Custom traintunnel entrances, exits and extra's. V0.3

[Beul]

That is a good idea!

For me graphicswise it would mean I don't have to draw the rails anymore as the entrances will be stationtiles, though the layout of the sprites will have to be a bit different as stationtiles have a slightly different way of being built up than a tunnel. But that is just some minor copy/pasting work, that I don't mind doing.

However I think we would need 4 railtypes

- Tunnel with urban entrance and exit
- Tunnel with rural entrance and exit
- Tunnel with urban entrance and rural exit
- Tunnel with rural entrance and urban exit

EDIT @Beul: I think we should focus our work first on drawing and coding these tunnel railtypes. The stationtiles can be added later or even be added as a separate GRF (because I am not sure that stationtiles can be coded in NML yet). What are your ideas about the path we should follow?

Well thb, I will only be working on this friday, maybe saturday. Tomorrow I have my final exam for the year and on Sunday I will be leaving for holliday, and will not be back before mid-august. I might, but will probably won't do TTD related stuff during that period

So if you could supply me with the graphics for the urban/rural entrance/exit before Friday afternoon, I will probably be able to code them in before I leave. Then you or anybody else interested could work on the station tiles while I am gone

Edit: another advantage of the tunnel + station approach would indeed be track set support, as the tracks don't have to be part of the station.

[Eddi]

@foobar I like your idea of making the tunnel all grass and providing the entrance as station tile. I don't know how much work it would be in the drawing department, but codewise I do see a problem: I am a complete coding newb, and there is no documentation on station tiles in NML .

that is because stations are currently not implemented in NML. you would need to switch to NFO for that.

[Beul]

@foobar I like your idea of making the tunnel all grass and providing the entrance as station tile. I don't know how much work it would be in the drawing department, but codewise I do see a problem: I am a complete coding newb, and there is no documentation on station tiles in NML .

that is because stations are currently not implemented in NML. you would need to switch to NFO for that.

Was afraid that would be the case... Will maybe have a look at it when I return. But luckily Quast65 knows nfo quite well I suppose?!

[FooBar]

@ FooBar: That is a great idea!!! That way you could have custom entrances and they are railtype independent, so they could match all sorts of tracks that are being developed!!

Only problem I have with it for implimenting it into this GRF we are developing is that it will place a grasstile inside a city (where the tunnelentrance is under) and I wanted to get rid of that. So I think we should continue with the development of this GRF as we are doing now.

But FooBar, I think you should open a new thread with this idea! This could be revolutionary!

Exactly! As the Dutch saying goes, I believe the "quarter has fallen"

For the purpose of this idea I opened a new thread in the OpenTTD suggestions box: exposing the town zone variable to tunnels and rail underlays. If implemented, it should fix the grasstile inside cities issue, as well as tunnels with grass on one end and a building at the other.

[Beul]

Would be great if that could be implemented. The whole thing can then be done using only one railtype slot. Witch will increase the compatibility with other sets even more! The only set that I am aware of that is (planning on) using all railtype slots in one grf is the Japan thingie.

Edit: I am working on the ISR track graphics. (goes surprisingly easy ) but I need some input: what graphics shoud there be on bridges? also should the sloped tiles also have the grey balast, or rather have a concrete underlay?

Edit 2: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 2#p1032447 So track aware of town zone: not gonna happen. Wich means we have to resort to 4 track types if 2 types of tunnelportals ans the combinations thereof be desireable.

[Quast65]

But luckily Quast65 knows nfo quite well I suppose?!

Well, not too good. But I think good enough to get some stationtiles coded and if I run into some trouble I'll just ask around here at the forums.

Exactly! As the Dutch saying goes, I believe the "quarter has fallen"

lol, still I think you should also open a thread in the graphics development section. This might also attract the attention of stationset developers.

but I need some input: what graphics should there be on bridges? also should the sloped tiles also have the grey balast, or rather have a concrete underlay?

Graphics on bridges: I think the OpenGFX ones should be fine, at least for now, so standard rail.
Sloped tiles: grey balast keeps it more into the style of ISR I think.

Wich means we have to resort to 4 track types if 2 types of tunnelportals ans the combinations thereof be desireable.

lol, the last part is not so clear But yeah, 4 tracktypes will be desirable. I've finished the graphics for the grass one, the three others is just a little copy pasting of graphics on top of the tunnel, so will be done later today.

[Beul]

lol, the last part is not so clear But yeah, 4 tracktypes will be desirable. I've finished the graphics for the grass one, the three others is just a little copy pasting of graphics on top of the tunnel, so will be done later today.

trying to read it myself now, but I am not even able to do so myself, must have been a blackout...

Just a quick post of WIP on the ISR tiles with another question: as you can see the balast on the tracks (red) is currently a pixle or so wider than that of the original station tiled (blue). Should they be matched perfectly or should I leave them like this to add some kind of destinction between the 2?

Edit: would be nice if I actually upload the shot I describe!

Edit 2: also should fences be enabled? the reason I ask is that whilst on the edge of the industrial area they would look good, in the middle they would probably be a bit out of place...

[Bob_Mackenzie]

also should fences be enabled?

FWIW I think no. There is the lovely DWE fences object set that can be used to fence in industrial areas

[jor[D]1]

Also don't forget the ISR harbor set thing which has fences, which match those tracks.

[Quast65]

Yep, I agree with Bob_Mackenzie and jor[D]1, no need for fences

Regarding the ballast: I think matching them to the stationtiles would look best, just see if you have enough time to change them. If not it is something for a later version when you return from vacation.

Update on the tunnels, the sprites have been drawn and PMed to Beul for coding. For people who are interested they are here:

UniversalTunnel.pcx

(76.86 KiB) Downloaded 129 times

And two screenies:

Only grass (for rural area's):

Traintunnel with grass01.png (41.32 KiB) Viewed 3888 times

Only park (for urban area's):

Traintunnel with park01.png (42.91 KiB) Viewed 3888 times

And there are two other versions, one with parks on entrances and grass on exits (when the tunnel starts in an urban area and ends up in rural) and one with grass on entrances and parks on exits (when tunnel starts in rural area and ends in urban)

[Beul]

expact a new grf in under a hour!

[AndersI]

I don't like those 'realistic' tunnel entrances - they are too low (yes, I know the original is cheating to make it look like a higher one). Am I totally out of whack if I suggest having 'plain' tunnel entrances and adding eyecandy objects on top of it to simulate the entrance - or is it impossible to put an eyecandy object on top of a tunnel entrance?

[Quast65]

It doesn't really matter if the tunnelentrances of these tunnels are liked or not, because they wil not be seen ingame when a tunnelentrance coded as stationtile is placed in front

I hope I can explain it a bit with pictures:

Firstly place this tunnel (please ignore the artwork on top, there is also a plain grass one, but I didn't have one coded on hand).
Secondly place a custommade tunnelentrance in front of it (that is just a normal stationtile which has a tunnelentrance as graphics, in this case I used the OpenGFX tunnelentrance):

example01.png (28.72 KiB) Viewed 3837 times

Now you can "hide" the sides of the tunnel if you don't like these, first raise some land:

example02.png (35.43 KiB) Viewed 3837 times

And for example place a road next to it (or other eyecandy, or just let a city grow and let it build houses, or whatever, be creative ) and you have your own custom tunnelentrance:

example03.png (36.74 KiB) Viewed 3837 times

This is just a quick example, the tunnelentrance that is a stationtile can be drawn in such a way that you don't have to bother with the landscaping, but I have just mocked it up quickly.

So the big advantage of this is that one can have a lot of different tunnelentrances in one game, without using up a lot of railtype slots.

You could also have some stuff on top of the grass tunnelentrance, but only if you use overlapping tiles (and these might glitch). That way you could make the tunnels even more custom.

I hope I have made it a bit clear And, well I would say why not draw some swedish tunnelentrances

[Quast65]

Sorry for the doublepost, but I have an update:

I have managed to code the graphics of the entrances and exits as stationtiles. They are coded in such a way that I can easely add new graphics. All nicely with categorynames in the "build station" menu and with their own specific tilenames within the category. Adding more categories should also not be a problem.

Little example (the white square is another entrance with another name, just not drawn yet):

example04.png (22.22 KiB) Viewed 3785 times

When Beul is finished coding the railtypes I will post a small GRF with a few different tunnel entrances and exits so they can be tested by more people than just myself I think I will have that GRF ready just after the weekend.

And a screenie of the OpenGFX Tunnels that I coded as stationtiles, combined with the actual tunnel that is covered by an entire grasstile:

GrassTunnelWithOpenGFXtunnelStation01.png (134.07 KiB) Viewed 3785 times

[FooBar]

Hardly any difference from "normal" tunnels, nice work!

[Quast65]

Thnx, glad you like the implementation of your great idea!

There is a problem though with the graphics of the stationtile, some parts of the catenary (mainly the wires and a bit of the pylons) at the link of the stationtile with the actual tunnel can still be seen and overlaps the the actual tunnel. I didn't notice it first when using the standard catenary (was just 4 grey pixels), but when using the dutch trackset it was more clear:

example05.png (30.57 KiB) Viewed 3716 times

Has anyone got some ideas how to fix this?

[jor[D]1]

Easy solution?
Make a gray concrete beam across the entrance so the wires are camouflaged.

[Quast65]

Easy but not very visually atractive, because that beam would almost be half a tile big when for example using the dutch wires.

I don't think the answer lies in camouflaging, but in coding. Force that stationtile to use a different wire/pylon, just like a tunnel does (that uses another piece of wire than normal tiles) but how can that be done?

[Eddi]

afair you can suppress drawing the wire for station tiles.

[Quast65]

Yes I know, but that would remove the entire catenary on that tile. And that is not necessary and also doesn't look good. So what I am really looking for is how the basetile of a stationtile (where the rail and pylons and wires are drawn on) can be changed.

EDIT: or there might be a problem in the boundingboxes of the catenary.... Some of the graphics are not inside a boundingbox and that might cause these issues(note that this is not only with dutch catenary, also with OpenGFX ones, but the dutch ones are more clear):

example06.png (35.93 KiB) Viewed 3649 times

example07.png (33.85 KiB) Viewed 3649 times