2010-11-12 Screens and Beautiful Yew
Hello again ye ole friends and yonder new followers,
As you may have noticed, the site has received some more updates. I’ve switched our image viewer to Admiror Gallery 2.0 for its additional functionality and customizable appearance settings.
Speaking of improved graphics, I would like to present this week’s Awesome Screen “Trees of Yew”, which can be seen on the Releases and Media page. If you’ll compare that screenshot with those in the screenshot archive you will notice a rather marked improvement in the graphical quality. I would like you to take special note of the amazing improvement in the leaves of the trees. I have to admit that I was totally astounded by the look of Yew in this screenshot. And we aren’t even using custom made resources; if we were to recruit a dedicated texture artist, the improvement to the overall visuals would no doubt blow you away. (Awesome Screen #2)
Oh, if you haven’t yet, check out Awesome Screen #1, I think you will notice something rather interesting in the court of Yew.
In addition to screenshots, I would like to announce the official return of Project Beautiful Britannia under the Forgotten World roof. I will let FirstKnight comment further:
A warm welcome to everyone, who is interested in our projects. I am very happy to say that I found a new way back to my old home here on this site. My humble self and Iceblade have joined forces again to explore the possibilities of enhancing Ultima IX, while keeping our own projects in mind.
Within the next year we both will focus on common things (decoding stuff, game fixes) to provide a solid base for our greater enhancements. So, even if there will not be so much “visible” progress within a certain amount of time, please be patient, the speed will increase drastically, when we will have both the knowledge and the tools available.
I further recommend, that you check out the project sections for the BEAUTIFUL BRITANNIA series and FORGOTTEN WORLD regularly, simply because new developments can easily influence the overall project goals. For now, the first major goal for me is not only to help both projects to improve, but also to finish the first release of BEAUTIFUL BRITANNIA within the next 5 years.
Not to forget, I cannot thank WTFDragon enough for supporting our projects for all those years. For his Aiera site, I will leave the project sections separated (because they have quite different goals), but I will provide any common content under the FORGOTTEN WORLD section (texture packages for example), only full demos and releases of BEAUTIFUL BRITANNIA and its sequels will be provided under their own section then. I hope, that this solution is not too confusing, but regarding to the replies on Aiera there is a different fanbase for both projects, and this choice will provide simply the right downloads for the right people then.
Finally, I will promise to everyone reading this, that I will FINISH the whole BEAUTIFUL BRITANNIA series (consisting of 3 Parts) as well as supporting Iceblade as much as possible to reach his goals with FORGOTTEN WORLD. All I want to request from the readers here is to be VERY, VERY PATIENT, the results will be worth the wait.
A new set of screenshots for Beautiful Britannia is also available on its own screenshot page. In those screenshots, you can view more of the wonderful retextured scenery. (See Screenshots 40 thru 51 in the BB Archive)
In addition, I found some screenshots from our old website, which I’ve posted for your perusal. Most of these were placed into our Archived (Now Legacy) Screenshots page, but there were a few interesting editor screenshots that I posted on the Releases and Media page. (See the Editor Screenshots page) I also posted in the Editor Gallery a screenshot view of the nonfixed objects on the lowest level of Hythloth. (13th Editor Screenshot)
Just to add, in addition to a C++ programmer, we also have a need for a Delphi/FreePascal coder. Well that is all for now. Be sure to return in one week for more Awesome.
– Iceblade and FirstKnight
