Beautiful Britannia: Cove Expansion Screenshots
Firstknight is one hell of a tease, Dragons and Dragonettes. For into my email inbox this very morning, he dropped a collection of comparison screenshots showing off Cove as it originally appeared in Ultima 9…and how it will look in the upcoming Cove/Minoc expansion of Beautiful Britannia, which he has tentatively slated for release in Q1 of 2013.
Feast your eyes. But before you do, find something soft and put it on the floor or desk surface, vertically aligned with your jaw. Because…damn:
The Village of Cove in Ultima 9
The Village of Cove in Beautiful Britannia
Grass texture from Ultima 9
Grass texture from Beautiful Britannia
The area around Cove in Ultima 9
The area around Cove in Beautiful Britannia
The area around Cove in Ultima 9
The area around Cove in Beautiful Britannia
The area around Cove in Ultima 9
The area around Cove in Beautiful Britannia
There isn’t a single set of image comparisons above that isn’t utterly and entirely impressive, and a testament to what is nothing less than the absolute technical and artistic wizardry that Firstknight and his team are pulling off with Ultima 9. Redressing the world in better textures is one thing; adding entirely new areas to the world is something else entirely.
Great, now I can’t wait for 2013 to arrive. And my 2012 was already packed full of anticipation as it was!
That is just FirstKnight worldbuilding by himself. Imagine with full editing tools and multiple worldbuilders.
Absolutely amazing. This has to be my favorite Ultima mod and I can’t wait to play it.
That last screenshot is ass-poundingly beautiful. What’s really crazy is that, using the Ultima IX engine, it is vastly more visually impressive (and outright artistically prettier) than Morrowind. Throw some fuzzy glow on everything and it would be tantamount to Oblivion sans procedural generation. And no I’m not being sarcastic. If you look at the image and actually have an eye for art you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Anyway, damn fine work. I’m scared to play Ultima IX because of the anger I think it will create, but if there will ever be a reason this will be it.
The U9 engine holds up well for its age, better than even some newer 3D engines do.
Btw, these are only 256×256 resolution textures.
256×256 is good for most objects. One problem in a lot of modern games is that they encourage you to get really close to objects, often to the detriment of the integrity of the scene. Landscape or rock textures tend to get especially crazy. If the view is more controlled like in an over-the-shoulder or top-down perspective you can make much more believable graphics than in an FPS-style game, even at 256×256 or 128×128. The scene as a whole needs to make sense, starting with the seamlessness of the “tiles”. That’s done very well here, as is the object placement and art design.
Now if someone can hack Ultima IX apart and make it multiplayer over LAN it could really bring the pain. Each player would have to assume the role of one of the main characters, maybe? I’d be Iolo or Dupre, though choosing an NPC like Nimrod would be cool.
While the screenshots are quite impressive, I’d love if Firstknight would give us a rough map of which areas that previously had been water they’d filled with land to give Britannia are more familiar shape.
Thanks for the hint, I will provide a Map of the expanded Cove/Minoc area within the next week.
And, of course, even more thanks for all these positive comments here related to these new screens.
This project has always excited me, and the way you’re using some of the ocean areas is nothing short of awesome.
The graphics are nearly on par with vanilla Morrowind (not counting the water but who cares)! Somebody should make Google map version with panoramic scenes when it will be done.
awesome project, can’t wait for it to finish!
awesome work, just need more npcs in Cove