Where the heck is the EC male paperdoll that was promised in DECEMBER?

[UODevTracker]

Original Thread

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[TheGrimmOmen]

Does anyone recall at the HoC it was mentioned that the male paperdoll was FINALLY being redone?

CatHat handled the female redraw and turned it around in a few weeks. Anyone have any idea what is causing the hold up on male art? I mean, I'm very curious myself about it seeing it was even discussed during Kingdom Reborn.

Anyone? Bueller?

Small correction, the female paperdoll update art was outsourced.

Canary, do you have the text of the HoC that promised a new male paper doll graphic in December? Not that I doubt you, I just can't find out who said it. (Perhaps it's posted further down in the thread, I'll continue reading)

Thanks,
-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Well we did just get a bunch of art for gargoyle weapons... Much of which puts the old art to shame...

Thanks Martyna,
We were pretty happy with them () as well.

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

So are there any artists still working on UO? I find it strange that the female paperdoll would have to be outsourced.

I've been looking for it myself and can't seem to find it, but I know the paperdoll's been discussed previously (several times) since the KR client.

Given that at the same time the female paperdoll was outsourced, why wasn't the male paperdoll also outsourced? And since you're outsourcing, doesn't someone over there have "final right of approval" to accept such work? I ask only because while the female paperdoll is "acceptable," as many threads will attest, it's not the same feel as the 2D paperdoll. I understand that updated graphics won't look 100% the same, but they should keep the look and feel.

The thing that many have pointed out about the female paperdoll in 2D is that it's a generic female figure... one that could be imagined to be a variety of shapes and sizes. Whereas the current KR/EC paperdoll is clearly "enhanced," shall I say.

I'm not trying to offend, Grimm, just trying to understand the art procedure, because much of it I just don't get or understand. Months ago I posted a thread with some improvements to one of the SA tilesets. It didn't get a lot of feedback, so I didn't continue on with other tilesets on a weekly basis, though I've since mentioned something about stairs in the housing tool. My point though is how do some of these minor nuances get missed? I truly cannot imagine someone looking at some of this stuff and saying, "That looks good." Rather, I imagine the phrase, "That looks good enough for now." The problem, of course, with "good enough for now" is that it becomes "good enough forever."

I'd love to know more about the process, because something seems missing.

Absolutely no offense taken, your question is well phrased - I'll do my best to respond:

Well yes, we have artists on UO. Generally with games development, you have a core set of internal artists that you task with doing things that either require a more intimate knowledge of how things work in your game, or would potentially prove to be what we call "Black Hole" tasks, meaning that there is the potential that they will run over the allotted time scheduled due to having to send them back for revisions multiple times.

The female paper doll items were sent out to be redone well before UO development was brought under Mythics guidance, and the internal artists at the time were already on other priority tasks, and we had it within our budget at the time to get those done by external artists, so we did. I'm not sure why we didn't do the male at the time as well, but I suspect it was a budget issue since obviously that would have been a prime opportunity to get both of those issues resolved.

In response to your wanting to understand the art procedure, I'll give you the rough layout of the general process, this applies to game development in general, regardless if you're 3D Realms or Blizzard. It all boils down to time, versus resources, versus money.

When you get the greenlight to make a game or expansion, you have to commit to a delivery date and an amount of money that your project is going to cost your company. Then you make your list of features, then the leads battle it out to determine which features should make it in, and then, which CAN make it in by the delivery time you had to commit to. Now you tell the guy that you committed to a deadline that by the end of the project, we're going to have those features complete.
Now this is the critical part: based on this list of features your schedule starts forming and tasks get created for all the disciplines (art, engineering, design, QA, etc.) and when each feature will get done, who's doing it, and what tasks rely on which other ones to be completed first, etc. It's at this point Maalox and prescribed anti-anxiety medication inters the picture, but we'll skip that part. But at this point you can see all the tasks that are required to make those features a reality, and how much time you have to get them done in. Here's the rub: when certain tasks start taking longer than expected, it starts making the feature that depends on it unstable, not to mention that since the task is running long, it's taking time away from another task that is required by a completely different feature, thus potentially putting multiple features at risk.

It's inevitable sometimes that you have to make the "good enough" call in order to not put the entire project at risk. What sucks is when you have to make that call when what you're OK'ing isn't good enough, but risking the project is an even worse scenario.

Now I'm not saying this in order to make any excuse for anything, I'm just simply putting out there the realities of game development, and the calls you have to sometimes make in order to keep moving forward.

Hope this helps shed some light on what you were asking, thanks for the great post!

-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

Hopefully someone who was fired. GrimmOmen, I believe, admitted to approving the original blurry KR item art.

It's possible I mentioned something about the blurry animations, but I wasn't a member of the environment team during KR... so I'm not sure what that would have been in reference to.

Thanks,
-Grimm

 

[TheGrimmOmen]

*sighs*

Okay, I've known that the male paperdoll issue hadn't been mentioned in UOHoC for quite some time.. Since well before the release of SA in fact. However, Canary's issue with the paperdoll is legitimate and the EC male is a hideously deformed mass of pixels.

That being said, I do know who last spoke of the EC's male paperdoll and indicated it was being worked on.

Gimmy, hun, it was you.

In an interview conducted by AirmidChet and posted February 25, 2010:
An Interview with JP "GrimmOmen" Harrod

http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=182081





*coughs*

So. There you have it. Sorry, Grimm.

While it hasn’t been six months, it has nearly been four. However, that can be eclipsed by the 2.5 years since KR was 'released.'


While you are jabbing the art monkeys with a cattle prod to move the process along, take a look at the ruined tapestry from last Halloween and the holiday garlands in the EC. Then prod the monkeys to fix these problems as well.

Oh, while you’re at it, you should have them increase the default height of the SA wall mirrors as well. At the moment, they can't go higher than the middle of the wall. One doesn't look in the mirror to see one's feet...

Well, the point of my question was asking about the promise mentioned in the thread title. I don't read a promise in anything you included in your post. As a matter of fact, it was in response to a question of what would I like to do if given the time - and I appreciate you including that in your post to keep my response in perspective.

That being said, it's fair to say that when you hear that something is being worked on, you'd expect to see it - I get that, and I'd expect the same thing. Honestly, I had expected to to have had an update on the male paper doll long since now. But, simply and frankly, I just haven't had the time to complete working on it.

Is it something I've forgotten about? No. Is it something I've abandoned? Certainly not. But is sit something I've completed? Unfortunately, no. Know, though, that it is something that I hope to be able to finish and get updated.

-Grimm