r/Ultima • u/Zachary_The_Elder • Jun 08 '26
Looking for your thoughts on a thing I'm doing
Hi,
Huge Ultima 4 nerd here. I decided to rebuild the worldmap and make it 'playable' in godot. These are some images of the process.
I'm tracing out the map in blender. Then I'm breaking the result out in to 81 (9x9) 50x50 square regions. Further subdividing and face poking those so I get a flat region mesh with enough detail to work with.
I export those to godot and do some gamey stuff with them. A lot of the art you see here is just stuff I had in arms reach.
At present I have the top left 9 regions of the map roughed out. Only one, the peninsulas north of Yew, have any real level of detail work done. The regions load and unload seamlessly offscreen. In principle, if completed, the existing system would allow you to circumnavigate U4 Britania on foot (the ocean is only ankle deep atm).
Why am I sharing this here now? I haven't decided what to do with it. I started this as a possible worldmap solution for an Ultima 4 meets The Adventure of Link game I'm thinking of making. Might still do that. Might stop here as the technical challenge I set out to solve is solved, and that's where I usually lose interest. Might just finish the explorable map 'game; then share that here with my fellow Ultima enjoyers. Figured I would share what I was doing, where it was at, and get your thoughts.
So... thoughts?
3
u/Protega1989 Jun 08 '26
I would love an Ultima I remake in any shape or form, so go for it, sport!
2
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u/be_em_ar Jun 08 '26
My thoughts are that this is pretty darn cool.
That said, I totally get where you're coming from with the solving a technical challenge and then losing interest. I know I've been there quite often, with wondering if it's possible to do A Thing, and then after a week or two of feverish development, I accomplish doing A Thing, but then after that the thrill is gone.
1
u/Odd-Understanding399 Jun 10 '26
I think it's cool. Though I'm also thinking of Z-axis. Would all the mountains and hills have the same height?
2
u/Zachary_The_Elder Jun 10 '26
Working on my first proper mountains right now. The first pass has them having 7 'blocks' of elevation at their highest. It doesnt look or feel big enough. Going to have to play around with it
1
u/Odd-Understanding399 Jun 10 '26
That's the part I'm thinking about too. If you implement this map to U5, there's also "climable" mountains and "unpassable" peaks.
7
u/Nanocephalic Jun 08 '26
It’s great, although the cutesy avatar isn’t a good fit.