Beautiful Britannia progress report
Because I’m a horribly forgetful person, I failed to post this news when it was at its freshest. Firstknight left a comment on his project’s entry to bring us all up to speed on the status of the project and the progress he’s made on it:
Sorry, but I haven’t had the time to create a homepage so far, so I want to provide some quick info on the actual project state here:
Currently (after being offline for about 6 months) I continue working on basic tasks, like categorizing items and upgrading the creation tools. When this is done, the next step will be adding bigger objects (mainly rocks and trees) onto the Britannia overworld (which invovles pure hexcoding) Both of these tasks will take until approximately Summer 2011.
After that I will have something new to show (which is not really the case ATM), so this will be a good time for providing a homepage. Also, a new demo is planned for late 2011 (I hope that I get the .NET Launcher done before then).
Furthermore, I’m sorry to say that there will be no way to remove the fogging on overworld maps in Windows 7, but it doesn’t make much sense to do so anyway, simply because a MiddleClip value higher than 6000 makes the game unstable.
Long-term goals for Beautiful Britannia:
- Providing many more details for the Britannia overworld
- Making several unsued maps (overworlds and dungeons) playable
- Shortening the linear parts of the game and adding nonlinear elements instead
So there you have it, folks.
I have to confess a certain particular affinity for this project, in no small part due to the fact that it makes use of the original Ultima 9 game engine. Even in this day and age, that engine stacks up not badly against more modern systems, at least to my thinking.
Yes, the engine doesn’t do as well with DirectX (it was built in the era of Glide), and yes, the polygon counts are lower and the textures are low-resolution. But equally, the world of Ascension was far more interactive than most 3D RPG game worlds are these days (at least if one does an “out of the box” comparison), and few games these days do as well making a world feel truly seamless (many don’t even try). Many of the game’s systems (its conversation engine, for example) were quite well-implemented.
And while I’m not exactly the biggest fan of jumping puzzles, I actually rather miss the ability to jump and climb objects in many of the games I enjoy today. In Ascension, it was no big deal to jump across a small chasm or climb up a ledge…and I can think of a good half-dozen situations in Mass Effect 2 where I would have killed to have either ability.
This is a nice project, sure hope it gets completed.
I agree that Ultima IX isn’t that far off in the graphics department with some of the modern games out there. A shame this game turned out like it did.
You know, Ultima 9 has it’s issues, but it holds up well after a decade. I’ve been playing through it again, taking my time…and really, it’s a decent game, better than the bad rap it gets. (Maybe that was more difficult to see back when it released.)
It isn’t necessarily the best Ultima, but neither is it the worst; it’s plot has some holes (as is the case with all the Ultimas), but it’s a longer and richer plot (I find) than the above-ground portion of Ultima 5, and better overall than Ultima 2 or, really, Ultima 1. The overland feels a tad small but is richly detailed, and the dungeons were particularly excellent, probably the best there are to be found in any Ultima title save for the Underworld series.
And as a game — not specifically an Ultima, but an RPG — it’s really quite good, once properly patched. (Much like Neverwinter Nights 2.)
And it’s engine was really quite excellent, for the day. It needed optimization and had a few memory leaks, but it really deserved to be taken further and expanded upon.
Which, I suppose, is why this remake looks so darn promising.
Dang now your making me want to go and re-visit the game again. I remember it being buggy and I didn’t like the action feel to the game.
But Im not sure I ever played a fully patched version.
On a modern system, you need to patch it to version 1.18, and then immediately to 1.19. That’s about the only way it’ll work with any graphics card made in the last five years. But on the plus side, 1.18/1.19 (the latter basically just tweaking the DirectX support and removing the SafeDisc protection) is really quite stable. There’s a few quirks that may still pop up, but these can typically be mitigated if they do.
Cool thanks, its on my playlist so at some points when I find the time or lose my job I will play it!
Thanks for supporting my project as well as breaking a lance for UIX, WTF_Dragon, you’re a great help (as always)!
And yes, the project WILL BE completed some day, but this will not within the next 5 years, that’s for sure.
However, I’ve worked 50+ hours lately on testing a new thing – importing textures. Based on the knowhow I’ve got while with “Team Forgotten World” I’ve finally managed to create an import routine for 15-bit transparency textures and exchange ONE flower texture with an nice looking self-created one (not really much, but I had to learn how to create smooth shadings and using Corel Photopaint Pro X3 in general first).
The result is splendid – I’m not kidding (even my wife was surprised, that I was able to do something like this ;-)).
So I will continue, and see how far I can get.
Dude! Retexturing?
That’s beyond awesome.
You know, it’s funny…there are so many things I enjoy about U9 whenever I play it. I wouldn’t rank it the best Ultima, nor even the best game I’ve ever played, but I can’t help but find it repeatably enjoyable, and I love just exploring the game’s world…even if I have seen it a dozen times before.
The one thing that annoys me, though, is the texture detail (or rather, the lack thereof). Heck, you could release just a patch that brought new, high-res textures into the game, and I would make as much noise about THAT as I possibly could on this here site.
The fact that you’re doing yet more than that…well…like I said: dude!
Yeah, a High-Res Texture Pack as Pre-Release for BB would be a good idea!
As I remember, it is like that:
Over 80% of the Textures do not use the max res of 256 x 256 Pixels, flowers for example uses 64 x 64 (Max Res is used for Sky, Caves, some Walls and Carpets, and also for tree leaves).
So there is room for improvements, just let’s go on with it.
Without trying to seem greedy or anything, I have to wonder: is there any possibility of higher-res textures (e.g. 512×512)? Or is 256×256 a hard limit within the engine?
256×256 is definitly limited by the engine, but in my opinion that’s quite good for a game of year 1999. Some Objects (the Gobelion for example) have a higher res in total, but only because they consists of several pieces of 256×256 Tiles.
In general, I have to make the right balance between time (to create) and effect (it creates), so that the whole thing get’s done some day.
So let me quick explain with some examples, what is planned by me and what not:
No enhancements:
o Sky
o Terrain (128 x 128, but too complicated to enhance)
o Objects related to Avatar’s house on earth
o Most NPC’s (already heavily uses 256 x 256)
o Caves, Walls and other things, which already uses 256 x 256
Try to increase resolution of existing textures onto 256 x 256:
o Walls and other 128 x 128 textures with good quality
Exchange Textures with new, self created 256 x 256 ones:
o Flowers and Grass (Most important for me!)
o Tree leaves (Already 256 x 256, but needs better quality)
o Many other 64 x 64 (and lower) textures (only if they are disturbing low-res)
Some things I forgot:
a) Reusing objects with different textures
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While it is far beyond me to self-create models, i’ve developed a way to reuse small to mid-size models with different textures, which further expands the possibilities.
Examples:
o More Variations of flowers
o More different tree leaves with higher dense
o Dense undergrowth, also in more variations
b) Texture Development details
——————————
I give some thoughts to, how the retexturing is best developed, and come to the conclusion, that it’s necessary to co-develop it with BB, simply because I to not want to waste time with upgrading textures, which are nowhere used within the game.
But I will make Pre-Relases of the texture pack, when major things (like all flowers and grass textures) are finished.
c) Beautiful Britannia Development details
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For BB itself I will RESTART FROM THE ORIGINAL MAP, when i’ve finished the first pre-release of the texture pack.
Why this ?
The existing upgrade has many bugs, and several side quests could not be finished, if the map is used as map.9. But now I’ve developed a better methodics, which should prevent all those bugs. Also, the new textures and reused models will be better useable then.
This further means, that all future BB Demos will be a completely playable upgrade of UIX (monster generators will work again, all quests will work, only some items will be to find elsewhere).
d) Planned Schedule
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o First Pre-Release of the Texture Pack: Late 2011
o First Demo of the “new” BB: Late 2013
This is not very soon, I know, but I always want to provide quality and nothing “quick and dirty”.
Greetings
Firstknight