Why don't they just make 2d in hi-res?

[zoop]

It's quite funny. I came back to UO last night to see how the "all new enhanced client" would improve the world i loved so much and still miss every day.

I want to say two things first off. The first is that I've played a lot of WoW and the SA client looks and feels nothing like WoW. Stop even considering a comparison. It's not the same. It's an entirely different engine.

The second is that for the past 10+ years people on these boards have been entertaining me with their cries over medieval hardware. The funny thing is the ~100 odd people still playing UO don't really outweigh the hundreds of thousands of players that could be playing. The main point I wanted to make though is that you should all stop worrying about hardware requirements. It is the legacy code that ruins UO's performance and stability. My pc can run anything you throw at it, and I've always been able to for the past 10 years. Yet every single UO client runs like a broken engine that wants to be put out of it's misery.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way: *worship Saphireena* I would SO pull out my wallet and run back to UO if it was fixed to be a smooth 2d game wearing your art. Every time Ive seen your images over the years sparks a warm feeling inside of me. It looks like the memory of everything UO in my mind - without the harsh blow of actually logging on.

Also the conceptual debate of 2d vs 3d presentation (uo vs wow if you will) is in my mind not relevant to potential market share or technilogical demands. Either would be possible, they would however both require a complete rewrite of the code.

The UO team is trying to keep an old ship afloat for those people remaining. What we all want is new direction, new commitment and a new UO. Not a new [generic mmo] that's branded UO. I believe that the market for the UO we love, except done today with yesterday's vision, is well beyond millions of subscribers. As also has already been pointed out - pixel worlds in browsers draw in huge crowds and UO is actually excellent in providing a place for casual dabbling around next to devoted adventurers.

Someone should pitch a true reborn UO to EA's directors not for nostalgia's sake, but because I'm convinced it is a potential smash hit.

P.S. The new client is unsurprisingly equally barely playable. I can't come back from playing polished games to this anymore. It's too punishing.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

Okay, so I took one of the "easiest" graphics just to toy around with it... the scissors. The completed item took about 20 minutes, at least half of which was just finding the right shape for the object. My goal was to (1) stay within the existing color palette of the item, and (2) maintain the current "shape" of the object while adding detail to it.

Now, here's where I think we bump into a couple of issues. First, sticking to the existing color palette. This would be important on items that hue, certainly, and important to stay within (if there is one) the palette of the game (which I suspect to be simply a 24-bit color palette expressed in RGB values per pixel -- more than enough for the game -- but I'm not 100% certain of this).

Here's my issue, and it shows both in my pair of scissors as well as the pile of gold coins as shown by two examples above (and, also in Seph's avatars that she linked to). All of these items are limited by their color palette, which means that adding the detail that you would expect to appear at a higher resolution just simply isn't possible.

For instance, these scissors at a higher resolution could be made to have a slight reflection to them (a brightness if you will) that is unattainable with the existing palette). Likewise in both of the gold coin examples, at low resolution, you get the "shine" of the coins coming off of it and understand that it's a bright glow... by comparison, in higher resolution, the glow looks cartoonish and unnatural.

One of the coolest things I always thought about UO (and why the KR graphics by and large -- save your banana tree response, yes the banana tree looks fabulous and is what ALL of the graphics should have aimed for: the look and feel of 2D with a hi-res upscale replacement) is that while the items are clearly not real, they don't feel cartoony. There is a pseudo-realism to them that we lose in simply upscaling and sticking to the palette. Seph's avatars look great -- but they too are cartoony, and I don't think that's the end goal we should be striving for.

I think the end goal should, frankly, be the banana tree. It looks exactly like the 2D client's banana tree, as if someone simply refined the image, used a better camera or something. It's not cartoony, and upholds that pseudo-realistic look that UO (while extremely dated) has.

Two other things while I'm thinking on it:

1) We should not be attempting to update the graphics for the mobs in the game. UO's original mobs came from high quality 3D renders, and the remaining ones have come from... well... 3D renders (not sure what some of the issues with creatures are these days, but by and large they fail to meet 2D's old standards, which is odd).

2) If we're truly looking to create for the future of UO, we should be upscaling 400% or 800%, creating majorly high-quality originals in the look and feel of UO, and then scaling them down to an acceptable, appropriate level and making minor adjustments to those reductions (such as refining edges and cleaning up anything that doesn't translate well as shrunk). Part of the problem with only going 200% is that we effectively are saying, "1600x1200 is the highest resolution we care about." Given that monitors and video cards already go above that, it would be safe to say that in 10 years resolutions may be greater than what they are today, and if we (Mythic) plan correctly for the future, updating UO's graphics becomes a non-issue, at least for the foreseeable future.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

As for zooming, the way I was thinking it could work is have only 2 zoom levels. Zoomed out (which is the size we see in the classic client now - but just with more game play area showing, and zoomed in -> the rescaled version. I think that would be perfectly sufficient for now.

You say that with the wonders of 3D, we can have "all possibilities like zooming, lighting, animation, texturing, anything, in high quality". And would this kind of client work on everyone's machines and be free of any performance issues, or would you expect players to upgrade? And would the decorative items retain their charm? Would a rare item still feel special? I'll bet you it wouldn't.

Well, personally, I'm of two minds on this issue, and part of the problem with this issue is plain and simply implementation (something EA/Mythic has frequently gotten wrong).

First, and foremost, most 3D games have texture levels that are involved when it comes to specific objects. To me, the most perfect implementation of good 3D art that scaled fairly well by machine AND had items that were interactive outside of the item architecture held on characters (meaning "Hey, you can put this longsword on display in your house, or this pair of scissors over here," was Star Wars Galaxies). Most 3D games use iconic representations (ie: an icon) for items because they never really exist outside of backpacks. EQ wasn't so bad at this, but was limited as to what it displayed.

Here's the thing... it can be done. Yes, certain items would change (for instance, the pair of scissors... rightfully it should end up being a larger, more defined object), but they could all keep the spirit of the game.

Yeah, we could do pixel graphics in UO forever (and sadly, that may be how it goes), but it's mostly a client limitation that is holding us back. Frankly, with KR and the EC, I wish the old 3D client had continued to be worked on, because with some better assets, that client had both promise and the familiarity of the existing UO game.

Graphics, whether people want to admit it or not, are at least 80% of what's keeping fresh blood out of UO. It just doesn't have that panache that newer games have (or for that matter, older 3D games that have had their engines updated over time). Another 15% of what keeps players out of it is inconsistency in interface design. Yes, there's a hurdle to overcome in learning UO because it's not one of the other 3D games... but if the game is enjoyable, that hurdle is overcome (take Resident Evil 5 for example... completely new way of playing the game, but those who took the time to learn it are enjoying it greatly).

Sure, the people who will never upgrade their machines from 1997 or 2001 may get left behind. Unfortunately, by and large, that will always be an issue with any game. That UO continues to try to appease that customer base is actually a sad testament to how little it has evolved by way of performance in the past dozen years.

I'd love to be playing UO in 20, 30 years... it does have that kind of staying power, but much like my Atari 2600, if the game doesn't get an overhaul at some point that draws in new players, it won't matter. Year by year, the number of us willing to continue to stare at the pixels that are UO become less and less.

Now... I will say, a major hi-res 2D graphic overhaul would certainly be a good thing. If it's properly planned for and stretches some years into the future with that plan, things could go really good for another decade or so. The implementation has the potential that older systems could continue to run on lower resolutions without zoomed in graphics and continue to run fine.

Whatever decisions are ultimately made about UO's graphic situation they should (1) attract new players and (2) remain faithful to the look and feel of UO. Completely overhauling UO's legacy while abandoning the graphics literally abandons the game everyone has come to love. Failing to update the graphics to something higher resolution (regardless of methodology) will continue to leave UO the dated game on the block.

Yes, UO's survived a great many years because there are no games out there like it (the old SWG is gone, and with it went the only game similar in vein to it), but that can only last so long in its current state. No, I'm not saying UO's doomed in two years, but honestly, I can't see it lasting more than another 5 to 7 on these current graphics.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

for the past 10+ years people on these boards have been entertaining me with their cries over medieval hardware. The funny thing is the ~100 odd people still playing UO don't really outweigh the hundreds of thousands of players that could be playing. The main point I wanted to make though is that you should all stop worrying about hardware requirements. It is the legacy code that ruins UO's performance and stability. My pc can run anything you throw at it, and I've always been able to for the past 10 years. Yet every single UO client runs like a broken engine that wants to be put out of it's misery.

That is EXACTLY my point. I wish more people would understand this.

 

[LadyNico]

for the past 10+ years people on these boards have been entertaining me with their cries over medieval hardware. The funny thing is the ~100 odd people still playing UO don't really outweigh the hundreds of thousands of players that could be playing. The main point I wanted to make though is that you should all stop worrying about hardware requirements. It is the legacy code that ruins UO's performance and stability. My pc can run anything you throw at it, and I've always been able to for the past 10 years. Yet every single UO client runs like a broken engine that wants to be put out of it's misery.

That is EXACTLY my point. I wish more people would understand this.

The problem with your shared logic here is that although my pc can also run anything you'd want to throw at it without breaking a sweat, I continue to choose UO in legacy client as my game of choice.

WoW doesn't ring my bells and graphics are cartoony. LOTR failed to meet even my low expectations. SWG was good right up until they removed CH. Mortal Online is pleasant.

While I enjoyed the graphics of all these games and more besides, the graphics were not sufficient to keep me interested enough to continue forking out monthly fees. Contrast this with a decade of immersion in UO.

Oh. And none of'em have the Hildebrandt dragon.

 

[zoop]

The problem with your shared logic here is that although my pc can also run anything you'd want to throw at it without breaking a sweat, I continue to choose UO in legacy client as my game of choice.

WoW doesn't ring my bells and graphics are cartoony. LOTR failed to meet even my low expectations. SWG was good right up until they removed CH. Mortal Online is pleasant.

While I enjoyed the graphics of all these games and more besides, the graphics were not sufficient to keep me interested enough to continue forking out monthly fees. Contrast this with a decade of immersion in UO.

Oh. And none of'em have the Hildebrandt dragon.

Oh I like WoW, but I also like a FPS now and then. They are not rivals in my mind. Haven't played the others you mention.

I agree with the immersion you love and am glad to still see your name on these boards. I also agree that the old art kicks ass. Hell I also prefer the legacy client out of my available options for UO. But if the original creators would have made that client in 2009 it would completely stump that which is available now or the attempts that have been made so far.

Wouldn't you want the game you love to be high-res and smooth scrolling? In response to that, too many people say: "but my pc can't run it then". Well: Yes it can! It's simply not hardware that is the issue. It's just a nasty myth that won't die.

Obviously I do understand your worry about legacy support when the "new and improvement" clients they push are this bad. Ironically it's also this legacy support that makes true improvement impossible.

I've installed the old client again now, going to see who took over my land

 

[Fink]

An avatar should be as neutral as possible to allow the user to shape it's personality in any desired direction.

Precisely. These words should be branded into the flesh of whoever came up with or approved the current EC doll.

Every female in Enhanced Client looks like a busty malnourished trollop, no matter which way you dress them or what face they wear. I don't know if this is supposed to feed into the typical male's fantasy, I assumed so at first, but I was surprised at how many seemingly intelligent women prefer to look like a stringy, pneumatic harlot.

I like a paperdoll with a bit of latitude. And speaking of, it's perfectly possible to add on-the-fly height and width scaling to the EC paperdolls, so why not give us some stature customisation? None of my females are seven feet tall.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

The problem with your shared logic here is that although my pc can also run anything you'd want to throw at it without breaking a sweat, I continue to choose UO in legacy client as my game of choice.

WoW doesn't ring my bells and graphics are cartoony. LOTR failed to meet even my low expectations. SWG was good right up until they removed CH. Mortal Online is pleasant.

While I enjoyed the graphics of all these games and more besides, the graphics were not sufficient to keep me interested enough to continue forking out monthly fees. Contrast this with a decade of immersion in UO.

Oh. And none of'em have the Hildebrandt dragon.

What keeps me interested in UO is not pirmarily the graphics, but the game content. However, I would never start playing a game I don't know if it had such outdated graphics. I also like Designer Dragon's 2D UO artwork, they are simply tasteful. However, I fear that the associated graphic engine is a technical dead-end. And I believe it is possible to create tasteful 3D graphics without destroying the original character of UO.

I wouldn't pick bad examples to prove that it can't be done. Someday somebody with the appropriate skill should simply try to create something new. Designer Dragon succeeded with it in 1997.

 

[northwoodschopper]

i always thought the expression on the females in the classic client was odd, kinda cartoony and aloof. no matter how the paperdoll was dressed, the woman looked like a young, aloof, bright-eyed woman. arguably the male paperdoll benefits much more because of facial hair for personality.

nowadays, it's irrelevant as everyone is gallavanting around as technicolor clowns. grab some cool 'shades', neon hair dye, and some bright pigments, and everyone's a rockstar or circus performer.

 

[Belmarduk]

Yes and if you had started redrawing them 8 years ago it would've been done 7.5 years ago and you would have a professional looking game.

Instead, millions have been wasted on 4 clients that can't do a better job than the original.

Exactly my thoughts...

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

An avatar should be as neutral as possible to allow the user to shape it's personality in any desired direction. Especially so in a roleplaying game such as UO. Even though the classic avatar is a little "off", it succeeds in doing the above task very well and I've felt that all my characters had their own personalities. For instance Saphireena is a gentle, pure, girlish, innocent, no-nonsense type of gal. Where as my mage (in the above link) is a bit of vixen. By dressing the characters in completely different ways, I can attain the "feel" of their personality.

However, once the UOKR paperdoll came around, Saphireena had suddenly converted into a big bosomed mama who likes to go around showing off a hulk stance to anyone she meets. She'd also lost the girlish soft cheeks and confident spunky expression, and instead looked like she wasn't quite sure what the date or time was. Her petite top which used to show off her girlish arms, had suddenly sprouted long sleeves and the skin of her feet had tanned to a dark brown.

The client was not the only thing which had been "enhanced" when she went through a makeover again , gaining a corset which shoved her boobies up so high that she had troubles breathing. Any signs of innocence and purity were long gone, for now her signature expression promised very naughty things to anyone who happened to look her way. You can almost hear her thinking "Hey baby... wanna a tour of my castle?" Not that a gentleman caller would get very far, seeing how tight her skirt had suddenly become. Her shirt had a new modern polo style to it - none of that old Renaissance crap anymore. Also, her necklace had miraculously morphed into a string of very rigid, deformed pearls which seemed to gravitate towards her left breast. And long gone were her silvery little locks which used to jut out from under her fluffy cap in such an endearing, girlish way.

This is probably my favorite post I have ever read on Stratics.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

nowadays, it's irrelevant as everyone is gallavanting around as technicolor clowns. grab some cool 'shades', neon hair dye, and some bright pigments, and everyone's a rockstar or circus performer.

...and this is probably my second favorite.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

i always thought the expression on the females in the classic client was odd, kinda cartoony and aloof. no matter how the paperdoll was dressed, the woman looked like a young, aloof, bright-eyed woman. arguably the male paperdoll benefits much more because of facial hair for personality.

I think the hairstyles on the women do a great deal more for reflecting personality. Of course, I think that they should have added some hairstyles and facial hair styles and the such to the client for both male and female, and a greater variety for elves as well (I'd also like my elf to have facial hair, but I see we're subscribing to traditionalist elves in this game, so...).

nowadays, it's irrelevant as everyone is gallavanting around as technicolor clowns. grab some cool 'shades', neon hair dye, and some bright pigments, and everyone's a rockstar or circus performer.

Not quite sure who this "everyone" is, but it's certainly not a majority of people I've seen.

As I've always said, to each their own. I don't have to dress like others.

 

[Saphireena]

Stranger:

I absolutley loved this. This was my favorite thing about the 3D client. Being able to dance, clap, fall over, wave, sit down, etc were a blast to play with.

Agreed! Out of all the 3d clients that was my favorite one as well. Not only did the characters look good (albeit a bit polygony) but the emotes were very fun to play with... *coughs*

I do not think your hanging armor turned out worse. If you zoom in you can see how much betters yours is, especially on the shoulder pad. Yours are smooth and fluid

Thanks, but at the end of the day what counts is how it looks at normal viewing size, not when zoomed in. Sometimes - especially with very tiny pixel art - pixels actually have to be arranged in a very strange way to make it look good at real size. It really is an artform of it's own.

Why don't they just make the client with simple resized to 200% images with no polish and then release a certain amount of polished artwork every month? It'll look extremely ugly and pixely at first but after a few months it will look better and better. They could even poll the players to see what they most want polished next!

I agree and it's something I've been thinking myself. If people could put up with some of the horrible 3d clients we've seen over the years, surely they could put up with upscaled, unpolished pixel art for a while. Not to mention that way back in the 90's we were playing games that looked exactly that way. The pixels were big back then! Right now I'm actually working on a slide show proposal for EA and this is part of it.

This might sound a little strange...but...I LOVE THE WAY SHE WIGGLES THE PENCIL!!! Hahaha!

*grins*

It takes her 1 hour and 10 minutes because she is amazingly talented and does everything the right way. With hard work and dedication! She doesn't cut corners or take shortcuts. Every game would look so much better if the artists weren't forced to make deadlines and rushed to push out artwork.

Well remember that doing these upscales was something I did out of the love for it - I really enjoy "discovering" what the object might look like in hi res and it's such a fulfilling feeling once it's done. So I didn't have a schedule dragging me down and used as much time as it took. However even I have to "cut corners and take shortcuts" in my daily work - it's just the way it is whenever you're dealing with work that has a deadline. As a good example, those intro animations for TB, if I could have done what I'd want to, I'd have of course wanted to make truly wonderful animations with additional artwork to support various frames to so many more animations. But I had to "cut corners" and just use flash to move her hand around and round which results in a stiff unnatural way for her to draw. The problem with giving artists as much time as they need is that they'll polish forever and ever and ever and the game would never become done.

Thanks again for all your heartwarming compliments, it's really inspirational to see someone enjoying those upscales as much as I do. It confirms in my mind that "hey... I'm onto something here... hey - maybe what I'm doing is not completely worthless after all". And don't you mind Heartseeker's meanie comment. He's just wishes you'd be lavishing him with the same attention! ;-)

Morgana LeFay:

All the more reason to scrap the 2D client altogether and make this content-rich game a full 3D game without the boring constraints put on it by trying to make it work alongside the legacy client.

You might as well pull the plugs on the servers if you do that. Well more than half the paying customers of Ultima Online use the legacy client, and I dare say that many...like myself...would cancel all of their accounts and never look back if EA/Mythic took this route.

I'm afraid she's right. As much as I'd like to move on to the EC client, each time I try it I find myself itching to shut it and log on with the classic client instead. I only ever log on to the EC client to check how something looks, but it doesn't feel comfortable for game play. If the 2D client were removed completely, I know for a fact that I would not play UO anymore. And that's not because I have some stubborn preference for the 2D, it's because the 2D client has the attributes that charmed me in the first place, the attributes that made me so addicted, whilst the EC does not. I don't recognize my characters, the animals don't have the cutesy factor anymore, the items aren't clean cut little pixel packages anymore amongst many other things. The whole "feel" of the EC client is aiming to be so much more dramatic and realistic - it's trying to be "awesome", where as the old client has a cozy and cute feel to it. That's the Ultima that I know and love.

Now, assuming that there is a huge chunk (over 50%) of players sticking to the classic client and assuming that this is not going to change in future years no matter how "awesome" the EC client gets, we have the choice of either forcing the devoted classic client players to squint their eyes staring at graphics that are way too tiny to see in today's resolutions or help them out by scaling up the graphics to double size. Which choice would be more friendly towards these players who pay for the bulk of the subscriptions?

TheGrimmOmen:

1) It would all have to be hand painted, and although our artists are capable, we're talking about hand painting thousands of pieces of artwork. The scope is huge- especially given the fact that the art team is tasked up to our eyeballs on any given day.

I have a proposal to solve this problem, will be coming soon.

2) The Legacy client doesn't have a means of scaling tileart assets. Meaning that the resolution you create the art at is how it shows up in the world. So if you doubled the resolution of a cactus, in game you get a cactus that's twice as big!

Well I think what folks have been meaning is not that the client itself would do the scaling work, but that all the assets would be rescaled using a batch script such as you find in Photoshop or any other image editing software. I'm sure the programmers could easily whip up a more sophisticated script though. Basically open > scale up 200% > save > close. Then naturally the isometric grid would need to be also scaled up so that they wouldn't all be overlapping. Where is the pivot point of the objects? Bottom middle of the asset?

Everything get's palettized prior to the game having to deal with it, so it's not so much an client issue. Some of the graphics are greyscale, some are full color, and some are both. As far as hueing, the client finds a value in the hue nearest to the value of the pixel, and assigns that color to the pixel.

Aaah so that's why those new halloween and cornucopia assets look so anti-aliasy and rich in color? By the way, while I adore those assets (like everyone else) I am however a bit disgruntled by the fact that they do not match the 2D client graphical style. They've obviously been made with the EC client in mind but now they look mismatched with the 2D client assets which have a look which is much more faithful to the classic pixel art look and feel. I suppose this is how things will go from now on that new art assets will be done with only the EC client in mind and gradually the 2D client will start to look more like a jumble of styles...

Creatures (averaged): ~500 frames of animation each.
Animals: ~250-300 frames each
Players/Clothing/Weapons :~1500 frames each.
Tileart Count > 20,000

Thanks for more specific estimates on those amounts. I have to admit it sounds daunting .

Viquire:

Would the orthographic disconnect have anything to do with the fact that the angle of isometric view seems different by a few degrees betwixt the EC and legacy clients.

Yeah this is actually the thing I dislike the most about the new engine. I really feel disconnected from the world. Even though buildings and tiles seem to be from the same angle, people and animals look more like ants which I'm viewing, versus being a part of the world I'm playing in. Which is why I preferred Ultima VIII to older Ultima's as well.

HD2300:

Pretty much you could write some sort of macro to just go through all graphic assets and double the size and sharpen. Then for the more important graphics you do it manually which would look heaps better.

Thanks for going to the trouble to test this method out. The more people experimenting the better! However I personally don't like this approach and if some "cheap system" were made, I'd be more interested to see how UO graphics were to look with the algorithm discussed on page 1 of this thread. Would any of the programmers here be able to test that out?

Zym Dragon: Nice! Those look so much better now! That armoire is sooo cute! And I understand what you mean about the masking trick. When I first started doing these years ago that was one of the first things I tried as well, but the results just weren't sufficient in quality so I opted for the click-click-click way instead . I'll post the updated comparison image after I've submitted this string of replies.

zoop: Thanks for the kind words! I was especially warmed to hear how you explained about it feeling like the memory of UO as you knew it. That's one of the main points of the whole thing for sure. To retain the magic of UO as we know it.

RaDian FlGith: Yay some more scale ups! Your scissors are very cute. I love the plumpy feel to them and especially the overlap of one blade over the other. Just like real scissors. I'd say those were the best scissors we'd seen so far if it were not for the pixelly blocky parts which can be seen along the straight edge of the inner blades as well as the holes of the handles. I do understand it's very hard to get them smooth with so few colors to use.

For a fair and realistic comparison - let's continue with the exact same color palette for any future submissions. However "In real life", and as Grimm explained above - apparently we could use as many shades as we liked, because the palette system would apply the colors at the end anyhow. So in other words, the details could be more soft, gradiated etc, but the colors would not necessarily remain exactly like you applied them. But as I mentioned earlier in this reply - there is a danger in making things more shaded, soft, anti-aliased (however you want to put it) and that is, that the look and feel of the game would change considerably - away from the precise pixelly feel. No doubt the graphics would look more "gorgeous" but would they also lose something from their precise, packaged look? Something which would make them feel less like objects you can clearly distinguish from the background and want to pick up, arrange and snap into place?

As for "cartoonish and unnatural" - personally I never preferred seeing UO as a realistic looking game. I enjoy the cartoonish feel to it. That's one of the reasons I don't fancy the new clients so much. That's also why I prefer playing WoW over Age of Conan / LotrO / Vanguard and Warhammer. Cartoony = clear and distinguishable. Realistic = mushy and hard to make game elements out.

If we're truly looking to create for the future of UO, we should be upscaling 400% or 800%, creating majorly high-quality originals in the look and feel of UO, and then scaling them down to an acceptable, appropriate level and making minor adjustments to those reductions (such as refining edges and cleaning up anything that doesn't translate well as shrunk). Part of the problem with only going 200% is that we effectively are saying, "1600x1200 is the highest resolution we care about." Given that monitors and video cards already go above that, it would be safe to say that in 10 years resolutions may be greater than what they are today, and if we (Mythic) plan correctly for the future, updating UO's graphics becomes a non-issue, at least for the foreseeable future.

You definately have a valid point. I guess the reason I see upscaling as such a feasible thing is because that's what we do in our company all the time. It's part of everyday life for us. I'll use an example our game Tornado Mania. Each and every asset, rescaled an polished to 4 different sizes:

And rescaling work happens with only a couple of artists of a few weeks. For ALL 3 "extra" versions! Of course, there are much less assets and instead of thousands we are talking tens and sometimes hundreds. But still, it's completely possible with enough resources and time.

Everything you said in your post after the scissors one made a lot of sense and I agree with most of it. If UO sticks to the classic client as is now, it's inevitable we will continue to lose players. If for no other reason than the fact that the items are becoming so small that the game just isn't usable anymore. Even now, picking up items like gems and rings etc is a hard task.

Fink:

I like a paperdoll with a bit of latitude. And speaking of, it's perfectly possible to add on-the-fly height and width scaling to the EC paperdolls, so why not give us some stature customisation? None of my females are seven feet tall.

Good idea. I also do not see my characters as these talk skinny harlots either. My characters have a much more girlish and plump look about them, some playfulness and spunkiness. The current female paperdoll is very foreign to how I see my characters I'm afraid and just does not leave any "room" for my imagination to see them otherwise.

Folks, sorry it took me so long to respond to all the great opinions and artwork - but after last weeks art-work by day and UO pixellation by night, I was pretty pooped .

 

[Saphireena]

Comparison update:

Added: Zym Dragon's new armoire + upgraded torch and onions.
Added: RaDian FlGith's scissors.

Shift + Refresh if you don't see the changes.

 

[Ancient Sosarian]

Oh trust me girl I completely agree about that EC dragon...

To me the old 2d dragon is the most beautiful thing... I remember how delighted I was to tame my first dragon... I remember I used to run around as much as I could just so I could delight in watching it fly... (absolutely bummed that my dragon doesn't fly anymore)

I miss watching it fly... the grace and beauty are beyond anything in the EC.

I would add, how thrilled I was to teach my fresh tamed dragons to teleport across small streams back when that was also still possible. I hope there is a special dungeon somewhere for those who took that joy away from me.

An SoS

 

[HD2300]

Well I think what folks have been meaning is not that the client itself would do the scaling work, but that all the assets would be rescaled using a batch script such as you find in Photoshop or any other image editing software. I'm sure the programmers could easily whip up a more sophisticated script though. Basically open > scale up 200% > save > close. Then naturally the isometric grid would need to be also scaled up so that they wouldn't all be overlapping. Where is the pivot point of the objects? Bottom middle of the asset?

...Thanks for going to the trouble to test this method out. The more people experimenting the better! However I personally don't like this approach and if some "cheap system" were made, I'd be more interested to see how UO graphics were to look with the algorithm discussed on page 1 of this thread. Would any of the programmers here be able to test that out?

Check out Genuine Fractals http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=7 which can do batch processing. You run it on your fastest computer, and voila when you come back tomorrow all 20k images are resized.

It will definitely be better than a than a batch open > scale x2 > sharpen > save.

 

[Coldren]

Check out Genuine Fractals http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=7 which can do batch processing. You run it on your fastest computer, and voila when you come back tomorrow all 20k images are resized.

It will definitely be better than a than a batch open > scale x2 > sharpen > save.

Wow.. That software looks interesting. Be curious to see how an image run through that turns out.

 

[Saphireena]

Check out Genuine Fractals http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=7 which can do batch processing. You run it on your fastest computer, and voila when you come back tomorrow all 20k images are resized.

It will definitely be better than a than a batch open > scale x2 > sharpen > save.

Well I downloaded it, also curious to see what it could do to pixel art. It was designed with photographs in mind, but as you can see, it pretty much ruined the objects. Not to mention that they got a whole lot of antialias mush on the edges that would need to be cleaned away by hand anyhow...

But thanks for suggesting it. Was interesting to try.

Again, shift + refresh is a good idea.

And Ancient Sosarian, I remember when they used to teleport yeah! I wonder why they removed all those features of the dragons?

 

[Connor_Graham]

And Ancient Sosarian, I remember when they used to teleport yeah! I wonder why they removed all those features of the dragons?

They broke monster teleportation when they "fixed" the problem with reapers and such teleporting inside private houses. Since then, very sadly, no monster teleports anymore.

 

[Arcus]

And Ancient Sosarian, I remember when they used to teleport yeah! I wonder why they removed all those features of the dragons?

They broke monster teleportation when they "fixed" the problem with reapers and such teleporting inside private houses. Since then, very sadly, no monster teleports anymore.

The general UO development tactic of making a door by removing the building.

 

[omgmir]

*innocent*

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

there is a program that is used on the free servers, its a entire new client with enhanced res, looks just like the picture from the OP,

its a really good one,

 

[eekamouse]

there is a program that is used on the free servers, its a entire new client with enhanced res, looks just like the picture from the OP,

its a really good one,

Does it work on official shards?

 

[omgmir]

there is a program that is used on the free servers, its a entire new client with enhanced res, looks just like the picture from the OP,

its a really good one,

Name removed by Petra., yeah. I wouldn't say it looks like the picture from the OP exactly.. but it does support any resolution you want to run the game at with crisper graphics.

A screenshot from it:

 

[maroite]

Making 2D into high res would not fix the other problems that many people have with 2D and it would still be 2d...

I play UO still because I enjoy the "freedom" and randomness the game can offer compared to other games. That being said, I use the Stygian client. I tried using 2D and where I loved 2D in 1998 I just can't get back into it now.

There are several reasons for this, but honestly the resolution is one of the bottom reasons.

The biggest reason I don't like 2D is that its macro system is completely off norm. I personally like to be able to hot key my games similarly, so that my fingers feel at home when playing the game. Most of my games use the same hotkeys, for similar spells/attacks/actions.

Before you go on about how you don't want UO to be like other games, just remember that for a majority of you, the reason you like 2D is because its comfortable for you. I can respect this, but for me 2D's controls are not comfortable, and take way too long to set up to be how I want them to be.

Anyway, simply improving the resolution of 2D isn't going to make it more desirable by people not playing and I am honestly worried about the massive decline in player base lately. Disappearing luna vendors is a big sign to me...

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Krrios client, yeah. I wouldn't say it looks like the picture from the OP exactly.. but it does support any resolution you want to run the game at with crisper graphics.

Does it work with prodo shards, or just free shards???

 

[eekamouse]

Does it work with prodo shards, or just free shards???

Well it doesn't work on 64-bit Windows 7... =/

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Well it doesn't work on 64-bit Windows 7... =/

Great...

 

[Mapper]

It won't work anyway, Another client increased the view range before and all it does is make stuff outside normal range grey, Nor did it show people/npcs until they got closer. Hard to explain without a screenshot.

 

[omgmir]

Neither does the EC if you're playing at a high resolution. The area outside of your viewing distance isn't grey no but if you're playing at a high resolution mobs and houses tend to pop up halfway between your char and the edge of the screen.

 

[Cetric]

Wow to whoever dug this up, that stuff is pretty nice, wonder why ea never pursued it.

 

[Saphireena]

Wow to whoever dug this up, that stuff is pretty nice, wonder why ea never pursued it.

A few devs actually responded in this very thread. Check for instance TheGrimmOmen's comments for some idea.

PS: If anyone wants to see the artwork I'm making right now, check this thread.

 

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I took a look...it looks cool! I am going to have check it out on FB.

 

[Elric_Soban]

Why would we want a higher resolution version of the same horrible graphics? Maybe its finally time to put away the 386 and join the rest of the gaming world, which from a technical standpoint has lapped UO thousands of times already.

 

[omgmir]

Why would we want a higher resolution version of the same horrible graphics? Maybe its finally time to put away the 386 and join the rest of the gaming world, which from a technical standpoint has lapped UO thousands of times already.

Because the idea is to balance improvements with cost, and you're out of your mind if you think EA/Mythic's going to give 13 year old <100k sub UO the resources it would require to rebuild the game with current technology.

 

[Llewen]

You can't just magically dupe Saphireena like so many val hammers and expect wonders.

Damn, now why didn't I think of that?! Now if we could just get Saph to fall into a black hole while we clicked and dragged her...

 

[Derium of ls]

Sorry to Necro this back up, I did in fact ask Petra if it was okay first

anywho,

I think this thread is right on target for what we have been talking about lately

 

[olduofan]

Sorry to Necro this back up, I did in fact ask Petra if it was okay first

anywho,

I think this thread is right on target for what we have been talking about lately

It would bring me and many others back


this is on target

 

[jaashua]

Sorry, there's just no other way to go than 3D. For a number of reasons.

1) FPS. With 3D, you can have an animation carried out in as many FPS as the client can handle. With 2D animation, you need to draw each frame.

2) Perspective. With 3D you add things like a dynamic camera. Even keeping the isometric aspect, you could allow the client to swing the camera around.

Most importantly, you could even add a "follow" position whereby the camera is always behind the avatar and you could direct him, reasonably, with a keyboard and keep your mouse free at no performance cost to the client. And you can do all these things without having to draw every item and every animation from every angle.

3) Art. Like most here, I'm absolutely amazed at the artistry of the CC. The way they imply movement and detail with deceptively simple things like a crease here or a shadow there. And it was general enough in style to appeal to everybody. That's a marvel. Getting a 3D artist to morph template characters and textures and experiment and tweak them until they get them right is less of a feat. And non-artists can lend a hand or modify these things without breaking the consistency of the style of the game.

 

[LadyNico]

You can't just magically dupe Saphireena like so many val hammers and expect wonders.

Damn, now why didn't I think of that?! Now if we could just get Saph to fall into a black hole while we clicked and dragged her...

The Earth would shatter, Sosaria-like, into mirror shards because it simply could not contain that much awesome.

 

[Llewen]

You can't just magically dupe Saphireena like so many val hammers and expect wonders.

Damn, now why didn't I think of that?! Now if we could just get Saph to fall into a black hole while we clicked and dragged her...

The Earth would shatter, Sosaria-like, into mirror shards because it simply could not contain that much awesome.

Heh, I had to go back and read the chain of posts carefully to figure out what the hell I was going on about a year ago...

 

[Cirno]

2) Perspective. With 3D you add things like a dynamic camera. Even keeping the isometric aspect, you could allow the client to swing the camera around.

Most importantly, you could even add a "follow" position whereby the camera is always behind the avatar and you could direct him, reasonably, with a keyboard and keep your mouse free at no performance cost to the client. And you can do all these things without having to draw every item and every animation from every angle.

Unfortunately, the perspective of UO is not truly isometric.
It is what is know as "oblique", which is a perspective made of lies.
If you look at a single tile in UO, it is represented with a perfect square (rotated 45°), as if you were looking straight down on it from above.
The walls are represented as though from a more isometric perspective.
Because the XY plane is described as if from a different point of view from the XZ and YZ planes, it can't be rendered properly in 3D without transformation calculations. The same goes the other way, that if it were rendered in proper 3D, the perspective we are used to in UO could not be displayed without the calculations.
So, although it could be done, but you could not take the standard UO perspective and smoothly swoosh the camera around, and you could not smoothly swoosh the camera into that perspective.

Also, it is because of the perspective that many of the new artworks look wrong.

PS. Saphireena's art is

 

[MalagAste]

I just wish they could get the client looking half that nice.

It would be a HUGE start. I don't care if they have to do it just a few little things at a time.... any improvement is a big one.

 

[Zosimus]

Nice images. Maybe one day but till that day...we can always dreaam

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

This looks great, but I'm afraid it's probably in the realm of wish fulfillment. The artist's own posts suggest that it's a monumental task. I, for one, maintain that the future of our game lies in content. (Though of course the EC should still be put at least out of beta stage as soon as possible.)

-Galen's player

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I can;t wait to see how they are going to do the updates for the EC. However, to throw yet another log on the fire (so to speak), as well as upgrading the resolution of the graphics, they also should take a look at the early graphics that were done in the 256 color (Ultima 8) and 16 bit color (UO) eras and see about upgrapding the color quality to 32 bit (current) if possible.

You can see the difference in eras when you look at the original item vs a lot of the SA and newer item artwork.

Upping the resolution of the artwork will bring this issue into even greater light.

 

[Cirno]

as well as upgrading the resolution of the graphics, they also should take a look at the early graphics that were done in the 256 color (Ultima 8) and 16 bit color (UO) eras and see about upgrapding the color quality to 32 bit (current) if possible.

I think it could be nicer for UO to, rather than increasing the colour depth, move to a system like the PLT textures Neverwinter Nights used.
The textures made creative use of the colour channels, so that the file not only defined the "texture" of the texture, but also 6 areas, which could be hued individually.
A system like that would allow any item to have up to 6 changeable hues to them, so plants could have their flowers and leaves hued separately, among other things.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

That would work too.

I know that KR allowed for partial hueing of plants (which looked great), but I'm not 100% sure if it was retained in EC or not.

 

[Cirno]

...

That would work too.

I know that KR allowed for partial hueing of plants (which looked great), but I'm not 100% sure if it was retained in EC or not.

It did?
I missed that, and now I miss it in its absence
Was the all-over hueing not one of the bigger complaints people had about animal dyes?

Also, I didn't mean to seem so pushy with my thoughts. More colour depth would also be a great improvement.
I get a little carried away when tickled.