OpenGFX - Graphics Base Set

[Zephyris]

Sorry, I had had a few when I posted that! I did mean slightly more roof, your changes look good.

[Moriarty]

It looks nice.
And I don't see what's wrong with that maglev track. It's not perfect but it looks much better than the in-game stuff.

[Belgabor]

One wish I would have for the maglev track is that someone could shift the palette so reserved tracks in PBS-blocks are more obvious. As I've learned this is done by the game by using the crash palette.

[Timitry]

Hm, as long as we don't have "own" pbs-signal-graphics, could we use the ones from michi_cc, which the regular graphics use? Would be easier to distinguish between path- and block-signals then...

[FooBar]

IIRC, those contain parts of the original graphics and therefore cannot be included. I could be wrong though.

I do agree that the current signals are hard to distinguish...

[Michi_cc]

IIRC, those contain parts of the original graphics and therefore cannot be included.

Well, the red plate was done completely from scratch , but everything else is either directly copied or strongly based on the previous signal graphics, which were done by mb copying/imitating the original signal.

-- Michael Lutz

[Wolf01]

I can't understand how a colored rectangle or a line of pixels of the same color could be a copyright infringement.
OK, it is if the entire graphic uses the same pixels maybe with shifted colors, but a pole is a pole, if you don't make a pole of 10 gray pixels how do you make it? brown (rusted)? but it's always 10 pixels, so each 10 gray pixels line could be a signal pole and be a copyright infringement.

I think a copyright infringement could be the use of the texture of the roof like the train depot's one for an industry or a station but not a signal pole.
If you need to keep the things really clear and simple (line+ellipse/rectangle+2 circles) it's impossible to draw them without using the basic shapes, and if you don't use basic shapes you'll end with signals like one of the grfs you can find, which are more elaborate and most of the times the light is a single pixel which is not so easy to see

Do your best, I really want to see this wonderful project finally completed!

[Timitry]

Wolf01, of course that is true, and the shape of the new signals will be more or less the same as the one of the old ones. However, it might slightly differ, and also the colours will not be exactly the same. That should then be enough to have no copyright infringements, but just copying the original signal and adding a white bar or whatsoever to it would probably not be enough.

[Wolf01]

I'm not saying to copy the original signals, but I'm saying that they are so simple that is difficult to draw them in a different way while you need to keep them simple.
I might suggest to use a rectangle or an ellipse for the signal board instead of a rectangle with rounded corners, you just need to add 4 black pixels, but are they enough to tell "this is a rectangle made from scratch and not just a rectangle with rounded corners with corners changed", both they are black, both they are rectangles, the only difference will be the new 4 pixels.
Sorry if I seem too worried, but I think that "The Industry" (Hollywood, RIAA and co.) is willing too much, and they might accuse you of copyright infringements also if you only think about it.
The life is all copyrighted by someone else, you aren't free to do anything, this is the point... and I don't bother for myself, but this game is already on the edge so we should pay enough attention.

[maartena]

How is development going on this? I am using it all the time now, except for games past the year 2000 or so because of missing monorail graphics.... I am really looking forward to another release, if it is still being worked on.

If so, keep up the GREAT work everyone is doing on this.

[FooBar]

Progress is a bit slow right now. Actually very slow...

It's not abandoned, but apparently everyone is too busy with other stuff and nobody has time to finish the last couple of dozen sprites. That includes me, by the way

[Zephyris]

Not dead, just sleeping! It will get finished at some point, time is just, as always, an issue. If you feel like helping... Or trying to recruit people to get the last few sprites done...

[maartena]

Ah well

I am not a graphic designer, so I really wouldn't know where to begin.... but for those who are involved in the project, thanks for all your efforts!!

I take it that when this IS finally done, that we can completely go without the need for Chris Sawyer's graphics out of the original, and everything will be completely GPL?

[Conditional Zenith]

There's also sound (and music, but that's less important).

[LordAzamath]

I take it that when this IS finally done, that we can completely go without the need for Chris Sawyer's graphics out of the original, and everything will be completely GPL?

Well technically you can leave trg*(r).grfs undownloaded already now and use opengfx*.grf instead. You will just see some black boxes on missing sprites iirc. Sample.cat is still needed tho

[orudge]

There's also sound (and music, but that's less important).

There is a sound replacement project currently underway, although it's not quite as busy as the graphics project. I also have a nearly-complete patch for an "opensfx" file format which I hope to release soon, so that should encourage development of new sounds.

[Bilbo]

Hmm ... I think some letters in the standard size font are much less readable than the original font, namely small "a" and capital "M"

The "a" have problem that the upper curve is merged with the middle "bar", "M" looks slightly weird. I have modified those two letters a bit so they have better legibility. I am attaching results (screenshot + screenshot with these letters edited)

Original "a" and "M"

orig.png (1.79 KiB) Viewed 3042 times

Modified "a" and "M"

mod.png (1.79 KiB) Viewed 3045 times

Some other fonts maybe could be improved too "r" is IMHO too narrow and looks similar to "i"

But ... if I want to contribute with improved font, I'd like to ask where is the original opengfx font which I can modify?

On the other hand, the small font from OpenGFX (used in the graphs for example) is IMHO better than original ...

[Grolsch]

Hmm ... I think some letters in the standard size font are much less readable than the original font, namely small "a" and capital "M"

The "a" have problem that the upper curve is merged with the middle "bar", "M" looks slightly weird. I have modified those two letters a bit so they have better legibility. I am attaching results (screenshot + screenshot with these letters edited)

orig.png

mod.png

Some other fonts maybe could be improved too "r" is IMHO too narrow and looks similar to "i"

But ... if I want to contribute with improved font, I'd like to ask where is the original opengfx font which I can modify?

On the other hand, the small font from OpenGFX (used in the graphs for example) is IMHO better than original ...

Also the 8 is far too wide, especially compared to 9 and 2...

[FooBar]

But ... if I want to contribute with improved font, I'd like to ask where is the original opengfx font which I can modify?

Here you go:

medfontcond.pcx

OpenGFX medium font source file. Typeface based on Red Hat's "Liberation Sans".

(13.81 KiB) Downloaded 63 times

If you change the width of a certain character, I need to know that, as that requires changes in the NFO code. Also, keep the left side of every character where it (only increase/decrease width at right hand side) and keep the characters on the same height as they are now.

[Bilbo]

Also the 8 is far too wide, especially compared to 9 and 2...

I changed the width of some numbers, now all of them are 6 pixels wide.

Width changes:

"0" is 1 pixel less (removed column of pixels from right side)
"3" is 1 pixel less (removed column of pixels from left side)
"4" is 1 pixel less (removed column of pixels from left side)
"5" is 1 pixel less (removed column of pixels from right side)
"8" is 1 pixel less (removed column of pixels from right side)

I modified "a" and "M" ... and I ended up slightly improving many of the letters

I am attaching improved fonts.

When I edited the fonts, I notices some accented characters are missing, like ě, š, č, ř, ž ...

I saw some newGRF callad Unifont : http://ttd.tycoonez.com/?id=144 and I remember that with that newGRF, czech accented characters worked in the game. So I thought - would it be possible to have czech (and perhaps also others) accented characters in the basic opengfx? I can draw them, but I don't know how to put them in NewGRF (and whether it is possible to include them in the base graphics set, or if they must be in separate NewGRF file).

Since if I won't draw them and someone uses Unifont to add these accented characters to game, this will end up as ugly mix of "opengfx unaccented" and "original ttd" accented characters.

Therefore it would be better to have at least basic accents (those over latin characters, I can't draw cyrillic or any other non-latin font) in the set.