Edition bundle. It’s just one small part of the restoration process, but it’s helped the development team create a strong foundation to work from.

“We knew we wanted to raise the resolution on all the textures in the trilogy,” Kevin Meek, director of the environment and character, said during a roundtable press. “It therefore means all the visual effects, the user interface, the environmental art, the character art – every texture that we hit immediately with two changes. First, we enlarged the hood that places the engine on the texture size. And secondly, we managed all the original, uncompressed source art through an AI-up program along with some other custom tools. ‘

BioWare did this to every texture in all three of the games. It was a huge undertaking – though it was more automated than some of the later touch phases.

“So we are talking about the whole trilogy of tens of thousands of textures with a resolution that has increased at least four times – if not 16 times,” Meek said.

This technique is not new, but it is finally catching up with the big publishers. For this, Nvidia revived The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for Nvidia Shield. And fans used AI tools to upgrade assets in PlayStation classics like Final Fantasy VII. And now one of the biggest publishers is using the same concept to remaster one of its biggest franchises.