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

[Velvathos]

I can't imagine it would be that hard..

http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/uo_highres_00.jpg

http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/vmm_ani.gif

[AtlanticVlad]

I'm usually totally against changing the graphics LOL but I think that might have just changed my mind...

As long as everything the same I wouldn't mind higher res I just get really angry when they take my old art away completely and replace it with new CRAP!

The only thing I could see giving me problems is things like cloth fish tanks... where the low res actually enhances the look... But I wouldn't mind seeing it first...

Oh ya and one more thing LEAVE THE GROUND ALONE change the items and people but leave my textures!

[Velvathos]

Well yeah, basically everything stays the same, it is just a far higher resolution.. This is the change all UO players want, we don't want anymore "GRAPHICS OVERHAUL" We just want a higher resolution..

[R Traveler]

Everything 2x larger... so 800*600 play window will be 1600x1200. No room for other stuff even on full screen.

[Helfgrim]

with those graphics I'd play full screen

[Adam_UOForums]

I think a high res 2D client would be awesome
Instead of wasting money/time on 3 2.5D clients, they could've made a truly awesome high res client by now.

[AaronTheAssassin]

You got my John Hancock!

/Signed

[Salivern_Diago]

Thats got my vote.. Hate using a large res screen on a low res game... :( PLEASE DEVS!!!

[Zym Dragon]

This is what they should have done with the KR and Enhanced clients and what so many of us have been asking for for years. KR showed some promise, but too much of the art did not look like its classic counterpart. Grimm Mentioned a few months ago that they established a "baseline" for the EC. I hope that means they can and will begin to upgrade the art over time, once they patch the EC enough to get it out of beta.

[G.v.P]

Well, by hard, how did you create "high-res?" Did you recreate each tile art by hand? Apply some filters, dodge, burn, etc. in photoshop?

I think everyone should one day try to create their own RPG from scratch, hehe. Sprite making is fun anyway :).

[katherinepgoh]

/Signs petition for this.

[Saunders]

Well, by hard, how did you create "high-res?" Did you recreate each tile art by hand? Apply some filters, dodge, burn, etc. in photoshop?

I think everyone should one day try to create their own RPG from scratch, hehe. Sprite making is fun anyway :).

The image was created by hand by Saphireena in the legandary Pixel Challenge thread.

[Kri]

1000 times yes! :)

/signs

[DevilsOwn]

comment (http://vboards.stratics.com/showpost.php?p=1322169&postcount=215) from GrimmOmen on this topic back in July

[Nastia Cross]

If the graphics in the EC looked like that, I would probably switch over. I love the 2d graphics so much and an upgrade like increased resolution would be fabulous! :thumbup:

[Miriandel]

Too late.

New graphics is a daunting task and they already started the SA client project, which might as well get dumped by the looks of it.

[Fink]

Doubling the pixel resolution quadruples the graphical overhead, and we're told the Classic client isn't up to the task. It's not a question of PC grunt, it's simply trying to force a firehose of data through a drinking straw.

It's the same reason they're not allowing high-res art from Kingdom Reborn to be used in the Enhanced Client (much of the EC art is degraded KR art), for the sake of stability and performance. Even though EC can take advantage of modern hardware it's still a texture-heavy game. Apparently having a sprite system that matches the zoom feature pixel for pixel is something we'll never have.

Also manually redrawing, like the example shown, sprites and objects would take forever, and ever. Unless you render them in 3D as the Classic sprite art originally was done, but they did that numerous times only to be told "It's not UO". It has to be the exact same look while somehow being "better" but not so much that it doesn't look exactly the same. As the original 3D source for those sprites was for one reason or another not retained from OSI days, there will never be fresh renders of exactly the same models.

[Saphireena]

I can't imagine it would be that hard..

Actually polishing those scaled up originals was a labor of love. They do require quite a bit of work if the aim is to make them look good. A quick and dirty job will yield matching results I'm afraid.

Here are some more samples I've worked on that have been stashed away in my desk drawer:

http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/saphireenas_hires_items1.pnghttp://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/saphireenas_hires_items2.png
http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/saphireenas_hires_items3.pnghttp://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/saphireenas_hires_items4.png

To get an idea of how long it takes to polish the scale-ups:
- With small items such as 1 reagent or rune, it's about 15-60 minutes depending on the amount of texture and detail.
- With medium sized items such as the plant and chair it can easily be a days worth of work.
- With the larger items such as the roof piece, cactus and door. 1-2 working days.

Again, it all really depends on how much texture and detail there is. However there are other things to consider when estimating the time used. Firstly, will the artist be doing them with love and care like I did? (takes a longer time obviously) Will they be aiming to stay as true to the original as possible as I did? (takes longer) How efficient are they at polishing pixels? I think of myself as fast, but then again I tend to be a perfectionist so someone else might make something look just as good but cut corners where they know they can.

I have no idea just how many assets the 2D version contains, but I think we all know that the amount of work would be staggering, if not impossible, at least if done by one person. If done by a whole group of artists, not so impossible anymore - but I think if one were to upscale, might as well do a good job of it since that set of graphics would need to last for many years to come. So no demotivated outsourced teams on the other side of the world, but instead a group of pixel artists who are kick-ass talented and truly love the game. Please note that not just any artist can take on pixel pushing, it's a skill all of it's own. So considering that, a team like that might be hard to find.

So why on earth did I present this idea of a scaled up 2D client to begin with, if it's all so daunting, impossible and unrealistic? Well at the time of posting those old scale ups, Kingdom Reborn was just starting beta. Some people liked what they'd seen so far, but many didn't. I had mixed feelings myself, but I had to wonder whether or not all these many many clients that had been made over the years, all that time spent, all those resources... what if they'd all been put into making one hi-res version instead. It had been a dream planted inside my head for quite a while and I was itching to see what it might look like. So I started with just one image, fell in love with it, made another, and another. The more I made, the more wistful and somber I felt knowing that we'd never see all those old legacy assets in their full and true glory. For I was convinced in my mind that had the original artists had the same resolutions to work with, these scale ups are exactly how they'd have looked. It was almost like chipping away an extra layer of paint off of an old painting, only to reveal a true masterpiece from within. As dramatic as that may sound, that's how it has felt to work on these and it's become the main source of motivation. It certainly wasn't to propose such a thing at that stage anymore since it was clear that with KR in beta, I was way too late for that. Had I proposed such an idea years earlier, way before the concept of Kingdom Reborn came about... well who knows? But it's highly unlikely EA would have considered. As we know, they've had their minds set on 3D since like forever.

I've seen these posts pop up once in a while which refer to my old scale ups and I'm pretty sure it's just beating a dead horse. Sometimes I regret even making them in the first place, since they must have caused the UO team a headache or two with all these people whining about something that simply cannot be.

Now to comment on some of the responses:
G.v.P: No dodge, no burn, no hanky panky. Merely click-click-click-click. Staying as true to the pixels and surrounding pixels as possible, using the same colors.
Zym Dragon: Yeah *sighs*. If it had been done early enough, it'd have been the perfect solution since it would not have muddled the code nor people's decorations. Not to mention their concept of the virtual world you live in. Never... ever... mess with their world and change things drastically. Never. Well except some things I think they could go ahead and throw right outta there. Like that giant snowflake. Makes my blood boil just thinking about it :).

Lastly - and at the risk of sounding irritatingly corny - let's remember that the UO team are doing the best they can under the circumstances given to them and I'm sure they've thought over all possible aspects over and over before going ahead with any decisions. We, the players are - at the end of the day - utterly clueless about the many things they need to take into consideration when moving ahead with a plan. Not that it isn't good for us to voice our wishes and opinions mind you, but just something to keep in mind. :-)

[mjolnir131]

Why don't they make a 1973 pinto into a luxury car? it's the same question with the same answer

[Connor_Graham]

Why don't they make a 1973 pinto into a luxury car?

Because they blow up if rear ended hard enough.


it's the same question with the same answer

2d would blow up if rear ended?

:gee:

[JL from Europa]

12 years ago everyone was playing on 15" crt monitors. Nowadays 19" is the standard with most gamers having 22"+. Would be great if the playscreen got bigger, many times I find myself pinching my eyes trying to look for some 2 pixel gem.

[JPDefault]

I don't like this at all :( But it's a matter of taste.

[northwoodschopper]

i guess i don't understand graphics scaling, but why couldn't some scaler be used? like scalex2, or x2sai, or hqx.

like in dosbox, or console emulation. i guess i don't know the specifics of those sorts of graphics enhancements, but i can't imagine they would add that much overhead with modern hardware.

[mjolnir131]

Because they blow up if rear ended hard enough.




2d would blow up if rear ended?

:gee:

yup

[Schuyler Bain]

WOW - now seriously, if the EA/Mythic team released a client like either of the ones above I think that would see their biggest resurgence of old and new players. I am guessing that the bean counters have determined that it is not worth it. I say that if this current version of the game has been around for 12 + years now it has lasted for good reason. The "game" itself is pretty damn solid (save your arguments for another thread) and the eye candy is what it is. Some live and die by it and others don't really care and then, of course there is everyone in between.

Keep the classic and then make a high rez version or one of the examples above. Easy, certainly not, but doable... looks like it.

[Saphireena]

How about some group of people with know-how make us high rez client that's not supported by EA but still lot better... Like the real 3D client someone made? I mean what the heck, some group did better job then EA team could do? I quess it being OpenSource means a lot, since there can be Loooots of contributors.

They havent made the engine themselves thou I quess. But client is really impressive The problem with anything that is player made and player run is the feeling on uneasyness knowing it's not "official". Knowing that the time and effort you invested in the game is all in the hands of another regular dude, just like you. Someone you must not anger at any costs. Someone who might suddenly get tired of running the game on their server. Someone who might change the rules suddenly because they felt like it. Someone who has much more risk of becoming hacked than EA does. Not that I'm saying that there aren't a lot of hard working honorable players out there who would never do such things, but knowing that the risk is still there makes me completely uninterested in player run games personally.

As for the Real 3D engine screenies, you know I actually really like them a lot even though they're rough on the edges. The perspective is nice and so is the lighting - they've done a good job in capturing the adventurous magic of Ultima I think.

However...

Walking around town or through a forest adventuring has only been part of what UO is all about. Looking at such screenshots makes it easy to forget all about the major thing that has kept this game up on it's feet all these years: decoration and customization of both homes and characters. Unfortunately a 3D engine will never be able to give the "pixel crack" gratification that the tiny, delicate pixel items give. That term wasn't invented without a reason!

About 10 years ago people were selling AND BUYING UO rares for tens and even hundreds of dollars on Ebay. Had those items been piles of textured polygons, surely no-one would have bothered? I don't care how rare the item, they just wouldn't have had that value. It's the controlled, contained neatness of a well done pixel item that causes that obsession. Even the fact that it's from that one static view enhances it's "valuable item" feeling where as a 3D item feels much more vague and out of control. I'd love for a psychologist to come along and explain why that is :-).

As an example, I cut out some items from the screenshots and fetched the pixel equivalents. I know that these aren't rares, but still, which feel more valuable to you?

http://www.andrea.net/pics/decos.png

northwoodschopper: Naturally graphic assets can be scaled up easy as pie by code. But the problem lies in the fact that if you don't polish them by hand they will be left looking like the middle version in my image. Like big blocky pixels. I doubt anyone wants that. Even if there was a script that randomized how the pixels scale up, you still wouldn't get a neat and polished look.

[northwoodschopper]

i was thinking of pixel scaling explained here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art_scaling_algorithms). if scaling was an option, these algorithms could prove interesting. not exactly the same quality or polish as doing it by hand, but does it's role well.

[Saphireena]

i was thinking of pixel scaling explained here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art_scaling_algorithms). if scaling was an option, these algorithms could prove interesting. not exactly the same quality or polish as doing it by hand, but does it's role well.Yeah but that's not pixel art in it's true form anymore. The scaled version has anti-alias which completely changes the graphic, adding many more colors to the palette. Now show me an algorithm which does it using "nearest neighbor" which preserves the colors exactly the way they are and does not add any new shades.

[christy1221]

1000 times yes! :)

/signs

I agree

/signs

[JPDefault]

I still don't agree to the "facelift" of the classic client.
Mostly because it's not just the graphics that make it awkward, but the lack of some basic things, like a serious map and a usable macro system - arranging the big blocky icons without any automatic alignment/snapping also is a pain for me, but I understand some people like that uhm... "feature".
What makes it great is its stability and the fact that I can run it on my very old laptop, and in a window at office under Linux while on another desktop I have the compiler running. That's why it's still alive and kicking, I presume (I don't want to take scripters into consideration).
Scaling algorithms would just make it blurry and heavy, and that of course wouldn't add any useful feature.

[Saphireena]

i was thinking of pixel scaling explained here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art_scaling_algorithms). if scaling was an option, these algorithms could prove interesting. not exactly the same quality or polish as doing it by hand, but does it's role well.Yeah but that's not pixel art in it's true form anymore. The scaled version has anti-alias which completely changes the graphic, adding many more colors to the palette. Now show me an algorithm which does it using "nearest neighbor" which preserves the colors exactly the way they are and does not add any new shades.

Oh and by the way, if you're wondering "So what if it isn't "true pixel art" anymore, isn't the main thing that it looks good?". Well it's more complicated than that. For instance the palette system in UO which colors various assets in different shades. From what I understand, the original graphic is grayscale and the palette has been assigned to replace certain shades of gray with the new color. So it's looking for an exact RGB value to replace. And so when you bring the anti-alias "melting" of two colors into each other as in your algorithm example, suddenly there are thousands of new colors to deal with which the engine was not built to handle.

This however is just my guess on how it works in UO and please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

This is one of the reasons I didn't want to go changing the colors at all when I made the scale ups. Obviously the graphics would benefit greatly if we could brighten their levels up a little to give them more contrast. The original RGB shades chosen happen to be very very dark. And of course it would be nice to introduce more colors into the palette, but if the system is based on the 256 palette, you just can't go suddenly adding colors out of nowhere.

An additional problem, as JC mentioned, is of course the fact that more colors = more for the computer and network to load, which would already be stressed by the larger dimensions of upscaled graphics as is.

Lastly, while the algorithm you suggest may work for some assets, it still doesn't do a perfect job as can be seen from the items like the circles and other rounded shapes.

[G.v.P]

Now to comment on some of the responses:
G.v.P: No dodge, no burn, no hanky panky. Merely click-click-click-click. Staying as true to the pixels and surrounding pixels as possible, using the same colors.

You, and Crysta, are GIF gods. I envy both of you. And if Nox got involved with his programming skills, well, the three of you could probably create a new series to rival both Ultima and Final Fantasy.

Re-tiling an entire mmorpg for a 5th time? I just don't know.

3D, KR, SA (EC) ... it's pretty clear EA does not want to improve the graphics of an ancient client that is, possibly, inflexible when adding new code and functions. It would be nice to have a hi-res 2D look with the function of SA (EC), although, not sure how the lag would be with all those hi-res art files.

[Spree]

Who care if they make zoom in like KR had. Just make the window bigger. Wasn't there a cheat that did this years ago? SA show a bigger screen area so i don't see what the bid deal is.

[Yellow Beard]

I am definately for a 2d graphics upgrade. However with the backlog of all the essential things that need to be fixed I dont see anything happening on this line for quite some time. For short term fixes WE NEED A UOAM TYPE MAP. Also we really do need a revamp of the tailor/mining bod system.

[Viper09]

I would like to see a hi-res of the 2d. However I don't think they will be doing it since we have SA already.

[LadyNico]

Ah, dear Saph, it gladdens my old UO heart each time someone discovers your work and posts it. :hug:

[Heartseeker]

Got a question for you Saph.

Instead of making the pixels bigger, which would require a lot of work; is it possible for the game engine to actually show more of itself on screen?

By that I mean, to keep things small as they are, but show more of the world of UO on screen.

PS. No matter what I said before, your work is fantastic and I wish they incorporated it in game, instead of giving us half finished clients.

[Myna]

agreed

i never played the game for graphics, the 2d art is fine enough for me, but a larger game screen would be awesome. i play the game becasue of the depth of gameplay and the people who play games for awesome graphics should play another game

[Stranger]

Hey Saphireena! I just wanted to let you know that I absolutely adore your scaled up images! They are so incredibly beautiful! You have a great eye for detail and are amazingly talented! You are a gift from god! :) Thank you so much for creating them and sharing them with us! I really appreciate it! :) Your images make my jaw drop! They take my breath away! Have you ever seen something so beautiful your eyes water? Your images have done that to me! Wow! Great job :) You are kick-ass talented :) You also have a wonderful way with words :) Good luck on everything you do and well wishes! I hope nothing but good things for you! :) Peace :) :heart::heart::heart:

Oh, and to be on topic, umm, they don't make a 2d in high-res because they just care about money? (The reason for many horrible things. *sigh*) In a perfect world UO would look like Saphireena's scaled up images! But the world isn't perfect. :sad3:

It's okay though, everything is still cool! :thumbup1: I love UO and it's the best MMORPG around no matter how it looks! :)

[Syrus of Gahd]

I love the idea, too.

[northwoodschopper]

Oh and by the way, if you're wondering "So what if it isn't "true pixel art" anymore, isn't the main thing that it looks good?". Well it's more complicated than that. For instance the palette system in UO which colors various assets in different shades. From what I understand, the original graphic is grayscale and the palette has been assigned to replace certain shades of gray with the new color. So it's looking for an exact RGB value to replace. And so when you bring the anti-alias "melting" of two colors into each other as in your algorithm example, suddenly there are thousands of new colors to deal with which the engine was not built to handle.

This however is just my guess on how it works in UO and please someone correct me if I'm wrong.

This is one of the reasons I didn't want to go changing the colors at all when I made the scale ups. Obviously the graphics would benefit greatly if we could brighten their levels up a little to give them more contrast. The original RGB shades chosen happen to be very very dark. And of course it would be nice to introduce more colors into the palette, but if the system is based on the 256 palette, you just can't go suddenly adding colors out of nowhere.

An additional problem, as JC mentioned, is of course the fact that more colors = more for the computer and network to load, which would already be stressed by the larger dimensions of upscaled graphics as is.

Lastly, while the algorithm you suggest may work for some assets, it still doesn't do a perfect job as can be seen from the items like the circles and other rounded shapes.

well the big difference is that these would be applied real-time in the game, so there would be no change to the art assets. emulators make use of it, even on xbox live, so i wonder how viable it would be if the UO classic client could scale the gameplay window in the future. i imagine it may be a resource hog though for the display to not become blurry.

[JPDefault]

well the big difference is that these would be applied real-time in the game, so there would be no change to the art assets. emulators make use of it, even on xbox live, so i wonder how viable it would be if the UO classic client could scale the gameplay window in the future. i imagine it may be a resource hog though for the display to not become blurry.

Emulators can do it because they don't have the limitations of the original hardware/software.
For example, NES games where limited to 25 colours per scanline, but an emulator can scale and polish them in real time and blend the pixel values, because it doesn't have that limit.
The legacy client has its limits, many of them in the graphics department: I don't think you can even increase the size of the palettes without a major - if not total - code rewrite.

[Saphireena]

G.v.P: Yeah Crysta is one smart cookie when it comes to pixels :-). And indeed there are many many talents among us.

LadyNico: As it gladdens mine to see your arrival to any thread Lady Nico, the fresh of breath air that you are! *hugs back*

Heartseeker: I'm really not the one to ask, but I assume that it's possible. I'd assume the area that's drawn is merely a set of dimensions written in the code, and if the numbers are raised, so is the drawn area. But I'm sure someone else could answer that question for you better. From the game design perspective, I'm not sure if it's a good idea though since it changes how soon you see foes approaching and makes it easier to navigate in the dungeons etc. Would it perhaps kill a bit of the mystery and excitement? I remember when they were showing off the zoom out feature of Kingdom Reborn in that one video, and to be quite honest, I didn't like to see so much of the world at once. It killed something for me. And thanks by the way :-).

Stranger: *sits there with a bright red face* Well shucks, golly, thank you! But remember that these are not my graphics. They are artwork made by the talented artists who originally made UO in the 90's and all I've done is take their work and give it a little lovin'. I wish every one of those artists had a fan page on Facebook, I'd fan every one of them!

[Stranger]

Yes, that is true, but you have done such a wonderful job improving their resolution! :) I realize how time consuming it is and how talented you have to be to make them come out looking so good! You make them absolutely perfect! :) I'm sure all the artists who created the original images would be proud and honored to see their artwork treated with such love and care! :)

Whatever happened to all the wonderful artists? It is simply amazing that their artwork holds up so well after all these years! :) It's too bad EA didn't think or was unable to improve such master pieces! Although even if they did I doubt they could have done it as lovely as you have!:heart:

It's kinda funny...or sad...that EA has tried to improve the graphics twice and they can never manage to out do graphics made over a decade ago. That just proves how amazingly talented and awesome the original artists were!

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

they wont even make the new client high res....

[JC the Builder]

An additional problem, as JC mentioned, is of course the fact that more colors = more for the computer and network to load, which would already be stressed by the larger dimensions of upscaled graphics as is.
Graphics have zero effect on network latency (in UO's case at least). The sever just sends a number like 7263 to your client which interprets that as the graphic needing to be shown. It doesn't matter if it is a 1x1 pixel black dot or 1000x1000 pixel replica of the Mona Lisa.

[Malador]

This is the change all UO players want,

Why, because it is what you want. I got news for you. I dont want high ress graphics. I dont want any graphics changes. I want the client made more robust. I want bugs fixed.

[Saphireena]

Hmmm... hmm... I just found this article in Gamasutra, published last month:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25703

Tim Cotten: "UO, in many ways, we want to improve the original art. It was built for a 640 x 480 window. Stylistically, it is beautiful, but it's very low res. There's nothing wrong with us taking that low res art, paying homage to it correctly, and actually building high res versions of it. Not throwing a bunch of 3D models in it, but actually getting some great artists, putting that together, and of course we'd like to explore that."

I wonder if it would be worth pursuing more experimentations with these upscales after all...?

[katherinepgoh]

It's a shame they haven't hired you, Saphireena!

[Dermott of LS]

...

they wont even make the new client high res....

Yep... this is my worry considering that they in fact DID make high ress artwork, backed out almost ALL of that, THEN dropped the resolution of the high res model artwork down to an insanely low level.

We've gone BACKWARDS in terms of resolution this year, and that to me is a bigger problem than arguments over "style".

[Sergul'zan_SP]

Why don't we just not mess with the client?

3D - FAIL
KR - FAIL.
SA - Potential success...we shall see.

I would guess that most people playing UO today are those same people who played UO ages ago. UO is just not one of those games that is going to draw large numbers of people regardless of what they do. The gameplay is way too broken and the response on broken game systems is entirely too slow.

This is not a criticism of the dev team, but a criticism of the upper management at Electronic Arts. You cannot continue to manage Ultima Online like this and have it draw new people.

Spend a year agressively locating and fixing all the bugs, cleaning up the server code, and reconstruction/repairing all of the systems that are so severely broken. *THEN* you can start releasing new content to draw new players.

Most "new" players that come during an expansion (self included) are just old players returning to check things out. Once they see nothing has changed in the way the game is managed, they dissappear for another year.

Are those old players coming back bad? Most certainly not unless you have to read their posts on stratics. Is a new client or latest expansion going to draw them back permanently? Nope. Balanced and quality gameplay is the only thing that will do that.

Let it be.

[Splup]

Would be great, thou I don't see it happening.

They are focusing on EC client, and 2D stays the same... Thou they could give us atleast bigger playscreen.

But I agree with some that getting rid of cheats (speedhack, fieldhack etc.) and scripting should be the main concern. When these are fixed focus on the eye candy.

[Supreem_EAMythic]

Interesting bit of trivia: There are over 16,000 pieces of tileart in the current game.

[Dermott of LS]

...

And at least 2 items of tileart retained their KR artwork in EC I've found.

[RaDian FlGith]

Interesting bit of trivia: There are over 16,000 pieces of tileart in the current game.True... but they were created once. It certainly isn't beyond possibility that they could be re-created.

And, frankly, it needs to be done in some certain instances anyway because artists who were tasked with doing certain things failed to do them properly in the context of the game's art system anyway. This stands true both for iconic/tile artwork as well as avatar artwork.

It would be nice if a cohesive pass was given to the game that 1) brought the artwork into line with the game's possibilities and development style, 2) brought the artwork up to a higher resolution, and 3) improved upon the systems already in place.

For instance, some time back, I detailed a way to add precision object placement based on an X, Y, and Z coordinate (yes, it would increase information stored about each object, but in this day and age that shouldn't be too bad given that they could all three be passed as an integer and that a Z coordinate already exists) above and beyond the X and Y of the tile they're in. In essence, the object is placed at a bottom center position in each tile, based on how it is expected to be raised, and may be raised a limited number on the Z axis (as is presently the case, but the improvement pass would make the behavior of all art tiles more predictable). The X coordinate would again be a limited number (say 15) that ran along the X or E/W axis which would move it along that axis and the Y would do similarly along the N/S axis. This would all be handled in the client rendering of a object so only the X, Y, and Z would be passed, but it would allow for much greater precision in placing an object.

Would it be some work? Certainly the update of items and the correct initial position would, but then the "decoration" tool could be updated to handle X, Y, and Z movements instead of Z.

In short, what I'm saying is that while it would be a decent amount of work, it's not insurmountable, nor is it beyond potential expectation that for UO to continue to be viable. In fact, by doing so, you might (along with gameplay enhancements and cleaning up bugs and systems that overlap -- ie: quests) actually create a game that could grow again.

[Dermott of LS]

...

but they were created once.

Twice, just FYI

[Viquire]

Interesting bit of trivia: There are over 16,000 pieces of tileart in the current game.

HE LIVES!

and, is that all. We should probably do something about that.
*quickly checks to make sure GO is not standing behind with a heavy blunt object raised in a menacing fashion*

[LadyNico]

Interesting bit of trivia: There are over 16,000 pieces of tileart in the current game.Only 16,000? Pfft! Saph's already done a bunch, and Crysta, too, might be persuaded. :D

Touched & thrilled to hear from you today, Supreem. Thank you. I'm guessing you've long since reverted from Pink Dreadhorn back to usual form... ;)

[Viquire]

Only 16,000? Pfft! Saph's already done a bunch, and Crysta, too, might be persuaded. :D

Touched & thrilled to hear from you today, Supreem. Thank you. I'm guessing you've long since reverted from Pink Dreadhorn back to usual form... ;)

He was a purple vorpal bunny leaving enormous trails of essence in his wake the last day of SA beta. I'd never picked up bunny pellets of that magnitude before but I was happy to have them to test crafting. ;)

[FishinFool]

Interesting bit of trivia: There are over 16,000 pieces of tileart in the current game.

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.

[canary]

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.

QFT.

[Ferrut]

Hmmm... hmm... I just found this article in Gamasutra, published last month:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25703

Tim Cotten: "UO, in many ways, we want to improve the original art. It was built for a 640 x 480 window. Stylistically, it is beautiful, but it's very low res. There's nothing wrong with us taking that low res art, paying homage to it correctly, and actually building high res versions of it. Not throwing a bunch of 3D models in it, but actually getting some great artists, putting that together, and of course we'd like to explore that."I wonder if it would be worth pursuing more experimentations with these upscales after all...?

I have to admit that when I originally read that quote from Draconi I immediately thought of the esteemed Saphireena... :)

I would also like to express the same opinion as Lady Nico, whilst adding :

:thumbup1: :thumbup: :thumbsup: :eyes: :heart: :love: :danceb:

[Saphireena]

Interesting bit of trivia: There are over 16,000 pieces of tileart in the current game.

Welcome to the debate Supreem :). 16K? My first reaction was a huge *gulp*. But then I got I got my calculator out and here's what I came up with:

If one were to divide those 16 000 assets into roughly 3 categories:

- 8000 small and easy assets which take 1 hour each to polish x (8hrs in a day) = 1000 working days
- 7000 big and hard assets which demand 1 working day each (8 hours) = 7000 working days
- 1000 copied assets which are merely recolored versions of other assets. (These don't count since it's just a matter of changing their palette from a freshly polished asset)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
= 8000 working days

One year has around 242 working days if we include some vacation.

Conclusion:
- For 1 person to finish all the assets alone it would take 33 years.
- For 20 people to finish all the assets it would take 1,6 years.

Now this is assuming the people would do a top notch job. A "passable" job can probably be done in half that time. (outsourcing)

The only problem left then, is where the heck to find 20 skilled pixel artists who would be interested in the job. Polishing someone else's pixels is not the most inspirational work to most pixel artists who would rather innovate and create than "clean up" someone else's mess. So you need to really have a genuine love for Ultima to be motivated to take on this task. (Or else be a newbie artist trying to break into the industry who will put up with just any work they can get their hands on - or outsourcing is another option, but with that you will most likely compromise the quality)

PS: If anyone sees anything wacky about my calculations, please say so.

[Sabbath]

- For 20 people to finish all the assets it would take 1,6 years.
Hi Saph... I think you meant 1.6 years as in a year and a half? Wow to think that could have been accomplished several times over by now...:sad3:

[Dermott of LS]

...

Hmmm... not really saying the calculations are "wacky", but they did the KR artwork (again doing every single tileart piece as well as textures, models, etc) in what... 2 years or so?

So while I don't have the exact timeframe or number of people involved, I'm certain it didn't take a single person 33 years, and I'm not sure if they had as many as 20 working on it, and they went beyond the tileart and did EVERYTHING.

[Zym Dragon]

...The only problem left then, is where the heck to find 20 skilled pixel artists who would be interested in the job. Polishing someone else's pixels is not the most inspirational work to most pixel artists who would rather innovate and create than "clean up" someone else's mess. So you need to really have a genuine love for Ultima to be motivated to take on this task. (Or else be a newbie artist trying to break into the industry who will put up with just any work they can get their hands on - or outsourcing is another option, but with that you will most likely compromise the quality)...

I'll sign up! :D

[Sir_Bolo]

If anyone sees anything wacky about my calculations, please say so.

The calculation makes sense, but does it include the animations as well?
I'm not sure that 16,000 pieces of tileart is sufficient to account for all of the animation frames... According to a post by TheGrimmOmen, there are over 1 Million frames of animation in UOSA. Even taking into account the lower frame rate of the 2D client, there must still be hundreds of thousands of frames in 2D.

[FishinFool]

Not to dispute you numbers, just the time.

A pretty hefty portion of the tiles in the game are landscape and wall tiles, those wouldn't require as much work.. imo. If you follow, you could take a 40x40 tile and simply duplicate it as many times as required - do touch up work and move on.

Point I'm trying to make is that there is alot in there that wouldn't require as much as say the animated tiles or the character models.

[olduofan]

Interesting bit of trivia: There are over 16,000 pieces of tileart in the current game.


nice to see ya here hope to others as well :sad3:

[Sabbath]

How far fetched would it be for Mythic to allow submissions of samples from players who, if they show the proper skill, could "volunteer" for a project to clean up all the tile art as Saph suggests?

Only the people who demonstrate the requisite ability would be accepted but I suspect they could have potentially dozens of qualified volunteers.

Similar to the several projects that are reconstructing the old Ultima games using modern game engines everyone would agree to volunteer their time and effort with no compensation other than a listing in the credits.

We've already got one volunteer in Zym Dragon and I'm going out on a limb and volunteering Saphireena! :mf_prop:

[Saphireena]

I have no idea Sir Bolo. I'm assuming that when Supreem says 16K, that means 16K period for all 2D assets. Which would then mean it includes the animation frames.

However what needs to be remembered also, is that in a lot of cases assets are mirrored. For instance in many pieces of furniture and also in critters.

http://www.andrea.net/pics/bulls.png

But to be fair, there are some which have a unique look from every direction, but I assume those are in the minority.

[Dermott of LS]

...

After the Counselor program, very doubtful that anything involving "volunteer work" will be done outside from the various smaller contests.

I think the thing is, as it stands right now, there's no need to completely "re-invent" everything again. They have a set of high resolution artwork they COULD use. Just tweak about 15 to 20% of that artwork to make it more comparable with the original artwork in style, then polish the rest a tad and done.

[Zodia]

But to be fair, there are some which have a unique look from every direction, but I assume those are in the minority.

Yeah, I think his point was that 16k is A LOT of artwork to "update".

And that it would take alot of time...

But it's really not when you consider the time given to the huge failures that are KR and the EC/SA. Both of those took years... plenty of time to update 16k tiles for even a small staff.

The problem is it takes a will, a belief, a direction by a high up designer/producer to say "let's do it!"

Everything else is just details.

[Sir_Bolo]

I have no idea Sir Bolo. I'm assuming that when Supreem says 16K, that means 16K period for all 2D assets. Which would then mean it includes the animation frames.

Hmmm.... there are around 180 creatures in UO (not counting rehued or resized versions of preexisting creatures).
Even with mirroring, each creatures needs to be rendered at least in 5 different directions.
The walking animation has 10 frames (I checked the animated GIFs in the Stratics Hunter's Guide)
Every creatures has at least a walking and an attack animation, and probably some more (idle, dying, flying, getting hit). Let's pretend they have only 2 animations.
Just for creatures, we get 180*5*10*2=18,000 different frames of animation.
And I haven't even considered all of the wearables, each of which has its own full set of animations (and character animations are many more than creature animations).
I'm afraid that 16,000 assets for the entire client is way underestimated. I think it's only tile, item and gump art.

Correction: some creature animations only have 5 frames instead of 10. Even then, 16,000 assets for all frames of animation seems a bit tight, but I might be wrong.

[pacific lily]

Welcome to the debate Supreem :). 16K? My first reaction was a huge *gulp*. But then I got I got my calculator out and here's what I came up with:

If one were to divide those 16 000 assets into roughly 3 categories:

- 8000 small and easy assets which take 1 hour each to polish x (8hrs in a day) = 1000 working days
- 7000 big and hard assets which demand 1 working day each (8 hours) = 7000 working days
- 1000 copied assets which are merely recolored versions of other assets. (These don't count since it's just a matter of changing their palette from a freshly polished asset)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
= 8000 working days

One year has around 242 working days if we include some vacation.

Conclusion:
- For 1 person to finish all the assets alone it would take 33 years.
- For 20 people to finish all the assets it would take 1,6 years.

Now this is assuming the people would do a top notch job. A "passable" job can probably be done in half that time. (outsourcing)

The only problem left then, is where the heck to find 20 skilled pixel artists who would be interested in the job. Polishing someone else's pixels is not the most inspirational work to most pixel artists who would rather innovate and create than "clean up" someone else's mess. So you need to really have a genuine love for Ultima to be motivated to take on this task. (Or else be a newbie artist trying to break into the industry who will put up with just any work they can get their hands on - or outsourcing is another option, but with that you will most likely compromise the quality)

PS: If anyone sees anything wacky about my calculations, please say so.


An hour for a small piece? 7000 pieces that would take a whole day each? I think you are overestimating the amount of "genuine love for Ultima" someone needs. Talent and skill are more like it. Add that to a full understanding of what the end result should look like and you can cut those times down to 25% of what you have.

Lily

[Viquire]

On the plus side a volunteer wit ha deep love for UO might actually be able to create a back and a left side for Magincian thrones.

Actually the largest parts of the problem for both KR and especially the EC were equipables and scaling positioning against the avatar on the screen.

[Saphireena]

An hour for a small piece? 7000 pieces that would take a whole day each? I think you are overestimating the amount of "genuine love for Ultima" someone needs. Talent and skill are more like it. Add that to a full understanding of what the end result should look like and you can cut those times down to 25% of what you have.

Well those estimations were just based on how long it takes me to make something when the aim is to make it pixel perfect. That's all I can do really, since I have no idea how it long it takes other artists to do the same thing. However it's realistic to assume that surely there are many artists out in the world that work at a faster pace, which makes the whole idea even less impossible to accomplish. So good news in that respect.

I decided to put myself to the test to see what could be done if I had 1 hour of time to polish an asset which wasn't one of the smaller ones. I chose one of the bull frames from my example above:

http://www.andrea.net/pics/bulls2.png

As a quick and dirty version it's ok, but I wouldn't be happy to put it into the client yet. Not without adding some detail and texture to avoid the plastic look.

[Dermott of LS]

...

The only thing about doing mobiles is that they are high polygon count 3d renders that are "screencapped" into the various frames of animation, then ported into the two clients appropriately. The mobiles in the new client were very high resolution during KR and closed beta days of EC and were then downgraded in resolution considerably in EC.

So other than a personal exercise, that's one aspect that wouldn't be done pixel by pixel.

Other than that, the bull frame is well done.

[pacific lily]

Well those estimations were just based on how long it takes me to make something when the aim is to make it pixel perfect. That's all I can do really, since I have no idea how it long it takes other artists to do the same thing. However it's realistic to assume that surely there are many artists out in the world that work at a faster pace, which makes the whole idea even less impossible to accomplish. So good news in that respect.

I decided to put myself to the test to see what could be done if I had 1 hour of time to polish an asset which wasn't one of the smaller ones. I chose one of the bull frames from my example above:

http://www.andrea.net/pics/bulls2.png

As a quick and dirty version it's ok, but I wouldn't be happy to put it into the client yet. Not without adding some detail and texture to avoid the plastic look.

I know, that's why I commented. I'm on the faster end compared to most artists I know so somewhere between yours and mine is probably the accurate answer. And like you mentioned (or maybe it was someone else), not all pieces of the same size will need the same amount of work. I was looking the other day at the "dried onions" fully zoomed in on the SA client. I couldn't figure out what it was until I zoomed out. That would actually require a full redraw, I think, where something like a relatively solid wall tile would probably take far less time even though it's larger.

I understand your need to perfect... At some point though, you have to stop working. You can't edit forever! :) I think if your cow was in the context of corrected backgrounds and other corrected objects, I think you'd find that it doesn't need much more work. (though personally I can't stand the black outline) Things just really need to be recognizable in the new client OR in a version of the old client that has a game window larger than 800x600.

[RaDian FlGith]

Not to offend Saph, but while she's clearly skilled in updating existing artwork via pixels and such, to presume that just because it would take her an hour to do something does not follow logically that it would take everyone an hour to do something. There are some highly talented artists that do things in amazingly short amounts of time and yet look far better than one would expect for the amount of time put into it.

I also believe it could be done in less than a year's time, even with 16,000+ assets to work with. Once someone's in the flow of doing something, it doesn't always take so long. There's also the question of speed and motivation. Paychecks are strong motivators.

[Dermott of LS]

...

I'm not going to take anything away from her either... I'm doing graphical work as well on my Copper_Enhanced skin right now (on the status window), and even small changes can take a while... also helps to have Zym on ICQ going back and forth to tweak and smooth out the details. A second person checking out the work can go a LONG way in polishing things. A smoothly working team can produce some great results.

[LadyNico]

There's also the element of "ya gets whats ya pays for."

Given a choice (granted that I am not even in this hypothetical scenario), why on earth would I settle for an acceptable job when an excellent job is completely possible?

@ pacific lily, it's no secret I'm an advocate of remaining true to the original UO artists, and this extends even to the black outline. That said, I'd love to see your version of the polished bull, or any other item which strikes your fancy.

[Fink]

Conclusion:
- For 1 person to finish all the assets alone it would take 33 years.
- For 20 people to finish all the assets it would take 1,6 years.

PS: If anyone sees anything wacky about my calculations, please say so.

Add to that there would be QA, art direction, redraws, team focus meetings, documentation, workflow co-ordination, and all the other seemingly arbitrary administrative nonsense that boggles the creative mind and goes hand in hand with being on an art team.


The only problem left then, is where the heck to find 20 skilled pixel artists who would be interested in the job. Polishing someone else's pixels is not the most inspirational work to most pixel artists who would rather innovate and create than "clean up" someone else's mess.

I've been beating that drum every time this "hi res classic" topic comes up, nobody gets it. You can't just throw money or time at it and expect the talent to suddenly materialise. You would need to hand-pick a very specialised outfit versed in a narrow discipline (in games, at least) and pray they all mesh as a team and have a compatible creative vision and execution of style. You can't just magically dupe Saphireena like so many val hammers and expect wonders.

[LadyNico]

Wise words, and practical ones, too, Fink. And yet, with the magic of outsourcing, I can't help but wonder what might be achieved.

I fully accept it's completely selfish of me to crave the beauty in all those old much loved pixels even at the expense of those who would prefer to leave them far behind.

It neither hurts anyone nor costs anything for me to continue to dream of all I wish UO could be. :)

[Krrom]

I find this entire discussion just a little off base. Now I am not a newb at the game as I have been playing on and off since it actually launched. The 2d graphics have a huge following, EC has some very nice features...discuss.

My point is this: Why would a corporation (they are still in the business to make a profit...at least until we become fully socialist 2010?) sink a sizeable amount of capital into a 12 year old product which would bring in maybe 10 new players?

There are many many intelligent people playing this game but I am not sure how many have a good grip on reality. UO will continue to have about the same player base as it does now without a drastic change to the graphics system. This game is far deeper that WoW and much more fun to play but it needs to get into this century or it will continue to creep along or one day may actually finally take its last breath.

I still can't believe someone if not EA has not copied the basic structure of the game and incorporated them into a modern graphics engine. They keep coming up with completely new games WAR, D&D Online, LoTR, etc. that completely fail at gameplay when they are sitting on the perfect base game structure trapped within a 12 year old body. We need the new UO game that doesnt change any of the good stuff. Putting lipstick on the 12 year old pig isnt going to change much in the long run.

[Saphireena]

Thanks for all the feedback on those time estimates. The more opinions we hear on how long it would take, the better. This way people will be left with a more realistic view of just how possible (or impossible) this type of thing might be, versus merely remembering the numbers I talked about. I think we'd all love to hear more.

Although it's a tad embarrassing that it seems like I'm the slow poke around here *blush*, it still delights me as a UO lover and eternal fan of the legacy art, to hear that it might actually be a faster task than first assumed. Hearing the estimates you people described actually planted a little tingle of hope inside. Until now I've always dismissed this dream as an utter impossibility. But perhaps this is feasible after all? Not that we have any power over this mind you. But it's a step in the right direction.

I'd like to suggest a little assignment for all of the artists here who know how to make pixel art and are passionate enough about the idea of a rescale to help me gather data on how long it takes to make these things.

I've put together a little set of assets that we could all work on by ourselves. No time limits, instead document the time it took you to polish the image to the very best of your ability. If we all work on the same assets, it will give a more objective outcome.

- Use only the colors found in the original asset
- Stay as true to the original shape as possible
- No dodge, smudge, brush, burn etc. Only clean pixel art.
- Write down how many hours/days were used - and be truthful! This is not a competition, it's meant to show EA the real time it would take to make this kind of thing.
- No hurry to make these. You might start tonight and continue in a week. The main thing is documenting the final time in total that it took.
- No pressure to make all of the assets. Even getting the time estimate of 1 helps!
- Post the results here for us to see how you see the upscaled version. For every one of us they will look slightly different as we make decisions on how to place the pixels.

http://www.andrea.net/pics/uo_classics_original_size.png

Download the assets from here:
http://www.andrea.net/pics/uo_classics_original_size.png
http://www.andrea.net/pics/uo_classics_double_size.png
http://www.andrea.net/pics/uo%20large.psd

[Mr X]

Interesting bit of trivia: There are over 16,000 pieces of tileart in the current game.

Interesting trivia, been having lag issues to east coast servers making the game unplayable between 4pm and 11 pm central time, what is it you say you do here? Oh ya and I am not the only one so maybe someone representing EA can get off their ass and maybe send a canned ham message saying we are looking into it?

[Salivern_Diago]

Here's my 2cents worth... Why do we all use the 2d client? Cos we know how to use it, how it works and like how it looks...

So, Dev's... Why not make the EC look and act like classic? That way you can dump the 2d client (stopping all the scripting programs in one shot) and concentrate on the EC client and people are happy cos they got what they like!

Couple that with this 2d high res art and BINGO you got a top notch client that you SHOULD put out on the shelves!

Done, dusted and everyone happy.

[MalagAste]

You know what would be nice?

If they could get a group of devoted fans to fix up all the old graphics to a much higher resolution.. and when they got a complete "set" they put them into the EC.....

Ah... but wait.... too bad can't do that... some idiot sued EA over "volunteering" and destroyed the ability to of everyone to add depth to the game we all love... wasn't that nice?

We should thank them... for looking out for our "best interests"... because god forbid we should spend time working on things we love...



Sorry about that couldn't help myself...

I agree though... If they started working on it now... chances are by the next expansion.... we'd have a very wonderful looking game with high resolution and if they added Ra'Dian's suggestion... fix for the x, y thing.. it would have far fewer bugs.

*wonders off to dream about it*

[canary]

Well given the fact they are actively cutting jobs, I fear that ANY new art might just be a dream.

[Crysta]

Honestly so far as monsters and creatures are concerned, I think it would be more productive to get someone versed in 3D Studio Max to attempt to recreate the original models from the available creature frames as accurately as possible. Having those would even make new animations for those old creatures possible, as well as make further updates to the art (such as the retooling so hueing doesn't look hideous that got the pet dyes pulled as they need to bem thoug i'd rather they never come back) possible. It would take quite a bit of time to do it for each monster, but it should be faster than retouching the sprites frame by frame and would be far more consistant.

At the very least, it seems EA has the original resources for the Water Elemental, as it spawned the two SE monsters that look similar (Rai-Ju and... Kaze Kemono I think are their names?).

[Trevelyan]

Sooooo, when do we get this new stuff?

Instead of doing a next expansion, I say contract Saphireena to make a bunch of art.

[Jhym]

It IS interesting that the two image sets, side by side, show how CLEARLY we would want the one on the right.

The biggest difference is clarity and not as much gradiation in colors... which I think has been the problem in KR. The most interesting thing is that the pixel images tend to have sharply defined, black outlines of their components, while the KR graphics are duller (and smaller.)

I'd be curious if they sharpened up the KR graphics, added in more detail and made them match scale better if people would be more interested in them.

As for the scaling issue in general -- they would really have to have 3 or 4 scaled image sets - 640x400, 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200. Otherwise you'd have the same problem of a boatload of artwork done only to not look good at the higher resolution.

Also interesting... if they added in photorealistic imagery of some of the items, I guarantee people would scream. And yet, finding beautiful images of the items you are modelling and using them would tend to be the logical extension of increasing the resolution.

It's almost like we want a particular form of Anime in UO, that isn't THIS or THAT but we just know is UO.

[olduofan]

When KR was about to come out i was very excited was looking forward to playing it after about 10 mins playing it I WAS VERY LET DOWN the art was BAD on must the monsters and it was washed out blurred some of it i could live with but must of it suxed

then they came out with EC same monster art like dragons and a few others was very very bad didn even look like UO they completely missed/ lost the feel of UO. Then they put in the legacy art to try to get peeps to play it ??? why dont they just give us the art we all like and the UI will all like i for one like the 2d books how they open and containers etc the new client DOSE NOT have the same feel its to machination for lack of a better word i do like some features it has but i would rather go with out than look at the art it offers

honestly i wish they would just redo the art in 2d to high res and bigger game play window AND MOSTLY HIGHER Saphireena (http://vboards.stratics.com/member.php?u=51543)TO DO IT someone with a love and passion of this game that has a real TALENT .... :rant2:
(http://vboards.stratics.com/member.php?u=51543)

[Nateh8sYou]

one day when I am "Oprah rich" I will buy UO from EA and hire Saphireena to do what she wants

[Saphireena]

Ok I must have been nuts to suggest these rescale experimentations. Not that anyone else seems to be bothering with helping me test the time frame, which is a shame because I would really like to see if it's possible with equal results in quality. That would be the ultimate proof that such an undertaking would be reasonable and realistic. Unfortunately if slowpokes like me were to do such work, it still remains a pretty unrealistic feat.

I started off with the most challenging and demanding task: The Ultima dragon, probably the most beautiful and inspiring art asset in the whole game. Am I wrong in assuming that the Hildebrandt brothers had something to do with at least the concept art for these dragons? For those of you who don't know who the Hildebrandt brothers are, they were the ones who made that awesome painting (http://ultimaonline.jp/images/news/20080430_mythic/007_Hillde_b.jpg) that was shown back in the old versions of UO when you installed the game. Anyhow, I think their "touch" can be seen in this dragon. If there were to be any connection, it would certainly explain why this dragon has got to be the most beautiful, perfect dragon eva! Just look at how it holds it's head high and with pride, how it's eye glares with evil intent, how it gracefully curls it's tail, how the wings are raised up menacingly, how the nostrils are dilated with fury, how the skin is taut over a landscape of muscles, how it arches it neck... I could go on and on.

http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/dragon_polish.png
http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/dragon_unpolished.jpg

It took me three days to polish which was way over my estimate, and even now it's not perfect. Crysta is absolutely right in her suggestion on how animated figures should be done: remaking the original 3D model and making renders from that instead of rescaling and polishing. But despite this upscale of the dragon is useless in that sense, I'm still glad I did it. If for no other reason than to show my utter appreciation and awe I feel towards whoever made it in the first place. I remember being a newbie and seeing a dragon like this for the first time, how I just stood and stared, scared to death as it passed by letting out a roar, guided by it's tamer. But also heart aching with the desire to own one myself. And how long I worked on that tamer - nearly a year (yeah taming was still hard back then) and how long it took to tame that very first dragon. I spent 5 hours in Destard, dying over and over again until finally succeeding.

I decided to patch the enhanced client and check how the red dragon looks there, and took some shots of it zoomed in and out. Sorry folks, but no matter how hard the devs worked on this thing (and believe me I appreciate their efforts!), for me the "enhanced dragon" pales in comparison. I do not find it inspiring in the least. And I'll just never get used to the more top down view. It feels so much less intimate. I feel like I'm just an onlooker instead of being actually there. As for the dragon itself, I dislike how the texture glares at me with it's overexposure, how the beast huddles with it's wings folded - almost as if protecting itself from something versus the animated, arrogant, confident gait of the legacy dragon. Also the strange horns crowning the back of it's head bother me, as do the fingers which look anatomically strange, the bulky head... Why on why oh why did they change the dragon so much?

http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/dragon_enhanced.jpg

[MalagAste]

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:sad2::sad2::sad2:)

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

[Dermott of LS]

...

Using the EC is really an unfair comparison when zooming in considering how gimped in resolution they ended up making the EC models compared to their original KR counterparts.

It's one of the biggest step backwards the EC has taken in the name of compromise and one of the reasons why I'm now wondering if better resolution will be done for ANY client from this point forward.

I know the devs WANT a more modernized client, and I know Supreem wants to do what he can to provide it... but really there has been too much historical evidence of how this plays out. We're reaching the point of seeing the same tghing over and over again yet expecting a different result. New client gets built, new client gets released somewhere between halfway and mostly complete, something happens that significantly changes the makeup of the dev team involved, client languishes.

Now I'm not saying that UO should be 1997-based 2d client only or that the attempts should not be made. I want to see a more modernized client. I would have loved to see what the original visions for SA were in the KR client when the idea was to do things 2d could NOT do. I could even defend the KR client on that vision even if it did have its problems.

But the EC is simply not that step forward, and the loss of resolution in the models is proof of that... for now.

I want to believe that the devs can do amazing things... but right now, I've gone into a "I'll believe it when I see it happening" mode.

[Saphireena]

Fink: Well when I originally started to dream about the rescale Ultima, the whole idea was to use the client exactly the way it was, merely adjust code to support graphics at double dimensions. So compared to the enormous task of creating a completely new client, new assets, new risks, it was meant to avoid all that and in all simplicity be the same client as we'd always known it - just 2x bigger to support the way in which our resolutions have doubled in a decade. Then again, what do I know about coding. I assumed it would merely be a matter of search and replacing the dimensions mentioned in the code, but it's probably not that simple.

As for where to find the talent. First and foremost, there is nothing unique about me. Mobile game companies are packed with pixel artists who do this type of work on a daily basis. Heck, even EA has EA Mobile, so they actually have pixel artists working for them already. The problem is finding pixel artists who are interested in Ultima Online. Let's face it, UO is not fashionable, hot, or desirable for the majority of gifted artists out there. And for those who would take the job on, it would merely be a stepping stone into bigger and better things - it would not be coming from the heart. However thanks to these hard times, finding motivation may not be impossible after all and one could find pixel artists motivated to do a good job. Art direction would be minimal since all they would need to do is polish a completed asset. No innovation, no experimentation - merely polish. May I remind everyone that mobile game companies make 1 complete pixel art game in about 2-3 months AND scale the assets to MANY sizes in that time frame to support the various screen resolutions. I know since that's what I've been doing for years now! Of course the amount of assets in one mobile game is much less than that daunting 16 000, but certainly equal if one were to put together all the games done in a year total.

Krrom: I understand where you're coming from, but I think you underestimate the power of the pixel. I'll once again use Habbo Hotel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habbo) as an example. It's a game totally based on a pixel world and has 118 million users. Then there are the Facebook games such as Farmville, which although not bitmap (but vector) have a similar style and boast 30 million DAILY users. Perhaps 3D isn't the one and only way after all? It's obvious that there are a lot of people out there who are attracted to this style. As I've said countless other times, to turn Ultima Online into yet another 3D MMO, it would only become lost in a crowd of same old, same olds. People are already tired of 3d MMOs, especially based on the Renaissance theme. Where as Ultima Online is completely unique. All it needs is a little lovin' to get with the times. Not a complete overhaul.

Salivern_Diago: One major difference between the classic and enhanced client is the perspective from which the world is viewed at. The enhanced client is from more top down than the classic.

Lastly to Trev, olduofan, Nateh8sYou and the rest who made "hire Saph" comments. Well I'm of course very flattered, but the very first thing I must say is that the artists of the UO team are surely just as talented in their own ways and fully capable of doing these rescales if that's what EA wanted. I am not any different from the thousands of gifted pixel artists out in the world who are grinding away making pixels for mobile games and what not. So as sweet as it is for you to say that, it would be much more productive to say "Hire more pixel artists!" :-)

Secondly I live in Finland and have no possibility of moving to the states because of my kids not to mention that I love the job I have now which allows such a wide variety of game projects. First it was mobile, then a PC game and we just released the Xbox version of our old classic game called Tower Bloxx Deluxe (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/t/towerbloxxdeluxexbla/) (I was the lead artist for that project btw) and right now I'm working on a very exciting project that will be sure to knock the socks of it's competitors.

Yes, Ultima Online has a special place in my heart and will always have. Yes it would be a dream come true to help in "saving it", but you know what? If EA were to hire me, it's not like I could go waltzing in there, crack the whip and proclaim that we will start making a rescale version of UO :-). I would merely be one more art asset amongst the ones they have already and I highly doubt you'd see any difference in the way the game is headed.

[Saphireena]

Using the EC is really an unfair comparison when zooming in considering how gimped in resolution they ended up making the EC models compared to their original KR counterparts.


Please note that I made absolute no comments what so ever on the pixellation of the zoom. I think everyone understands more than well that the original 3D object is very detailed and hi-res. And we all know that if the client supported zooming into the original model, it would not look pixellated.

All of my comments were directed toward the anatomy and overall look of the dragon. It's structure, it's pose and so forth. I just thought I wouldn't need to separately state the obvious as far as the zooming pixellation goes. It was so totally not the point of the comparison! :-P

[Saphireena]

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:sad2::sad2::sad2:)

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

Oh they don't fly anymore? Aww I hadn't noticed. I wonder why they removed that feature? And glad to hear someone appreciates that wonderful dragon as much as I do :-).

[Zym Dragon]

Ok I must have been nuts to suggest these rescale experimentations. Not that anyone else seems to be bothering with helping me test the time frame, which is a shame because I would really like to see if it's possible with equal results in quality. That would be the ultimate proof that such an undertaking would be reasonable and realistic. Unfortunately if slowpokes like me were to do such work, it still remains a pretty unrealistic feat.


Patience! ;) I am taking on the challenge and I have been putting in the time when I can to do this. Here's a preview of my results so far:

scissors - 8 minutes
hanging garlic - 16 minutes
wall torch - 14 minutes
studded armor - 40 minutes
gold coins - 12 minutes (I don't like how it turned out. I plan on redoing this)
steps - 15 minutes for outline and mortar, 10 minutes (not necessary?) left side, lower blocks, plus lower right block

About the steps... After completing the mortar, I though the steps looked pretty good, but I cleaned up the bottom left side and the entire bottom corner block. I'd be inclined to just leave it alone and only touch up the mortar on this sandstone set. What do you think?

http://www.zymdragon.com/uo/uo_classics_original_size-not-done.png

[Uvtha]

An hour for a small piece? 7000 pieces that would take a whole day each? I think you are overestimating the amount of "genuine love for Ultima" someone needs. Talent and skill are more like it. Add that to a full understanding of what the end result should look like and you can cut those times down to 25% of what you have.

Lily

As someone who dabbles in pixle art, I would agree with her figures on time. Some really small seeming things can take a really really long time.

[Madrid]

Saphrireena they need to get you on payroll and sub contract you and other members of the UO community who are artists and have a true love for the greatest Online game of all time!:thumbup:

I closed down all 4 of my accounts since they pulled the plug UOKR and launched SA. I just popped on stratics to see if there was a thread/discussion on this very topic and I'm happy to see there is. Your artwork is beautiful and I would return in a heartbeat if the game had artwork/graphics like you've posted in this thread.

The current graphics and low resolution on both clients is the reason I left UO. I'll keep checking back every so often to see if any improvements are made and when there is I will definitely make a return to Sosaria which I will always consider home.

I hope players keep an open mind and continue to lobby for an improvement from the visual standpoint of UO. I'd like to make a return someday and would love to see UO around for another 20-30 years and then some!

Something like this would definitely be a step in the right direction if it's feasible.

[LadyNico]

I started off with the most challenging and demanding task: The Ultima dragon, probably the most beautiful and inspiring art asset in the whole game. Am I wrong in assuming that the Hildebrandt brothers had something to do with at least the concept art for these dragons? For those of you who don't know who the Hildebrandt brothers are, they were the ones who made that awesome painting (http://ultimaonline.jp/images/news/20080430_mythic/007_Hillde_b.jpg) that was shown back in the old versions of UO when you installed the game. Anyhow, I think their "touch" can be seen in this dragon. If there were to be any connection, it would certainly explain why this dragon has got to be the most beautiful, perfect dragon eva! Just look at how it holds it's head high and with pride, how it's eye glares with evil intent, how it gracefully curls it's tail, how the wings are raised up menacingly, how the nostrils are dilated with fury, how the skin is taut over a landscape of muscles, how it arches it neck... I could go on and on.

http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/gfx/dragon_polish.png

It took me three days to polish which was way over my estimate, and even now it's not perfect. Crysta is absolutely right in her suggestion on how animated figures should be done: remaking the original 3D model and making renders from that instead of rescaling and polishing. But despite this upscale of the dragon is useless in that sense, I'm still glad I did it. If for no other reason than to show my utter appreciation and awe I feel towards whoever made it in the first place. I remember being a newbie and seeing a dragon like this for the first time, how I just stood and stared, scared to death as it passed by letting out a roar, guided by it's tamer. But also heart aching with the desire to own one myself. And how long I worked on that tamer - nearly a year (yeah taming was still hard back then) and how long it took to tame that very first dragon. I spent 5 hours in Destard, dying over and over again until finally succeeding.What? Oh, um, no message from me.

I have no shame in admitting I just needed to have your dragon and loving description of it here on the second page to drool over. :drool:
:heart:

[Saphireena]

Hey Zym! Yay nice that someone is joining me in this! So far I haven't tackled the wee bits yet so I don't know how challenging they will be. But I assume the scissors and gold coins will be the worst of the lot to get to look good. It seems like you're struggling with those as well.

Here are some comments:

scissors I wouldn't say those are passable.
hanging garlic Quite nice with the time used, but could do with a bit more detail.
wall torch Nice job, especially on the stand. It looks so cute!
studded armor Not bad, and I know this must have been a lot more work than the others.
gold coins I agree they need more work. It would be cool if they looked more oval, like from an isometric perspective, but then again not having tackled these myself yet it may be very hard to do! I would assume that most players wouldn't mind these coins you have here though.
steps Well done!

I'll be starting on these tonight myself but I know already now I won't be as quick as you. I hope more people take part. It would be interesting to compare them all at the end and see what you can get with what amount of time. And at what stage they are acceptable enough. I mean I work them over to perfection but I'm sure they wouldn't need to be that precise all the time.

Lady Nico: Oh you! *nudges affectionately*

[Kirthag]

I joind UO back in 1997 at my sister's insistence. I'd been invited to play other games, but came to UO for that dragon. THAT.... is the fantasy dragon we all grew up with. THAT is the dragon I have on my corner table, rearing up over a (scantily) chainmail clad barbarian female with a sword in her hand. THAT is a Hildebrandt Dragon. They are (imho) the best Fantasy Artists, along with Clyde Caldwell.


I am also a photoshop guru - having worked on images from dogs for Purina to Heineken bottles for the Swordfish movie back in the day. I also dabble a bit in sprite work.

Saph... my hat off to you for doing hat you did. I had done sprite work for another 2d game and it is not easy - but it is doable - particularly when someone is doing it out of love of the art and the chosen game.

*note to self: visit uhall more often*

I cast my talent and skills in if EA should ever listen to the community and enlist the help of volunteers. I remember the Companion and the Seer days... I also remember the fallout. When a busines begins to rely too heavily on volunteers, they are no longer volunteers. However something like this, where volunteers do the art and pass it to EA for the programming, I believe a one-shot contract would do it.

I've dabbled a bit in video game graphics (my son wants to emmulate Richard Garriot!) and can say that in a production atmosphere, this is a feasible project.

16,000 tiles (landscape, housing, trees, etc.)
10-15 frames for each creatures/players (only 108?)
Clothing items (hue overlays a grey object)
Special event artwork (the jack-o-lanterns are awesome!)

---

wait.. just had a thought!

Perhaps they are already working on a higher res 2D client!

oh... but... the layoffs


sorry, its late and my mind moves like quicksilver...


If this should ever become a project, I volunteer my oh-so-precious time. I agree that the "classic" client needs to move forward... I have a dual monitor system, and actually would like to see the gumps "float" outside of the main program frame... use one monitor for the play field, the other monitor for my paperdoll, pak and other gumps I keep open.

Personally... and no not looking for a flame war... I do not like the new client. Looks too... WoW-ish for me. If I wanted to play WoW, I would be there. But WoW is missing one HUGE element that makes me happy.... the ability to customize things. You know.. build house, create things, make my pixel-self look like this barbar girl in my statue.

Oh... and WoW doesn't have the Hildebrandt Dragon. :D

[hawkeye_pike]

While the examples given by the OP really look nice, I can imagine that there are significant technical issues that might make the whole thing impossible.

First off, higher resolution will require significantly higher system performance. And people are already whining on the Enhanced Client board that they will quit UO when they are forced to update their 10-year-old PC. Now, animate those big pixel objects (or even 100 of them on the screen), and you'll run into even more performance problems.

Second, I think you cannot really improve the graphics by sticking to pixel graphics. Pixels cannot be zoomed (see pixelated objects in the Enhanced Client), because it will look extremely bad. So all you'd achieve by increasing the resolution is that people will need a bigger screen and faster computers.

The only real solution for UO graphics is going with real 3D objects, which gives you all possibilities like zooming, lighting, animation, texturing, anything, in high quality.

The problem of the past clients was, that 3D objects were VERY pooly done, and the underlying engine doesn't seem to favor 3D graphics too much. At least, that's my impression of things.

To my opinion, if you want to do it right, you have to completely redesign UO. Everything else will be the same old mediocre crap that will be refused by most players.

[Stranger]

we just released the Xbox version of our old classic game called Tower Bloxx Deluxe (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/t/towerbloxxdeluxexbla/) (I was the lead artist for that project btw)

I knew it!!! I knew it I knew it I knew it! Okay not really, but I remember you posting here that you worked for Digital Chocolate and as soon as I played the demo on my Xbox 360 and saw the logo and the 2D graphics I immediately thought of you! :) Wow that is crazy :)

Err...What topic is this? What forum is this? Where am I? This isn't the Saphireena rocks thread? :P Hmm...I always have trouble sticking to the topic. Don't mind me! *wonders off*

WAIT!

I can be on topic! Really! I can! Just give me a chance!

You did an amazing job on up scaling the dragon! It looks awesome! :) I have no idea how you managed to pull that off! When I first saw that image as part of your "little assignment" my jaw dropped and I figured you scared all the pixel artists away! Haha that is one daunting task! I was anxiously awaiting to see if anyone would do it and you did it! Fantastic! :) I tried to up scale the scissors but I couldn't do it. At least not with the ability to stick to the original artwork so wonderfully like you do! But I am not a pixel artist by any means and my mouse is acting wonky. But I love UO and I love your vision so I just had to try! My inability to do it stinks cause I'd love to contribute but what it does do is reinforce that you have amazing talent! :) Great job! :)

I was really hoping more people would contribute to your "little assignment". I love seeing these up scales and would love to see other peoples handy work! C'mon pixel artists! Step it up! Show your love for UO! Up scale those pixels! :) *Note this was written before I saw that Zym Dragon posted!

(I stepped away from the computer for a few hours without posting this for some reason...whoops.)

Okay here are my thoughts Zym Dragon...(Not that you asked for them hehe)
I am not trying to be rude just give constructive criticism :)

Scissors: These don't look sharp enough. I can't imagine you'd be able to cut a stick of butter with them!

Hanging garlic: Good job but a bit too cartoony. I like them though :)

Gold coins: Can't really complain about these. The original artwork is kind of a blob to begin with so yours also look like a blob. Only now it is a high definition blob! :)

Steps: The way you filled in the pixels is good on the upper half of the bottom bricks surface, but bad on the lower half. The bottom half has these weird weave marks. It looks very odd. As for not touching up the sandstone I think that is a bad idea because when you zoom in you just see huge chunks of 4 pixels for everyone 1 pixel that was originally there. It looks too pixelated.

Wall torch: You did a good job with this one! :) My only complaint is the metal part has streakyness to it. There shouldn't be horizontal streaks on a thin piece of metal that is vertical. If anything the streaks should be going vertical. (But I really don't think there should be any streaks on it.)

Studded Armor: This one looks good, but if I zoom in a lot I see something odd. The way you are filling in the pixels is like a pattern. They all look like little Zs.

It seems like your just filling in the pixels in a very simplistic way. Saphireena can see what the original artist imagined, intended, and was thinking of but was unable to add due to such a small resolution. She sees where the details in the items should be and incorporates it into the art without changing the original feel. She adds in a lot of extra artistic detail that can't be seen in the original sized version. It's hard to explain. Of course she works on the pieces for hour(s) or day(s) and you only spent a couple minutes. If you want to make them look better you need to figure out how to get away from the little Z pattern your doing and figure out how to add some real detail to them. Don't ask me how cause I can't even do it! It is very hard!

Sorry for being so picky! :(
Thanks for posting them! :)
I wish more pixel artists would take the time like you to contribute! :)

[hawkeye_pike]

C'mon pixel artists! Step it up! Show your love for UO! Up scale those pixels! :)

I wish more pixel artists would take the time like you to contribute! :)

I, too, am a Photoshop pro, and I actually would love to contribute something for free, if I knew that it would make sense. But if you read my posting above, you can see why I consider this (beautifully done) upscaling a waste of time.

[Anakena]

While the examples given by the OP really look nice, I can imagine that there are significant technical issues that might make the whole thing impossible.

First off, higher resolution will require significantly higher system performance. And people are already whining on the Enhanced Client board that they will quit UO when they are forced to update their 10-year-old PC. Now, animate those big pixel objects (or even 100 of them on the screen), and you'll run into even more performance problems.

Second, I think you cannot really improve the graphics by sticking to pixel graphics. Pixels cannot be zoomed (see pixelated objects in the Enhanced Client), because it will look extremely bad. So all you'd achieve by increasing the resolution is that people will need a bigger screen and faster computers.

The only real solution for UO graphics is going with real 3D objects, which gives you all possibilities like zooming, lighting, animation, texturing, anything, in high quality.

The problem of the past clients was, that 3D objects were VERY pooly done, and the underlying engine doesn't seem to favor 3D graphics too much. At least, that's my impression of things.

To my opinion, if you want to do it right, you have to completely redesign UO. Everything else will be the same old mediocre crap that will be refused by most players.

I am not a specialist of such issues but from what I understand, the problem is that the original pictures are too small and get pixellated when upscaled.

The uspcaling can be done either on the fly (when the client supports game area resizing but it can be a burden for the GPU) or either offline (when the client recreates new graphic files and animations on basis of the original files). It is what the UoMap does when you start it : it checks if the map has changed and eventually recreates new maps for the different resolutions.

Such a system could be used for UO (or for the EC on basis of the UOKR designs?). But we stay with the pixel problem.

Wouldn't it be better from start to create items in higher resolution and if needed have to downscale them? Weren't the original arts created in higher resolution before importing them in the game files?

[northwoodschopper]

the 3d client was a great idea, but was poorly executed. what i believed killed it was all the memory leaks that caused really poor performance from the get-go. at the end of it's life though, it was on equal grounds to the classic client if your computer could run it smooth. however, the 3d models were pretty ugly by it's life end, and the scaling was bad. the change from 3rd Dawn models to AoS models was terrible--the 3rd dawn models at least looked like their world art etc, while AoS wildly changed appearances and scaling. arguably the other thing that killed 3d was that certain 3rd party apps didn't work at full capacity on the 3d client...

2d art is great for static items and world art. 3d models are much more versitile for mobiles, mainly due to the ease of editing and implementing animations and new models. afterall, 3d client did have a load of animations for the player to utilize. i don't think any dev team will ever expand the npc animations simply because there's way too many frames to keep track of, not to mention the preexisting errors in certain npc animation frames that still remain in the 2d client since 1997. i wished that the art team working on 3rd dawn models would've recreated the exact animations from the 2d client (and fill in missing frames), instead of the ones they came up with for replacement.

anyways

i think the upscaling of art assets look great, and would like to see terrain tiles upp'd too, since we stare at terrain most of the time in-game.

i'd like to see an upp'd paperdoll too.

[Saphireena]

Well I got a few more rescales done and put side by side with Zym Dragon's stuff it's interesting to see the differences. Basically, the longer you work on a piece, the more polished it becomes. But sometimes things can become overpolished, such as in the case of the hanging armor, which I worked on more than twice as much, yet did not turn out significantly better - perhaps even worse. I'm most pleased with the onions, one can clearly see what an extra 9 minutes will get you.

http://www.andrea.net/pics/comparison.png

The scissors went through quite a radical change under my hand and from the time spent, you can see I really needed to play around alot to attain a proper scissor shape. I knew they'd be tricky!

I think my torch is more clean, but I prefer Zym Dragon's wiggly flame which makes it look like real moving fire.

In addition I did the armoire and am waiting for Zym to get it done too so we can compare. Still need to give a go at those coins and stairs.

http://www.andrea.net/pics/comparison2.png

This test has been a good indicator of what you get with which amount of minutes. Do items need to be perfectly polished? As we can see in these samples, not necessarilly. So far I'd say that a reasonable outcome which both looks good and is economical for the time budget would be somewhere between Zym's and my assets.

Again, if more folks would take part, it'd give an even broader perspective. Pacific Lily? Crysta?

[Saphireena]

Kirthag: Oooh you don't know how delighted I am that someone recognized the Hildrebrandt thing! And now that I Googled their dragon images, you're right. That most definitely is a Hildebrandt dragon by golly. And to think that this piece of art... this masterpiece... this treasure is being swept away but some helpless weak 3D monstrosity. It's almost criminal!

I don't think EA would ever agree to such a volunteer program for the simple fact that it would be an embarrassment and humiliating to their art team that players had to help out. Imagine the blogs, the articles... Not to mention the legal issues. Nope, will never happen I'm afraid.

Oh yes, that would indeed be great if the gumps could be moved out of the client area. I could totally see myself doing the same thing.

Very cool to hear all the things you described about you, your talents and your life btw.

hawkeye_pike: Nice to hear your opinion as well. I've actually been a secret admirer of your guild concept for some time now and even considered rolling a new character to apply. Alas there is not time for everything and running a guild in WoW is time consuming as it is.

I can't really comment on how double sized assets would affect game performance, but I definately meant that the assets were to be used with the classic client, not the enhanced client.

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.

If you think that a hi-res version of the 2D client would be "mediocre crap" that people will refuse, explain to me why they persist in playing with the smaller version if this mediocre crap? Try and understand that it would be the same 2D game as we know it, but only doubled in size. No special tricks, no huge changes, nothing new to try to learn. Same stuff, just bigger. That's the client people are playing, and if you think they'd run away just because it was bigger in size, I dare say you're wrong.

I'd still love for you to contribute to the scaling test. If even with one asset. Maybe the easiest one such as the onions, torch or stairs. Just to get some comparison in times used.

Stranger: Woah! Now that Tower Bloxx thing is amazing. The logo is actually not made by me, it's from the previous versions of Tower Bloxx. But for instance the menus and these intro graphics are my stuff :-):

http://www.andrea.net/towerbloxxdeluxe/gfx/TowerBloxxDeluxe_SlideshowImage_XXXXXX.jpg

http://www.andrea.net/towerbloxxdeluxe/gfx/TowerBloxxDeluxe_SlideshowImage_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.jpg

And thanks again for your lovely compliments but if only you saw the stuff our artists at Dchoc make... Oh hey I know! You should check out the art at pixeljoint.com (http://www.pixeljoint.com) - now THAT stuff is amaaaazing!

Anakena: Nice to hear about the various possibilities. Sometimes I wish I knew how to program, if for no other reason than to understand what is feasible and what is not.

As for whether or not there are large versions of the pixel items such as furniture etc, good question. As has been discussed in previous threads, at least the 3D models for mobile assets were lost. As to whether or not furniture was rendered from 3D objects, I haven't a clue. I'd assume the purely pixel art assets would not have a larger version originally since downscaling still needs pixel polishing, although not as much as upscaling.

[Stranger]

3d client did have a load of animations for the player to utilize.

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. It would be so fun to be able to dance at EM events. Clap and cheer when a group of players take down a harbinger, and actually sit down at a bank and be a real "bank sitter". LOL I would love that. Too bad we didn't get these types of animations in the new KR/SA clients :( Really disappointing.

But sometimes things can become overpolished, such as in the case of the hanging armor, which I worked on more than twice as much, yet did not turn out significantly better - perhaps even worse.

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 whereas Zym's has clumps of pixels with the same color all bunched together. You've also added a lot more detail! It looks very good! I'd definitely hang it on a wall inside my house! :)

Your onions are absolutely amazing, as is all your artwork. Everything you touch turns to gold. :)

I don't know why I made that "cartoony" comment about Zym's onions. Yours look cartoony too. (Although they have a lot more detail you just have to zoom in to see it since the shades of colors aren't very different.) As do most of the upscales. I guess thats what happens when your not allowed to add more colors! But it is not a bad cartoony it is a good cartoony! :)

Hey! Now that I look at it, the scissors look broken in the original. No wonder my tailor has been cutting crooked all these years! Oh and the cramps! The horrible horrible cramps! It's so hard to hold such awkward scissors. I'd love to get my hands on your beautifully crafted scissors! :)

I think your torch is wonderful! :) If it was animated you could make the flame wiggle however you like! :)

Your armoire is absolutely beautiful! :) I think I am running out of words to describe how remarkable your upscaling is! :) Maybe if I just sit and stare at it with my mouth open and drool rolling down my chin you'll understand how much I like it! :drool:

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! Hehe. I guess that wouldn't be such a good idea though because they would just lay off all the artists before they were finished. :mad: :sad2: :cursing:

Stranger: Woah! Now that Tower Bloxx thing is amazing. The logo is actually not made by me, it's from the previous versions of Tower Bloxx. But for instance the menus and these intro graphics are my stuff :-):

Oops, I didn't mean I saw the tower bloxx logo. I meant I saw the Digital Chocolate intro screen pop up before the game started. Then I saw the introductory was 2D and was wondering if the wonderful lady who upscaled the Ultima Online images had anything to do with this game since she posted on the stratics forums many moons ago that she worked for Digital Chocolate. (Your the only person I know that works for Digital Chocolate. Hehe) Anyway I am delighted to find out it is you! :) That is awesome! :) This might sound a little strange...but...I LOVE THE WAY SHE WIGGLES THE PENCIL!!! :) Hahaha! :)

Thanks for the link I will definitely check it out :)

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

First off, higher resolution will require significantly higher system performance.

Considering that the original client would run quite well on a Pentium 100Mhz with 64MB (yes, thats Mega Bytes, not Giga Bytes) of RAM...I don't think that in a world of multi-core processors running at multiple Ghz speeds and Gigabytes of RAM that overhead is going to be a huge factor in pushing double sized sprites. Your web browser is capable of producing higher rez images than we are discussing here. In 1998, you would have had a valid point, in 2009, not so much.

For my part, and I know it means nothing, I think that UO either needs to incorporate exactly what Saphireena has done here...or they need to just resign themselves to doing a UO2, and close the old one down. That is, if the goal is longevity beyond the 12+years this game has survived.

Great work Saphireena!! I love the art. It makes me sad to see what could have been...

[hawkeye_pike]

Kirthag: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.

If you think that a hi-res version of the 2D client would be "mediocre crap" that people will refuse, explain to me why they persist in playing with the smaller version if this mediocre crap? Try and understand that it would be the same 2D game as we know it, but only doubled in size. No special tricks, no huge changes, nothing new to try to learn. Same stuff, just bigger. That's the client people are playing, and if you think they'd run away just because it was bigger in size, I dare say you're wrong.

I'd still love for you to contribute to the scaling test. If even with one asset. Maybe the easiest one such as the onions, torch or stairs. Just to get some comparison in times used.

To my opinion, zooming is not really an important issue. With the EC, I zoom to the default level every time I start the client, and never change the zoom level during gameplay.

Of course, a real 3D game would not necessarily require a high-end gaming computer, but at least a decent modern machine (A $70 graphics adapter would suffice on a 2-year-old computer, just compare to other games). It would be a mistake to believe that you'd be able to run UO on the same old machines after improved graphics, even if you only improve the resolution of objects.
And, if you'd put some effort and taste into modeling the 3D objects, I believe that items still would look special, and rare items still could look rare.

I'm not saying that your high-res suggestions are "mediocre crap", they are very nice. I'm saying that tampering with an outdated game engine and with an outdated graphics system is the wrong way to go. If you want to improve UO's graphics, you have to do it right.

Maybe I'll go and scale a few objects. Currently, I don't even have time to play UO, but this is only temporary.

[hawkeye_pike]

Considering that the original client would run quite well on a Pentium 100Mhz with 64MB (yes, thats Mega Bytes, not Giga Bytes) of RAM...I don't think that in a world of multi-core processors running at multiple Ghz speeds and Gigabytes of RAM that overhead is going to be a huge factor in pushing double sized sprites. Your web browser is capable of producing higher rez images than we are discussing here. In 1998, you would have had a valid point, in 2009, not so much.

Well, even on my high-end machine the Legacy Client lags if many animated objects are on the screen. So it doesn't really have to do with system performance, but with the game's graphics engine. Basically, the client just displays animated pixel objects, like a flip-book. This is a very inefficient way to animate graphics (that's how it was done 12 years ago), and not really suitable for high-res animated objects. With the increase of game standards and resolution, the graphics engines of games had to evolve in order to work properly. This was the most important motivation behind the invention of 3D graphics. 3D graphics allowed game developers to animate high resolution objects on a screen in the first place.

Today, nobody would even think about using pixel graphics when animating high-res objects.

[TheGrimmOmen]

Well yeah, basically everything stays the same, it is just a far higher resolution.. This is the change all UO players want, we don't want anymore "GRAPHICS OVERHAUL" We just want a higher resolution..


So there's a couple of things about the same, just higher resolution world art:

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.
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!

One thing that we've learned from UOKR world art creation is that we have to make 3D art from a 2D art perspective. This isn't as easy as this sounds. You see, modern game artists are used to doing things to scale with the world environment. For example, if they wanted to make a brick wall, you would want to make sure that the bricks in the texture are sized correctly in relationship to the player. This is because in more modern 3D games, not scaling things properly makes them look ... well, stupid. But when you are creating 2D art, you paint them so that the texture can be interpreted correctly, not so that it's necessarily to scale. There's also the disconnect between things looking correct in 3D, and once they've been rendered out in the UO perspective, they look odd due to UO's military orthographic perspective. So the result is that you end up having to make some things look "wrong" in 3D so that they look "right" in an orthographic perspective.


... oh, that's where I left my can of worms. I wonder what's inside???

-GO

[It Lives]

Huge scope? Start now. Start small, over time it will seem less imposing.

Call it job security.

[Viquire]

Thanks GO. I learned a new word today.

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.

Not trying to be an ass, just asking.

[TheGrimmOmen]

Oh and by the way, if you're wondering "So what if it isn't "true pixel art" anymore, isn't the main thing that it looks good?". Well it's more complicated than that. For instance the palette system in UO which colors various assets in different shades. From what I understand, the original graphic is grayscale and the palette has been assigned to replace certain shades of gray with the new color. So it's looking for an exact RGB value to replace. And so when you bring the anti-alias "melting" of two colors into each other as in your algorithm example, suddenly there are thousands of new colors to deal with which the engine was not built to handle.

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. You are correct in that it could introduce artifacts into the graphic in the form of "static" or, and most likely, patches where lots of pixels get assigned the same value, thus creating patches of flat color. But this would obviously only affect world art that's hued.


An additional problem, as JC mentioned, is of course the fact that more colors = more for the computer and network to load, which would already be stressed by the larger dimensions of upscaled graphics as is.


Well, since it's palettized, it'll be the same number of colors, but since there would be twice as many pixels, it does increase the workload.



-GO

[TheGrimmOmen]

Thanks GO. I learned a new word today.

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.

Not trying to be an ass, just asking.

Actually, and I'll have to check, but that might have more to do with Isometric Vs. Military Isometric perspectives. I haven't been envolved a lot in the world art part of UO (although now my pipeline objectives are including world art processing), so I'm not totally certain.


.. and no, it's to perilous.

[TheGrimmOmen]

16,000 tiles (landscape, housing, trees, etc.)
10-15 frames for each creatures/players (only 108?)
Clothing items (hue overlays a grey object)
Special event artwork (the jack-o-lanterns are awesome!)


Uhh - a little off there:

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

-GO

[Dolphoenix]

Uhh - a little off there:

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

-GO


Grimm I'm going to have to call you out on this one. I doubt seriously that every number you provided is, in actuality, a whole even number.

lol. Grimm I honestly don't know why you're even taking part in this discussion. I tried explaining the complexities of it over two years ago. The sheer number of pieces of art work, not to mention the increased size of the patch files for double sized graphics. on and on and on yada yada.

I think it's a damn shame whenever someone posts a couple of nice pieces of art work and gets people worked up. And yeah I know once upon a time I was guilty of it too.

You guys do damn fine work for what you have to work with. Let's face it. You can only polish a turd so much.

[TheGrimmOmen]

Hmmm... hmm... I just found this article in Gamasutra, published last month:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25703



I wonder if it would be worth pursuing more experimentations with these upscales after all...?


I think Tim's quote here was to capture the spirit of what we want to do, but not define our actual goals or methods.

As for continuing, I like to see threads like this, so I can't think of a reason not.

-GO

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Well, even on my high-end machine the Legacy Client lags if many animated objects are on the screen.


Every time I hear someone with this complaint, and I troubleshoot it for them, the problem turns out to be local, not with the client or the server.

I run a 3.33Ghz Quad Core P4, with 8GB DDR3 RAM. My video card is a Radeon 4870 1GB, and I have ZERO lag, ZERO issues with the legacy client...ever.

If you are experiencing issues with the client, I am willing to bet that the problem is something specific to your machine, or your connection most likely.

[pacific lily]

One thing that we've learned from UOKR world art creation is that we have to make 3D art from a 2D art perspective. This isn't as easy as this sounds. You see, modern game artists are used to doing things to scale with the world environment. For example, if they wanted to make a brick wall, you would want to make sure that the bricks in the texture are sized correctly in relationship to the player. This is because in more modern 3D games, not scaling things properly makes them look ... well, stupid. But when you are creating 2D art, you paint them so that the texture can be interpreted correctly, not so that it's necessarily to scale. There's also the disconnect between things looking correct in 3D, and once they've been rendered out in the UO perspective, they look odd due to UO's military orthographic perspective. So the result is that you end up having to make some things look "wrong" in 3D so that they look "right" in an orthographic perspective.


... oh, that's where I left my can of worms. I wonder what's inside???

-GO


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. Oh i know... your average user is on dialup and using a 10 year old machine. Yeah yeah... I get it. At least now it's extremely clear that no true 3D is even near the pipe let alone in it. Good to know.

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

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.

The better solution, if you want a game with fancy 3d graphics, is to go and play something else. Preferably UO:2, but that doesn't exist ... yet.

[pacific lily]

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.

The better solution, if you want a game with fancy 3d graphics, is to go and play something else. Preferably UO:2, but that doesn't exist ... yet.



Nice job taking my comment out of context. :)

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

Nice job taking my comment out of context. :)

Was there a reason I should have quote the parts that were not relevant to my point?

I didn't mean to mis-quote you, if you would like, I can go and edit to include the entire post, it was just that at that particular break (the . ) it seemed like you moved to a new point.

[Dermott of LS]

...

While I can see a reason to kepp the 2d client active (netbooks mainly), the response of if you want a game with fancy 3d graphics, is to go and play something else does nothing but keep UO in the "oh, that old game" status and does NOTHING to even give the attempt to advance the client technologically.

There are issues with the 2d client that go beyond "fancy graphics" which is one of the reasons why the client/server structure is so helpful... they can UPDATE THEM, sometimes with new hardware for the servers, sometimes with new client packages.

Also, "fancy graphics" and the deep gameplay we love in UO are NOT and never have been mutually exclusive, people just want to think they are.

[Saphireena]

Okey dokey. Now I got the stairs and coins done:

http://www.andrea.net/pics/comparison2.png

The stairs were pretty straightforward requiring little thought or planning, just basically evening out the pixels to mesh together softer. The item has odd corners but I'm assuming it's to support the tiling better. If one zooms into Zym's stairs, one can see that mainly the seams were fixed and the marble mush left unpolished. I on the other hand polished everything. Is the difference very significant? Not really. So this is a case where cutting corners could work. We also do this at work that if a game needs to be scaled+polished on a tight deadline, we just fix the edges and more prominent details and leave the middle parts alone.

The gold coins were more challenging though. I could either go with making it a pile of coins which looks like they've been poured onto a table (which I assume the original is meant to potray) or make them into neatly stacked piles. Trying to make a jumble of coins proved to be very challenging so I after experimenting with the stacks, I decided that's the way to go. It looks harmonic, yet doesn't break the original feel of the pile too badly.

[JC the Builder]

How can it take 1 hour and 10 minutes for a couple blocks and a texture? I can understand an intricate design like the coins or armoire. A stair piece like that should take 20 minutes at most. It is a basic geometric shape. Maybe you put a little too much detail in something which is going to be hardly noticeable.

Also once you have the texture done for something like that, all you have to do is the outline on future ones.

[Saphireena]

How can it take 1 hour and 10 minutes for a couple blocks and a texture? I can understand an intricate design like the coins or armoire. A stair piece like that should take 20 minutes at most. It is a basic geometric shape. Maybe you put a little too much detail in something which is going to be hardly noticeable.

Also once you have the texture done for something like that, all you have to do is the outline on future ones.

My fingers can only click-click-click so fast. And if I'm clickety-clicking over pretty much the whole graphic to even out the pixels, it takes time. How about you try it and see for yourself. Post the results and time here while you're at it.

[HD2300]

I just did a quicken sharpen on them.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m242/hd2300/redo.png

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.

[JC the Builder]

My fingers can only click-click-click so fast. And if I'm clickety-clicking over pretty much the whole graphic to even out the pixels, it takes time. How about you try it and see for yourself. Post the results and time here while you're at it.
I don't do much art. However I would assume the process would be to delete everything except the outline, blow up the figure to the appropriate size, straighten the lines and then fill with texture. While it may be a good idea to do that process you mentioned on more complex pieces, recreating simple ones like steps either from outline or scratch would be a lot quicker.

[Saphireena]

I don't do much art. However I would assume the process would be to delete everything except the outline, blow up the figure to the appropriate size, straighten the lines and then fill with texture. While it may be a good idea to do that process you mentioned on more complex pieces, recreating simple ones like steps either from outline or scratch would be a lot quicker.

You're not considering the fact that the stairs need to match other pieces it's supposed to sit beside. So if one were to do it from scratch, there would be the whole process of trying to make the "texture" work with all the other stair pieces as well.

Where as in my system (which stays true to each little detail as closely as possible) there is absolutely no risk whatsoever and it is self evident that all the pieces will match if done in the same way.

Also the aim of this rescale project has been to retain the pieces of world - pieces of people's virtual homes, virtual decorations - as close to the original as possible as not to disrupt the player's game experience in any way. By disrupt I mean that what if a player has chosen a certain element as part of their decoration because a little detail in the "texture", when matched up with an item placed on top, gives the illusion of being something else? Tons of people like to play around with this kind of stuff. Who am I to play god and decide to just "make it from scratch" and rearrange how all the pixels are placed?

So with the above considered, and with the assumption that yes indeed, the asset needs to be manually clicked over with precision and care, how long would it take you? And if you are not such an art person, I find it pretty surprising that you're making guesses based on anything else except experience of doing the actual thing.

And am I being a tad self defensive against your particular message versus other commentators? Hell yeah, if there has been one person out there who rushes in to criticize the things I do here on the forums, it's you.

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

...

While I can see a reason to kepp the 2d client active (netbooks mainly), the response of if you want a game with fancy 3d graphics, is to go and play something else does nothing but keep UO in the "oh, that old game" status and does NOTHING to even give the attempt to advance the client technologically.

There are issues with the 2d client that go beyond "fancy graphics" which is one of the reasons why the client/server structure is so helpful... they can UPDATE THEM, sometimes with new hardware for the servers, sometimes with new client packages.

Also, "fancy graphics" and the deep gameplay we love in UO are NOT and never have been mutually exclusive, people just want to think they are.

Now who is taking who out of context? If you go back and read the few posts I have contributed to this thread, my point is that UO should remain 2D, and that they should just go ahead and do a UO:2.

The people that play UO for the gameplay do so because of the gameplay. It doesn't have anything to do with the graphics...and vice versa. There are plenty of games out there that have wonderful graphics, but are horrible to play.

I understand that the aspiration to have better graphics does not mean that gameplay would be, or has to be, sacrificed. Far from it. But the fact that UO is a 12 year old game...that is going to do an awful lot to hamper the devs from doing what really needs to be done with the graphics...and that is a complete re-do. 3d, EC, and to lesser extent...KR, have all been created to try and run simultaneously with the 2d client. That, in and of itself, is a limiting factor. The same world running 2 clients? By its very nature, limits are in place. But what some people do not seem to understand is that UO, Ultima Online, IS the game that was launched in 1997...not the expansion that launched this year. These so-called 3d clients are, and have always been, a half-baked hybrid meant to try and breathe life into a game that his lived well beyond its prime.

The solution... UO:2. Not the UO:2 that was talked up a while back, but a brand new UO that is fully 3d out of the gate...probably 1st person perspective, with modern code, a new world map, etc. etc. There is no real way around it. If EA kills the original client, most of the players will quit. The only way they will bring UO into a fully 3d existence is to kill the original client. It's a paradox. Their hands are tied. The only real solution is to abandon the idea of UO in 3d, and either update the 2d client using art like you are seeing in this thread...or, simply allow the game to die while concentrating efforts on a true sequel rather than an expansion.

[Morgana LeFay (PoV)]

I don't do much art. However I would assume the process would be to delete everything except the outline, blow up the figure to the appropriate size, straighten the lines and then fill with texture. While it may be a good idea to do that process you mentioned on more complex pieces, recreating simple ones like steps either from outline or scratch would be a lot quicker.

I am certainly no graphic artist JC, but I believe that what you are describing is the way things work when you are dealing with polygons. 3d images. 2d images, like the sprites in UO technically are textures themselves. Maybe someone else out there can explain it better than I can, but you can't really 'texture' a sprite I don't think. I could be wrong, I mostly know hardware and networking.

[JC the Builder]

I'm just trying to say that the process for recreating a simple piece such as the sandstone steps should be able to go a lot faster than taking one hour.

I am definitely not an artist, but I can envision the process of touching up UO art in a higher resolution. There are different methods to achieve the same result. Your method would only finish ~7 pieces of sandstone in one work day. I think recreating most of the pieces and using a general sandstone texture could do 2 dozen or more in the same amount of time.
I am certainly no graphic artist JC, but I believe that what you are describing is the way things work when you are dealing with polygons. 3d images. 2d images, like the sprites in UO technically are textures themselves. Maybe someone else out there can explain it better than I can, but you can't really 'texture' a sprite I don't think. I could be wrong, I mostly know hardware and networking.I think they call textures brushes in photoshop. You can make a design and then paint it onto an object. For example you could make a wood grain pattern. But in this case it would be a sandstone pattern.

In a perfect world UO would have a 25 man art team who can spend hours recreating a sandstone step. But UO doesn't have that kind of resources. There are 16,000+ pieces of artwork that would need to be touched up. Finding the most efficient process is important.

[Crysta]

I just did a quicken sharpen on them.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m242/hd2300/redo.png

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.

That looks bloody terrible.

[AtlanteanAngel]

Imagine if some terrible evil (eg. the Guardian, Electronic Arts, etc) put an inescapable curse over all the lands of UO, and everyone's clients (Legacy & Stygian Abyss both) patched over with these graphic files. Everyone's eyes would be uncontrollably tear-ing within minutes of gameplay.


http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m242/hd2300/redo.png


That looks bloody terrible.

[Stranger]

I on the other hand polished everything.

This is why I love you!:heart:

It may not be very significant to everyone else but I can see the true beauty of your silky smooth stairs! :)

In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to do them Zym's way to save time and concentrate on the tiles that really need to be polished. Then, after everything else is polished go back and polish up the stairs :)

I don't want a half-assed double resolution UO! If your gonna do it, do it right! :)

I love love love your gold coins! You are incredible! :)

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.

The pictures posted by HD2300 look absolutely horrible! Did you save them with low quality? Because I see blurring and a weird greenish color around the edges. You wouldn't be able to put them in the game like that! The transparency wouldn't work correctly!

[Zym Dragon]

After seeing the comparisons, I can see I may have taken the task a bit too literally. I didn't allow myself to take any liberties with the art, since I was in the mindset of enhancing the art in front of me rather than redrawing it. All I did was use the eye dropper and the brush to smooth out the edges and not leave any 4x4 blocks of color where possible. After a while I noticed that "z" pattern emerging. It worked for the most part, but I had to be careful of the direction of the lines or it would look bad at 100%. It saved me some time because I could create a mask to copy/paste from, then shift the colors one pixel in a direction.

After seeing Saph's versions (omg, those coins are gorgeous!), it made me want to go back and redo everything, so I touched up the onions and tweaked the torch. I also completed the armorie tonight. I still tried to use the same colors in the same places, but I deviated from that a bit with the edges, to make sure they looked right.

http://www.zymdragon.com/uo/armorie-torch-onions.png

Armorie: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Torch: add another 2 minutes
Onions: add another 6 minutes

It's definitely interesting to see the different approaches. I hope more people join in the fun! :D

[Stranger]

I think JC is talking about doing something like this.

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/3173/uolikethismaybe.gif

I was unable to draw a proper sandstone pattern that connects properly without looking "squarish" when repeated so I just used a simple checkered pattern.

I did NOT do all of this myself I used Saphireena's stairs outline.
This is just being shown as an example!

I do not know if this would actually look good with a real sandstone texture, or if it would even connect properly with the other stair tiles (I am guessing a big fat NO!), but I do know it wouldn't be staying completely true to the original artwork! :( :sad3: :sad2:

[Saphireena]

i'd like to see an upp'd paperdoll too.

I actually upscaled the paperdolls way way back when I first started making these. You can find them here:

Male and Female paperdolls "naked" (http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/hrc_paperdolls_bare.shtml)

Animation of female mage dressed bit by bit (http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/art/hrc_paperdolls_clothed.shtml)

And while we're on the subject of avatars, may I just express how saddened I am by the drastic change my precious Saphireena went through with the various client versions?

http://www.andrea.net/pics/saphireena.png

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.

...

...

...

[HD2300]

Imagine if some terrible evil (eg. the Guardian, Electronic Arts, etc) put an inescapable curse over all the lands of UO, and everyone's clients (Legacy & Stygian Abyss both) patched over with these graphic files. Everyone's eyes would be uncontrollably tear-ing within minutes of gameplay.

I recall a certain client that took 2 years to develop where almost everyone was saying the same thing.

[Heartseeker]

I on the other hand polished everything.

This is why I love you!:heart:

It may not be very significant to everyone else but I can see the true beauty of your silky smooth stairs! :)

In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to do them Zym's way to save time and concentrate on the tiles that really need to be polished. Then, after everything else is polished go back and polish up the stairs :)

I don't want a half-assed double resolution UO! If your gonna do it, do it right! :)

I love love love your gold coins! You are incredible! :)

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.

The pictures posted by HD2300 look absolutely horrible! Did you save them with low quality? Because I see blurring and a weird greenish color around the edges. You wouldn't be able to put them in the game like that! The transparency wouldn't work correctly!

You might want to change your handle from "Stranger" to "Stalker."

[Stranger]

:sad2:

[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.

http://www.tomesofsosaria.org/stratics/scissors.gif

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. :drool:

[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. :drool:
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 :p

[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. :drool:

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.

:thumbup:

[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. :party:

[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*

http://www.andrea.net/uo/general/screenshots/gfx/katsienna_willy03.jpg

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 fluidThanks, 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 > 20,000Thanks 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:

http://www.andrea.net/pics/dchoc_tornado-mania!_shot-01_96x65.gif

http://www.andrea.net/pics/dchoc_tornado-mania!_shot-01_128x128.gif

http://www.andrea.net/pics/dchoc_tornado-mania!_shot-01_176x208.gif

http://www.andrea.net/pics/dchoc_tornado-mania!_shot-01_320x240.gif

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.

http://www.andrea.net/pics/comparison.png

http://www.andrea.net/pics/comparison2.png

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:sad2::sad2::sad2:)

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.

http://www.andrea.net/pics/comparison.png

http://www.andrea.net/pics/comparison2.png

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.