The recreation of Ultima Online as a 3D experience continues

[Tranquility]

Love these threads! Love seeing what UO could have looked like, and should look like.

#1 item on my list for the last 10 years....high resolution.

Rarely log in these days anymore because it's just not pretty to look at, and that's the sad truth.

Beautiful Stuff Saphireena! Wish UO looked like how you envisioned it. Would be a site to see.

 

[Deimos]

I really don't understand why the UO team don't learn from past mistakes when it comes to fixing/replacing things which aren't broken to begin with.

I dread to think how much of the money they get from subscribers that's been wasted on things that weren't needed.

Those potted plants are just a tiny fraction of the things they shouldn't have bothered with, let alone implemented, which reminds me of the god awful animated animals/monsters introduced into the game when Lord Blackthorns revenge came out.

Two examples I can think of, the Titan and Balron graphics, gah.

 

[MalagAste]

That last pic is a Cyclops... not a Titan...

First pic is the Balron I remember... that black thing is a trophy stands at my Crypt...

 

[Syncros]

I'd rather be using the CC graphics but since the CC looks so small on 1080 screens I use the EC but even then its like wow is that all the EC is?

They should just update the CC or remake it to use the old graphics and allow players to design items that can be added to the game.

UO in 3d would look amazing if you could use the 2d style graphics or more cartoony but then that would be close to like WoW is I guess.

 

[Pawain]

I'd rather be using the CC graphics but since the CC looks so small on 1080 screens I use the EC but even then its like wow is that all the EC is?

They should just update the CC or remake it to use the old graphics and allow players to design items that can be added to the game.

UO in 3d would look amazing if you could use the 2d style graphics or more cartoony but then that would be close to like WoW is I guess.

You can make the screen bigger now!!!

 

[Merion]

Didn't they disable that option? I sure don't have it anymore. I can set it manually in the config file but each time I change an option ingame, it resets :-/

 

[Petra Fyde]

Didn't they disable that option? I sure don't have it anymore. I can set it manually in the config file but each time I change an option ingame, it resets :-/

You need to scroll down to see the new resolutions: Classic Client Options Menu – Ultima Online

 

[Merion]

You need to scroll down to see the new resolutions: Classic Client Options Menu – Ultima Online

Well then, something seems to be bugged with my install...

 

[Petra Fyde]

so it seems! I suggest clicking the 'full file check' option next time you log in.

 

[Uvtha]

Oooh? Well I could certainly help out with the classic client pixel art version at least if we're talking about one in game static item.

Man if that actually were a possibility it would be awesome. I'd be thrilled to see someone such as yourself that actually understands not only how to do pixel art, but also how UO should look, doing new art.

Kewl wurm project as well!

 

[Uvtha]

That poor christmas tree. Nice effort, but whoever made that didn't quite get the 3-dimensional aspect of the tree. The gift boxes look to be about right but that tree look like it's a frontal view just pasted on or something.

 

[MalagAste]

That poor tree is also terribly crooked...

 

[Dot_Warner]

I don't think Broadsword would appreciate what the flocked and artisan trees are called outside a censored environment such as Stratics...

 

[Saphireena]

Two examples I can think of, the Titan and Balron graphics, gah.

Yes I remember how traumatized I was when they started REPLACING already existing BEAUTIFUL and PERFECTLY FINE mobs in the game!!!! The pixel graphics challenge was at full swing at the time and TheGrimmOmen the AD at the time, was such sweetie pie and really listened to our woes and tried to fix what he could. If I remember correctly, even the gorgeous daemon had been replaced with some god awful 3d rendered monstrosity, but then he restored it back to the original. Aaaahh we were sooo happy!

Why oh why oh why were those perfectly good mobs replaced! Fair enough if they wanted to stick them in the new clients, but leave the CC critters be!!!

Gosh just remembering all of this now is getting me all worked up haha!

Original Daemon:

Just LOOK at the detail. How the tail animates, the glowing red eyes, the pride and menace with which the daemon walks, the big hulky bulky arms about to rip someone apart. The big heavy cloven feet about to stomp you right into a little puddle of goo. The horns. The spiky beard. Aaaaahhhh.

New crappy render daemon:

Then you have this WIMP of a daemon who honestly looks like he's missing some joints. Such poor animation. Such a scrawny body with absolutely no character or personality. Look at that stupid tail with the lazy animation. Grrrrr....

Please guys, please please tell me that GrimmOmen's restoration back to the original Daemon stuck. Please tell me they didn't put the crappy one back? :-D

 

[Syncros]

Thank guys I was able to get it bigger after doing a full file check and scrolling down in display options.

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

...Just LOOK at the detail. How the tail animates, the glowing red eyes, the pride and menace with which the daemon walks, the big hulky bulky arms about to rip someone apart. The big heavy cloven feet about to stomp you right into a little puddle of goo. The horns. The spiky beard. Aaaaahhhh.

Please guys, please please tell me that GrimmOmen's restoration back to the original Daemon stuck. Please tell me they didn't put the crappy one back?...

Unfortunately, it has been "downscaled" significantly for use in the EC, to reduce system stress. Seriously, we need a graphics slider in the EC for those of us with decent computers.

 

[Deimos]

That last pic is a Cyclops... not a Titan...
.

It's definitely a titan, the cyclops has the hammer and skulls around his waist.
Found the other balron graphic (A re hue of the dark one), which is the one I remember.
Another pointless art change that really bothered me, was the changing of the Terathan avenger into that ugly paper mache looking thing, it bore no resemblance to the other terathan graphics at all.

 

[Deimos]

Please guys, please please tell me that GrimmOmen's restoration back to the original Daemon stuck. Please tell me they didn't put the crappy one back? :-D

It is possible however to bring back most, if not all the pre-lbr art/animations yourself, but it does involve editing a UO file, which I know, isn't exactly supported by UO.
But if you want to bring back a specific monster graphic, you only need to look at the Bodyconv.def file in the UO directory.
It looks like the daemon graphic was already put back by a developer, as it shows this:

# This was the original line for the Daemon since LBR
#9 9 -1 -1 -1
#This line reverts the Daemon back to the original style
9 -1 -1 -1 -1

You just need to know which bodyID is which, to change it back (9 = Daemon)

I just changed the titan entry (76) to this:

76 -1 -1 -1 -1

And it worked ok.

 

[Saphireena]

View attachment 77543

Unfortunately, it has been "downscaled" significantly for use in the EC, to reduce system stress. Seriously, we need a graphics slider in the EC for those of us with decent computers.

I'm probably bias, but putting all optimization aside and seeing this big version, I still prefer the original daemons. Gosh, now I'm really tempted to make a high res version of it.

Which reminds me, I never remembered to put the high res pixel polished version of the dragon on my UO page back in the day. Added now.

 

[Saphireena]

# This was the original line for the Daemon since LBR
#9 9 -1 -1 -1
#This line reverts the Daemon back to the original style
9 -1 -1 -1 -1
You just need to know which bodyID is which, to change it back (9 = Daemon)
I just changed the titan entry (76) to this:
76 -1 -1 -1 -1
And it worked ok.

Handy to know, thank you!

 

[ziox]

Well then, something seems to be bugged with my install...
View attachment 77492

Only English version add this feature.

 

[Merion]

Only English version add this feature.

Well, that sucks! I never consciously chose German, I think when downloading it, the server pre-set this according to GeoIP. That was a huge pain in the neck for the EC too for a long time, getting only squares instead of letters if you downloaded it from Germany and you had to change it manually in a config file. I hope the fixed this in the meantime.

But back to CC - how to switch to english? I can't find an option ingame, can I edit some file for that? Please don't tell me I need a full re-install...

 

[ziox]

Well, that sucks! I never consciously chose German, I think when downloading it, the server pre-set this according to GeoIP. That was a huge pain in the neck for the EC too for a long time, getting only squares instead of letters if you downloaded it from Germany and you had to change it manually in a config file. I hope the fixed this in the meantime.

But back to CC - how to switch to english? I can't find an option ingame, can I edit some file for that? Please don't tell me I need a full re-install...

add this line at the end of the uo.cfg file :

UserLanguageCodeString=ENU

Then save your file.

 

[Deimos]

Which reminds me, I never remembered to put the high res pixel polished version of the dragon on my UO page back in the day. Added now.

I wonder how long it would take to do a high res, pixel polished version of the dragon in full (All animations/movements etc)
There must be hundreds of frames for just one creature right?

 

[Merion]

add this line at the end of the uo.cfg file :

UserLanguageCodeString=ENU

Then save your file.

Thank you, I will do that. And now I'll stop derailing this thread

 

[Saphireena]

I wonder how long it would take to do a high res, pixel polished version of the dragon in full (All animations/movements etc)
There must be hundreds of frames for just one creature right?

The dragon being one of the largest animated mobs in the game, it's a lot of work. Earlier in this thread I said I was tempted to make a pixel polished hi res version of the daemon. Well I couldn't stop thinking about it, because I really wanted to showcase just how amazing the artwork was. As UO gets older and the graphics shrink down on our monitors, I think a lot of people tend to forget just how beautiful the art is. Then you show them some new high resolution flashy image and they ooh and aah. But all I see is a creature that pales in comparison.

So I went ahead and did the daemon. Used about 8 hours of work on just one frame. So doing the whole walking animation from one direction alone would take a week I guess. Let alone the back and side views, then the other animations like fighting and death etc.

I think the dragon would be about the same, time-wise.

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

So I went ahead and did the daemon. Used about 8 hours of work on just one frame. So doing the whole walking animation from one direction alone would take a week I guess. Let alone the back and side views, then the other animations like fighting and death etc.

How many total direction/animation combinations are there? Has anyone ever complied a list?

(Hey @Dot_Warner, you've been in the files a lot, you have any idea about this? I'm guessing the CC wasn't standardized and some creatures have multiple animations while others are lacking animations, etc. Maybe you have a general idea of how much is/isn't there though?)

I haven't played the CC in awhile, but you can face in 8 directions correct?

4 Cardinal Directions: North, South, East, West
4 Ordinal Directions: North East, South East, South West, North West

Are some of those the same image reversed? Or does there have to be a separate image for each direction?

How many animation sequences are there? All animations in the CC are 4 frames correct? Or is it all the same base frame with 3 points of animation which return to the base frame when the sequence is played?


CC Animations list:????????

1 Standing (1 Frame, or is it a 4 frame idle/fidget animation?)
1 Moving (walk) Peace mode
1 Moving (fast) Peace mode (Is there a fast walk animation for mobiles?)
1 Moving (walk) Attack mode (Some creatures in the EC "crouch" into combat, is that true for the CC?)
1 Moving (fast) Attack mode (????)

1 Attack
1 Defend?

1 Idle/fidget animation (I seem to remember a horse whinnying, did it throw it's head?)

1 Death animation


Even if it is just 1 moving, 1 attack, 1 death, that's 3 animations, 4 frames per animation, 8 directions. Jeez.

3 animations X 4 frames per animation = 12 frames
12 frames X 8 Directions = 96 total frames

@Saphireena, I like your work, but if it takes you 1 week per direction for just walking, that's 8 weeks to do walking. 24 Weeks to do just 3 total animations. Holy craptastic Batgirl.

How many mobiles are in the CC? 100? 200?

********Edit:********
More precisely, if it took you 8 hours for 1 frame and it's 96 frames, then 768 hours. 40hrs per workweek would be 19.2 work weeks. That means an artist would get about 2 mobiles done a year.

*Boggles*

1 artist = 2 moblies per year
10 artists = 20 moblies per year
100 artists = 200 moblies per year

With 10 artists, all with your level of talent and exact vision, it would take 5 years to do 100 mobiles?

Let's say the average cost of an employee to a company is 100k (salary, sick time, vacation, workstation, health insurance, etc.), that would be uh...10 X 100 = $1 million USD. Per year for 5 years. Or $5 million USD to get 100 moblies in the CC to high res.

So, you're saying there's a chance!

 

[Saphireena]

How many total direction/animation combinations are there? Has anyone ever complied a list?
@Saphireena, I like your work, but if it takes you 1 week per direction for just walking, that's 8 weeks to do walking. 24 Weeks to do just 3 total animations. Holy craptastic Batgirl.
More precisely, if it took you 8 hours for 1 frame and it's 96 frames, then 768 hours. 40hrs per workweek would be 19.2 work weeks. That means an artist would get about 2 mobiles done a year.

*Boggles*

1 artist = 2 moblies per year
10 artists = 20 moblies per year
100 artists = 200 moblies per year

With 10 artists, all with your level of talent and exact vision, it would take 5 years to do 100 mobiles?
Let's say the average cost of an employee to a company is 100k (salary, sick time, vacation, workstation, health insurance, etc.), that would be uh...10 X 100 = $1 million USD. Per year for 5 years. Or $5 million USD to get 100 moblies in the CC to high res.

So, you're saying there's a chance!

You want me to "get real", right? Well my fine feathered friend, I'm all for "getting real". So how about we start with your points and see what's "real" and what isn't. (By the way, when someone exaggerates to prove a point, it's highly annoying - just sayin'!)

• From what I know, the directions are horizontally flipped, so that means 5 sets, not 8.
• For -me- it would take one week, but that's only because I lovingly and meticulously went through every little part and tried to make it perfect, even adding some detail that was not there. (for instance you can see lines in the teeth of the daemon). However artists in outsourcing teams will not work that way, they'll do what's needed for the bare minimum, which in this case is simply taking those pixels and cleaning them up from 4x4 pixel squares to something with more shape. In all honesty, the smart way to do this would be to have a tools programmer create a script that does the bulk of the work automatically, then spits out a 90% "polished" version that an outsourcing artist could then touch up a bit.
• You're also not considering the purpose and motivation behind putting so much time and effort into making the daemon: it was to showcase just how gorgeous the CC artwork is. I'm sure we can all understand that if this was a scenario where the motivation and purpose is to "get the job done", they would work much quicker and not get hung up on perfecting every little detail.
• Something to consider is that I was talking about the daemon, dragon or any other huge mob asset when I talked of 8 hours. Most mobs in UO are much smaller. At the other end of the spectrum is the rabbit. If you think it will take me (even if I were to give it all the love and care in the world) a half a year to do all the frames of that rabbit, you're off your rocker.

• "Average" cost of an employee is 100k salary? Wow, I don't know what the salaries are like in the US, but even though I have the "expert artist" title at Ubisoft (expert being the next step up after senior), I still make LESS than 50K a year. And you say the "average" is 100K? *blinks* Uh what? Do you work in the game industry? Or where are you getting those numbers? And let me be very clear about this, to "pixel polish" assets which have already been designed, does NOT need a senior, let alone an expert level artist, with guidance, juniors and trainees could do that kind of polish work. So we're talking about a much smaller salary. Over here, juniors and trainees get about 24K a year.

 

[Pawain]

You want me to "get real", right? Well my fine feathered friend, I'm all for "getting real".

I think he is just adding up the time that it would take for your example. All that time caused depression because he knew they do not have the man hours to to enhancements.

He wasn't dissing you in any way.

In cities in Cali and places like Austin TX where there is a lot of computer using work going on. Many computer jobs pay 80 to 100k to start because of the competition. Especially jobs that make money for a company.

Unfortunately most companies consider artists as an expense not a profit maker.

 

[Saphireena]

I think he is just adding up the time that it would take for your example. All that time caused depression because he knew they do not have the man hours to to enhancements.
He wasn't dissing you in any way.
In cities in Cali and places like Austin TX where there is a lot of computer using work going on. Many computer jobs pay 80 to 100k to start because of the competition. Especially jobs that make money for a company.
Unfortunately most companies consider artists as an expense not a profit maker.

He might not have been "dissing" me, but he certainly wanted to prove to everyone just how silly I'm being with these hi-res dreams of mine by grossly exaggerating each of his points to the extreme, then topping his argument off with a sarcastic: "So you're saying there's a chance?". I have no problem with debating the subject, but don't be surprised if I get annoyed if someone isn't playing fair.

As for salaries, I quickly googled "game artist salary in the us" and the first result spat out this:

So seems about right to me. And I knew that salaries are higher in the US due to different cost of living, taxation and health systems, but I certainly was not ready to accept that salaries would be double of what we have.
So what's to be learned here? Before you present your argument, do your homework first.

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

You want me to "get real", right? Well my fine feathered friend, I'm all for "getting real". So how about we start with your points and see what's "real" and what isn't.

I think he is just adding up the time that it would take for your example. All that time caused depression because he knew they do not have the man hours to to enhancements.

He wasn't dissing you in any way.

In cities in Cali and places like Austin TX where there is a lot of computer using work going on. Many computer jobs pay 80 to 100k to start because of the competition. Especially jobs that make money for a company.

Unfortunately most companies consider artists as an expense not a profit maker.

@Pawain is correct. Was not trying to tear down what you are doing @Saphireena, just wondering how it all fit together. How many actual frames, directions, animation sequences, etc, there are in the CC. I was just wondering how long it would take, and how much it would actually cost.

Also, I did not say salary. I said "cost of employee", which is a huge difference. It includes salary, but might also include health insurance, desk, chair, computer, software, cost of electricity, cost of water, facilities maintenance, housekeeping, grounds, training, legal paperwork, etc., etc. etc., calculated out by employee, per year.

In many areas of the US, 60-70k a year in salary is average (or even low), for a specialist, skilled, experienced worker. And in the additional costs of required to keep someone on staff and 100k is probably a decent ballpark number. It also makes for easy math.

In the Seattle area where I live, a decent 2 bed 800 ft sq apartment near the city runs about $1500 to $2000 a month, ~about. On 24k a year, an employee could barely afford rent, let alone food. So the base salary in this area is a lot closer to the 60k -70 - 80k range. But an individual is still only keeping a fraction, since cost of living is so damn high.

Anyway, what I posted was just trying to get an idea of how long it would actually take, how much it would actually cost, to bring the mobiles up to high res in the CC.

You are the only one who has really done any work and posted numbers, so I was just trying to ballpark from there.

And that's just the mobiles.

So you're saying there's a chance! (<- This is a line from a movie.)

 

[Pawain]

game artist salary in the us"

I only know a few in the industry. My daughter does statistics for a company that sells their services to other companies to get more profit from their websites. So she is a money maker for the company.

The others are programmers or in sales that directly make money for a company.

Looks like they do consider artists as an expense.

 

[Saphireena]

@Pawain is correct. Was not trying to tear down what you are doing @Saphireena, just wondering how it all fit together. How many actual frames, directions, animation sequences, etc, there are in the CC. I was just wondering how long it would take, and how much it would actually cost.
Also, I did not say salary. I said "cost of employee", which is a huge difference. It includes salary, but might also include health insurance, desk, chair, computer, software, cost of electricity, cost of water, facilities maintenance, housekeeping, grounds, training, legal paperwork, etc., etc. etc., calculated out by employee, per year.
In many areas of the US, 60-70k a year in salary is average (or even low), for a specialist, skilled, experienced worker. And in the additional costs of required to keep someone on staff and 100k is probably a decent ballpark number. It also makes for easy math.
In the Seattle area where I live, a decent 2 bed 800 ft sq apartment near the city runs about $1500 to $2000 a month, ~about. On 24k a year, an employee could barely afford rent, let alone food. So the base salary in this area is a lot closer to the 60k -70 - 80k range. But an individual is still only keeping a fraction, since cost of living is so damn high.
Anyway, what I posted was just trying to get an idea of how long it would actually take, how much it would actually cost, to bring the mobiles up to high res in the CC.
You are the only one who has really done any work and posted numbers, so I was just trying to ballpark from there.
And that's just the mobiles.
So you're saying there's a chance!

Alright, if I misunderstood the tone of your post, my apologies. I hope you understand how someone might read it differently. An example of that is the fact that you used the daemon as the base upon which your calculations were made instead of taking into consideration that it's one of the largest mob types and that most other UO mobs are much smaller and hence, would require less work. Had you made your calculations in such a way where you'd considered this and the other points I mentioned above, I'd have approached your response in a completely different way. You see, back during the days of the Pixel Graphics Challenge, just as there were people supporting the cause, there were also several from the opposing side who did their best to shut the conversation down, as they felt the dev team's time was better spent doing other things. Your post had that seemingly same tone, so I naturally got annoyed and defensive. And true, I misinterpreted the cost vs salary. But my answer to that would be outsourcing, plain and simple. Out of all the artwork that is put into the game, it should be the core UO team artists designing new stuff instead of outsourcing artists, where as polishing pixels is exactly the kind of mundane robotic work that outsourcing teams should handle.

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

Alright, if I misunderstood the tone of your post, my apologies. I hope you understand how someone might read it differently. An example of that is the fact that you used the daemon as the base upon which your calculations were made instead of taking into consideration that it's one of the largest mob types and that most other UO mobs are much smaller and hence, would require less work. Had you made your calculations in such a way where you'd considered this and the other points I mentioned above, I'd have approached your response in a completely different way. You see, back during the days of the Pixel Graphics Challenge, just as there were people supporting the cause, there were also several from the opposing side who did their best to shut the conversation down, as they felt the dev team's time was better spent doing other things. Your post had that seemingly same tone, so I naturally got annoyed and defensive. And true, I misinterpreted the cost vs salary. But my answer to that would be outsourcing, plain and simple. Out of all the artwork that is put into the game, it should be the core UO team artists designing new stuff instead of outsourcing artists, where as polishing pixels is exactly the kind of mundane robotic work that outsourcing teams should handle.

For the past few years I've been really interested in the background stuff in UO. Why things work certain ways, etc. Evidently that excitement translates to me asking a ton of questions when a topic catches my interest and trying to extrapolate from what little info we get as players to why the game is built the way it is. I absolutely did not mean for it to be dismissive or negative, I really am interested in how the graphics work.

I used the Demon because it was the last example you posted (and you put up numbers with it!). Honestly, I didn't really understand the differences in mobile size until you described it.

So, let me run this example again. (Because I like to get an understanding of the actual time/work involved). Feel free to jump in and correct. Your experience and knowledge about all this is great. (And helpful to me, and hopefully other players who just want to understand exactly what all goes into UO behind the scenes.)

You said there were 5 sets. So these 5 sets would let the player view the mobile in all 8 directions, correct? (can you explain this a bit? I can see 4 sets, but where does the fifth come from?) (North flips to South, East to West, NE to SW, NW to SE?)

Let's keep the idea that there are 3 animations (Walk, Attack, Death). It seems like some monsters might have 2 attacks, or 2 moves, but I can't remember. For ease, let's just stick with 3 animations.

So, 5 sets, 3 animations per set, that 15 animations per mobile.

If each animation is composed of 4 frames, that's 60 frames per mobile? Does that sound about right?

You said the demon took 8 hours for 1 frame, but that the rabbit would be significantly less? How much less? Could we bracket it and say the demon is on the high end at 8 hours, but the rabbit is on the low end at 1 hour? An average mobile might be 4 hours? Using 4 hours per frame for an average mobile would make the math easy. That would be 2 frames per 8 hour work day? Does that sound about right.

I get your point about outsourcing, but your artwork is what people keep coming back to these threads to see! Let's reach for the high bar, go for the stars, as good as we can get, and keep it at your level. Is the above within a ballpark idea of the work required?

 

[Deimos]

I think I can understand now why it hasn't been done already, it would take an age to do all the animated creatures in UO.

With that said though, I wonder how many artists it took to do the original animations? that must've taken quite a while too.

I remember one of the developers or producers saying they lost the tools to making the original artwork/animation which is why the later stuff looked like **** (Aka Lord Blackthorns revenge), but I think that was just an excuse to adding very poorly done animation and artwork.

Makes me sad though, I wonder if they could've done a revamped, high res 2D client, with new, polished upscaled animations/models if they hadn't wasted so much time and money on failed projects, such as the two failed "3d" clients. (I think the 3rd one is reasonably popular)

 

[MalagAste]

I think I can understand now why it hasn't been done already, it would take an age to do all the animated creatures in UO.

With that said though, I wonder how many artists it took to do the original animations? that must've taken quite a while too.

I remember one of the developers or producers saying they lost the tools to making the original artwork/animation which is why the later stuff looked like **** (Aka Lord Blackthorns revenge), but I think that was just an excuse to adding very poorly done animation and artwork.

Makes me sad though, I wonder if they could've done a revamped, high res 2D client, with new, polished upscaled animations/models if they hadn't wasted so much time and money on failed projects, such as the two failed "3d" clients. (I think the 3rd one is reasonably popular)

I've always hoped they would just work on static items... upgrade those. Like fix plants to partially hue instead of totally hue... update and clean their graphics... though you know they tried to update runebooks and everyone flipped a tit... and they changed them back... sadly.

That's the problem... if they do anything to update something everyone has a stroke.

 

[Saphireena]

You said there were 5 sets. So these 5 sets would let the player view the mobile in all 8 directions, correct? (can you explain this a bit? I can see 4 sets, but where does the fifth come from?) (North flips to South, East to West, NE to SW, NW to SE?)

North doesn't flip to south, as the front view of characters is different from the back view. Perhaps the image below will help you understand. As an added bonus, a bull that I found from my archives as well, which showcases the fact that not all UO creatures have tons of detail like the daemon or dragon. Some are very simple indeed and don't need any "brain work" to decide on the best way to polish the pixels.

This animation is a close up of the bull's tummy and what the work entails. As you can see, it's very mundane work which is nothing much more than "fracturing" the large 2x2 pixel blocks so they are not squares anymore. This is exactly the kind of thing a script could be automated to do, as most of the work involved is exactly this:

The artist's hand is needed for the more detailed areas like the head, where skill is needed in deciding just how the bull's head should be shaped and what details should be added to give it that UO feel.

If each animation is composed of 4 frames, that's 60 frames per mobile? Does that sound about right?

I've never gone digging into the UO sprites, so I don't know how many frames per animation are used, but what I can guess is that there is no standard amount that can be applied to each creature. It would depend on what type of animation they are doing. The "worst case scenario" would be any animation that loops, like walking. In the case of the daemon walk, it had 10 frames.

But then there are animations that are just played once and then the character goes back to their normal stance, I would assume those take less frames. Also the movement style of the character also affects the amount of frames. Again, the daemon is a "worse case" because he makes long smooth strides versus jerky quick motions. When an animation snaps from one point to the next almost instantly, that means all the frames that should be in between can for the most part just be eliminated as it's enough to trick the eye into believing the frames are there. Daemon: long smooth strides with no jerky movement = lots of work.

You said the demon took 8 hours for 1 frame, but that the rabbit would be significantly less? How much less? Could we bracket it and say the demon is on the high end at 8 hours, but the rabbit is on the low end at 1 hour? An average mobile might be 4 hours? Using 4 hours per frame for an average mobile would make the math easy. That would be 2 frames per 8 hour work day? Does that sound about right.

Decided to test how long it would take. I started at 8:37 and ended at 8:43, so it took 6 minutes for this back view of the bunny. And this included thought into how to get the tail to show a bit more.

And yes, the daemon/dragon or anything of that size and detail takes around 8 hours if you put a lot of love and thought into it. But as I said earlier, this does not represent the approach an outsourcing artist would have. Again, they would polish at the "bare minimum" to make the art look "good enough". The reason why "good enough" is absolutely fine, is because that is merely one frame out of a looping animation, so in the normal use case, you'd never have time to take note of all the loving little details I put in. I worked on it knowing it will be a static non-moving image.

My guestimate for how long it would take for an outsourcing artist to polish one frame depends on whether there would be an automated script in place that would take care of 90% of the pixel "fracturing" that I mentioned above. If they had a script, I would assume that to "finish up" would take an hour. If they didn't have any script, probably max 3 hours, as they would work very fast and not get hung up on getting something just right and experimenting over and over.

Also let's consider that when someone does this for their work and they are polishing pixels every single day, their speed and skill are in high gear.

As for the "reach for the stars" approach, that wouldn't make very much sense since again, each frame is merely part of a moving animation and the player would never even catch such details. So the work should definitely have a much rougher "quick and dirty" approach.

 

[petemage]

First off, great stuff! I really like your professional approach to it. It's very refreshing, since we don't even get such well laid out thoughts from the developers and the obviously rotating artists we get seem to have to learn the ropes every time again (see latest valentine discussion how they got the perspective wrong again).

What UO definitely would need is a dedicated artist, but that seems a bit far off for those 10 new pieces of art they push out per year.

As for salaries, I quickly googled "game artist salary in the us" and the first result spat out this:

So seems about right to me. And I knew that salaries are higher in the US due to different cost of living, taxation and health systems, but I certainly was not ready to accept that salaries would be double of what we have.
So what's to be learned here? Before you present your argument, do your homework first.

Since you are a bit snappy with the homework remark, how about you read it again?

Let's say the average cost of an employee to a company is 100k (salary, sick time, vacation, workstation, health insurance, etc.)

Not sure how it is in the US, but over here in Germany rule of thumb is that an employee costs about 1.5 times of his yearly salary. Companies have to pay for health insurance, pension funds, and some more stuff on top of the yearly salary an employee receives. That doesn't even include things like professional education, etc, which can easily add up a couple thousand more for the company, and so on..

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

North doesn't flip to south, as the front view of characters is different from the back view. Perhaps the image below will help you understand. As an added bonus, a bull that I found from my archives as well, which showcases the fact that not all UO creatures have tons of detail like the daemon or dragon. Some are very simple indeed and don't need any "brain work" to decide on the best way to polish the pixels..........

Hey, thanks @Saphireena. This actually helps me understand a lot. I like the diagram with the bull. I realized last night that N couldn't flip S, but that E/W would flip (mirror, transpose, whatever it's called.) I just could not for the life of me visualize the ordinals.

I kept going back to 4 frames because one of the artists that worked on the KR stuff (which is now the downscaled EC stuff) posted at some point that the CC was in 4 frames per second and the KR stuff was in 8 frames per second. They were really proud they had doubled the frame rate. I see my mistake now, in that an animation can play for longer than 1 second! (I seem to remember the 4 frames per second thing is tied into combat animations and swing speed.)

Interesting that you say there are 10 frames for the demon, and the number of frames may vary significantly per creature, per animation.

I was wondering about a script last night and how that would effect the time requirements. Thanks for the answer!

********

Let me pose you a question, a scenario if you will. You are the only person that actually talks to us players about art, so you are our expert.

(You've been promoted! Level UP! YAY!)

Pretend you are the art director for UO and I am a rich......African prince. (I have an distant acquaintance that fell for that scam, so let's roll with it!)

I am willing to pay to have all the mobiles in the charter edition of UO upgraded to your high resolution, let's say there are 100 of them.

Work should start on Jan 1, 2019 and end Jan 1, 2020.

How many artists would it take to do that in your opinion,

A: Doing it to your talent level? (In house?)

B: Doing it with outsourcing? (In house + contractor(s)?)

Use scripts, or don't, as you'd like.

 

[MalagAste]

What UO really needs is someone to give it love... an artist who truly loves the game devoted to giving it a facelift.

But I do recall them saying how many items there were... IMO if they focused strictly on static items not mobiles first... it would be a vast improvement. Just focusing on tile sets or something to start.

But again like I said when they offered a new cleaner version of the simple runebook you all had a complete meltdown and demanded they return it to the mud that it is. So... IMO they shouldn't waste their time... much as I wish they would. Personally I loved the newer cleaner runebooks... but whatever.

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

I remember one of the developers or producers saying they lost the tools to making the original artwork/animation which is why the later stuff looked like **** (Aka Lord Blackthorns revenge), but I think that was just an excuse to adding very poorly done animation and artwork.

So, Ralph Koster has talked a little about the original development of UO. I can't remember if it's on his blog, or something Saphireena posted earlier in this thread.

Anyway, he said that the original mobiles were created in a 3D software modeling environment, then rotated and posed, as pictures were taken of them. Those pictures are the frames we see in game. That's my understanding anyway.

We always hear about some original tools/artwork being lost. Maybe it's those original models. We still have the pictures taken of those models, but the models themselves might be gone.

If that's the case, that would explain a lot.

He also said most of the art team had moved on to other projects after The Second Age. Which would explain why there seems to be a clear break in the art between Launch/T2A and everything that came after. (Not to mention the massive changes with 3D client attempts.)

 

[Arroth Thaiel]

What UO really needs is someone to give it love... an artist who truly loves the game devoted to giving it a facelift.

But I do recall them saying how many items there were... IMO if they focused strictly on static items not mobiles first... it would be a vast improvement. Just focusing on tile sets or something to start.

But again like I said when they offered a new cleaner version of the simple runebook you all had a complete meltdown and demanded they return it to the mud that it is. So... IMO they shouldn't waste their time... much as I wish they would. Personally I loved the newer cleaner runebooks... but whatever.

I didn't flip out about the runebook. Would have loved to see the new version stay in the EC and leave the old in the CC.

I also think they should give @Slayvite back the red eagle phoenix in the CC. And give @Aran back the green mongbat imp in the CC.

And start adding some graphics options in the EC for those of us who can run Hi-Res stuff.

But no-one listens to me. Poor, poor Pitor.

 

[Deimos]

In my opinion, they should've focused their time (And subscribers money) on updating the 2D client, not releasing 3 different alternative clients

I often wonder how much better the classic client would've been by now had they focused their efforts on that one client alone.

 

[Saphireena]

Hey, thanks @Saphireena. Interesting that you say there are 10 frames for the demon, and the number of frames may vary significantly per creature, per animation.

Upon opening the daemon walk in Photoshop, this is how it seems to be animated and the amount of time each frame is using:

In this case the loop just happens to fit neatly into one second, with each frame being 1/10th of a second, but had the daemon been instead a creature like a cyclops that would walk in a slow, heavy and lumbering pace, you would want them to walk slowly. So why not just slow down the animation and save the amount of frames that need to be made? Because the animation ends up looking unnatural and choppy as we can see below. For that "slow lumbering pace" to look realistic, it would need more frames in between. Perhaps 20 frames!

So yes, it very much depends on the nature of the creature and how they move. It's impossible to set a rule of thumb that represents all the mobs generically.

Let me pose you a question, a scenario if you will. You are the only person that actually talks to us players about art, so you are our expert.
(You've been promoted! Level UP! YAY!)
Pretend you are the art director for UO and I am a rich......African prince. (I have an distant acquaintance that fell for that scam, so let's roll with it!)

Hah! You know Arroth, you ain't so bad after all. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

I am willing to pay to have all the mobiles in the charter edition of UO upgraded to your high resolution, let's say there are 100 of them.
Work should start on Jan 1, 2019 and end Jan 1, 2020.
How many artists would it take to do that in your opinion,
A: Doing it to your talent level? (In house?)
B: Doing it with outsourcing? (In house + contractor(s)?)
Use scripts, or don't, as you'd like.

This is impossible to say without seeing all the sprite sheets of the characters and getting some picture of how many frames they use and how many of those 100 would be small or large.

 

[Gorath]

Upon opening the daemon walk in Photoshop, this is how it seems to be animated and the amount of time each frame is using:

In this case the loop just happens to fit neatly into one second, with each frame being 1/10th of a second, but had the daemon been instead a creature like a cyclops that would walk in a slow, heavy and lumbering pace, you would want them to walk slowly. So why not just slow down the animation and save the amount of frames that need to be made? Because the animation ends up looking unnatural and choppy as we can see below. For that "slow lumbering pace" to look realistic, it would need more frames in between. Perhaps 20 frames!

So yes, it very much depends on the nature of the creature and how they move. It's impossible to set a rule of thumb that represents all the mobs generically.



Hah! You know Arroth, you ain't so bad after all. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.



This is impossible to say without seeing all the sprite sheets of the characters and getting some picture of how many frames they use and how many of those 100 would be small or large.

Really wish they'd hire you. @Bleak @messana

 

[Uvtha]

North doesn't flip to south, as the front view of characters is different from the back view. Perhaps the image below will help you understand. As an added bonus, a bull that I found from my archives as well, which showcases the fact that not all UO creatures have tons of detail like the daemon or dragon. Some are very simple indeed and don't need any "brain work" to decide on the best way to polish the pixels.

This animation is a close up of the bull's tummy and what the work entails. As you can see, it's very mundane work which is nothing much more than "fracturing" the large 2x2 pixel blocks so they are not squares anymore. This is exactly the kind of thing a script could be automated to do, as most of the work involved is exactly this:

The artist's hand is needed for the more detailed areas like the head, where skill is needed in deciding just how the bull's head should be shaped and what details should be added to give it that UO feel.

I've never gone digging into the UO sprites, so I don't know how many frames per animation are used, but what I can guess is that there is no standard amount that can be applied to each creature. It would depend on what type of animation they are doing. The "worst case scenario" would be any animation that loops, like walking. In the case of the daemon walk, it had 10 frames.

But then there are animations that are just played once and then the character goes back to their normal stance, I would assume those take less frames. Also the movement style of the character also affects the amount of frames. Again, the daemon is a "worse case" because he makes long smooth strides versus jerky quick motions. When an animation snaps from one point to the next almost instantly, that means all the frames that should be in between can for the most part just be eliminated as it's enough to trick the eye into believing the frames are there. Daemon: long smooth strides with no jerky movement = lots of work.



Decided to test how long it would take. I started at 8:37 and ended at 8:43, so it took 6 minutes for this back view of the bunny. And this included thought into how to get the tail to show a bit more.

And yes, the daemon/dragon or anything of that size and detail takes around 8 hours if you put a lot of love and thought into it. But as I said earlier, this does not represent the approach an outsourcing artist would have. Again, they would polish at the "bare minimum" to make the art look "good enough". The reason why "good enough" is absolutely fine, is because that is merely one frame out of a looping animation, so in the normal use case, you'd never have time to take note of all the loving little details I put in. I worked on it knowing it will be a static non-moving image.

My guestimate for how long it would take for an outsourcing artist to polish one frame depends on whether there would be an automated script in place that would take care of 90% of the pixel "fracturing" that I mentioned above. If they had a script, I would assume that to "finish up" would take an hour. If they didn't have any script, probably max 3 hours, as they would work very fast and not get hung up on getting something just right and experimenting over and over.

Also let's consider that when someone does this for their work and they are polishing pixels every single day, their speed and skill are in high gear.

As for the "reach for the stars" approach, that wouldn't make very much sense since again, each frame is merely part of a moving animation and the player would never even catch such details. So the work should definitely have a much rougher "quick and dirty" approach.

There's also potentially 5 "running" frames and at least one corpse frame, as well as a bunch of combat frames, not sure how many there. I don't think everything has a running frame set though, just dragons (flying) and some of the things that people can transform into (wolves, etc).

 

[Uvtha]

In my opinion, they should've focused their time (And subscribers money) on updating the 2D client, not releasing 3 different alternative clients

I often wonder how much better the classic client would've been by now had they focused their efforts on that one client alone.

I actually think the KR approach was just fine, they just didn't get it right, so it tanked. But yeah, "3d" was a disaster and a waste of time that I hated every second of.

 

[MalagAste]

I actually think the KR approach was just fine, they just didn't get it right, so it tanked. But yeah, "3d" was a disaster and a waste of time that I hated every second of.

KR was a disaster because it looked like a muddy watercolor..... painted with dots... it changed the very feel of the game... completely and so drastically that it didn't even seem like UO anymore. THAT was their mistake.

 

[Uvtha]

KR was a disaster because it looked like a muddy watercolor..... painted with dots... it changed the very feel of the game... completely and so drastically that it didn't even seem like UO anymore. THAT was their mistake.

Yeah I mean that's the problem, the art was just not very good. Especially non mobile art. A lot of the monsters were actually pretty cool, but characters and item ranged from meh to yikes.

 

[Deimos]

I often wonder how they sold the idea of making yet another client after not one, but two previous dismal attempts.

The current one seems "ok", but pales significantly in comparison to almost every other isometric (Think that's the term) client/game I've played.

Hey ho!