Welcome to My Own Little Corner!

Well, they've done it. They finally put me in the corner.

We now have an area where we can talk art! Art from other games as well as art from our beloved Ultima Online! Feel free to post questions as well as both rants AND raves! I enjoy talking about everything, so technically no post is really off topic, but let's keep it PG and respectful. I promise I will do my best to answer everyone as quickly as possible, and I look forward to a lot of graphics chat!

Cheers,
Grimm

Howdy, Grimm! I'll be thinking of some good art questions for you. For now, just wanted to say thanks for inviting us to your corner!

Want to talk art from other games! OMG I have been somewhat addicted to Sims Medieval for awhile now... can you rip off artists from over there to redo the paperdolls and what-not in UO??? Rip that off a bit???? What I wouldn't give to be able to customize the body shape, style, so many choices on hair, eyes, ears, nose, even make-up! And OMG the dresses and other outfits you can create there! I made a few reproductions of some of my "UO" characters in the Sims and wow what I wouldn't give to have them look half that cool....
Here is Willa in the Sims and in UO:


I just wish I could make her skin look right in UO. Sadly there are not enough color choices in the game for skin pigments. And Gargoyles are even worse for choices... One can dream that it will change soon.

Wow, that is an outstanding dress!

Hmmm. Hues... hues... hues... <makes mental note>

-JP

Okay, Grimm, my first art question. Are there any plans at all to modify the art for plants so that plants other than the plain and peculiar ones aren't all one color, top to bottom?

One thing I miss quite often was the ability of the old third dawn paperdoll to allow you to "spin" your character and view them from all angles.

Also Willa being a "Yew-wood" elf should really have more of a wood sort of skintone... so more brownish.... I defaulted to green over giving her a pale pink skintone.

As for the Gargoyles you know when building a gargoyle character the paperdoll in the custom screen has a very awesome robe... however once you make the mistake of picking any sort of magical ability while creating the character that nice looking robe in there vanishes.... and in-game the gargish robes on the paperdolls look terrible... if there was one fix graphically that would make the game more appealing to new players that might be it!

I guess in my opinion the way my character looks both in-game and in my paperdoll should "match"... and should look the best it can.... after all I'm going to be looking at this more than ANYTHING else in the whole game... and it's important when you want to really get into a game to be able to feel an attachment to your character and like the way your character appears.

I always used to think my son was a bit crazy for always playing "Female" characters... I finally asked him once why he more often than not plays the female characters and he said "Well.... I figure if I have to stare at something for hours on end while I play a game I may as well be looking at something nice to look at." I thought this over for awhile and you know.... He's right. To enjoy looking at your character and find it pleasing is an important part of the game in my opinion... after all if you can't relate to your own character you really aren't going to get that into the game.

I think you're talking about the plants getting partially hued? There aren't any plans, but do you have a screenshot?

-Grimm

Ah I believe that's something folk have been wanting forever partial hueing of plants... so only the flower part is colored differently.

I don't have any screen shots for something like that, but I just might play with Photoshop some time and try to come up with some suggestions. I'd hate to see every thing just be the same shade of green for stems and leaves and it would just be the flowers that would vary in color for the non-plain plants. I'd really like to still be able to have some plants that have leaves that tend towards red, brown, yellow, or whatever, just like in nature. But it drives me up a tree to see something like a purple elephant ear plant that is solid purple. It just hits me wrong!

I think I remember reading a discussion you might have had about partial huing and using "masks" or something like that. The details escape me because it's all over my head.

Oh. Hmmm. Something just hit me. Jeff said not long ago that we should keep an eye on the wild dragons. Could that possibly mean you're going to change the EC artwork for them?

Yes, having 3D characters is a huge bonus in paper dolls, cause you can spin, animate and put them in different poses for practically nothing.

I've had quite a few posts on the Gargoyle robe - thanks for reminding me about it.

Having a connection to your character is an extremely important aspect of UO.

This thread has inspired me to write a blog post... It will be a list of things that emerge from conversations in this forum!

Although feel free to create new posts in this forum instead of packing everything into one thread!

-Grimm

Yes it is isn't it..... I think I've forgotten what his sig was.

No, I'm not sure what he meant by that, but we don't have any plans to update EC dragons.

-Grimm

Yessss, this is an excellent development. My new favourite subforum already.


Edit: How do you feel about people sending you art? Not in the fanart sense (I know fanart's generally liked by pretty much everyone unless either a) it's distasteful or b) they're fogeys tbh) but in, say, the "Here is an outfit I thought up! Wouldn't it be amazing if it was in-game?! hint-hint-hint" sense. Would you find it interesting and worthwhile, or would it fill you with rage?

Ok, ok.

And thanks to everyone for the heads up on my broken Sig. Should be fixed now..

it's even better now

Is there any chance that the EC could have a switch EC/CC Graphics? The EC UI is great but I would love it if I could use the CC Graphics with the EC UI.

You are correct - but only for the EC client. Good memory!

-Grimm

The high resolution graphics upgrade for EC is supposed to be like CC graphics in a high resolution.

Sorry but all EC Graphics are not high resolution graphics of all CC Graphics. Look at monsters, pets and paperdoll to start with, all different. I am not saying which is better but if the choice was there for us then maybe, just maybe, we might be able to get to one client.

I'm not talking about current stuff, but what's being done for the new high resolution stuff. This is what Grimm said:

Not sure we've discussed that aspect of implementation, but keep in mind that the high resolution graphics is only in regards to the environment art.

- Grimm

I've got a question about environmental art!

When you're designing a new area, like, say, a new castle, how much planning do you do? Do you go from concept sketches through to physical mock-ups on a grid and then into the game with tiles, or do you have another program that you "draft" environments in before you toss them on UO, or some sort of test server, or something else? Please feel free not to answer this if it's company secrets. (I am really interested in environmental game art as an eventual career.)

Also, if you do concept sketches... any chance we could ever get to see one or two? :3

Well, actually, world building isn't handled by the art department. Weird, but there you go. World building is managed by our design folks - although the Gargoyle City was done by a world building artist, and while I think it really shows, I think we get the best results with art and design working together. Jeff is working to try and bridge the work from design and art on world building.

But you are right - the best approach is to work everything out on paper first, review, and at the very end implement. Working stuff out on paper saves SO much time on what's called the "Iterative Loop".

-Grimm

That's what they teach in school, but somehow everyone stop using paper and goes directly with the code and happen what happen
Especially the new generations that barely uses paper...

LOL - oh yea. I teach Game Design Theory at a local college. Their first assignment on the first day is to create a game that doesn't use computers... lol - you should see the look on their faces. Even letting them know that the game has to be simple, and encompass very basic game design principles (try to make it fun to play, has to have a written simple rule set and a win/lose scenario.), they have a really hard time getting their head around that. But the idea behind it is to show them that making a game that's fun is actually HARD - and that's BEFORE you add the whole computer component to the mix!

Later in the course we talk about prototyping and I tell them that prototyping is supposed to answer questions about your game design, so you need to answer those questions as quickly as possible so you can make whatever changes you need to make with as little impact on your design schedule as possible. You do this by making your iterative loop as small as possible. If you can prototype using paper and pencil, then DO IT - if you can, stay out of a loop that might require coding - because obviously the more "moving parts" you have, the more things you have to error check when things are not working out like you planned!

But I agree with you, Pinco - 100%. I call that "Cowboy Game Development" because of the recklessness of the practice.

-Grimm

wow, you teach funny things
When I was at school they ask for mathematical problems and all on paper because the computers were something out of reach for the school budget
The funniest and most feared part was design a program to solve and draw graphics based on complex trigonometric equations in c++ language... and the c++ has not a single gui on the paper

However, they never understand at the time why they have to use paper when in the end they have to do computer programs... but one day they will be thankful to you to force them to paper

I apologize in advance if this sounds rude or harsh, but I wonder how valued player opinions are when I hear there are no plans to update the dragon art given the amount of "constructive criticism" the dragon has generated from the players.

Even players who basically like the current EC dragon (as I do) would like to at least see something done to address the washed out color and shine on the dragon. This has been possibly the single most criticized creature art in the EC, and would seem to be a pretty easy fix. Some of the other dragons (especially the serpentine dragon and crimson dragon) look awesome in the EC, so why not try to touch up the basic dragon, which is probably UO's signature creature?

Ohhh thanks for bringing back COBOL... I thought I had successfully purged my COBOL programming experience... <sniff>

-Grimm

I want to learn game design from you!

How do you feel about coming to Australia to teach?

Just for me?

...

i can pay you in vegemite and koalas

LOL! That would be soo awesome! Nice of you offer, but I think your koalas and Vegemite might be better spent on getting you to a local college!

...but if you have an extra koala to spare...


-Grimm
(Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD)

...

We're supposed to be getting a batch of "oversized koalas" in at work this week (granted these are 5oz - 1 kilogram silver coins... but still)

As many know - I only deal in the real thing... the eucalyptus eating variety.

... that and, of course, girly giggles. ( )

Dermott - where do you work where you get in a "batch" of 5oz silver coins?

-Grimm

...

I work for NGC, a coin grading and authentication service which has a "sister company" called NCS that conserves coins. Right now I work in the grading room looking at other people's coins all day and assigning them a grade based on the quality of the coin. We then put the coins into sealed holders and send back. That's why when people have wondered if I should work for UO I have said that I already have the job that fits me best.

Wow. That's pretty cool! I imagine the security there is pretty tight?

-Grimm

pretty sure this was made by NaKasha Saran years ago, she used it as her sig for a while.... gives an idea of what we're asking for

COBOL, the language that made me realize I didn't want to be a developer.

being a developer has nothing to do with the language... it's all about your skill in solve problems.
If you have good logical skill, you can use any language. All the languages are almost the same, it's just a matter of syntax that can be learn by reading few examples

COBOL: Making me appreciate BASIC and most modern programming languages. I think all programmers need to have a stint in COBOL. It builds character.

-Grimm

I agree with the problem solving statement. Although I believe Darwinism applies to programming languages as well... I mean, I *could*, with enough tutorials and examples (ok, YouTube videos...) write the tools I do in machine language, but that's akin to constructing a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bearskins! ;-)

-Grimm

better than cobol for build characters there is only assembler

the machine language requires a deeper study, but all the modern languages are extremely easy to be learn

It's closer to constructing a mnemonic memory circuit using silicon and germanium atoms with an electron beam.
Luckily for us, folks that enjoy building things from atoms make compilers and assemblers that already have the molecules built for us.

That is EXACTLY what I'd like to see. What I wouldn't give for plants to look like that!