Ultima Franchise

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Original Thread

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[TheGrimmOmen]

Let's start a petition to add 3D mobiles to the EC.

OMG, why would you do that to me?? ;-)

Actually, I bring up that very idea just about every 3 months. But the cost in time and resources for that would be... substantial.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

You could always recycle the third dawn client models... and that should be all the mobiles up to ML

Those models, while fine for their time, are pretty close to quake level tech. For any 3D endeavor to be worthwhile, it would need to at least be able to hold up to tech of this decade.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

IMHO some of them are better than the actual 2d ones. eg. the exodus minion and overseer were different and they were robots, not identical ghosts like they are now
And let's don't forget the animated paperdolls

Nevermind, just old memories, let's hope in some graphical improvements to get uo back to future

Actually, there are TONS of benefits to 3D assets, and not just the ones mentioned by Woodsman and others. And I loved the animated paperdolls as well!

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

...

No, not the models themselves, but the KR/Enhanced Client WOULD have been better served to use the same premise for character/mobile models (that being polygon-skin instead of pre-rendered stop-motion) as it would have reduced the size of the EC's footprint as well as the size of future patches.

But as Grimm says it'd be quite a task to convert over to that system from the already completed one in the EC... although I DO find it interesting that he's brought it up a few times.

Oh yea, sometimes I just bring it up to put other ideas I have in perspective. But yea, it comes up.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

In the descriptions posted in that article, it says that in 1997 Origin was claiming that UO had:
Day and night effects
3-D terrain
dynamic lighting in 16-bit color SVGA graphics

Was it really dynamic lighting and was it really considered 3D terrain?
.

It might have dynamic lighting from a technical point of view, but as far as I know, it doesn't have dynamic lighting as I think of the term. As for 3D terrain, yes it does have 3D terrain as in polys that have textures mapped to them. The classic client terrain is a combination of the two.

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

...

Grimm, I'm pulling most of what I'm saying from memory, so I hope I'm at least still in the ballpark with it and that my ever so slightly dysfunctional brain isn't getting everything all screwed up.

But let's see... some of the advantages to 3d assets:

- Easier to add in new item artwork (i.e. new weapons, armor and clothes. Artifacts could have been made to look unique within themselves instead of rehued existing items)
- Easier to add in new animations: The 3d client models had a BUNCH of emotes available that 2d and KR/EC simply don't.
- More interactive paperdolls: not only animated, but you could rotate the image as well
- Smoother animation (since it is movement in realtime, not stop-motion pre-rendered)
- Smaller downloads

Grimm I never really understood why the decision to go back to the 2d pre-renders for KR/EC when KR was first announced/developed... seems like it had to have made development of the client harder than 3d modelling would have from the beginning, or am I wrong in that somehow?

Harder in some ways, easier in others. 2D for UO we knew and knew well. A 3D client would have required a lot more engineers than we had at the time (and we had quite a few). And we had a lot more hurdles to clear in the same amount of time if we went 3D. Not the least of which was figuring out a way to support the Legacy and a brand new 3D client that would have to use the exact same server hardware for both clients so that 2 players using 2 different clients from 2 different eras could play together, and we would need to figure out how we were going be able to produce artwork for what might as well be 2 completely different games without having to make each asset twice. At that time I was still having nightmares about supporting 2D and Third Dawn clients, and I was determined that we were NEVER going to create assets for the 3D client and use them in the 2D because I had seen the results of this in publishes prior to my arrival, and actually MADE them in Samurai and Mondains. They looked awful- truly awful and completely out of place in the Legacy client.

There were tons of other things and given all the resources we had to work with, the decision was made to go 2D. It was a hard made decision and there were many, many meetings about this. Oddly enough I found a document I wrote up with all the pros of going 3D. It's a hard fact of game development that sometimes you have to choose plan B because you simply don't have the time and/or resources to do what you want and or love to do.

Best,
Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Thanks for hanging out with us on a Saturday night, Omen.

My pleasure, actually I've enjoyed this thread a great deal! Thanks to everyone who's contributed! Although it's late now and I got one more post in menbefore bedtime (besides, I'm typing on my iPod which ain't easy)

- Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Second! The whole thread was a really good read. Though I was a teensy bit disappointed no hints were let slip.

Haha! Sorry to disappoint! Generally I don't slip. But who knows, maybe one day I might slip and tell you guys that we're < message redacted > !

Who knows!?

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

The thing is, though, they are paid to do art.

This isn't some passing fancy to occupy their free time. If we have an art team, we should be getting art on a consistent basis. And for years we have not.

I do social work for a living; I have a lot of clients who are extremely nasty, fussy and outright mean. Now, as a paid employee, I do not have the luxury of saying 'They aren't worth it, I'm not going to do my job.'

It IS a job. As such, you should be expected to do the best work you can that will make the largest amount of people happy.

And I would like to take a second to let everyone know that art never takes that opinion. As Canary says, art is our job, and doing your job despite whatever emotional stuff come up is a mark of professionalism. Although Canarys comment about not getting artwork for years is a mistype I believe, because nothing could be further from the truth.

-Grimm