Transport Tycoon Forums

Al T. wrote:Hey guys, Blender user here looking to try my hand at openttd graphics. Just a few questions?

-What is this zbase? Is it official, unoffical? Is it a different set of graphics to the graphics database found on the wiki?
-How hard is the coding part? If I got stuck would someone help me with it?
-Is the wiki pages on whats been done up to date? (extra zoom pages)
-How do you "claim" a graphic to create? I fancy the oil refinery, but how do I know somone else isin't allready doing it? (wiki suggests it is unclaimed?)
-Must you model all construction stages?
-Is there an official set of 32 bit graphics? (the ones on the wiki?)
-Who decides what to include/not include in this set that I see on the wiki. (yes, the 32 bit extra zoom pages)

Cheers, Al.

My advice would be: Possibly play the game a bit with zBase as your choice of base set. Look at things which you consider in need of improvement most. And start there with what you like to re-forge and create a model for what you like. If it is an industry or house with construction stages it definitely makes sense to consider them as well to ensure that they match the final building (though you can start without thinking about them).

That said: What is official? Everyone is free to create his or her own base sets and distribute it through online content. zBase to date is the only base set which features graphics with 32 bit depth. NewGRFs can of course also feature 32bpp graphics and thus replace / provide changes there, too.

The 32bpp project the wiki talks about is basically dead. Everything you find in the wiki about the status of any 32bpp project and extra zoom probably is utterly outdated: it refers to an abandoned earlier 32bpp attempt. Thus you don't need to claim anything in particular. I see that the pages frequently lead to confusion... there's a lot of nice graphics which so far no-one has really coded into a NewGRF or a base set. Still, the coding is not a difficult job at the level which replaces existing graphics by improved ones, 8bpp or 32bpp makes no difference in difficulty, it's treated about the same.

My POV is that zBase can be improved and it is my understanding that it is the view of the artist who modelled all of it, Zephyris, as well. As to "who decides" it's a bit tricky, it might boil down to some of the people listed in its contributors list. It might suffice to convince one of them (or maybe even me) that the new sprites are better than zbase' existing ones and fit the set.

Hi, I'm not a professional but i decided to start learning how to use blender watched a few tuturials and hints as i was required to do so and im enjoing it.


my aim was this building with a few modifications of my own
this is my atempt


any sugestions or critics are welcome
sorry for my bad english

Looks pretty good. The roof needs the darker texture applied, but that shouldn't be too hard to change, eh?

There you go

How can I test it ingame? dunno how can i configure the ofsets stuff nor the nml coding

darkstar7 wrote: How can I test it ingame? dunno how can i configure the ofsets stuff nor the nml coding

Since I'm such a nice guy, I decided to help you out.

If you want to modify things, you'll have to unzip darkstar7.zip and open darkstar.nml in a text editor. The basic stuff is in the bottom of that text file. Change the things you want to change and save the file.

The graphics are located in the gfx folder and be easily replaced. However, if the image size is different, you may have to adjust the offsets (in the nml-file; The "Offsets.txt" files in the graphics folders were auto-generated and serve no purpose).

To compile it, you must download the NML compiler and unzip the files in the same folder as the darkstar.nml file. Then just run "CompileDarkstar7.bat". If you did it right, you'll create a new grf file.

NML compiler for Windows:
http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/nml/rele ... -win32.zip

Good Luck!

Wow thank you very much Bad_Brett I'm a big fan of your work!
All tho I realy apreciate what you did, and let me thank you once more, I was hoping if I could get some more info in how to do nml/lang files, a point in the right direction due to unknowing if the correct info I have is outdated or not. Seams to me that there is some conflictual information about it on wiki or its just too much for my head
Again thank you for your help and if you or anyone else need anything and i can help dont hesitate in ask (btw I'm portuguese if anyone needs some translations and in the future i can help with grafics when i fell more confortable with blender)
Keep up the goood work!
Best Regards

Darkstar7

darkstar7 wrote:I was hoping if I could get some more info in how to do nml/lang files, a point in the right direction due to unknowing if the correct info I have is outdated or not. Seams to me that there is some conflictual information about it on wiki or its just too much for my head

What conflicting information?
Note that NewGRFs have a different set of keywords from AIs and GSes, which is again different (I think) from the OpenTTD strings. Thus make sure your information is about NewGRFs.

Anyway, I also wrote a little document: http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/ein ... trings.rst
Hopefully it is understandable.

darkstar7 wrote:Wow thank you very much Bad_Brett I'm a big fan of your work!
All tho I realy apreciate what you did, and let me thank you once more, I was hoping if I could get some more info in how to do nml/lang files, a point in the right direction due to unknowing if the correct info I have is outdated or not.

Everything you need to know is here:
http://newgrf-specs.tt-wiki.net/wiki/NML:Main

Houses are actually quite easy to code. The nml file I did for you is auto-generated, so there is some unnecessary stuff there that you can remove, such as graphics for all the different zoom levels. So if you just want to basic stuff, it might be a good idea to simply edit the file I uploaded. If you want to do more complex stuff, I suggest that you do the nml tutorial.

Good luck!

planetmaker wrote:My POV is that zBase can be improved and it is my understanding that it is the view of the artist who modelled all of it, Zephyris, as well. As to "who decides" it's a bit tricky, it might boil down to some of the people listed in its contributors list. It might suffice to convince one of them (or maybe even me) that the new sprites are better than zbase' existing ones and fit the set.

zBase is 100% open to improvement BUT the rule I think should be followed is that all new sprites have to be designed 100% in blender in the existing render template files. This is to ensure it stays in a form where it is easy to update, for example, ALL brick textures or ALL trees with a single change in the texture files then a batch rerender. This makes it more technically demanding to modify though, and may not be suitable for blender beginners because of the complexities in file linking etc...

If this is something anyone is interested in doing it is not as hard as it sounds, just ask me some questions! I am friendly