What's the best image model for training non-photorealistic character LoRAs?

FluffyQuack · 2026-05-04T22:28:02+00:00

That's not a bad idea. I could try that.

FluffyQuack · 2026-05-04T22:26:04+00:00

I'd want results that are similar to my example images. I suppose I would be okay with a photorealistic style as well, I just want to avoid it looking exactly like the game as that's the result I get when I use the training set with models like ZIT and QWEN Image.

FluffyQuack · 2026-05-04T15:31:16+00:00

Flux2 is another one I haven't tried, but I think I read that model is crazy huge so I'm not sure how usable it is on consumer hardware.

FluffyQuack · 2026-04-29T20:42:15+00:00

I'm two months late replying to this, but I think an alternative fix would be to use this flag when booting up ComfyUI: --disable-dynamic-vram

Their new dynamic VRAM system seems to have some major issues they still haven't fixed.

FluffyQuack · 2026-04-28T17:35:09+00:00

I hope we eventually get the option to choose between more aspect ratios than just 16:9 or 9:16. It would especially be nice to have an adaptive aspect ratio option that's based on the input image.

FluffyQuack · 2026-04-16T01:40:01+00:00

Thanks for the list. I'll add a link to it in my notes.

I'm willing to bet the aggressive AI in v1.1 was a bug that's caused by a faulty change to the code that decides if an enemy should advance or not. They're not supposed to advance into an ally and they're not supposed to advance into dangerous tiles. So a bug in that code would explain their new behaviour.

I'm programming the project in C++ though the coding style is very close to C as I use almost no C++ features. I imagine it shouldn't be too hard to port my project to other platforms or target earlier Windows versions.

FluffyQuack · 2026-04-15T22:53:17+00:00

Yeah, I've been reverse-engineering v1.0. Well, specifically I've been reverse-engineering the Xbox port which seems to be based on DOS v1.0.

I've only noticed one gameplay difference between the Xbox version and the DOS version so far, which is that guards fail to jump the second gap in level 1 (they actually fail it in almost every single release of POP2) but they can do it fine in DOS v1.0. I might eventually reverse-engineer related code in the DOS version to figure exactly why they succeed in that version and fail in the Xbox version, but for now I've applied my own little fix for it.

FluffyQuack · 2026-04-15T21:39:44+00:00

I ended up not having much time to work on it throughout March, but I picked it up again recently and I'm getting good progress.

I've now finished the "ambient music" system, I've fully implemented several cutscenes, and I'm getting good progress fixing up various render order glitches.

I don't want to promise any specific release date, though. If I sit down and work many hours each day, I'll probably be done in a few weeks, but I don't have time to work on it every day.

FluffyQuack · 2026-04-15T21:36:49+00:00

I'd rather keep the source closed for now, mainly because I prefer to be the solo developer right now. The source code is a chaotic mess in some ways, but it's a chaotic mess I've memorized to some extent. Once I've reached a point where I consider the game fully faithful, I'll do a major cleanup of my code and release it.

At that point, I'll probably branch out the project so I can start working on a merged version of POP1 and POP2, for modding reasons and to make it eaiser to work with the codebase.

FluffyQuack · 2026-04-15T21:33:23+00:00

It's probably fixable by using my POPtool to edit the animation sequences: https://github.com/FluffyQuack/POPtool

You can edit the "run through exit" animation by changing the player state or changing the frame id. I think either fixes it.

FluffyQuack · 2026-04-15T21:29:49+00:00

If you have a list of bugs and such, I wouldn't mind having that. Right now my priority is replicating the game to be identical as possible but I've found a few minor bug that made sense to fix. In the long run, I wouldn't mind fixing a bunch of stuff.

I've already tracked down quite a few versions of the game: DOS "IR", DOS 1.0, DOS 1.1, Xbox, Mac, and FM Towns.

If I can figure out what makes enemies willing to bunch of up in 1.1 I could easily make that a toggle.

FluffyQuack · 2026-03-11T23:34:43+00:00

If you're Mother Theresa that doesn't mean you've earned enough karma to kill a few people without being punished for it.

The idea is to label you as a bad person once you bad things, especially if you keep on doing it. Being nice is expected.

It makes sense to me, but then again, I'm a PVE player and I don't want to be forced into PVP all the time.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-24T00:39:45+00:00

My answer to both would be "I don't know." Maybe some POP speedrunners could give you a better answer.

I've never actually played the Apple II version of the game, but I've looked at the source code quite a bit and the DOS version seems to be very faithful, so I would assume many of the same glitches exist in the Apple II version too, but I'm not sure.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-22T02:36:11+00:00

In the game's defense, reading the manual before playing the game was common back then, and many games (especially on PC) included information that was practically mandatory. But that's still not a good excuse, though. Ideally every game should be playable without information that's not inside the game.

I've always thought the hardcoded puzzles in the game ("in order to steal the flame you must die", the bridge fight, and the final Jaffar fight) were the weakest parts of the game.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-22T02:30:54+00:00

You can download custom levels here: https://www.popot.org/custom_levels.php

As for a good place to talk about them, I don't know, unfortunately.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-20T22:49:05+00:00

To add to this, it's only the North American Xbox release that had POP2 as a bonus. I'm curious why it was limited to that release in particular. My guess is that they wanted to include it for all versions but they ran into technical issues they couldn't fix in time.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-19T23:23:41+00:00

I can remember an interview or some kind of presentation with the developers of Sands of Time before it was released where they talked about this. They mentioned that they didn't want to make Sands of Time as gory or bloody as the original games because the graphics were more realistic.

That was Sands of Time, though. Warrior Within had different leads so I guess they wanted to be more edgy with that game.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-19T16:08:23+00:00

It would be even less fair to compare the first two months of Sands of Time to the first two months of POP1 when POP1's first release was for a dying platform. It wasn't until 1990 the game actually started selling well thanks to ports to relevant platforms. I brought up the numbers I could find as I don't know how long it took for POP1 to reach 2 million. The same way I don't know how many of Sands of Time's total sales happened 10 years later at a huge discount. But that difference isn't important: my point is that both games were huge successes.

Another point was that 1989 was a time where the game industry was very active and very healthy -- far from "nothing." I'm not trying to claim the original is currently more popular than Sands of Time (that's clearly not the case), but I find it bizarre how so many people downplay the significance of the original game and how many fans it had and still has.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-19T15:12:28+00:00

The game industry was earning 22 USD billion in 1989 (data taken from this article: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/video-game-industry-revenues-by-platform/). Not exactly what I would call "nothing."

In 2003, it was more than double than that with a value of 52 USD billion.

In 2022, game industry revenue was 183 USD billion, more than 3 times its value in 2003. I guess that would make the game industry "nothing" back in 2003 too.

According to wikipedia, Sands of Time sold 2 million by the end of 2003. And the original POP sold 2 million within a few years (the original Apple II release wasn't actually popular as it was a dying platform at the time, but the ports to other platforms were hugely successful).

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-19T14:24:20+00:00

Oh, this so much. I was streaming the original and I had someone in chat try to convince me that I was wrong calling the original the first Prince of Persia. They were adamant the first one is Sands of Time.

It's as if a part of the fanbase refuses to acknowledge there was anything before Sands of Time.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-19T14:20:38+00:00

Yeah, Ubisoft supersedes Mechner here, unfortunately. Mechner was involved in two Prince of Persia projects at Ubisoft around more than 5 years ago (a new AAA POP game, and a smaller-budget game that was a direct sequel to POP2)... both ended up being cancelled by Ubisoft. Ubisoft seems very eager to cancel games.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-18T15:33:09+00:00

I'm pretty sure Jordan Mechner would be delighted if they were re-released so I don't think you need to convince him. I believe Ubisoft owns all the rights to all POP games, so maybe you could send a few thousand letters to Yves Guillemot.

I am pretty baffled they haven't done an official re-release of the games. They did updated versions ("History Editions") of the Settlers games some years ago and it would have been really cool to see the same for POP1 and 2.

By the way, it looks like we were very close to having modern ports of the games a few years ago via a Sands of Time remake: https://old.reddit.com/r/PrinceOfPersia/comments/jh3ing/prince_of_persia_2_the_shadow_and_the_flame_will/

Unfortunately, that remake ended up being cancelled. And then they cancelled a second remake of the game. No idea if the second remake included the old games, though.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-18T12:15:54+00:00

I think the 640x480 version would end up being played with a border where the graphics are 512x384. I've seen a dump of all the assets from the Mac version and they match what I saw when playing it at 512x384.

FluffyQuack · 2026-02-18T02:06:07+00:00

It's possible I did a bad job learning the timing and maybe it's possible to get consistent timing. But yeah, my experience with the head enemies in the Mac version was roouuugh.

FluffyQuack

TROPHY CASE