High Resolution Animation Coding Added to UO

JP “GrimmOmen” Harrod posted some interesting things on his Twitter account yesterday. For those who don’t know, he’s a UO artist and the Lead CG Supervisor.

He mentioned adding in the coding to handle high resolution animation processing for creatures/mobiles:

Back end coding for high res animation processing for creatures is in effect! BooYA!

In response to a follow-up question from Ultima Auctions about whether it was a preview of things to come:

Nope – just one of those things I’ve been wanting to get put in – just in case we decide to add it.

Finally he ended it with this statement:

FYI, high res animations is not on the plate at the moment, just getting this done in case we decide to offer it in the future.

He’s talked about the high resolution artwork update for the Enhanced Client in the past, and even specifically mentioned animation around 3 weeks ago:

Right now we don’t have any plans for doing an animation update for high res… BUT… I am working on our pipeline to support that should we decide to go that way. But as huge a undertaking as environment art is, animations are several steps above that in complexity, so I wouldn’t expect anything in that direction for quite a while.

Jeff Skalski, Ultima Franchise Producer, mentioned last month they had increased the art budget.

I have my theories about where all of this is headed, and I hope I’m right, as it will go a long way towards bringing in new and returning players.