taken from Thread :- UO:KR ugliness? found in UO.UHall


Comment

Is it just me, or do the screenshots show all items that look really badly scaled? Just like the current 3d?



As an example - lots of items to me look like they're all jaggedy and stuff - bleeeh this is why I hate current 3d because when you zoom in, all of the objects that are 2d have to be magnified and its all horrible and ugly.

Tell me I am not the only one!

############################

I think it looks pretty good. The jaggies are nothing a little antialiasing won't fix.


############################

[i] . ...

I'm still going through the larger pieces of goodness to get to the really nitpicky stuff.

Interesting though how much people have already picked out of the images. Lots of little clues in the images.

I wish we could see some of the new interface though... paperdolls, hotbar, etc. /I]

############################

Very tempting to tell you you ARE the only one, but not in this case - although I reckon that they know full well there is a LONG way to go with graphics work (that polar bear rug just looks... well, words fail me!) so I'm not worried yet. If that picture comes out a month before KR release though, then I will be very worried!


############################

Maybe - thing is though, is it is very easy to say that in comparrison to what we already have. However, recently I have gotten myself a new card and played a few games. I suddenly realise what kind of things can be done and how good games can look.

Now, this is a 2007 release so i'd expect something a bit better than that. But as Aurelius said - i'm not worrying till its nearer the release date.


############################

Jeremy_EAMythic UO Community Coordinator

UI isn't ready for screenshotting yet

Also, please make sure you're looking at the screenshots at full size - shrinking them to fit will make them do wierd things.

###########################

And the chairs still won't sit to the table properly...it's stuff like that that drives me nuts

##########################

Seems proportionate to me or did you overlook the fact the NPC's are wearing bulky full platemail in a reasonably small house?


There's always gonna be that guy in the back who's more than ready to point out faults ASAP.

#########################

Some of it looks nice, but as others have said, some if it also looks rather rough
I'm hoping it'll be improved before going "gold"
I hope the animation is fluid and not "stiff" like the old "3d" client
The horses tail for instance.
Must admit, the saddle and whatnot on the horse looks good though

What do UOForums readers think ?

I think it looks promising, and anything is better than what we have now! I actually thought the scaling looked excellent compared to the current 3D client. Remember, these are not nearly production ready snapshots of the game, intended to give us an *idea* of what's to come. These screen captures aren't intended to be the final look of the game.

I'm very much looking forward to UO:KR. I think it will be a vast improvement over what we have now.

I really hope that picture is for the new 3d client rather then a new 2d client, because i really don't like the look of this

What I wonder is for people running older machines, will the new 3D client look bad since they may not have a decent graphics card to fix aliasing issues. For those of us who do have a decent card, UO really has to step up and actually use the resources of the card to bump up the graphics.

looks like a scaling issue to me. Bear in mind this is beta or even pre-beta. And unlike the original uo3d ugliness it looks like it can be easily fixed. Nothing to worry here I would say.

The only thing that disappoints me is that you cannot rotate the whole view. I strongly hope they reconsider this. Because what is the use of a 3d client when it behaves like the 2D one?

Graphics look good to me. Very faithful to the 2D art. At least as good as it is possible to match 3D to 2D. After all the UO:SE, UO3D ugliness I'm positively surprised.

I'm torn about looking forward to UO:KR though. There's so much nostalgia attached to the old 2D client, I'd hate to see it totally abandoned by OSI. They should really try to keep it going too. But I guess that would defeat the point of "updating" the client

Thought I read somewhere that they are doing "away" with the 3d client. Plan is to have just one client. 3d graphic engine pushing 2d graphics. Least that is what I remember.

Vepl

Some original info to some questions above.

Yes from what I read, there is only 1 new client...

meh. I wish OSI would be more clear.

What are "highly detailed 2D tiles"? From a game artist's point of view who deals with a 3D engine this term makes absolutely no sense. Are they using 3D geometry (aka a mesh) to do house tiles, furniture, etc or are they doing the same as in UO:3D by just using billboards (which would be no step forward at all)?

*sighs and shakes fist at OSI*

To me it looks like they're using mesh objects for stuff like houses though, and unless they're too lazy to texture and model them from all angles, then I don't really see why it's not possible to rotate the view. Although I think the trees are just billboards - i.e. a plane with a tree texture (picture) slapped on - which would look weird when rotating it all.

I hope they're not thinking "if we make the view rotatable, then people won't find the house entrances anymore if they rotate it 180°.". I think being able to rotate the whole view would be one of the greatest things OSI could do. Is Trinsic boring? Just rotate it and get a whole different perspective Or get a better overview at battles, events, PvM....

i'ts impossible to create a rorating 3D client because of the lack of 3D information provided by the actually 2D objects and tiles.
If OSI want to do this, they must change all the game... and i'ts not their Goal.

The Tile system is not really a choise (in the date of server creation), and restrict to 2D view only. But it's even possible of using 3D for "accelerate" and "smoothing" the framerate, for create amazing lighting effects, antialiasings, and for characters who are made in 3D in the latters clients.

I'ts possible to Redraw all the tile, and i think i'ts the deal of OSI, actually. Game Tiles in 32 bits whith a moden pencil and a very good artist are good idead, and don't change the game too much.

Finally... i think this choice is the best compromize for all the ultima player, who don't play just for a 3D engine, but for a "world". I play Ultima Online because it's a 2D game, and it suit better for me to enter in the ambiance, than a full 3D engine with variable point of view.

(in fact, a totally 3D client already exist, his name is Ultima Iris, and it's really Ugly... because of the tile system ^^)

It's heading in the right direction I think, but it still needs alot of work

I don't think so. Just lock down the camera so you can rotate the game world only around the Z axis, which points up, around the center of your screen where the character is.

The resulting looks would still be faithful to the current UO look. After all, you can rotate most tiles and objects in UO already, even in the 2D client. Currently it is just a matter if there is 2D artwork or not. Just take your house deco tool and try it.
That is how I would imagine a rotating client to work - except the whole view could rotate and not just single objects and it would not be in 90° steps but seamlessly - without change to camera angle or focus - the perspecive would still be isometric. Imagine it like rotating a grid on which the tiles are arranged.

Now why is this hard in 2D? An artist would have to hand draw every single side of an object, for every direction it can face - north, south, east, west.
Why would it be easy in a 3D client? You model an object in 3D studio max or any other 3D app and in there you can turn it every direction you want - seamlessly.
Example, a chair in UO 2D has to be drawn 4 times by an artist so you can have it face in every direction in your house. In a 3D environment you just have to model a single chair instead and you can rotate it to face any direction.

With this said, I think it would be quite easy - or at least much easier than now - to create a world where you can rotate the view around your character. However there would still be a fair amount of work for OSI to do. They would have to test that the world still looks alright from all directions and they would probably have to "fix" one or the other NPC building or landmark.
Also they would have to make sure every 3D object looks nice from all sides. But I think this is the goal of the UO:KR anyway. To get away from tediously hand drawn tiles and frames, to proper 3D meshes.