otimpyre
Sorceror
[Custom Art] Tutorial : The Basics By: Otim Pyre 03/08/2011
Warning! You should NEVER use custom content or 3rd party programs on an official Ultima Online Server
you will get banned.
Foreword : Creating custom art is a fine art. There is a right way and a wrong way. Ultima Online has a very certain look and feel to it. Many of Ultima players have played this game for years, and doing it the wrong way is a big turn off to them. What you want to do is to preserve that look and feel. However, art is a form of self expression, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.There will always be those who want to turn Ultima Online into Star Wars Online ect.. But, I would like to give a small example of what will help make your shard truly beautiful, and unique.
If, you have artistic skill and want to create your own material you can refer to my other tutorials anytime by clicking my sig at the bottom of any of my posts. If you are not artistically inclined there are loads custom of content already made you may wish to use. Again you may find links to these resources via my sig. Also in your journeys you may have friends, or come across other RunUO members that have artistic ability who wish to join you in adding custom content to your server.
Graphic editing software
If you have never used graphic editing software it can be a bit daunting. I started out making digital art about 10 years ago using Jasc Paintshop Pro 5.0 and find that it still serves my purposes for creating custom art nicely.
However there are many programs to choose from some of which are completely free. And they pretty much all work the same way. In my tutorials any of the most popular ones will suffice. I've listed the most popular below.
Mul editors allow you to view and edit the content of your Ultima Online files. The files I will be discussing in my tutorials are art.mul, art.idx, gump.mul, gump.idx, tiledata.mul, anim.mul, & animdata.mul. These are found on your computers hard drive where you installed your Ultima Online game. You should always preserve your original files in case you make mistakes and the need arises to access the original images. Over the years a lot of these programs have become obsolete or damaged due to the official server patches and expansions that have been added to ultima online over the years. Because, of this fact I will not link to, recommend, or give tutorials on the use of any of these mul editors other than one. The one I will always be using in my tutorials is UO Fiddler linked to below.
This is my weakest subject as I have never hosted a file. All of my art has been done on a local server.
But, to quote Iomega0318
Warning! You should NEVER use custom content or 3rd party programs on an official Ultima Online Server
you will get banned.
Foreword : Creating custom art is a fine art. There is a right way and a wrong way. Ultima Online has a very certain look and feel to it. Many of Ultima players have played this game for years, and doing it the wrong way is a big turn off to them. What you want to do is to preserve that look and feel. However, art is a form of self expression, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.There will always be those who want to turn Ultima Online into Star Wars Online ect.. But, I would like to give a small example of what will help make your shard truly beautiful, and unique.
This is a custom image not found in Ultima that preserves Ultimas look and feel.
This is an example of custom art that clashes and will look out of place
With that said enjoy my first tutorial.
The basic essentials you need to add custom content to your RunUO shard are- Artistic skill *optional
- Graphic editing software * optional
- UO Fiddler* Or a working muleditor
- WebHost for players to have access to your content
- Inside-UO For easily copying, viewing & extracting UO images
If, you have artistic skill and want to create your own material you can refer to my other tutorials anytime by clicking my sig at the bottom of any of my posts. If you are not artistically inclined there are loads custom of content already made you may wish to use. Again you may find links to these resources via my sig. Also in your journeys you may have friends, or come across other RunUO members that have artistic ability who wish to join you in adding custom content to your server.
Graphic editing software
If you have never used graphic editing software it can be a bit daunting. I started out making digital art about 10 years ago using Jasc Paintshop Pro 5.0 and find that it still serves my purposes for creating custom art nicely.
However there are many programs to choose from some of which are completely free. And they pretty much all work the same way. In my tutorials any of the most popular ones will suffice. I've listed the most popular below.
- Adobe Photoshop * Very expensive and very powerful
- Gimp * Free and some would argue its a rival for photoshop
- Paintshop Pro * Affordable by most standards
- Many others * Browse trials and downloads
Mul editors allow you to view and edit the content of your Ultima Online files. The files I will be discussing in my tutorials are art.mul, art.idx, gump.mul, gump.idx, tiledata.mul, anim.mul, & animdata.mul. These are found on your computers hard drive where you installed your Ultima Online game. You should always preserve your original files in case you make mistakes and the need arises to access the original images. Over the years a lot of these programs have become obsolete or damaged due to the official server patches and expansions that have been added to ultima online over the years. Because, of this fact I will not link to, recommend, or give tutorials on the use of any of these mul editors other than one. The one I will always be using in my tutorials is UO Fiddler linked to below.
- UO Fiddler * Mul Browser and editor
This is my weakest subject as I have never hosted a file. All of my art has been done on a local server.
But, to quote Iomega0318
Here is a tutorial on how to patch your files by: Iomega0318, 03/ 21 /2010