Transport Tycoon 3D

[Rainer]

How would you rotate the bank 90 degrees without changing the graphics and without making it look odd?

Point made.

What about allowing to turn only when houses are transparent?

cu
Rainer

[DaleStan]

It's still going to look odd.

[Zynmaster]

STUPID SUGGESTION:
Except of making it 3D, Try making it more Realistic when Turning and going up and down, or how about 64BPP Openttd

[kamnet]

STUPID SUGGESTION:
Except of making it 3D, Try making it more Realistic when Turning and going up and down, or how about 64BPP Openttd

I will reference one of the first posts in this thread.

People can't even get themselves together to make a complete set of non-3d graphics, so the 3d graphics will never get done.

Granted, we now have 32bpp graphics, and we have ONE 32bpp base graphics set that is about 2/3 done. Still, it took nearly seven years to get to that point.

[Eddi]

is about 2/3 done.

now let's work on the other 2/3!

[Eddy Arfik]

STUPID SUGGESTION:
Except of making it 3D, Try making it more Realistic when Turning and going up and down, or how about 64BPP Openttd

64bpp OpenTTD? Not even Blu-Ray discs are encoded with that level of color depth, the human eye can only see approximately 16.7 million colors, which is 24 bits per pixel, the extra 8 bits in a 32bpp image being for transparency effects.

[Alberth]

is about 2/3 done.

now let's work on the other 2/3!

+1 on that, although my estimate is closer to 3/4 to do.

A very basic 3d model goes a long way towards a first impression. The enthusiasm of new users about zBase confirms that.
However, it is completely bland, very few items have any form of texturing. Sprite offset bugs are plainly visible, you don't need any zoom to see them.
To get from here to something that can match the quality of the other basesets is still a lot of work, as it is working on the details of every little sprite that zBase has.

This has been the state since its initial creation a few years back. Some users comment on the low quality, yet until now, nobody has stepped up to do even the simple job of adjusting sprite offsets, which is literally not much more than looking at the image produced by OpenTTD, and adjusting sprite offset values by a small amount.

[Zynmaster]

STUPID SUGGESTION:
Except of making it 3D, Try making it more Realistic when Turning and going up and down, or how about 64BPP Openttd

64bpp OpenTTD? Not even Blu-Ray discs are encoded with that level of color depth, the human eye can only see approximately 16.7 million colors, which is 24 bits per pixel, the extra 8 bits in a 32bpp image being for transparency effects.

JUST MY IMAGINATION
or how about a new 32bpp aircraft set?

[kamnet]

Start modeling!

[deniz]

Wouldn't it be easier to use an existing open source 3d game engine instead of writing it from scratch? I presume real time strategy game engines would be most suitable for OpenTTD. There are some open source RTS engines already being used in games.

Here are some candidates:

0 A.D. - GPL 2+ - Written in C++ - Similar to Age of Empires - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_A.D._%28video_game%29
Spring Engine - GPL 2 - Written in C++ - Similar to Total Annihilation - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Engine

Also there is an open source recreation of Red Alert called OpenRA. The game uses 2d graphics but I think its engine is capable of using 3d models. But it uses GPL 3, I don't know if that would be compatible with GPL 2. Maybe the engine could be separated from game logic.

OpenRA - GPL 3 - Written in C# - Similar to C & C Red Alert - http://www.openra.net/

Or would it be easier to add 3d support to OpenTTD's own engine? Now when I think about it, these rts engines may be too tied to their games. So it would probably be easier to do it from scratch for OpenTTD.

[deniz]

And some of you say that going from classic 2d to 3d has generally made the gameplay worse, not better. That may be true for some games. But then look at Supreme Commander Forged Alliance. It's the 3d version of Total Annihilation and it is probably the best RTS that exists. So if the transition to 3d made some games worse to play, it's because it was not done right. I had played Total Annihilation a couple of times at the time but didn't like it that much. Supreme Commander however is really good, especially thanks to the strategic zoom feature.

And the reason why the newer Command and Conquer games seem worse than Red Alert 2 for example is again because those were not done right. Although I think Red Alert 3, which is 3d, is also not that bad.

And I think Age of Mythology was also better than previous 2d "Age of" games.

[deniz]

And about C# being slow to run OpenTTD (especially when you turn cargodist on with many players), it could be made modular. So the calculations are done in C or C++ and C# is only used for the 3d engine. But is C# better at rapid development than C++? Also C# has very few tools/libraries. But have a look at OpenRA, it uses SDL, OpenGL, is cross-platform and is written in C#. Its source code is here: https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA

[Expresso]

OpenGL could have its advantages to openttd, but 3D support isn't needed. What would be the gameplay advantage to warrant a near complete rewrite of everything graphics related (which is a lot, by the way), as the game all of a sudden needs to support 3D models?

OpenTTD is tightly integrated and needs to be that way. Newgrfs can, for example, deliver graphics based on a certain game state during play.

But, if you want to rewrite OpenTTD with 3D support, go right ahead. Nobody is stopping you. Don't forget to support all the newgrfs which are already there.

[Sylf]

OpenGL could have its advantages to openttd, but 3D support isn't needed. What would be the gameplay advantage to warrant a near complete rewrite of everything graphics related (which is a lot, by the way), as the game all of a sudden needs to support 3D models?

OpenTTD is tightly integrated and needs to be that way. Newgrfs can, for example, deliver graphics based on a certain game state during play.

But, if you want to rewrite OpenTTD with 3D support, go right ahead. Nobody is stopping you. Don't forget to support all the newgrfs which are already there.

I agree with "if you want to write your own OpenTTD 3D, go ahead" sentiment. But I don't feel the same about the backward compatibility support. OpenTTD is a 2D game. Even the 3D rendered 32bpp graphics provided by recent NewGRFs are 2D. They would have no place in a 3D game. Maybe some of the modelers can contribute the 3D models to the new project, but that's it. I see OpenTTD 3D (if it ever comes to life) would be as compatible to OpenTTD as Locomotion to TTDX - not a damn.

Ah, may be the vehicle routing/path finding algorithm can be reused? I dunno.

tl;dr OpenTTD 3D? Sure, but it'll have nothing common to OpenTTD other than the name

[deniz]

The gameplay advantage would be the ability to rotate and tilt the camera so you could look behind buildings for example. But other than that the gameplay would be the same.

Is OpenTTD code modular? maybe if the graphics part was somewhat decaoupled from the rest of the game, adding 3d support would be easier. But I don't know I just think generally having 3d would be better.

[Sylf]

When you change the game from 2D to 3D, everything graphic related become incompatible from the 2D version. This includes all graphics created up to today, including several base graphic sets and the vast library of NewGRFs, will be useless. The whole graphic part of NewGRF specs will need to be rewritten. You can't simply convert the 2D graphics into 3D models with a flip of a switch - unless you know such a magical tool.

[deniz]

I don't know about creating 3d models but it could be easier than drawing in 2d. Blender looks a little complex but Sketchup Make seems to be more beginner friendly. http://www.sketchup.com/products/sketchup-make
Also there is a repository of all kinds of 3d models here: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/
Maybe some of them could be used in the game.

But yes the model alone wouldn't be enough, creating textures would also be a problem. I don't know is it possible to apply photos from different angles onto a 3d model? That could be easier than drawing it yourself.

[Alberth]

Please keep things in perspective. If you have to make a thousand models, "beginner-friendly" is a non-issue. At 1 model a day, every day of the year, it will take you 3 years to make a thousand models. Surely, any time you use to learn a more powerful tool will pay for itself.

Rather than starting from scratch, you may want to look into improving zBase. I would expect that's easier to make progress. Also, everything is in-place to build new nightlies, so you can see how it looks in-game from day 1 (albeit without free rotation).

[deniz]

Oh yeah, zBase graphics were done by rendering 3d models, right? So can't those be used?

[Expresso]

The gameplay advantage would be the ability to rotate and tilt the camera so you could look behind buildings for example. But other than that the gameplay would be the same.

There is a configurable transparency in openttd. You can use that if a building is blocking your view.

OpenGL support would be nice for transparency only around the cursor in a certain diameter.
It could also help with smooth zooming as there would only be a need for the deepest zoomlevel sprites, as opengl can then translate the sprite according to viewing distance.

But full 3D? Why? I have never needed it, all my needs for looking behind buildings have been satisfied with the transparency key and window.