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

Xotic750 · **Posted:** Fri May 11, 2012 12:03 pm

Continuing to play with the Blender particle physics, I have mode some replacement 32bpp explosions (small and large)

I guess this would also be OpenGFX? (Not going to post the source here as it's too large)

Edit: Added to OpenGFX issues 3972

Xotic750 · **Posted:** Sat May 12, 2012 4:01 pm

It was suggested that the sprites were not fiery enough, so I've reworked the small explosion only for now and this is the result that I got. Maybe not enough smoke now or just right?

Hyronymus · **Posted:** Sat May 12, 2012 4:22 pm

Xotic750 wrote:

It was suggested that the sprites were not fiery enough, so I've reworked the small explosion only for now and this is the result that I got. Maybe not enough smoke now or just right?

Perhaps add some more smoke in scenes 2 and 3. And probably really dirty smoke, like more black.

knuckles88 · **Joined:** Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:48 am **Posts:** 34

Hey team,

Long-time lurker here; this is my second post! I'm Canadian and I've liked steam engines since I was a kid, so I've always been interested in seeing Canadian steam trains in OpenTTD. I finally decided to try one of my own: the CNR U-4-a, one of the last steam locomotive types built in Canada. I realize that this isn't currently in OpenTTD, but I was thinking of creating a grf out of it (hopefully that isn't too far outside the normal scope of this thread).

I've reached a point where I think my model is done, but I'm not too confident in my texturing. Currently most of my surfaces have some light metal noise and the coal is based on an image. I'm wondering whether anyone can see any glaring errors or has any pointers on things which would make these renders fit into the OpenTTD universe better.

Attachments: photo of CNR U-4-a #6400; composition of 8 current Renders:

Xotic750 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 03, 2012 6:47 pm

Looks very nice!

What did you create the model in?

I haven't done any measurements of your model to see how it fits into the game but it looks like you have modeled the train and the tender as a single model, which will make it too long. So I would suggest splitting it into 2 models.

To get a better idea of measurements, you can take a look at the work and templates that I've been working on in OpenGFX+ Trains.

knuckles88 · **Joined:** Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:48 am **Posts:** 34

Thanks

I used blender. Everything is in one .blend file because I wanted to make sure the engine and tender had the correct relative proportions. Together they are one OpenTTD tile long - I'm planning to just hide one of them and render the two separately when I actually do my final renders. Is there a better way?

planetmaker · **Posted:** Sun Jun 03, 2012 7:00 pm

You want to make sure that the engine alone does not exceed half a tile. Otherwise glitches are ahead.

Xotic750 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 03, 2012 7:02 pm

If you split your models into 2 and use the templates that I have created, centre your models on the 0 point of origin, keep the L x W x H as I am using, then you will have the correct sized models for the game and you will also have the correct offsets to use in your grf.

Download the blender files for the Ginzu and the Ginzu Tender (you will need my library blend too), but they will give you everything you need (I am assuming that you have good blender knowledge).

knuckles88 · **Joined:** Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:48 am **Posts:** 34

Oh screwy. It definitely does [exceed half a tile length, that is]. As you can see, the original engine is super-long, so compressing the model in such a way that it still looks like the same thing was a huge pain and I tried to keep it as long as [I thought] I could...

To Xotic750: I actually learned everything I know about blender from making this model. I know a lot about the actual meshing, because I spent a lot of time on that, but the rest I'm more shaky on.

Xotic750 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 03, 2012 7:14 pm

Unfortunately the dimensions are one of the most difficult things to deal with in respect of keeping a model looking like something that you based it on in real life.

Give it a try with my templates and library, I will help as much as I can when you have any questions.

knuckles88 · **Joined:** Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:48 am **Posts:** 34

I managed to shorten the engine down to half a game unit. I notice that the default 32bpp train sprites seem to be disproportionate - when the engine is traveling north, south, east, or west the sprite is longer than when the engine is traveling northeast, northwest, southeast, or southwest (seemingly by more than normal perspective would suggest). Do I need two different models; one for NSEW and one for the other 4 directions?

Xotic750 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:00 am

A little Pythagoras is needed, in those directions you need to scale by 1.414. Easiest way is to render the 8 views using animation and set scaling points within that animation.

knuckles88 · **Joined:** Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:48 am **Posts:** 34

Alright... thanks for your pointers everyone; I think I have a set of acceptable sprites now

For adding the offsets, is there any better alternative to pngcodec? It seems like going through dozens of sprites that way would be quite tedious. I know there's a sprite alignment tool in-game for grf debugging, but I can't figure out how to edit the _z0 sprites using that tool so I'm starting to wonder whether it's even possible.//

Xotic750 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 05, 2012 6:04 am

Your offsets will be added in your nml code for your NewGRF. I think, by the sounds of things, that your are reading out of date information about the EZ project rather than the current trunk method. I would read the NML Tutorial, as this will give you a better idea of what you will be doing to achieve your goal of creating your own NewGRF.

glogar2 · **Posted:** Fri Jun 08, 2012 12:18 pm

I was create office building 1536-1537.

FooBar · **Posted:** Fri Jun 08, 2012 2:49 pm

Looks great, well done!

Do you have the sources with this? Otherwise it cannot be put in the final base set.

knuckles88 · **Joined:** Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:48 am **Posts:** 34

Thanks to some pointers from this thread, I just managed to code my first working grf in NML

I'm working with the default zoom sprites only at the moment, and I've noticed that there seems to be an alignment problem. The same sprite is used in the Depot window, the train Details window, and in-game when the train is traveling west, and it seems that any set of offsets which works well for one position doesn't work well for the other two. Are my sprites too large? As far as I can tell, my sprites are consistent with the sizes used in this wiki page: http://wiki.openttd.org/Alignment

Edit: I think I found the answer myself, 1/4 of the way down this page: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=59163&start=20

FooBar · **Posted:** Sun Jun 10, 2012 9:33 am

I'm not sure which answer you found halfway down that page (there were two there), but just to clarify:

If you don't have different graphics for the depot, and only want to fix the offset problem, use the global variables to do that: viewtopic.php?p=1003163#p1003163
The other method of providing different graphics for the depot is best only used when you actually have different graphics, as otherwise it would make the grf unnecessarily large.

madshillz · **Joined:** Sat Jun 30, 2012 12:02 pm **Posts:** 4

hey guys, new to this, and i hope i'm posting at the right place....just want to know where I can find monorail & maglev 32bpp stations...thanks.

planetmaker · **Posted:** Thu Aug 02, 2012 11:03 am

in the zbase

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