I'd like to hear more about the Artwork Changes

[UODevTracker]

Original Thread

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[TheGrimmOmen]

As Dermott mentioned, the art changes will be just environment artwork. We're not updating animations anytime soon.

We've actually made some terrific inroads, there are still some technical hurdles, but that's to be expected when you're converting assets designed as 2D into 3D objects so that we can then turn around and render them in such a way to pull out the 3D-ness. Fun, fun!

- Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Grimm, does this conversion work that ultimately lets you render these assets "in such a way to pull out the 3D-ness" have anything to do with NetDragon Websoft's new 3D version of UO? Are you and others actually working on the environment work for them while they concentrate on rendering mobiles?

Nope. No, and no.

This conversion to 3D models is just a way to bring these legacy assets into the 21st century. It's also a great way to preserve the classic UO look and feel. I really don't know what's going on with that Netdragon client, but I do know that we're not contributing art assets to it.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

...
things that make the world seem a bit more... alive.

+1

Oh there is so much I'd love to do, it's all about finding the bloody time.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

How about a sneek peek..

Well, there are still a lot of things that we need to fix, and other more immediate priorities at the moment. But we wouldn't want to put out screenshots of stuff that still looks broken- that just wouldn't get us off on the right foot, now would it?

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Grimm, since you can't post screenshots, I wonder if you could at least describe what's involved in this project to convert the legacy assets to 3D models. What would someone looking at "before" and "after" shots in the Enhanced Client really notice as differences? Differences in shadows, shading, perspective? Changes in color? More refined textures? Are the artists working on this tile-by-tile, or applying a stored process to wide swaths of particular types of tiles? I'm still a bit confused on exactly what is being done, how it compares to the assets originally used in the KR client, and perhaps who is working on this project besides you. Thanks.

Sure thing. So basically I'm approaching the high res artwork from the standpoint of this: Legacy artwork, just in 3D. This means that the "Look" of the high res tiles are going to be identical to Legacy client, even though the actual art might be slightly different. So playing the legacy client and the EC client is going to feel like the same game, only when you zoom in, things will not get as blurry.

We're handling this update in pieces, housing tiles and a little terrain work were the first on the list, so you'll be seeing those first. As for how they compare to the UOKR stuff, well the housing stuff doesn't look like the KR stuff. I couldn't even use the UOKR stuff because, well honestly the guy who set those assets up was way better than I was about materials and lighting, and had a far more complicated setup. Since then I've rewritten the entire environment art pipeline so that getting these assets in the game is easier than it ever has been. And I've kept the setup for these assets as simple as possible. I mean, it's already pretty complicated without me adding complex lighting schemes and whatnot. So I'm just trying to keep things simple for future artists.

Anything I miss?

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

OH here it comes... I personally don't care about it - but word of warning to the Great Grimm - DON'T mess with the sheep!!

Seems some dyed-in-the-wool UO players have deep-seated feelings about their sheep...

...

LOL. Thanks for bringing THAT up again...


-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Wait a moment, I don't want to jump to any conclusions here, and please correct me if I am wrong but the way this reads to me is that the EC "terrain art assets update" actually consists of taking the classic client terrain tiles but redrawing them at a higher resolution? But the problem is the classic client terrain looks terrible and outdated and rescaling it isn't going to make the grass look any less like broccoli. It's not going to make the see look less like a sheet of blue canvas.

If this IS the case, then you're going to get a lot of unhappy EC users. The EC terrain is one of the things that actually does look better. It would be repeating the same thing that happened shortly before AoS with the Third Dawn client where all the nice 3d terrain tiles was just replaced with that from the classic client. And not a single 3d user appreciated it at the time then either.

Now I am actually concerned this may be another step backwards.

Ahh I see what you're saying. No, we're not "remaking" the EC terrain tiles from the Legacy ones. So don't worry about that.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

I always thought of it as something like this

LOL. And some days it feels like that!

- Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

If someone could help explain whats been talked about so far:

What is the difference current art assets and "hi-res"? What are the graphics being changed to something we have not seen before, or merging of things?

Ok, so here's and explanation:
So you can think of a pixel as a dot of color that all images are made of.
All the walls and housing tiles that were added when UO first came out was created in a paint program like Photoshop. They were created at a spacific size to fit the technical requirements of the game. These images were made to be something like 44 pixels across (I can't remember off the top of my head, it's still early and I haven't had my coffee yet!). This means that these images look thief best when they take up that many pixels on your computer screen. If you zoom into the screen, causing these images to take up more room on the screen than the number of pixels that comprise the image, the computer has to compensate for this in a couple of ways. The first way is by just multiplying the size of image by how much larger the image is being displayed than the images actual size it passes this scale on to the pixels in the image. So instead of a pixel only taking up a single dot, it's now taking up 4 (if you were zoomed in twice as close). I'll continue this in a bit, coffees on!

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

So Grim...

is it you that's sheeplike, or is it us and you're a professional at "handling" our flock ?

wait you're going to tell me it's only because you were responsible for changing the sheep art in the classic client ?

yeaaaa... riiiighttt

LOL - Yea, that little change is courtesy of my good friends at Stratics. LOL.

- Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Thanks for posting everything you've posted!

So what kind of resolutions are you all aiming to cover? 1920x1200, 2560x1440, etc.

Hey! We're looking to re-establish the KR resolutions.

- Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Rofl some more. I knew you meant the azzhatz and not Grimm.

Agree though I'd like to think hes warm and fuzzy and not so grim - at least if he is fuzzy he lives up to his sheepish name!

ROFL. I have no idea how to respond to that!

Thanks to everyone for the kind words.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

...

Is it too early to ask about foliage/plants/flora/trees/etc?

You've stated that you're upgrading the 2d artwork (which works well for me in terms of the objects in the world though I will miss a lot of the KR versions' qualities), how do you plan on handling plants and trees? Will we see differentiated leaves again or will it just be higher resolution versions of the 2d plants (which IMO compared to KR look wilted, less distinct and less vibrant overall)?

Well, plants and trees are definitely on the list of to do's. My goal is to use as much stuff from UOKR as possible and where appropriate. I really can't say what they (trees, etc.) will look like until I get into them, but I would really like to keep the level of detail that those assets had.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Will those things be optional?

Don't get me wrong, I liked most of the KR graphics (except the items), but I fear many of the recent converts from CC would be taken aback if new graphics are forced on them.

So in order to get as many people as possible playing this great client, I'd advise making all these new graphics optional.

Yes, I believe the current plan is to make these graphics optional.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

are these updates going to also fix the 'location is blocked' and 'target cannot be seen' messages we get in certain places, or everywhere in some areas when you try to place rcs, evs, shadow jump or teleport?

Our (art) goal is just a cosmetic update, I'm unsure that this will have any impact on the things you mentioned.

- Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Well, this tread is about hearing more about the Artwork changes, so I'm going to stick to that topic. The graphical updates serve a much larger purpose than just giving players high resolution graphics. Not that that's not a big enough win by itself. But there are some internal wins for doing this as well.

-Grimm