New Graphics - Blender ".blend" thread (Works In Progress)

[GeekToo]

Jungle and LordofthePigs,

I don't intend to reduce the tiling effect of the level (horizontal tile) any further, because I don't want to lose any more details that make the texture 'interesting' to look at. I certainly don't want a very blurry tile. I will show the level tile I've started with, and my previous post shows what it has become. So I tried to reduce the tiling effect to an acceptable level, not to wipe it out completely. And what I understand from your posts, you agree that this level of tiling effect is acceptable, instead of annoying.

I meant I'm working on the tiling effect of some of the hill tiles, because there are some ugly patterns when the hills get a little higher. I will reduce that somewhat, but not as strong as the level tiles, because these tiles are not repeated as often as the level tile. Furthermore, I will change the shading of the south tile, because it does not have enough contrast with the southeast tile in the game, imo.

BTW thanks for the overlay, the colour choice is indeed a question of staying close to the original, or getting more realism. I haven't made my mind up yet, so that discussion can continue. Maybe we will end up with two sets, because changing the color of the sprites, can be done as a last step, and is relatively easy to change

[athanasios]

I will change the shading of the south tile, because it does not have enough contrast with the southeast tile in the game.

Good idea: it looks brighter instead of darker!

[XeryusTC]

That looks very furry!

[mr.kreezie]

I almost wanted to grab a beer and lie down on that grass

[GeekToo]

So, maybe my next project should be modelling a bar?

[Ben_Robbins_]

After Truelights post in “Organizing 32bpp sprites” thread, it is now clear that zoom levels will appear sooner or later, and its now up to the artists to really decide what has to be done.

We are now back to working on x4 tiles, 12.5 meters per tile. But, after some thought, and speaking to Truebrain on IRC, It is clear that having real scaled aircraft and ships flying/floating around in the game isn’t really something that is wanted, and it can be said with some certainty that it won’t be enabled for openttd. This will change a lot of things about the game play, so it is justified. I am therefore proposing that we model ships and planes to a separate (2 separate?) scales so that they have a range of sizes between each of the models, and are to scale with each other as a set, but are at a different scale to other parts of the game.

What these scales are needs to be decided. But basically the smallest of planes/ships should be around the scale that they currently are, and the rest made based around that scale.

For trains and road vehicles I think it should work ok at the 12.5 scale. For buildings though, I think we need to make the elements of the builds to the 12.5 scale, but the overall scale of the buildings should be kept similar to the originals.

If we can sort out, and update, the specs, which have now actually been discussed with devs, then hopefully we can start making progress again!

Voice objections/suggestions now.

[mr_worf]

Ben,

If the road vehicles and trains are using the 12.5 metre tile does this mean that the effective maximum length of one carriage or road vehicle will be 6.25m? I say 6.25 because if we look at the length of a diagonal length of track we can see its about half the length of a full tile.

If we dont do that then the trains will appear too long for a single section of diagonal track.

Id like to know your thoughts on this,

[Ben_Robbins_]

The diagonal bits of track would be 'about' 8.84m in length, but the point still stands. Yes a train could, and many will, be longer than the diagonal. It's not really the length of the diagonal track bit that makes this happen, but the length of the train. The further the ends of the train from its central pivot point, the more the ends would appear to swing out. Ideally more angles of rotation for vehicles will be enabled at some point, although there is no agreement on this. This would then allow the train to exceed the corner track length, but still run over it correctly, as it can appear to pivot from 2 points, rather than in the center.

The biggest concern I have is fitting trains in tunnels and under bridges… I’ve spent today finding many examples of trains/planes/ships and trucks and working out what may be suitable ratios to work to.

I came to conclude that if a tile is 12.5m then road vehicles would work fine at 1:1, trains that fit under bridges and tunnels, and average 0.5-0.9 tiles in length would have to be 1:2. This means that the longer trains 20-25m would be just approaching 1 tile in length, while the smallest (the jinty for example) would be under half a tile in length. Planes would also be 1:2 so the smallest planes would be about there current size, and then the biggest would go up to 2.9 tiles (A380). Ships would then be 1:3. Hovercrafts and Passenger ferries could then be around 1.2 tiles in length as they currently are. The smaller oil tankers could be plausible at 2.2 tiles, but go up to the record super tanker size of 12 tiles. All other things in the game would be 1:1 for there elements, but made to the TT size, which tends to have buildings far smaller than they would really be. i.e. office blocks with only a few floors with a few rooms in.

In short: tiles are 12.5m, everything is 1:1, except trains and planes (1:2), and ships (1:3).

What are the views/opinions on this?

[mr_worf]

In short: tiles are 12.5m, everything is 1:1, except trains and planes (1:2), and ships (1:3).

Aye that sounds about right to me

[Crazy Vaclav]

Ben asked me to post this to give some idea of what it might look like.
The big locomotives got there by mistake, so never mind them.

[GeekToo]

I made a quick mock-up, where the trains and planes are not scaled. I know it does not look good and sharp etc. But I created it to show that when planes and trains are not scaled, they get too much emphasis. And I think that makes the game unbalanced.
So Bens proposal, to rescale trains and planes, certainly has my support.

<edit>
Wiped out the big train engines, like Crazy did, I previously assumed the white blocks were the mistake
</edit>

[DaleStan]

I'm pretty sure most rail engines here in .us aren't *that* big relative to the RVs. If vague memory serves, most rail tunnels are 13 feet high (meaning that's the maximum height for an engine too). I'd guess most box semi-trailers run in the 10-foot range. Tankers are shorter, but they're still easily 8 feet.

[athanasios]

I like the second screenshot!!!
Well, you all know I prefer normal scale (1:1) for everything. One day we will end there anyway...
Question: Once the model is made is it so complicated to have both your proposed scale and normal scale and let the player choose one of the two sets? If it is complicated, then I still suggest to make a normal scale set for future use...

And I feel the same with DaleStan. Train engines are somewhat overscale.

[TagDaze]

On a scale-related note, I'm a bit worried about the heliport I've got running. making it one square in size, like in TTD would make it look like this:

heliport_scale.jpg (71.82 KiB) Viewed 2569 times

In TTD the heliport was 1x1, so 12,5m x 12,5m. The pink boxes you see represent a human being of 2m tall. (That's 6' 7" for you non-conforming weirdos.) As you can see, a heliport would be relatively tiny, and the landing pad itself wouldn't nearly be big enough to have a copter land safely.

What to do?

[Psistorm]

well, the pad can be extended - it doesnt have to stay within the walls of the roof, if you get what I mean. it can well be wider
also, the storeys on the building seem to be quite low as the 2 meter guy almost seems to bump his head on the ceiling. Im not sure what the current standards for storey height say, but it just feels a little low

[TagDaze]

That's exactly my problem, Psistorm. I can't "fix" the scales without deviating too much from the original sprite.

[Rubidium]

I think people should not focus on the tile being 12.5 by 12.5 meters wide as this will not work for *any* vehicle and for only a very small amount of buildings. As far as I am aware somebody sometime in the past had some wild idea in rescaling *all* graphics, but with the current development that is (most likely) not going to happen; 32bpp will just look like the 8bpp sprites, but with more colors, it will not cause vehicles to become two tiles long.

People should rather focus on making the building look nice and fit roughly in OTTD's scale, which basically differs per sprite. So I suggest to make a nice 3D model of the heliport.

Anyhow, this is my opinion and I'm not into graphics.

[TagDaze]

In short: tiles are 12.5m, everything is 1:1, except trains and planes (1:2), and ships (1:3).

With that in mind, should I assume that for the helipad one tile = 25 m, or should I assume only the helicopters are really small?

[Rubidium]

As I said, there is NO case in the current 8 bits graphics where the "tile is 12.5" meter holds true. It would mean that a bus is already one tile long, which will not work with the internal game logic, trains are going to be two tiles long which is going to give even more trouble (read: OTTD will not support road/rail vehicles more than half a tile). Furthermore 32 bits graphics are an add-on to the 8 bits graphics. It is not going to happen that the 8 bits graphics are not going to be used anywhere in the future, so the 32 bits graphics must stay "compatible" with the 8 bits graphics.

What's going to happen is that people with 32 bits graphics and 8 bits are going to play the same game on the same server, only with different graphics. This means that the heliport still has to be one tile, all vehicles vehicles and all other structures have to be the same size in tiles.

[TagDaze]

The 1 sq = 12.5m is a very nice guideline though; it's still being used by people in this thread. I'm just asking what scale I should use, as I don't want my windows to be really tiny or really big compared to other buildings. I suppose height will also be predetermined by where the helicopter sprite "lands"...?

(also, 3100th post. wooo.)