Beautiful Britannia Comparison Screenshots
Firstknight emailed me this morning to announce that he has posted a number of new comparison screenshots showing off the texture updates present in the Beautiful Britannia 2011 R3 update. These come in addition to the previous batch of such comparison shots, and in much the same manner illustrate just how profound a difference the new textures make to the look and feel of the world in Ultima 9.
Swing on by the Forgotten World website and give them a look!
Nifty, my only issue I think is with the new texture used in natural dungeons. The original and stalactites and stalagmites (thank you wiktionary), and you could easily make out the shape of the dungeon. The new texture creates less contrast, and it seems more difficult to navigate the dungeons now. Maybe it is different when actually playing, though.
You’re right in some way, Dungy.
But on the other hand, now the light spell becomes more useful.
*checks out dungeons*
*loud thud*
*Iceblade is speechless…and unconscious over the astounding visuals*
In all seriousness, this is essentially the same game engine with the fog removed for the main map, which just shows how much potential Ultima IX has.
I agree with the issue of the dungeons, the stalactites and stalagmites in the original actually seem better than the update. Actually I think all the natural rock textures need work, they just don’t look right, there seem to be a loss of definition where it seems to all blend into one thing, with a loss of the actual shape of the rock structures.
The grass, plants, trees and ground on the other hand are wonderful.
I was wondering what you guys were talking about with this dungeon walls update. So I checked it out. It just looks nicer, and the texture looks more clear. It’s just that in a static picture, visually the wall texture looks like it blends in with itself.
The only example I could find where you could tell the shape of the wall less well than the original was with
New
http://www.forgottenworld.de/images/stories/admirorgallery2/BB-Dungeons/BB2011R3-Despise2-BB.jpg
vs
Old
http://www.forgottenworld.de/images/stories/admirorgallery2/BB-Dungeons/BB2011R3-Despise2-U9.jpg
I think in the old one you could more easily tell the shape of the pathway leading to the left. But as far as wall definition goes. You can tell the shape of the wall by the shadow and lighting effect.
So maybe I couldn’t tell the shape of the path leading to the left in a static picture. I somehow feel in a moving 3d environment it would be easier for me to discern.
Quite interesting discussion, isn’t it ?!
I’ve tried the “Despise 2” example (again) ingame and can tell you, that it’s easy to find you way through this cave section of despise with the new texture set installed. So I definitely recommend trying the texture set ingame, with the screens it simply isn’t possible to show the full effect.
However, the stalactites and stalagmites are not final yet, so expect an improvement here in some later release.
My intention was to create more natural looking caves, the original ones seems too comic styled for me, and further a bit too bright lighted in my opinion.
Dungeons needs to be dark places, and with the new textures I was able to create the effect I wanted to have. More contrast with the dungeons could be created (and in a better way) by using various light sources (means by including related objects), this is also planned for very late releases (near the final one).
But of course, with all the hints and good ideas I got from you here, this final release will be a smasher, I’ sure of it.
Nice work. I took a look at the dungeon comparison scenes and it appears as though the removal of the stalactites and stalagmites did two things visually. First it removed visual queues denoting the top and bottom of a “wall” and second it removed the only visual breakup of the repetitive/noisy stone texture.
Because a stone texture is somewhat fractal in nature, it’s difficult to judge distance based solely on scale. What it needs is a recognizable “point of reference” addition as a distance queue. While the stalagmites/stalactites served this purpose previously, it could be anything recognizable such as distinctive cracking, staining, dead vines, etc. For a point of reference like this to be effective it will need to be used somewhat regularly. It could be integrated directly into the stone textures, or it could be objects attached to the walls such as torches or lanterns. If the fog could be adjusted dynamically, it could also be used to gain a sense of perspective and distance by increasing it upon entering the dungeon.