UOX3.org

Has anyone ever worked on building an Ultima VII map in UO?

I just started working on this and the goal is to open a free server with a Ultima VII version of Britannia and a Serpent Isle, no t2a, no tokuno islands, no ilthizlalalalar, no this or that just those two.

The project site is at http://razimus.com/u7

I've just started and am just working on editing Britain, I'm using "WorldForge 6.4 R2", but I'll need to learn other programs as well, if anyone wants to help out or give advice on tools to work with let me know thanks.

I've actually looked into this a time or two, because of my own interest in that era. A few notes for you.

1) Don't do it by hand. That's going to be a shit way of doing it.
2) Look at projects like Exult ( http://exult.sourceforge.net/ ). It's a U7 client for windows, amongst other things
3) Your best bet would be to build a tile translation program, and then read the U7 map files, and plonk them down into a UO MUL file. From my math, you can fit both U7 and U7 part 2 maps into a single UO main map. May not be perfect, they do use different sorts of tiles, but this really is your best option.

Obviously, this requires research, and a certain amount of programming. It's not necessarily an off the cuff solution. But you could probably hack something together reasonably quickly, I suspect. And it would be much faster than doing it by hand.

Maarc wrote:I've actually looked into this a time or two, because of my own interest in that era. A few notes for you.

1) Don't do it by hand. That's going to be a shit way of doing it.
2) Look at projects like Exult ( http://exult.sourceforge.net/ ). It's a U7 client for windows, amongst other things
3) Your best bet would be to build a tile translation program, and then read the U7 map files, and plonk them down into a UO MUL file. From my math, you can fit both U7 and U7 part 2 maps into a single UO main map. May not be perfect, they do use different sorts of tiles, but this really is your best option.

Obviously, this requires research, and a certain amount of programming. It's not necessarily an off the cuff solution. But you could probably hack something together reasonably quickly, I suspect. And it would be much faster than doing it by hand.

Don't do it by hand? well this project is in the beginning stages and no method of creating a map has been set in stone but I'm a 2d artist and have no coding experience so I would prefer to do it by hand, many custom maps have been made with a wide range of programs for doing this, considering no tile conversion programs have been made I have little option on this unless someone with experience in this area joined the team. I'm still working on sizes and UO's Britannia seems a bit too large for the 15 u7 tiles to 10 uo tiles conversion, I may make a new map from scratch easily half the size of UO's Britannia, I admit I hadn't even considered your option of creating a program to auto convert but I think in the time it would take me to convince someone to build such a program I could have already custom build the 2 maps needed, I think the map problem in the long run will be the easier problem compared to the scripting features I'd like to see, ones that make the world more like Ultima VII such as NPCs with living schedules, NPC companions, etc.

Note this project was only an idea just a few days ago March 2nd 2007, and it's in the beginning stages, so any help is needed, thanks.

I can't promise anything, I don't think I'd really be able to help, especially considering I don't do enough around here as it is

The fact you don't have any coding experience, though, probably rules out a lot of your possible options. By hand might take you a long time, though it gives you artistic license, obviously. A computer program has no real creativity, and I think I remember (not sure) thinking that not all tiles had matches.

Bit of research:

http://members.aol.com/UltimaFile/files/u7_cheat.txt

Some details on the map and statics structure.

I'd look in the Exult CVS, but I can't seem to reach it at the moment.

Yeah a lot of tiles wouldn't have matches, u7 actually tile-wise seems to be more detailed than UO even the gutters look better, not the textured mountains or cliffs but the tiles themselves, u7's Britain has 15 tile wide streets, the avatar though seems to walk on 2 tiles in the same way a player in UO can walk on 1 tile, but half of 15 tiles is far too small, 15 tile wide streets in UO would be way too wide, the average tiny house in Britain u7 is 15x15 tiles, in UO 15x15 for a tiny house is way too big, so the best conversion size I could find was 10x10 and 10 for the roads in UO, seems to work out okay but the size of the continent is still too large in UO based on the 15 tiles equals 10 tiles, so I think making a map from scratch would be easier.

There are possibly already 2 coders on the team, just need the respective talents to brainstorm really before any major work is done and it would be expected to be done at the leisure of their convenience, nothing is to be rushed, and I'm only getting the word out because I know the response time for Ultima vets can take many months. I know it can take years but I think it would all be worth it. If I were Bill Gates or someone I'd pay big bucks to have it made but it's not an option.

I think most free UO shards are built because someone wants to play god or something, possibly make it as close to 1999 UO as possible, or turn it into a harry potter experience, but I think this project is unique in what it's setting out to do, my goal is to have the funnest free server out there that's heavily set in the Ultima universe, to me Ultima VII was the funnest game ever, and it only seems natural to me to use it as a source to turn UO into what it never was.

How detailed to Ultima VII do you want to be?

By "hand-drawing" I think he meant tile-by-tile placement. That would take ages, as UO is basically a 24MP bit-map. Laying down an average of 1 tile every 2 seconds (which is pretty fast) it would take you approximatley 140 days to complete by yourself. That's 140 days of NON-STOP UO map-making hades. You'll get burned out.

If you are a 2d artist, I assume you have access to Photoshop or more powerful program. Check out www.ryandor.com and pick up a version of Dragon. You draw the map in photo-shop and it converts the tiles for you.

Then you go in with a program like worldforge and decorate.

In all honesty I LOVE the size of the UO britannia and the size of the cities. I think UVII, while a great game, is a bit small.

What I would like is for a UVII (or ultima IV/V era) britannia on the size of UO. I don't use any of extra maps (except for one quest) on my shard, so I agree with you. I enjoy the Ultima Lore, and am actually running a persistant Quest of the Avatar quest myself.

It might be easier to just "edit the UO maps" with new dungeons, get rid of some of the crazy suff (like minax's fortress) and you would be good to go.

I'd be interested to see how this project progresses.

If I can dig up my old notes (no promises), I will. But from what I remember, I was able to calculate that you could drop U7 and U7 Part 2 maps beside each other on the main, preML map, with some room down the bottom still. Doesn't sound like a lot, but that was huge 15 years ago

It may be possible to bolt something together, code wise ... if you can find something to read the old U7 stuff, then that'd be the bulk. Building something where you can do translations would be easy, barring someone actually sitting down and coming up with the translations between tiles. And we should have some map writing code sitting around anyway. That's just the map tiles, not statics, but you could probably do something there as well.

Yeah I don't know much about world building, sounds like this photoshop option may be best, I may use UO's Britannia but I'd have to add a lot, extra islands, gargoyle desert area, I really wanted to just make the buildings and caves and stuff similar to U7 (especially quests areas), as far as trees, and wilderness, paths they could vary of course and those wouldn't be 1 tile at a time, as even re-building Britain I could place many tiles at a time. And if I were to use UO's Britannia I'd likely use something the size of Tokuno Islands for Serpent Isle.

Well I advertised the project on 17 forums and so far 4 emails, that's pretty good reaction time so I think in a few months there will be enough on the team to help out and it won't all be 1 person building the map but if I have to I will build it, just a matter of time, as for being on the team, if anyone wants to join all it requires is to sign up to my forums and post, and help out when you have the time nothing rushed, no time tables, just need brainstorming and input right now before any major work is started.

I have found full size resolution maps for The Black Gate & SI, in gif & png format which I can turn into bmp, what program can I use to turn them into map.mul files?

I use Dragon mod9 (apperently the coast-line tiles work....) in Mod11 there were bugs with coastlines (which I experienced as well).

The sad thing is, is you can't just use a U7 png, convert to .bmp, then create you island,

You have to create it a pixel x pixel .bmp with indexed color pallate, and use the specific colors that are given in a Dragon Mod 9 color chart.

It takes some getting used to, but you get used to it (and I am no graphic designer).

So even if you have the UVII template, it's going to take some time to convert that to DragonMod9 indexed colors and tile-transion rules (example, swamp MUST be surrounded by 2 tiles grass, etc).

Maybe you can do it faster since you are more familiar with graphic design than I am. I'd like to see your results as well, sounds interesting!


(Note: This only does the landmass, cities must be added by worldforge)

stranf wrote:I use Dragon mod9 (apperently the coast-line tiles work....) in Mod11 there were bugs with coastlines (which I experienced as well).

The sad thing is, is you can't just use a U7 png, convert to .bmp, then create you island,

You have to create it a pixel x pixel .bmp with indexed color pallate, and use the specific colors that are given in a Dragon Mod 9 color chart.

It takes some getting used to, but you get used to it (and I am no graphic designer).

So even if you have the UVII template, it's going to take some time to convert that to DragonMod9 indexed colors and tile-transion rules (example, swamp MUST be surrounded by 2 tiles grass, etc).

Maybe you can do it faster since you are more familiar with graphic design than I am. I'd like to see your results as well, sounds interesting!


(Note: This only does the landmass, cities must be added by worldforge)

Thnx, yeah I was told about this via email a week ago, I've been working since then by reducing the map to as few colors as possible I'm almost finished with the Serpent Isle map, I don't know about the dragon9 rules though or how many tiles I can choose from.

Hey Razimus,

Ever get that map finished, or did DragonMod get too time consuming?

Well I worked on a bmp and couldn't find a way to convert it to a mul, decided to just focus on serpent isle, and there are a few new helpers trying to kick start the project, still need map expertise, I may have been too restrictive in my thinking at this point I don't really care if it's an exact re-make or simply a serpent isle map and themed mod but I would still prefer a remake as much as possible, just need some map experts and maybe my bmp can only be used as a reference? I don't know... but I couldn't find a program that could take a regular bmp and turn it into a mul file, the programs I used required the bmps to be generated through
the program itself and not manipulated outside of the program, if I'm going to paint a map I'm not going to use a non-paint program to do it, maybe someone can give me a tip on how to make use out of my bmp map?

I was slowly going to reduce the colors of the entire map to 15 - 25 or whatever the limit should be, the map files in full size and rez in png format. Their still drafts, and the problem is turning them into a useable mul file.

http://razimus.com/u7/images/mapp1.png
http://razimus.com/u7/images/mapp2.png
http://razimus.com/u7/images/mapp3.png

I looked at all of the map programs, none worked how I wished they would, I tried uo landscaper and of course it wouldn't work because my bmp isn't encoded with special information from the program itself so of course they don't work, but if there was a way to magically put that stupid encoded info into my bmp it would help... I was trying to reverse engineer
the whole thing and I think like an artist using a paint program not any other way so I'm not good with them, I could easily have made the altitude map from scratch and finished the terrain map if it worked with regular bmps, but it doesn't nor does any program that I am aware of I hear rumors but no evidence of anything otherwise unless someone here can prove those rumors to be fact, that would be nice otherwise I'll need help from someone to build a new map.

actually, few map generation programs require the bmp to be done by their program.

The only thing, is they expect the palatte to have meaning.

So the index of a color represents a tile. As there are only so many tiles, they make a correlation. If you make an eight bit bmp, and ensure the color palatte index corresepond to the right map (nt the color itselt, few programs actually use the value of the color), it should work fine.

Were you able to get a .mul file at all?

I was able to create a .mul with statics fairly easily with Dragonmod. The problem was that my coasts stunk, so I gave up. Did you have the .bmp indexed and use an eyedropper from the pallete swatch? That seems to be the easiest way to make it work.

Did you hand draw that Serpent Isle .bmp? It is really detailed, I wouldn't mind replacing my Tokuno Island map with that, when you get it done.

punt wrote:actually, few map generation programs require the bmp to be done by their program.

The only thing, is they expect the palatte to have meaning.

So the index of a color represents a tile. As there are only so many tiles, they make a correlation. If you make an eight bit bmp, and ensure the color palatte index corresepond to the right map (nt the color itselt, few programs actually use the value of the color), it should work fine.

I did do many test runs with an 8 bit version that corresponded to the correct color palette, "few programs actually use" what programs? the ones I've tried have never worked.