It's come to my attention that some media outlets such as Cowcotland.com are running with assumptions about Absolute HD rather than contacting me to verify their information so I think it's necessary to clear those assumptions up.
The main assumption is that Absolute HD is solely AI generated. It is not. Most textures have had an AI pass but not before I have manually edited the original texture for the best AI result, then each texture has been individually put through different AI algorithms for the best AI result, things haven't just been thrown through a big AI batch command. I have professional pride in my work despite me just doing this in my spare time. Further manual work has been put in after each individual AI pass with different algorithms for the best end result as well (correcting transparency issues, minimising color compression artifacts due to the old DXT BC1/3 methods supported by the engine, etc).
As you'll see in the Stalker: Singularity page HERE additions such as trader repair have also been taken from there and manually built from the ground up to work and be compatible with vanilla SoC and by extension Absolute HD, nothing has just been slapped and cobbled together. Even the descriptions and menu descriptions for options etc I have all redone by hand for better clarity and to look as neat, tidy, and professional as possible.
Normal/parallax maps for Absolute HD have all been done by hand as well, and the few textures that have needed to be replaced because their quality was too poor have also all been done by hand from sources I have physically gone to in the real world, taken a picture of, and made into a texture. In fact, the vast majority of textures (90%+) used in SIN have been made by me taking pictures of things in the real world and turning them into textures, it has taken YEARS of work.
Anyway, I think that clears most things up. I wish outlets would fact-check what they write before writing it because god knows how many outlets have now just parroted what Cowcotland.com has written us modders don't spend all the time we do creating something just to have it misrepresented. :o(
