OTTD: Modern European Metro Set

[Hans Kruzer]

Thanks for the critique, comrade

Well first up, I gotta say, when I started this thing I had the intent of making a set that differed from the existing metro sets. I did this with the flashy lights, and the rail cars were visually seperated from each other (too much )

I didn't think about making this set as part or relating to DB set in any way, but to be honest when I do look at the buy menu with DBset's trains one unit would cost a ton of money, I will try to see to balance the prices and things. Running costs, well I hadn't put much thought into them I made them around 30-90k a year expecting the train would make more. I will reduce those running costs, at once!

As with indicator lights, that is a known issue for some, maybe I just toggle the pallete between Windows and DOS in the GRF settings and it might fix it, if not I honestly don't know ALL the trains that HAVE indicator lights should only be 2 pixels, if not, then it's a glitch, maybe in the coding, not sure. I had posted a complete spritesheet for all the trains earlier so you can inspect and see that. I never intended indicators flashing on the DT2 and F92 trains because they are older, and I beleive the F92 and (maybe) DT2 uses a fixed indicator that flips instead of an electronic one. But if you insist I will make indicators for them. As for the HHA DT5, I hear you! That has been the most edited train ever, and maybe I will edit it one last time, for good. The windows were pretty big but because the train's colour it appears that the window is sometimes small. I will edit and make the windows darker and since it's to be the most modern train in the set for now, I will make it look so with better graphics.

For the gaps, I seen it's not too much of an issue but I will edit. When I drew those trains I was mostly new at it and I am still new at it so I made huge articulations and was to lazy to change it, because I used to hate when I saw a train in TTD and it looked like one long stick with windows on a railway. But it will be fixed, ja! I will make sure each train has around 1 line of pixels between serving as an articulation, instead

I've seen the MVG C-train and the Berlin H-train has out-of-line cars, which I think may have to do something with the length of the sprites or coding, even.
I don't know about the depot sprites, thy work fine with me. Typically it shows at most 2 and a 1/2 cars of the train and allows you to read the first few letters If you have 1.3.2 like me you can just expand the depot, but I'd like to see screenshots because I'm not really sure if I am sure that I understood what you meant.

We wanted to set its parameters to monorail, and now electric rail since it is liked, and metro tracks. Monorails are replaced by metro tracks in a lot of GRFs, so it be wise to make them monorail vehicles as well.

Deutsche? Ich spreche ein ein bißchen Deutsch.
I only spent two years in Frankfurt, and those were the baby years hahaha
by the time we moved to Canada I was mixed up trying to speak German and English, and eventually I learned English instead since everyone spoke it. So I suppose I'll find a good cousin or relative or someone here to find translations.

And our dear comrade SuperCheese, our coder, without him all this was useless artwork. Remember it wasn't coded to the best, since its only a test. I've been busy lately drawing sprites for the German Road vehicle set, which has a high demand for sprite-makers like me >:D

By the end of this week I will have edited the indicators and articulations of every train and look into the out-of-line front cars to see what's wrong. I will PM Supercheese to see if he's got time to be able to release a playable version.

[Supercheese]

I believe I've got the railtype-parameter working, I've tested it out with a few different track sets, but not 100% exhaustively. The parameter has 5 options, default rails, electrified rails, monorail, 3rd rail, and metro. Essentially, the Metro tracks parameter will prefer NuTracks-style metro tracks (and derivatives that use the same MTRO label), but fallback to Pikka's Finescale 3rd rails (3RDR) if no metro tracks are found, and vice versa for the 3rd rail option (prefer Finescale 3rd rail [3RDR] but fallback to metro tracks). If neither new track type is found, the trains will default to electrified rail.

Addressing some other points:

The snazzy new webtranslator is in business, so if all contributors to the set are willing, we can host this project at the devzone and take advantage of it, making translations a breeze. Alternatively, if someone wants to start translating right now, all the strings are included in the lang file in the source .zip attached.

Purchase and running costs could certainly use some more tweaking. I'm not the best fellow to ask about balancing, though, since I tend to (ab)use the money cheat and ignore all finances, opting for a sandbox playstyle.

Regarding inter-car gaps and the like, all trains are coded using exactly the same sprite sizes and offsets, so any apparent "gaps" that are visible are due to the sprites and pixels themselves. You can verify this yourself using the in-game Sprite Aligner.


So, unless any bugs are found, it seems the only barrier to releasing a fully playable version are setting purchase and running costs. I could take a whack at balancing them, but as I mentioned, I have a feeling other people may be better suited for that particular job.


As a side note, would there be interest in adding some or all of these U-Bahns to the Fake Subways grf?

[Yoshi]

Code: Select all

STR_GRF_NAME			:Modern German U-Bahn Set
STR_GRF_DESCRIPTION			:Grafiken von Hans Kruzer, UseYourIllusion und Yoshi; gecoded von Supercheese.

STR_RAILTYPE_PARAM_NAME		:U-Bahn Schienentyp
STR_RAILTYPE_PARAM_DESC		:Wähle den Schienentyp für die U-Bahnen. Wenn Stromschiene bzw. Metrogleise gewählt, aber nicht verfügbar sind, werden elektrifizierte Gleise verwendet.

STR_RAILTYPE_PARAM_RAIL		:Gleise
STR_RAILTYPE_PARAM_ELRL 		:Elektrifizierte Gleise
STR_RAILTYPE_PARAM_MONORAIL 	:Monorail
STR_RAILTYPE_PARAM_3RD_RAIL 	:Stromschiene (nur mit kompatibler GRF)
STR_RAILTYPE_PARAM_METRO 		:Metrogleise (nur mit kompatibler GRF)

STR_BVG_HK_TYPE_ENGINE		:BVG-Baureihe HK
STR_BVG_H_TYPE_ENGINE			:BVG-Baureihe H
STR_BVG_F92_TYPE_ENGINE		:BVG-Baureihe F-92

STR_HHA_DT4_TYPE_ENGINE		:HHA Typ DT4
STR_HHA_DT5_TYPE_ENGINE		:HHA Typ DT5

STR_VAG_DT2_TYPE_ENGINE		:VAG Typ DT2
STR_VAG_DT3_TYPE_ENGINE		:VAG Typ DT3

STR_MVG_DT2_TYPE_ENGINE		:MVG-Baureihe B/DT2
STR_MVG_C_TRAIN_TYPE_ENGINE	:MVG-Baureihe C

[Eddi]

shouldn't it be "gecodet"?

[Bregodon]

I will try to see to balance the prices and things.

Just take a quick look at other train sets. Balanced and comparable prices for purchase and maintenance would be nice. I'm fine with whatever values you actually choose.

As with indicator lights [...] I had posted a complete spritesheet for all the trains earlier so you can inspect and see that.

I'm a complete newbie to drawing and coding, so read the following passage with care.
I downloaded the latest Sources.zip and tried to edit the Completeset.png (spritesheet) to correlate with my annotations regarding the flashing indicators. This isn't as easy as i thought. Sometimes you really can't make some pixels look exactly the way as intended. But maybe you can have a look at the attachments and I hope it get's clearer. Related to the wagon gaps i noticed some differences in drawing for example the Berlin HK: train running northeast // front and mid wagen don't have exactly the same pixel (color) for wagon gap. These differences are related to many sprites in the test release. Maybe this is visible in the game and causes the large or unequal gaps i mentioned. If not: who cares? Another one could be: for example the VAG DT2 has some blue pixels (1 pixel wide) at the side in the spritesheet. Can this cause visible high gaps?

I never intended indicators flashing on the DT2 and F92 trains because they are older, and I beleive the F92 and (maybe) DT2 uses a fixed indicator that flips instead of an electronic one. But if you insist I will make indicators for them.

That is absolutely correct, extra indicators aren't necessary. They would be unrealistic

For the gaps, I seen it's not too much of an issue but I will edit. When I drew those trains I was mostly new at it and I am still new at it [...] I will make sure each train has around 1 line of pixels between serving as an articulation, instead.

You are already more experienced in drawing than myself! And wow the trains are drawn very good, so eyecandy. When you can make it even better go for it. Thank for the great effort you put into this set!

I don't know about the depot sprites, thy work fine with me. [...] I'd like to see screenshots [...]

depot.png (22.99 KiB) Viewed 4621 times

Left side: OpenTTD 1.3.2 without other grf (correct depot sprites) / right side: HGP 0.7.144 with DBSetXL and DACH (wrong depot sprites). I don't know if the issue with the depot sprites depends on this test release, the other chosen newGRF, the chosen font(size) or the version of OpenTTD.

Deutsche? [...] So I suppose I'll find a good cousin or relative or someone here to find translations.

Well, I guess Yoshi was faster with translation...

I believe I've got the railtype-parameter working.

It seems to be working fine, but i didn't have the time to test it intense yet.

So, unless any bugs are found, it seems the only barrier to releasing a fully playable version are setting purchase and running costs. I could take a whack at balancing them, but as I mentioned, I have a feeling other people may be better suited for that particular job.

Yes, indeed bug-free. Great job, maybe I'll take this as my own introduction to .nml-Coding.

Concerning the balancing I took a look at the German Wikipedia and the homepages of the mentioned municipial transport services to get some information about the technical data of the trains. Maybe you can use this if you want your U-Bahn Set with the same technical data like in real life:
BVG: http://www.bvg.de/index.php/de/3908/nam ... rofil.html
HHA: http://www.hochbahn.de/wps/portal/de/ho ... nfahrzeuge
VAG: https://www.vag.de/Technik-allgemein/id ... etail.html
MVG: http://www.mvg-mobil.de/ueberuns/fahrzeuge/technik.html

Code: Select all

                                BVG                     VAG             HHA             MVG
Train                           HK      H       F92     DT2     DT3     DT4     DT5     B/DT2   C

Weight empty (t)                70      140     41,1    54,5    62      76,9    54,2    57,1    164
Weight full with PAX (t) **     102,1   199,8   60      77,7    87,6    109,3   72,1    80,3    237  
Speed (km/h)                    60      70      70      80      80      80      80      80      80
Power (power units*kW)          12*85   24*90   8*89    8*90    8*140   8*125   6*135   8*109   24*100
Power (hp)                      1387    2938    968     979     1523    1360    1102    1186    3264
Max. Tractive Effort (kN) ***   100     228,6   68,6    101     113,8   109,3   93,8    102,5   308
Capacity (PAX seats+stances)    76+325  168+580 72+164  82+208  82+238  182+223 96+128  98+192  252+660
Capacity (PAX Total)            401     748     236     290     320     405     224     290     912
Designed (y)                    2001    1994    1990    1993    2004    1988    2010    1987*   2002

* prototype year 1981
** assumption: one person weights 80kg, full train
*** assumption: every train takes 17s to accelerate to full speed; a=v/t and F=m*a --> F=m*v/t
                e.g. BVG HK: F = 102100kg * 16,666m/s / 17s = 100098kg*m/s^2 ~ 100kN

Side note @Yoshi german translation: "Stromschiene" is a really good translation, I didn't have that in my mind.
Suggestion 1) Monorail --> Einschienenbahn
Suggestion 2) all trains should be named "Typ" or "Baureihe", not mixed
Suggestion 3) "kodiert"


[offtopic]

I've been busy lately drawing sprites for the German Road vehicle set.

Now get this trucks ready!
[/offtopic]

[michael blunck]

[depot sprite offsets]

These problems are due to the fact that most train sets are using an y-offset of 2px (the original offsets resulting in wrong placements of train on tracks), set by action0D var 8E.

Var8E is a global variable, thus affecting all train vehicles. I.e., differing ("wrong") offsets in y must be handled by directly adjusting the sprites offsets.

Apart from this, it is possible to use different sprites in different windows.


BTW, "Stromschiene" is the usual technical term, nothing special.

regards
Michael

[juzza1]

Write this in your code to fix the depot issue.

Code: Select all

train_width_32_px = 1;
traininfo_y_offset = 2;

This should be included before you define any purchase sprites. Also make sure the purchase sprite is wide enough.

For the gaps, I'm not sure I follow you completely. Maybe post some screenshots about the issues and you might get more help. Some of the / and \ angles are not full length (22 pixels) so they might be causing the issues (they need not to be, but you need to align them properly inside the bounding box or adjust your template).

[Yoshi]

Side note @Yoshi german translation: "Stromschiene" is a really good translation, I didn't have that in my mind.
Suggestion 1) Monorail --> Einschienenbahn
Suggestion 2) all trains should be named "Typ" or "Baureihe", not mixed
Suggestion 3) "kodiert"

Thanks

@1: Ok, OpenTTD says Einschienenbahn as well
@2: I took the german Vehicle names from Wikipedia.
@3: I would prefer "gecodet" like Eddi says...)

[planetmaker]

@3: I would prefer "gecodet" like Eddi says...)

Grafiken: <NAME>
Programmierung: <NAME>

Oder

Grafiken von X,Y,...
Code von X,Y,...

[Yoshi]

That's fine, but the english translation should be adjusted then as well...

[Hans Kruzer]

Looks like I don't need to worry about folks with perfect German anymore I think

Well I took Bregodon's edit and edited even further I have fixed the graphics issue with the MVG C train in this one, apparently it was one pixel higher than usual, which has been fixed. Also the DT2 trains of München and Nürnberg have better visual doors than before and they have a yellow indicator (not flashing). And finally I finished off the Hochsbahn DT5 with bigger and more shadow/light-based windows as requested.
I still will see about the articulation being unusually wide
Concerning the speed you posted earlier, are you sure the Berlin H/HK travels at 60-70 km/h? I know trams that are much faster Could there be a paremeter that could allow the player to choose either real-life speed (as posted earlier) or the original speed (like in the test)?

Would you guys be interested if I were to make sprites for the open doors as they load/unload at stations?

[Supercheese]

Write this in your code to fix the depot issue.

Code: Select all

train_width_32_px = 1;
traininfo_y_offset = 2;

This should be included before you define any purchase sprites.

That is already included in the code, exactly as you say. You can download the source.zip to check for yourself.

Would you guys be interested if I were to make sprites for the open doors as they load/unload at stations?

That would be pretty neat!

[Hans Kruzer]

As a side note, would there be interest in adding some or all of these U-Bahns to the Fake Subways grf?

Okay, but how exactly do we make invisible shadows out of these trains?
I have no clue on how it's done

[Supercheese]

Okay, but how exactly do we make invisible shadows out of these trains?
I have no clue on how it's done

The shadows are generic, it doesn't really have to conform to the shape of the train, although it easily could if you want to. The trick I used is 32bpp sprites taking advantage of transparency/alpha channel. Simply paint the vehicles all black, then make that black transparent (50% or so transparency, I don't quite recall what percentage I used exactly). In any event, I'd just re-use the existing shadows, the main differences would be in vehicle statistics and depot/info/purchase sprites and the like.

[Bregodon]

For the gaps, I'm not sure I follow you completely. Maybe post some screenshots about the issues and you might get more help.

I took a very careful look at all wagons for all trains rushing towards all directions. Check the attached screenshot at full scale zoom. But don't be bothered at first sight because of all those yellow arrows. I just wan't to help to make this set really good.

Modern German U-Bahn Set_gaps&graphics_20130921.png

(122.12 KiB) Downloaded 5 times

• This screenshot is based on the .grf from Tuesday, September 17 before Hans Kruzer did some editing towards the graphics.
• Wagons without any graphic issues are marked with a green OK.
• All gaps between wagons which are wider than 1 pixel like Hans Kruzer intended are marked yellow.
• Major graphic issues are marked red with annotations.
• Other things are drawn blue.
• The flashing traffic lights indicators are not further concerned, since they are in work already. (Nice to hear that my suggestions got such a good response )

Would you guys be interested if I were to make sprites for the open doors as they load/unload at stations?

You want to push these eyecandy graphics even further?

Concerning the speed you posted earlier, are you sure the Berlin H/HK travels at 60-70 km/h? I know trams that are much faster Could there be a paremeter that could allow the player to choose either real-life speed (as posted earlier) or the original speed (like in the test)?

Yes, this one is for sure. A solution with such a parameter would be nice.


@ Hans Kruzer:
The (not flashing) indicators on the VAG DT2 and MVG DT2 look nice and they give this set a more uniform look, but you still forgot these for the MVG DT2 rushing north and south. I do like the actual version of the HHA DT5 with the high windows much more. Nice done! Check the fronts of this car (the bumper and the indicators), they are not drawn exactly the same.


@ Supercheese:
I now tested the use of the new 'railtype' parameter with default tracks, electrified tracks, monorail, 3rd rail and metro tracks (nuTracks, MetroTracks, UK finescale). The last four all work properly. The fallback to 3rd rail or metro tracks to a loaded tracktype also behaves like you described. That is a nice little 'feature'.
Found a bug: if default tracks (= not electrified tracks) are selected via parameter there always is a fallback to electrified rails. The english language file should be verified for this case too.


Thanks for your awesome work and have a nice weekend!

[Hans Kruzer]

@Supercheese
Like so?
I am not sure about setting transparency of it, but I just painted the F92 in all black

and Breggodan, thanks for the photo now I know a bit more about what you mean. As far as articulated separations, I think maybe the 1 excess pixel of blue is causing the gap. The trains intentionally mean to have a maximum of 2 px articulation. The black parts in the articulation are not intended

And yes, in fact, when the trains are loading/unloading the doors will open at stations and each carraige has at least 2 flashing lights for when the door is open. I've already did this to the Berlin and Hamburg trains. Concerning the windows, I am guessing you like the newer DT5, but the window seperations for the DT4? Well I must admit when I look at it the doors seem a bit out of place. As for the F92, I tried to make something to indicate a coupling seperation, since its one of the few trains without articulated seperation. To be honest it was a peice of junk I'd drawn so I don't know about its future in the set I have a good idea that the BVG H alignment problem can be solved the same way as the MVG C so thats easilt done.

[Bregodon]

the window seperations for the DT4? Well I must admit when I look at it the doors seem a bit out of place.

You are right, I don't said it clearly. The doors are side by side on one wagon and further apart on the other wagen. The windows are fine.

[Hans Kruzer]

Just when you though Hans hopped on a u-bahn and rode into the sunset here I return with some progress After drawing many many trucks, even the great Berlin Fernsehturm, its time to come back to the original set that started it all

Here I've given the HHA DT4 a slanted roof as it should have in real life, I've fixed the alignment error with the Munich C-Train (hopefully), and fixed the HHA DT4 doors, I beleive, I still have to do a mock-up to be sure.

And the open-doors sprites which will appear when trains load/unload at a station! Indeed, they have flashing lights too to seduce your eyes

It seems the voters want the Frankfurt U-bahn, so I will make the last 2 models of LRT trains it uses sometime soon, it will ride electric rails only like it does in real life. For the one who voted Nein/No, well You don't need to use it, however the German Road Vehicle Set has a selection of trams which can mock the Frankfurt U-bahn, and has Frankfurt liveries.

As for our old faithful F92, it's a little too old to fit in a "modern" metro set. I plan to make it all shiny and spiffy and donate it to another set instead

[Hans Kruzer]

To finally answer the great, giant, majority who wanted the Frankfurt stadtbahn in the set. Keep your eyes peeled, for next time we shall unveil the Berlin S-Bahn.

Though there is quite a small problem. Is there a guideline for pantographs? (electric railways) It is known Frankfurt's uses overhead wires!

[Hans Kruzer]

Here is test Version 3, coded by Supercheese! It has all the parameters of 2, only this version has renewed sprites for Hamburg Hochsbahn, and the Frankfurt U-Bahn Train. This version has open/closing doors on the trains too !

You may want to wait for the next release which is solely to improve the Frankfurt train's graphics and statistics, since this test version's a bit incorrect there.