Anyone Want to Draw Some Ultima-themed UI Elements?
Sergorn Dragon and the rest of Team Return are looking for a talented artist to step forward and whip up some custom, Ultima-inspired UI elements for Return to the Serpent Isle, their Neverwinter Nights 2-based continuation to the Ultima story.
To illustrate the request, he sent along a couple of mockup screenies:
[singlepic id=868 w=550 h=311 float=center]
Searching a body
[singlepic id=869 w=550 h=311 float=center]
Searching a chest
So: anyone up for the challenge?
What exactly is needed? Dead body and wooden chest containers? Status bars, map borders, etc.? Also the pixel dimensions, image formats, artistic style requirements and animation states would be good to know.
I recommend going to odd stores and photographing actual objects, then editing them so they’re more suitable for the game. If they looked too much like photos they could be edited to look more “painted” or “cartooney”.
I could help but would definitely need to have more info on what specifically was needed. Existing image templates would be good too.
For now, at least, we need container graphics. Bodies, chests, barrels (I’d assume), and suchlike.
I’ll point Sergorn to this comment and have him address your question further.
Well, what we want basically is to overhaul the NWN2 UI as much as possible. The UI of NWN2 works as it is of course, so the plan is not the change how the UI works, but how it looks in order to give it a more Ultima-ish aspect.
These mockups are but in example of what we have in mind with container as an exemple: basically when opening a dead body to loot it, you’d still have a the list of loot as it appears in NWN2… except within a Gump much like U7/U8/UO. Ditto for opening chests, barels and so on…
NWN2 is actually quite open to UI modification so you can change the look but also the size of it if needed so technically any really hi res pixel dimension would do as long as it can be scaled down.
In truth we’d like to push it as much as possible: I mean ideally we could revamp the look of the inventory screen the same way, we’d like a new look for the character sheet, the skills screens, the dialogue window, the toolbar, the main menu screen, the buttons and all the other UI elements and so on to give the module a unique feel – basically help it looks less than a module and even more like an unique game. Not to mention we’d also need unique icons and art for inventory items and so on.
We’ve not really discussed to what extent we would like the style of the UI to change – since it feels moot without having someone to work on it – though personally I’d aim for a more ancient wood/scroll papier look if you see what I mean.
In truth we’d probably need a full time “Interface Artist/Designer” to do all that and I’ve been looking for one ever since we began Return. Jolyn is a mightily talented artist, but this kind of UI work is not her area of expertise
So it’s all wishful thinking for now and we’ve basically had to makedo as we could (for instance Jaakko took the STorm of Zehir dialogue window, and made it bigger with a bi portrait area, we’ve a rather crappy looking book graphics to serve as the spellbook and so on…). But if we could get someone who CAN do all this, this would be awesome for the project.
Simple gumps likre this would be a good start though.
Ah, wish I could help, but I don’t think I quite have the skill level.
Are you looking for the game UI to be as close to SI as possible, or are you just looking for things to be stylistically similar?
No exactly like SI, because the graphical style of NWN2 is somewhat different and it has to work with it – but definitly more Ultima-ish
Somewhat off-topic, but a bit on-topic, I think Ultima VIII has, despite all criticism it bears, the best inventory system of the series…. and, as far as my memory goes, maybe it is the best among all games I’ve played so far.
Regarding paperdoll system, Serpent Isle for the win.
Well, Ultima VIII’s inventory system was basically an improved Ultima VII system in any case. There wasn’t much change on the whol except you had a shadow of where the item would drop when drag’n dropping and you could now close GUMPs with the left buttons.
But it was very much the same on the whole (And UO basically kept U8’s UI as well) – when I first played U8 I actually was pleasently surprised by how much the UI felt like Ultima VII. This is actually true of U9 too to a large degree – I’ve always felt the UI of Ultima IX felt a lot like Ultima VII/VIII applied to 3D.
I’m not sure an UI like this would work anymore though, the drag and drop aspect of the UI would probably feel like a chore ot many players – UI has evolved more into a direct click kind of approach
On a side I must say I do think Ultima IX’s is better than a freaking LOT of 3D RPGs being done today.
I’d go as far as saying that the Ultimn franchise actually pioneered the paperdoll interface that is so common today. It’s interesting to see the evolution of the interface through the Ultima series, UO actually uses a lot of cleaned-up art assets from Ultima VIII. (And U9 uses a lot of further-cleaned-up art assets from UO!)