u/TvHead9752

Right now I’m in the middle of a journey to read as much scholarly work on the history of the afterlife as we humans have understood it. To pause here, just because I may not go to the imagined version of Hell (and yes, from what little I’ve discovered so far the idea of Hell seems to have been a gradual conclusion that wasn’t godly in nature) doesn’t mean that I couldn’t go to the afterlife of the Egyptians—I haven’t looked into them yet—or any other culture. But that’s why they all need to be investigated to some extent.

But wait, can’t you get to the point?

Alright, fine. When I was a kid, my family was religious. But they weren’t hardcore religious in any sense. Most of the people I talked to outside of my family were religious. Ever since I was small, I was still allowed to ask questions in my house about the Bible and it was a thing where we could all agree that many things don’t make sense, or at the very least may have been allegorical. My mother’s relationship with God is more on the “spiritual” side which seems to certainly borrow elements of Hinduism. For instance, the idea of Mary having Jesus with no human father is pretty silly in our view, and I’ve made more than enough jokes about Gabriel being the father (much to the chagrin of my Catholic younger brother.) I don’t mean any harm by it. But atheism isn't the right term for me, and neither is apatheism. Why?

Concerning Atheism: It’s not accurate because I’ve never cared about whether or not God “exists” or if he exists exactly as described in the Bible. I don't feel the authority to claim belief or non-belief.

Concerning Apatheism: You may think, “If you’ve never cared, doesn't that make you an apatheist?” At the end of the day, these are just convenient labels for describing our experiences to me. But a part of Apatheism seems to require little to no engagement with religion in general...which isn't true at all! I wouldn't be researching Hell if I were one.

On Agnosticism: It’s the only label I feel intellectually comfortable with, let’s say. For example, scientists know the Big Bang happened at some point. What caused the Big Bang? I’m more than willing to say that God could be that mysterious X variable in algebra for creation. Why do the seasons change? Why is it that even if many of us humans were wiped out by a bomb, the natural shrubbery would take over our abandoned, decimated towns? Seems like the Earth has a natural recycling system put in place, given enough time. Who designed all of it? Well, it had to have been someone smarter than me, so I regard God being the cause with a shrug. I can't think of anyone else or feel the need to refute it like atheists.

And again, I’m really more concerned with the Hell question. It doesn't matter to me if God exists, but if he does, I don't want to go to Hell, do I? That was the question that made me start researching. If anyone wants to know the name of the book I’m reading first (it will not be the last!) it’s Heaven & Hell: A History Of The Afterlife by Bart D. Ehrman. So far, I haven't encountered any contrary evidence to the fact that “Hell” is an invented idea. But I could still go to several other places—I’ve got a strong imagination—that may not be as satisfying as being up here, lol.

For now, “Hell” is what I’ve chosen to look into. Seeing as I’ve been indifferent to “God” all these years, if there were grounds for us never to interact at all—I mean, he can't get at me when I die, right?—then I wouldn't care about any of it anymore. For people who are agnostics, what do you think of this? Is the term agnostic accurate given my story? How did you arrive at the term?

Original 480p DVD source

Artemis - 4K upscaled version

I’ve been experimenting with upscaling some older 2D animation (anime, mostly) and wanted to see how far I can push the quality, specifically with line art.

Source is from Lupin III Part II: “Albatross: Wings of Death”, originally 480p. Love that show!

My current setup:

• Topaz Video AI
• Model: Artemis
• Input condition: High Quality (HQ)
• Grain: 4
• Grain size: 2

I’ve attached:

• Original frame
• Upscaled version

I'm trying to get some more defined line art that might have been done for a Blu-Ray, or close to it. So that means preserving the original look (not overly sharpened or “AI-smoothed”) and avoiding that plastic or overly denoised look. SO FAR, Artemis has come close, but not enough. You'll notice that on the eyes of the guards holding Lupin, they are somewhat smushed on the pupils.

I’m curious; are there better AI tools or models specifically for line art refinement after an upscale? Would something like ESRGAN / ComfyUI workflows give better results here? Are there manual techniques (Photoshop, filtering, edge masks, etc.) that people use in combination with AI? Should I be doing more preprocessing (denoise/deblock) before running Artemis? I use a Mac M1.

Any advice on workflows or tools would be useful from people who’ve worked with older anime sources would be great. I've always seen these done really well in certain places online, but I could never figure it out. Thanks!