Wow. That's ... wow.

No, it really doesn't. ColorDMD just applies color to the existing display - it doesn't sub in new assets as this (apparently) does.

It is still a work in progress - I would assume they can replace the fonts with higher res versions just as they've done with the art so far. Maybe they won't, though.

This isn't just 4x dots - this is all re-drawn artwork that was done with 4x the dots. Rarehero's screenshots make that pretty clear.

They re-created all the frames of the original artwork at a higher resolution. It's not as if WMS had this stuff laying around at a higher resolution they could just use. The game company CGC hired basically used the original dots as a base to re-create every frame.

Edit: Funny aside, I've been considering doing the same thing with CCC for some time, I just don't have the artistic skills to pull off the redraw at a level I'm happy with, nor do I know any artists that would do it for free

Ha, right.

Even more screen grabs. Because: Glorious

Screen_Shot_2015-08-28_at_9.32.57_PM.png

Screen_Shot_2015-08-28_at_9.33.18_PM.png

Screen_Shot_2015-08-28_at_9.32.17_PM.png

Screen_Shot_2015-08-28_at_9.31.55_PM.png

Screen_Shot_2015-08-28_at_9.31.11_PM.png

This upgraded color is made possible by the fact that it's running the original game through an emulator -- if I understand things correctly. I have to admit, I'm still guessing at the exact details of how this works, but ...

The CFC colorization is actually injecting new assets on the fly, BEFORE the compositing process for display. Things like dynamic text and scores still work because those are left as is and rendered (layered in, processed with masking and such) the same way they normally would but combined with the new assets instead of the old ones.

So just as an example, the dragon breathing fire in front of the castle & princess - that's multiple parts.
- The castle layer
castle.png

- The dragon layer
dragon.png

- A mask for revealing the text layer
mask.png

- The text layer itself
- And the maiden in the window (which I didn't dig around for)

The CGC process can, apparently, replace those items on the fly before they're rendered into the final image - which is a much more straight forward approach than what colorDMD does (recognizing frames after the fact and applying a color filter).

And since I have them from digging around - another example - the beer mug clank in front of the burning castle:
- beer mugs
beer.png

- mask (to keep the black parts of the beer layer from being transparent)
beer_mask.png

- castle
whole_castle.png

And I'm not sure how the stuff is being re-drawn, but individual frames in the original don't actually re-draw the whole scene every time, for example on the castle, only the bits with fire change in subsequent frames, so it may be that the redrawn bits are using the same setup:

fire2.png
fire1.png

Different tool (WPCEdit) that allows you to view the DMD frames in WMS Roms - but not dynamically replace things like pinball browser does (so the 'edit' is actually a little misleading)

Maybe they don't have the horsepower to push more than 4x resolution and plain drawn art wouldn't look as nice that low?

That's apparently already dealt with in a software update. I think Rick mentioned new games coming off the line now have it in place (not 100% sure on that) but it hasn't been released as an update for existing games yet.

Probably because they're going to have to mail out micro SD cards or some crap and don't want to have to do that more than once.

What do I have to do to get on the diffuser train? File a support ticket?

Done. I think. I'm just guessing it's through the support page at CGC -- haven't actually done this before now.

Yeah, Metallik posted some pretty damning pictures of his original MM with the brightest LED he could find behind the inserts - still black as night. The ink is just bad on the MMR playfields.