My new project: "Ultima Nostalgia" server based on UO map

[bdew 2,462]

5 hours ago, Malena said:

you meant using sea level as reference? So basically, how DeedPlanner works when we set height there, right?

 

Yep. 

 

And the dock looks nice

[Malena 2,854]

Hello friends! 

 

So I haven't posted here for a couple of days because I've actually been modifying some of the textures to better match UO. Some of them turned out nicely, others will still need tweaking later on (I will need to tone most of them down as now they're too rich and saturated). But sharing at this point anyhow!

 

Customs office + Docks

But before we look at those, let's check out how the Customs office + docks in SW Britain turned out:

 

So here's before building the roof, so you can get a nice overview of the insides:

Here you can see a sample of some of the changed textures too, the sign, the tables made to be more golden, the high chair made lighter to match the table, the red (small) carpet made to be more similar with the UO carpet. Also check out the necromancer's spellbook on the floor! 

 

 

 

When it became night time, I was left in darkness as the original UO customs had no light source inside - so added a few candelbras. Here's after putting the roof on:

 

 

A view from outside, where you can see how the colors of the large barrels and planked pavement has been deepened to a dark rich brown to match UO. I think I went a little overboard though and will probably have to take it a notch back at some point. By the way, when I spawned ships into the port, they stayed there just fine but had vanished when I logged on today. Anyone know why that is? And yes, I did make a mooring anchor and moored them. Can we not spawn boats? And would the same thing happen if we built ships from scratch, but in god mode, so spawning the raw materials and building it with 100 skill?  

 

 

For the sign, well there are not enough shop sign types in Wurm to make every single UO sign, so I had to opt for 1 nautical sign to go for. So although the customs building has a sextant sign, I'm using the harbour sign for anything nautical related. One thing I really love about Wurm is the fact that we can see in and out of buildings through the windows. So much nicer than the textured claustrophic "fake" windows seen in most MMOs!!! I remember one time when I had just started Wurm and was busy cooking something inside my humble little house. Then I turned to look and a guy is staring at me through the window. Oh my god haha, I nearly had a heart attack.  I think all wurmians have experienced this!!

 

 

And one final picture, as those water reflections are so pretty. In the UO docks, they have those wooden pillars which I guess are used to tie the boats to IRL? In any case, tried using "tree stumps" as a replacement. But upon creating tree stumps with the god tools, they spawn as very tiny ones, (perhaps from the earliest age of a tree) so the only one that really seemed to fit the purpose was the olive tree stump, but it's texture doesn't really work for this purpose. The color and shape of some of the other tree stumps would be much better. I wonder if there is a way to set the data for the tree stump to make it "old" so it'd be bigger...

 

 

Now for some texture modifications...

Loom & Spinning Wheel

Our loom obviously has a different shape from UO's vertical kind, but the least I could do was try to match the colors for both the loom and spinning wheel. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magincia Style Throne

If you have UO, you have to have cushy and comfy Magincian throne! Took the pillow decoration from the Fine High chair, removed the dots, toned down the red color and slapped 'em onto the royal throne texture. Below you can see it in action in the unfinished throne room of Castle Britannia.

 

 

 

Thatch Roof + Armory Sign

It's great that we just happen to have thatch roofs in Wurm, however to match UO, I needed to warm up the color a bit. This is a view of the "Strength and Steel" armory shop in NW Britain. 

 

 

 

Wood Shingle Roof

To match UO, this also needed some warming up. Like the UO roof has - I also desaturated every second shingle to give that variation in color. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by Malena

[Malena 2,854]

As seen in the post above, I also decided to do some work on the shop sign. I went for a style that fuses together the colors and items you see in the UO signs, with the wooden texture and pillow bevelled style of the wurm shop signs. Again, I think I'm going to have to down down the richness of the color and contrast at some point, as I think I went a little overboard there. And like I mentioned above, we have less signs than UO, so I had to pick and choose which ones I'd take from UO. I got almost all of the normal signs, but had to leave the guild signs out. I did leave one though (top right) which I'll use for all guild houses then. 

 

 

And here they are in action: (please note that these are still missing decos, npcs etc))

 

The Hammer And Anvil

Here you can also see how I replaced the stone slab pavement with the classic tiled equivalent in UO. 

 

Lord British's Conservatory of Music

 

Sweet Dreams inn and Healer of Britain off to the left

By the way, does anyone know if there is a way to make a wide staircase coming down out of a building into the street without having to build walls around it? So like below, but just omitting the walls on the sides and to the front of the staircase. 

 

The Lords Arms within the grounds of Castle Brtiannia

 

Stables within the grounds of Castle Britannia

 

Oh and I don't think I've properly shown the map change I did either. Replaced the reduntant freedom map with the UO map. Will have to add some "mappy" details like longitude and latitude lines etc later. But for now, this will do!

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by Malena

[Nordlys 1,424]

Wow, youre not sleeping, Malena? I really enjoy following this topic!

[Malena 2,854]

1 hour ago, Nordlys said:

Wow, youre not sleeping, Malena? I really enjoy following this topic!

 

*grins* Well yesterday after work I started my 3½-week summer vacation, and admittedly last night I stayed up allllllll night. Went to bed at 7 AM haha. Bad bad Malena, bad! Having so much fun though! 

Edited April 29, 2017 by Malena

[Spolmit 620]

You are such a talented lady.

 

I love watching your videos because of the way you present the topics. You are certainly attempting something here that most people could only dream of. I am sure you will create something that will become a landmark server. I cannot wait to visit whether it be via your films or the server itself.

 

All the very best to you- and get some sleep as well

 

[Ayes 3,715]

Absolutely fantastic work Malena on your re-shadings, tweaks to furniture, shop sign designs and all the rest! Both WO and UO have never looked so good. The main thing that made me never want to return to UO was the tinyness of it all after playing WoW and then later Wurm. Too bad UO was not up to these size dimensions but things progress and the past seems to fade in comparison.

 

Very nice to see in this thread your continued progress. One comment I would make is that you are kind of hidden away here in this topic section. Perhaps there is a better section for it that you might request of the forum Moderators it be moved to?

 

=Ayes=

Edited April 30, 2017 by Ayes
word shuffling

[Malena 2,854]

16 hours ago, Spolmit said:

All the very best to you- and get some sleep as well

 

Thank you very much for the kind words Spolmit! It will be a lot of work for sure, but enjoyable work :). 

 

1 hour ago, Ayes said:

Absolutely fantastic work Malena on your re-shadings, tweaks to furniture, shop sign designs and all the rest! Both WO and UO have never looked so good. The main thing that made me never want to return to UO was the tinyness of it all after playing WoW and then later Wurm. Too bad UO was not up to these size dimensions but things progress and the past seems to fade in comparison.

 

Very nice to see in this thread your continued progress. One comment I would make is that you are kind of hidden away here in this topic section. Perhaps there is a better section for it that you might request of the forum Moderators it be moved to?

 

Thank you Ayes  Yes, the shrinking of UO as our resolutions got higher was also one of my main problems. I always dreamt of a classic 2d UO but doubled in size, so I did some experiments with how that would look like by doubling the size, then polishing the pixels:  (click open to see it in it's full glory):

It would have been a ton of work of course, but then again - they put a ton of time into one failed 3d client after the next as well. 

 

As for the location of this thread, well - I don't mind if it is a bit hidden as I think it's gained more than it's fair share of attention as is. I don't want this thread to become a pain in the butt for anyone :).

 

 

 

[Azulmein 1]

I litterally cried when I saw this. It is so exciting. 

[Malena 2,854]

Some more texture modifications to match up with UO:

 

Slate Shingle Roof

Needed a more blue tint, also lightened up the darkest shingles.

 

 

 

Artist's Easel

Wurm has no concept of artistry, no easels, no paintbrushes etc. My guess for why that is is probably because the wurm team want to make everything that looks functional actually be functional as well - something I think is amazingly cool about the game. So, if there was an easel and paints, the would want it to do something cool. And whatever that cool is, would probably be too complex and too much work.

In any case, I tried to think of what could be made into a substitute and decided to reskin one of the tapestries. :-D

 

 

 

Throne room of Castle Britannia

So far, this has been the most problematic place to "ultimify". I was going to have to do some reskinning to give it that regal royal look that it has in the game:

 

Tapestry becomes curtain:

 

Large carpet become a "piece" of a long carpet:

 

And the only way thought of getting the Silver Serpent emblem up on the back wall:

 

 

Before: 

 

After:

 

 

[Steveleeb 1,067]

Your Trinsic is going to be so much better than mine.   
custom textures, lovely. 

[Malena 2,854]

5 minutes ago, Steveleeb said:

Your Trinsic is going to be so much better than mine.   
custom textures, lovely. 

 

Ooooh! I didn't know you had some Ultima love going on as well! <3 Where can I see it!?

[Malena 2,854]

Part II up on YouTube: 

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2017 by Malena

[Steveleeb 1,067]

On 5/1/2017 at 11:57 PM, Malena said:

 

Ooooh! I didn't know you had some Ultima love going on as well! <3 Where can I see it!?

< the info is beneath my avatar 

I designed my deed without Trinsic in mind, then when .. Indigus was finished (except for the citizen housing), I named it Trinsic. 
I decided on Trinsic by looking at a bunch of Ultima maps and screenshots, my deed looked more like Trinsic than any of the others although there's no river going through it, so i decided on Trinsic because Honour is a pretty massive virtue for me.
Moonglow was my fave tho.
If i didn't call my settlement Trinsic i'd call it Knightshade, which is a name i created for a publishing firm i dreamt up when i was 17. (never happened)
But i wished to honour Ultima. I didn't play UO but i've been messing about with the games since the mid eighties. Loved the virtue system. it taught me alot. 
I'll pm you a screenshot of trinsic
 

[Malena 2,854]

2 minutes ago, Steveleeb said:

< the info is beneath my avatar 

I designed my deed without Trinsic in mind, then when .. Indigus was finished (except for the citizen housing), I named it Trinsic. 
I decided on Trinsic by looking at a bunch of Ultima maps and screenshots, my deed looked more like Trinsic than any of the others although there's no river going through it, so i decided on Trinsic because Honour is a pretty massive virtue for me.
Moonglow was my fave tho.
If i didn't call my settlement Trinsic i'd call it Knightshade, which is a name i created for a publishing firm i dreamt up when i was 17. (never happened)
But i wished to honour Ultima. I didn't play UO but i've been messing about with the games since the mid eighties. Loved the virtue system. it taught me alot. 
I'll pm you a screenshot of trinsic
 

 

Ohhhh! I hadn't realized to look at your location hehe. This sounds like something I absolutely MUST visit in Wurm! What a great excuse to go for a very long sailing adventure! And yes please do! I'm sure many in this thread would also be interested to see!

[Miretta 1,415]

i don't think it's possible to build stairs outside a houseplan, unless there is a mod for it, but otherwise you could make a compromise and use a tiny bridge that goes up (not sure if they can be that short, but you could try)

[Malena 2,854]

6 hours ago, Miretta said:

i don't think it's possible to build stairs outside a houseplan, unless there is a mod for it, but otherwise you could make a compromise and use a tiny bridge that goes up (not sure if they can be that short, but you could try)

 

Yeah, I might have to experiment with that. It would probably take 2 tiles though at the very least. 

[Araninke 490]

13 hours ago, Miretta said:

i don't think it's possible to build stairs outside a houseplan, unless there is a mod for it, but otherwise you could make a compromise and use a tiny bridge that goes up (not sure if they can be that short, but you could try)

 

Amazing work so far, Malena!

 

That's what I was going to suggest too, only way to have "stairs" outside a building is with a bridge ramp.

[Malena 2,854]

Yesterday I started working on East Britain and chopped down a bunch o' trees. Experienced wild beehives for the first time and nearly got stung to death!!! 

 

I had a keybind set up for chopping down trees, so in god mode I could chop 'em down pretty quick as they fall with one click. Took about 15 minutes to chop this entire area down. 

 

The dark dirt areas were to help me measure so I get it aligned with the grid I'm using in Photoshop. Planked areas are the house spots you see in white in the map. 

 

 

Today I started terraforming the height of the ground to match UO and noticed that Nadine the Fisherman (an NPC I had spawned onto the docks) had been responding to me :-). I especially love "Don't do it!"

 

[Karbonyl 5]

How funny of Nadine to get involved   Wonderful to have some company on such a tedious and large undertaking.  You are working at such a blazing pace, nice job!  Also, tell your son thanks a bunch for the remastered music, I am really enjoying it.

[Malena 2,854]

8 hours ago, Karbonyl said:

How funny of Nadine to get involved   Wonderful to have some company on such a tedious and large undertaking.  You are working at such a blazing pace, nice job!  Also, tell your son thanks a bunch for the remastered music, I am really enjoying it.

 

My thoughts exactly! Even though she's just an NPC, it is kind of sweet to see her name in local and to have her responding to my typos :). Originally what I was trying to do was replicate one of the NPCs on the docks of Britain. I got as far as renaming her the same way, but instead of staying put on the docks, she wandered off into the forest. :-(

[Wulfrock 290]

Hi Malena, if you want NPCs to stand still, the only way we know is to use a guide, but the downfall is they are all male and cannot be clothed differently, but you can name them.

 

Valiance and Kaylie

[bdew 2,462]

The new AI stuff published by budda here could probably be used to mod in better NPCs.

 

I'm personally to loaded with other projects at the moment, but maybe someone else would want to take a stab at that...

 

 

 

[Malena 2,854]

Me and my ambitious goals. Good grief. Had a close call just now. Thank goodness I'd saved a backup of the server. 

 

It all started out quite innocently. You see, I've been working on the hedge maze for a couple of days now, and had already finished building all the hedges exactly according to how they are laid out in UO. That was quite a feat in itself! *huffs and puffs*

 

Then I decided to design the middle part with the houses and was thinking how to make Relvinian's secret sacrificial laboratory hidden deep beneath the houses. Like so: 

 

 

I started off by raising the rock tiles to create a couple of rock mounds upon which the houses would stand. Then built a house on top of that and created a mine downwards on the side of the mountain, 1 tile away from the house.

 

So far, so good. That was until I happened to fly over top of the tunnel and got sucked down into tunnel teleportation madness! 

 

The game didn't appreciate my complicated plan at all and ended up with poor Malena stuck, and eternally teleporting. Same problem as this guy was had. 

 

 

He mentioned that changing the spawn coords in Local server settings helped. Didn't do anything for me though! So I tried a bunch of other desperate measures:

 

- Suiciding (nuttin' happened)

- Climbing

- Going out of flying mode

- Relogging

- Couldn't teleport to a different location as it was too "busy" doing the crap above

- Decided to mess about with the wurmplayers.db file and changed the X and Y coords of my Malena character just a smidgen.

But then realized...

Ahhh I have backup of the server, thanks to your wise words of advice in this thread. So I copied the old wurmplayers.db over top the current one and that did the trick. I was expecting to wake up in Britain where I'm pretty sure I was last time I saved the backup, but instead woke up a few "meters" away from the tunnel I had been stuck in. Hmm interesting. 

 

So in the end, not quite sure why I got stuck or what exactly helped, but main thing is I got back into the game. My first instinct was to seal up those bloody tunnel openings with shaker orbs:

 

 

And I was like: "Game, I promise not to do wacky stuff anymore. I PROMISE! Please don't break on me anymore, I'll be good".

 

But I wasn't, of course. I'd already spent hours upon hours terraforming to make this whole tunneling plan possible. So logged out, made a new copy of the entire server and decided to give it another shot. 

 

Perhaps the game wasn't so angry about me making a tunnel so close under the house... but instead angry because I flew in god mode OVER a tunnel opening? So maybe if I just try to avoid flying over, and only am in walk mode when near the tunnels?

 

So this is the current situation: a lovely mysterious entrance to below the house, just like I wanted: 

 

 

And once you venture below, you'll find something like this. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ayes 3,715]

6 minutes ago, Malena said:

It all started out quite innocently.

 

7 minutes ago, Malena said:

And I was like: "Game, I promise not to do wacky stuff anymore. I PROMISE! Please don't break on me anymore, I'll be good".

 

But I wasn't, of course.

I enjoyed your "innocent" narrative here. You're a mischievous one Malena and no doubt you will get yourself into more predicaments in the future. All in a days work I guess. Good to see you are taking the wise procedure of backing up your work on occasion. Safe travels.

 

=Ayes=