what happened to the original bg1 gui skin, menu background artwork, and loading artwork in bg:ee?

kisshu

bg1 and bg2 should have there original skin artwork in their enhanced edition counterparts; haven't found any explanation on the incorrect rework of bg:ee gui skin. Any way i'm still a little confused as to what changes were made to bg:ee gui skin - is it close to the original?

TJ_Hooker

Assuming I'm understanding your question correctly, they re-did the UI in order to make it suitable for high-res/widescreen displays.

Although, to be honest, the new UI doesn't seem all that high-res to me.

kisshu

also where is the original background artwork: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/2207/the-new-ui-for-bg-ee for menu options?

Tresset

I remember hearing something about the 'source art' being lost. I never really understood what that meant though... (What is this 'source' and why does the art come from it?)

elminster

Tresset said:

I remember hearing something about the 'source art' being lost. I never really understood what that meant though... (What is this 'source' and why does the art come from it?)

Well if I had to totally guess (and this is not something I'm not in any way, shape, or form probably qualified to answer) I'd have to guess that if the games background art was painted and then made into digital images then if you don't have the original paintings (or drawings) you can't go back and make quality high resolution images of the original (without redoing them all at least). Likewise if they only kept lower resolution versions of a lot of these image files (the paper dolls, the sprites, backgrounds etc) there is only so much you can do to improve their look on a modern screen.

meagloth

elminster said:

Tresset said:

I remember hearing something about the 'source art' being lost. I never really understood what that meant though... (What is this 'source' and why does the art come from it?)

Well if I had to totally guess (and this is not something I'm not in any way, shape, or form probably qualified to answer) I'd have to guess that if the games background art was painted and then made into digital images then if you don't have the original paintings (or drawings) you can't go back and make quality high resolution images of the original (without redoing them all at least). Likewise if they only kept lower resolution versions of a lot of these image files (the paper dolls, the sprites, backgrounds etc) there is only so much you can do to improve their look on a modern screen.

I assumed this, though I was not around in the early days of bg:ee, when this was a big deal, so I don't know much about it.

TJ_Hooker

elminster said:

Tresset said:

I remember hearing something about the 'source art' being lost. I never really understood what that meant though... (What is this 'source' and why does the art come from it?)

Well if I had to totally guess (and this is not something I'm not in any way, shape, or form probably qualified to answer) I'd have to guess that if the games background art was painted and then made into digital images then if you don't have the original paintings (or drawings) you can't go back and make quality high resolution images of the original (without redoing them all at least). Likewise if they only kept lower resolution versions of a lot of these image files (the paper dolls, the sprites, backgrounds etc) there is only so much you can do to improve their look on a modern screen.

I believe that maps actually start out as 3D environments, which are then converted to 2D images and then finally touched up to give it that painted look. You can see an example of this in one of the BG2:EE trailers where they do a sort of 3D 'flythrough' of one of the new areas. So I think this 3D version of the map is the source art that was lost.

Edit: I think this is basically the same process as the one being using in Pillars of Eternity and the new Torment game.

elminster

I assumed that was just promotional stuff just to make the game look cooler.

TJ_Hooker

elminster said:

I assumed that was just promotional stuff just to make the game look cooler.

Yeah, could be. I thought I had read something about the video being made using the source art for that area, but now I'm not so sure.

As far as the rest of what I said, I spent a moment trying to remember where I had read that, and I think it was this passage from the Project Eternity Kickstarter (Update #20):

Project Eternity's team of crazed environment artists have been working hard on developing our first environment for the game. Early on in the Kickstarter campaign, we told you that we wanted to make maps the Infinity Engine way. That is, we wanted to build 3D levels, render them out as 2D images, and then have our artists paint in beautiful details, highlights, and color-tweaks before they went into the game. Looking back at the levels some of us worked on for Icewind Dale, we were still thrilled with the quality that we could achieve with this approach. For Project Eternity, we're using 10 years of improvements in rendering technology and hardware to get the job done, but we still love what we can do the "old-fashioned" way. We hope you share our enthusiasm.

elminster

Yea I found a few other posts that seem to support that.

elminster

Either way I'm just going to tag @TrentOster to maybe get an explanation on this (though he hasn't been on the forum apparently in quite some time).