future 3d graphics replacement, started some work

Oskar · Post by **Oskar** » 02 Nov 2004 15:38

Just playing around in matlab gave the following to illustrate what I mean:

Those curves are bezier splines...

It all looks very similar to locomotion except this gives some more flexibility.

Darkvater · Post by **Darkvater** » 02 Nov 2004 16:27

I must say the graphics look absolutely stunning!

I however were more thinking of layers like they are now. Kinda like TTDLX or Locomotion do it now. You have a groundpiece, lay down a piece of track, and just another on top of that. It certainly is a LOT less work then trying to figure out all possible combinations and draw them (even if it is not that hard to create those). Let's not even start with the possibily of other types of curves, that increases the amount by a huge amount. Then we have snow, desert, different railtypes, etc. etc.
Also people trying to add new rail-types will have a very hard time making all combinations.

Of course it looks better if you can pre-render the combination but I feel it to be very hard and a lot of work. That is just how I felt after looking at these stunningly beautiful pictures. Of course I could be wrong

Cephalaspis · Post by **Cephalaspis** » 02 Nov 2004 17:05

ThorRune wrote:Could you make the image a link? It's braking the tables.

actually, the amount of 56k'ers goes down all the time.
Poll?

If you download it once, ask a friend with broadband to do it.
Say someone didn't have any friends?

You can still use Transport Tycoon then

.
And You can always ask someone to burn and send You a CD. Its not like its very expensive...

Born Acorn · Post by **Born Acorn** » 02 Nov 2004 18:54

about the train graphics.

couldn't new ones be rendered from 3d models like the Loco ones, or even BE 3d models. Or would that need too much code....

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 02 Nov 2004 19:33

Darkvater wrote:I must say the graphics look absolutely stunning!

I however were more thinking of layers like they are now. Kinda like TTDLX or Locomotion do it now. You have a groundpiece, lay down a piece of track, and just another on top of that. It certainly is a LOT less work then trying to figure out all possible combinations and draw them (even if it is not that hard to create those). Let's not even start with the possibily of other types of curves, that increases the amount by a huge amount. Then we have snow, desert, different railtypes, etc. etc.
Also people trying to add new rail-types will have a very hard time making all combinations.

Of course it looks better if you can pre-render the combination but I feel it to be very hard and a lot of work. That is just how I felt after looking at these stunningly beautiful pictures. Of course I could be wrong

yes unfortunatly you are wrong LOL.

there are acutally about 6 or so pieces to make the combinations, and they all interchange to create the combinations, then laying th tracks over the top is very simple.

i figured that once all combinations are available (i.e. i have worked them all out) then laying out a new rail-type from start to finish will take about 3 hours.

so if people want to start listing the rail-types we want i can do them all very very easily.

about the train graphics.

couldn't new ones be rendered from 3d models like the Loco ones, or even BE 3d models. Or would that need too much code....

you can actually do it without any code at all. an animated camera will do it perfectly and require everyone after me to render a train with one click.

the initial setting up of the cameras might take 20 mins tops.

if the ground-work is done by someone who knows how to use blender easily. and a simple tute is made by them then everyone else needs only worry about the 3d model.

Alltaken

Celestar · Post by **Celestar** » 02 Nov 2004 20:18

Alltaken:

do you have any online resource on learning how to use blender? Because currently I'm doing it at work using CATIA (a $50.000 engineering software), but that's some overkill.

Transport Types which will be implemented.

Roads (two sets, one for right-hand, one for left-hand drive)
Normal Rail. (just the way it currently looks)
electrified rail.
possibly a combined Maglev / Monorail. Here, these real-life images might help: http://www.transrapid.de/foto_galerie/i ... shg_02.jpg
http://www.transrapid.de/foto_galerie/i ... shg_08.jpg
Note that the pillars are not mandatory, the track can be closer to the ground. Maybe have both options?
Trams. Two sets: one with road underneath, one without. Possibly more due to right hand/left hand drive.
High-Speed rail, like the normal rail, but on a concrete foundation. Should be easy to make

Bear in mind railroad crossings (possibly not for high-speed rail)

More to follow.

Celestar

Celestar · Post by **Celestar** » 02 Nov 2004 21:27

ok after a quick dev meeting, we more or less decided on this:

0 - Road (8 way, two sets, one for left hand drive, one for right hand drive)
1 - Normal Rail (what we have now, limit 160km/h on straights)
2 - Normal Rail with overhead wires.
3 - High Speed Rail (rail on a concrete foundation, up to 300 - 350km/h)
4 - Maglev / Monorail.
5 - Narrow Gauge (has two tracks in the main directions, instead of one)
6 - Trams (basically narrow gauge plus roads)
7 - Rack Railway (a third, toothed rail in the middle)

Celestar

ThorRune · Post by **ThorRune** » 02 Nov 2004 21:33

No trolleys?

Aww

Anyways, why would anyone want to build a rack railway?

Born Acorn · Post by **Born Acorn** » 02 Nov 2004 21:41

rack railways wouldn't make sense unless the grades on normal tracks are lessened, since rack railways get no extra speed, just the capability to go up hills.

Celestar · Post by **Celestar** » 02 Nov 2004 21:54

This is the initial new set, more stuff can still be implemented later.

Celestar

Bjarni · Post by **Bjarni** » 02 Nov 2004 22:21

Oskar wrote:Just playing around in matlab gave the following to illustrate what I mean:

Those curves are bezier splines...

It all looks very similar to locomotion except this gives some more flexibility.

how did you make that in matlab? I thought I just got to know and use matlab and you just broke that feeling since I have no idea how you did that

Anyway I think the graphics in this topic are just awesome, but turns less than 45° needs more vehicle sprites. It could be fixed by making 3D models and turn them to the angles that are needed, but is that amount of work what we want?

Digitalfox · Post by **Digitalfox** » 03 Nov 2004 02:12

This graphics are amazing, i know that it would take A LOT of work, but still if they ever get implemented, it would be amazing...

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 03 Nov 2004 04:56

Celestar wrote:This is the initial new set, more stuff can still be implemented later.

Celestar

ok i can add these things, however i was thinking of having monorail different from Mag-lev.

you see monorails are a lot cheaper to install, and would be able to be built in citys with roads on the same tile (and done without real issues)

trams, yeah will do them, i already have a plan for that, i think it will be easy to have trams in the middle of the road lanes, i will just get rid of either 1 or 2 footpaths depending on the visual size.

i will make Highways, in conjunction to normal roads, these will have a barrier in the middle of the road. and will have two lanes either side.

and i'd like to invent some Future transport systems (trains that is)

ones that have some fun but realistic graphics. perhaps Mag-lev-2 where the track is the power, and the trains have no engines. (trains without engines would be very cool don't-ya think) but i will just do the GFX for them and then you can tell me if you will include them or not LOL.

maybe 2050

do you have any online resource on learning how to use blender? Because currently I'm doing it at work using CATIA (a $50.000 engineering software), but that's some overkill.

why yes i do

(not that i have ever done tutes or read anything on it LOL)

--- main blender website, has links in the support, and websites section to the main tutorial areas of the community.
http://www.blender3d.org/

--- a blender magazine company that has a set of video tutorials (on the right) they might help as they are easy to understand
http://www.blenderman.org/index.php

--- first link on this page 2.3 guide, and 2.3 volume 2 guide. are the FULL 700+ page manual in PDF format. i own the real version but have never used it LOL. (oh well)
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=m ... file=index

i think that would be enough to get you started and familiar.

i will get the files set up in blender, and with basic understanding of the software other modellers will be able to do everything they need to. (as long as they don't break existing things in the file LOL.

but yeah good luck with it.

also jump on freenode and go to #blenderchat it is often an easy way to find out answers to specific problems.

Alltaken

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 03 Nov 2004 05:01

Darkvater wrote:I must say the graphics look absolutely stunning!

I however were more thinking of layers like they are now. Kinda like TTDLX or Locomotion do it now. You have a groundpiece, lay down a piece of track, and just another on top of that.

oh i never addressed this issue.

don't worry the green ground pieces were there for ME and my eye to see what things looked like.

the final rendered pieces will be the track only, and perhaps in a seperate sprite the support for the track. (if needed to be seperate, depending on the shape and type of track)

so don't fear.

but as for making the combinations of tracks on the fly. no i don't like the sound of that. i like beauty, and these combinations of tracks will be pretty simple for users to make, (most are rotations of each other afterall)

Alltaken

Oskar · Post by **Oskar** » 03 Nov 2004 07:20

Darkvater wrote: I however were more thinking of layers like they are now. Kinda like TTDLX or Locomotion do it now. You have a groundpiece, lay down a piece of track, and just another on top of that. It certainly is a LOT less work then trying to figure out all possible combinations and draw them (even if it is not that hard to create those). Let's not even start with the possibily of other types of curves, that increases the amount by a huge amount. Then we have snow, desert, different railtypes, etc. etc.
Also people trying to add new rail-types will have a very hard time making all combinations.

Alltakens absolutely stunning monorail tracks would be hard to add using layers. Maybe I'm wrong, but once the tracks get a significant height (like monorails) just layering different tracks on top of each other will look strange unless you use precomputed z-buffers for each image to do depth-testing. (In fact, using z-buffers would remove all clipping and ordering problems when drawing tiles... If all tiles were 3d-rendered that is...)

Maybe the problems can be made insignificant if the rendered track images are split into height-layers themselves. Like all foundation gets painted first and then the tracks on top of that.

Apart from that, I agree that rendering every track-combination seems excessive. Depending on the flexibility in track-laying to allow for, there easilly becomes hundreds of track-combinations which will use quite a bit of memory for the different track-types. Especially if they are rendered at 64x64x32bit.

Oskar · Post by **Oskar** » 03 Nov 2004 07:34

Bjarni wrote: how did you make that in matlab? I thought I just got to know and use matlab and you just broke that feeling since I have no idea how you did that

It's not just point and click. I first drew the grid using lines. I then made a bezier-spline function to render bezier splines given start, end and two control points. Then a function to draw tracks given a starting and a ending point within a tile. To make the tracks wide the bezier was then shifted to the right and to the left with combined with a hack to make the seams between tiles smooth.
Anyway that got me a function like drawtrack(x,y,start_dir, end_dir)
after that all that was left was the magic view(45,60); command to get the isometric view.

If you're interested I can mail you the code.

Anyway I think the graphics in this topic are just awesome, but turns less than 45° needs more vehicle sprites. It could be fixed by making 3D models and turn them to the angles that are needed, but is that amount of work what we want?

Using a few 3d-models with lots of different textures combined with some scripts will probably give a lot of vehicle sprites without too much work... "Probably" applies to the amount of expected work.

Celestar · Post by **Celestar** » 03 Nov 2004 08:37

In Maglevs, the track IS the engine, even nowadays. Monorails are usually some short distance transport used for city transit, inner-airport transit and stuff. So we could think of keeping them for these things, but not as a high-speed rail.

Celestar

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 03 Nov 2004 09:15

Ok guys, i think we can reduce the number of tiles significantly (and make my job easier) if we use a certain amount of layering of tiles.

the problem i have just run into is that track pieces which "don't intersect" but share half a tile, would need to all be worked out prior rendering, but if we can combine all the half tiles in the game then there should be no problems with images overlaying badly.

here is the image to illustrate my frustration (although if i return the 45 degree track system to a sharp/jaggy curving system then it would be solved, its only me trying to make it more realistic and better looking that is causing the problems)

any ideas

Alltaken

Celestar · Post by **Celestar** » 03 Nov 2004 10:34

These graphics still look nice.

I think it is important to remember that, with a new graphics engine, curves will not be implemented. At least not right away. So I think focus should be on the current straight system..

Celestar

Oskar · Post by **Oskar** » 03 Nov 2004 10:47

Alltaken wrote:Ok guys, i think we can reduce the number of tiles significantly (and make my job easier) if we use a certain amount of layering of tiles.

the problem i have just run into is that track pieces which "don't intersect" but share half a tile, would need to all be worked out prior rendering, but if we can combine all the half tiles in the game then there should be no problems with images overlaying badly.

...

any ideas

Yes. My suggestion would lessen those issues.

(for instance, no two parallel diagonal tracks on one tile.)

Using combinations of the following four basic tracks (and 90° rotations of them) the track layout above would be much simpler:

Adding the following two-tile track

gives the possibility of wider curves:

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