Beautiful Britannia: Retexturing!
Firstknight left a couple comments on the previous post here at Aiera concerning his progress on Beautiful Britannia. Easily the biggest news he brings this time around is that he is working on a way to swap higher-resolution textures in for many of the (admittedly quite disappointingly) low-resolution textures used in Ultima 9.
The Ultima 9 engine supports a maximum texture resolution of 256×256; that’s maybe a bit low by modern standards, but I quite agree with Firstknight that it’s exceptional for a game released in 1999. (Let’s not let what issues we each might have with Ascension get in the way of recognizing the technical wonders that Origin did manage to achieve with the game.) Many of the textures in the game are already at this limit, and Firstknight won’t be wasting his time re-working them. Instead, he’s going to focus on two main points:
- Trying to increase the resolution of existing 128×128 textures (e.g. some walls within the game) to 256×256
- Exchanging “disturbing[ly] low-res” textures with new, self created 256 x 256 ones (e.g. flowers and grass, tree leaves)
He plans to release the updated textures as a patch for Ultima 9, and also mentions that he will be re-implementing Beautiful Britannia on the original game map, in order to eliminate many instabilities and bugs and enhance the usability of his mods. He expects to release a demo of the texture pack in “late 2011”, with the demo of Beautiful Britannia coming in “late 2013.”
Awesome!
I’d love an improved Ultima IX graphically speaking.
I love the game as it is, so I’m not overly interest in the Forgotten Worlds project which want to redo map plot and such, but things that could just allow the play the original game as it is with improvment would make my day.
(Now let’s someone implement scehdule!)
I feel much the same. Yeah, they could make some additional changes, if possible (scheduling being the foremost example), but I’d really be happy with just a reskin. The game is quite fine just as it is, and it really could do with just a bit of a graphic boost…turn some of those 64×64 plant textures into something a bit less pixelated.
Heh one of the change I’d love is a perfect rebalancing of combat to the way it was originally conceived: basically that each type of ennemy would be dependant to a specific kind of weapon and/or attack – which would basically force the player to change weapons on the fly depending on the type of ennemy he’s facing.
This DOES already exists in the game really – but it’s clearly not as effective as it could be and could have used more balancing. Which would be great.
That would be fun, I agree.
Because right now, it’s basically lightning sword FTW.
Heh I actually tend to go with the Blackrock Sword once it’s done – it works against most stuff.
And Mimic are esception : they are a pain with anything but an axe. 😛
Reminds me I ought to try the monster/economy patch for my next play through of U9. I wouldn’t mind stronger monsters – the easyness of killing them was my main issue of gameplay.
Me Likey:)
@WtfDragon
“…The game is quite fine just as it is, and it really could do with just a bit of a graphic boost…turn some of those 64×64 plant textures into something a bit less pixelated…”
Very good to see, that I hit the point with this!
I promise, that I will do my best to provide a significant improvement.
BTW is there really NO way to remove fogging with Windows 7?
This really is the thing that irks me in Ultima IX. I know the fog was meant ot hid clipping and such, but god I prefere clipping with no fog that all this fog which IMO kind of ruins the graphics.
Sounds good, I remember breaking open a collector’s edition with excitement on Christmas but never getting the game to run far without having it crash on me. I think I gave up without getting far from the start point (a house?). A nice retexturing would give me more reason to give it another shot.
Don’t forget to patch it when you do!
Hey you know what I’d love actually for Ultima IX?
A 1.20 unofficial patch that would fix the remaining music issues.
I’m still waiting to hear Postive Minoc and Valoria music in game. Meh.
That and the numerous combat themes that are not heard either.
Well actually, the main idea behind FW for at least the past several years has been to expand and clean up the gameworld and plot of Ultima IX. Things such as removing glaring and unnecessary inconsistencies, expand the each virtue’s quest, and expand on (and partially alter) how the columns actually changed caused such drastic changes to the minds of the populace. Pure magically mind-control by a giant column of blackrock is a little too much to shallow.
The intention therefore is not to rewrite Ultima IX, but attempt to finish (at least in part) what the developers started. This of course assumes that the project can get back on its feet. (ie need individuals with some programming knowledge)
I think a lot of people still think of BB and FW as being one and the same (obviously not the case). Heck, even I sometimes get a bit confused as to where the boundary between the projects actually is, what each one covers and doesn’t.
I’ll try remember, come Monday, to put up a notice that you need programmers. We’ll see what that leads to.
Well the projects have are two fairly different projects. They will actually be incompatible with each other. The FW map is intended to have significant changes to it, perhaps even rebuilt at some later stage.
Never figured they’d be compatible myself, though I can see why others might mistakenly assume they would be.
Duly noted!
Yes, I agree with Iceblade, that BB and FW have different goals.
To come to the point:
FW wants to the make UIX “a better Ultima” in general,
while with BB i’ve simply try to create “a better looking Ultima IX” (and further want to incorporate the unused maps in later releases).
@Iceblade
Yes, I had to set the focus on BB to get it done someday, but I still wish you the Best for FW, Iceblade and Hawkwind, and want to thank you both right here for the good time we had.
Firstknight