Flash Tutorial

Got an idea for a new feature in TTDPatch? Post it here.

Moderator: TTDPatch Moderators

gmyx
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 123
Joined: 27 Feb 2003 00:06
Location: Hammond, Ontario, Canada

Post by gmyx »

krtaylor wrote:Since you have such a tool, gmyx, can you use it to make the captures? If you don't have an animated-GRF maker, you can ZIP up all the files, numbered in order, and I'll make an animated GRF out of them with my tool, if you like.
I will do some samples and upload them here.
eis_os wrote:Hmm, let me rethink about it. If you take screenshots via an external app you get truecolor files, thats silly, TTD only uses 256 colors, and it needs to be resampled for useing as gif.
It can capture at 256 while the screen is at 16/24/32 bits.
gmyx
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 123
Joined: 27 Feb 2003 00:06
Location: Hammond, Ontario, Canada

Post by gmyx »

Here is my first try. It is bassed on one of my saved games. It about 15 seconds of game play. I still have some things to work out (it was jerky) but it work very well. I added a time stamp just for verification purposes. It will not always be there.
Attachments
Images.part2.rar
(1.27 MiB) Downloaded 296 times
Images.part1.rar
(1.39 MiB) Downloaded 292 times
User avatar
krtaylor
Tycoon
Tycoon
Posts: 11784
Joined: 07 Feb 2003 01:58
Location: Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by krtaylor »

Can you do them in ZIP files? I can't read your RARs. I can read some RARs, but not all, for some reason.
Development Projects Site:
http://www.as-st.com/ttd
Japan, American Transition, Planeset, and Project Generic Stations available there
DaleStan
TTDPatch Developer
TTDPatch Developer
Posts: 10285
Joined: 18 Feb 2004 03:06
Contact:

Post by DaleStan »

Did you remove the silly _125 and _201? The wonders of the attachment mod; now it breaks spanned archives too. Or maybe the authenticity verification broke things. But I suspect it's the first. What are you using for UnRARing? I checked with both WinRAR and 7-Zip; both behaved perfectly once I fixed the names.

If all else fails, the attached archive contains the same images, saved as BMP instead of PNG. (Sorry, ZIP is above the 2MB limit regardless of whether it contains BMP or PNG.)
Attachments
Images.rar
(293.33 KiB) Downloaded 267 times
To get a good answer, ask a Smart Question. Similarly, if you want a bug fixed, write a Useful Bug Report. No TTDPatch crashlog? Then follow directions.
Projects: NFORenum (download) | PlaneSet (Website) | grfcodec (download) | grfdebug.log parser
User avatar
krtaylor
Tycoon
Tycoon
Posts: 11784
Joined: 07 Feb 2003 01:58
Location: Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by krtaylor »

DaleStan wrote:Did you remove the silly _125 and _201?
No. But I tried again, and did this time, and it still didn't work. Your new file doesn't work either. Can you do ZIP? If necessary, use two ZIPs, and for goodness' sake don't span them!
Development Projects Site:
http://www.as-st.com/ttd
Japan, American Transition, Planeset, and Project Generic Stations available there
DaleStan
TTDPatch Developer
TTDPatch Developer
Posts: 10285
Joined: 18 Feb 2004 03:06
Contact:

Post by DaleStan »

What *are* you using for UnRARing? The official program can read all those archives just fine.

Anyway:
Attachments
Images2.zip
(772.75 KiB) Downloaded 280 times
Images1.zip
(1.86 MiB) Downloaded 280 times
To get a good answer, ask a Smart Question. Similarly, if you want a bug fixed, write a Useful Bug Report. No TTDPatch crashlog? Then follow directions.
Projects: NFORenum (download) | PlaneSet (Website) | grfcodec (download) | grfdebug.log parser
User avatar
krtaylor
Tycoon
Tycoon
Posts: 11784
Joined: 07 Feb 2003 01:58
Location: Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by krtaylor »

That worked. Here's the animation. I don't think we're going to find this solution very satisfactory though.
Attachments
ttd1.gif
ttd1.gif (851.91 KiB) Viewed 4070 times
Development Projects Site:
http://www.as-st.com/ttd
Japan, American Transition, Planeset, and Project Generic Stations available there
Patchman
Tycoon
Tycoon
Posts: 7576
Joined: 02 Oct 2002 18:57
Location: Ithaca, New York
Contact:

Post by Patchman »

That's a particularly useless example of an animation though.

We want tutorials. For that, you need to minimize the extraneous information, i.e. make small stations with as few trains as necessary to display what you want to show.

The screen size is also too big, for no benefit.

I think for example, a tutorial about presignals could work like this.

*Why you need pre-signals*

Show a short animation featuring a small segment of a terminus station entrance, showing trains arrive and then one train blocking the entrance.

*How to build pre-signals*

Show a short animation of above entrance, with the signals tool being used to place and convert signals; overlay a picture of a Ctrl key being pressed and released at the right times.

*How they work*

Show a short animation featuring above entrance, as various trains arrive and leave, making sure to focus (i.e. center) or the pre-signal and how it behaves, maybe overlay a magnification of the pre- and exit signals in question.

...etc, the point being that you focus on a short task and show only what's important to that task, and exclude as much as possible of other things going on that have nothing to do with it and would only distract.
Josef Drexler

TTDPatch main | alpha/beta | nightly | manual | FAQ | tracker
No private messages please, you'll only get the answering machine there. Send email instead.
User avatar
Paasky
Transport Coordinator
Transport Coordinator
Posts: 269
Joined: 06 Sep 2004 07:38
Location: Vantaa, Finland
Contact:

Post by Paasky »

I see 2 trains using the same piece of track in that image. Have you pressed the "skip lights" button? I also see a yellow light which should be red as there is traffic on that segment.
:?:
DaleStan
TTDPatch Developer
TTDPatch Developer
Posts: 10285
Joined: 18 Feb 2004 03:06
Contact:

Post by DaleStan »

To get a good answer, ask a Smart Question. Similarly, if you want a bug fixed, write a Useful Bug Report. No TTDPatch crashlog? Then follow directions.
Projects: NFORenum (download) | PlaneSet (Website) | grfcodec (download) | grfdebug.log parser
User avatar
Paasky
Transport Coordinator
Transport Coordinator
Posts: 269
Joined: 06 Sep 2004 07:38
Location: Vantaa, Finland
Contact:

Post by Paasky »

O-M-G-!

I'm stunned :shock:
I.. I.. I... am out of words...

Screw Loco, I'm coming back into TTD :D
User avatar
krtaylor
Tycoon
Tycoon
Posts: 11784
Joined: 07 Feb 2003 01:58
Location: Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by krtaylor »

For one thing, there's no excuse for using 1024x768 resolution. The default, which I think is 640x480, is MORE than ample to demonstrate something, and will save a lot of space. I also think we could take pictures more frequently so the image works better.
Development Projects Site:
http://www.as-st.com/ttd
Japan, American Transition, Planeset, and Project Generic Stations available there
gmyx
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 123
Joined: 27 Feb 2003 00:06
Location: Hammond, Ontario, Canada

Post by gmyx »

krtaylor wrote:For one thing, there's no excuse for using 1024x768 resolution. The default, which I think is 640x480, is MORE than ample to demonstrate something, and will save a lot of space. I also think we could take pictures more frequently so the image works better.
and Patchman wrote:That's a particularly useless example of an animation though.

We want tutorials. For that, you need to minimize the extraneous information, i.e. make small stations with as few trains as necessary to display what you want to show.

The screen size is also too big, for no benefit.
Of couse it's overkill. I just did a quick one to see how well it works. I took an save game and "recorded" it. And kept all my settings the same. I'm sure it will work much better at the lower resolution with much less happening in the game (It has 170+ trains in that one). The real ones will need to be properly prepared for this to work.
User avatar
krtaylor
Tycoon
Tycoon
Posts: 11784
Joined: 07 Feb 2003 01:58
Location: Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by krtaylor »

Well, you've got the tool. If you can make some tutorials, I'll turn them into animated GIFs like I did with the first one.

My GIF maker is actually pretty sophisticated. I can make one frame stay put for extra long, so if you draw in an arrow, I can make that stay for a while to catch someone's attention. Or you can put a text explanation up, that also stays for a while.
Development Projects Site:
http://www.as-st.com/ttd
Japan, American Transition, Planeset, and Project Generic Stations available there
gmyx
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 123
Joined: 27 Feb 2003 00:06
Location: Hammond, Ontario, Canada

Post by gmyx »

krtaylor wrote:Well, you've got the tool. If you can make some tutorials, I'll turn them into animated GIFs like I did with the first one.
The question is: What tutorials? (I don't like to p*ss in the dark ;) ) Like I said, they need to be properly set-up.
User avatar
krtaylor
Tycoon
Tycoon
Posts: 11784
Joined: 07 Feb 2003 01:58
Location: Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by krtaylor »

Well, you could start by replicating the original TTD tutorials.
Development Projects Site:
http://www.as-st.com/ttd
Japan, American Transition, Planeset, and Project Generic Stations available there
Flamelord
Chief Executive
Chief Executive
Posts: 731
Joined: 24 Mar 2005 22:29
Location: Oregon

Post by Flamelord »

This is totally off-topic, but you can make short animations with TTD by clearing out your screenshots, then going in-game and holding Ctrl-S. Then just place the images together in a GIF, and you're good!
User avatar
eis_os
TTDPatch Developer
TTDPatch Developer
Posts: 3603
Joined: 07 Mar 2003 13:10
Location: Germany
Contact:

Post by eis_os »

TTDWin doesn't show a cursor in screenshots, I already try to understand why ...
TTDPatch dev in retirement ... Search a grf, try Grf Crawler 0.9 - now with even faster details view and new features...
Image
User avatar
eis_os
TTDPatch Developer
TTDPatch Developer
Posts: 3603
Joined: 07 Mar 2003 13:10
Location: Germany
Contact:

Post by eis_os »

Ok, I have made some proof of concept code

800x600 (includeing mousecursor) with every ~4 ticks = one frame

50MB PCX size = 94 screenshots
1,4MB gif animation with half color mode
TTDPatch dev in retirement ... Search a grf, try Grf Crawler 0.9 - now with even faster details view and new features...
Image
User avatar
krtaylor
Tycoon
Tycoon
Posts: 11784
Joined: 07 Feb 2003 01:58
Location: Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by krtaylor »

Does your GIF animator make intervening panes transparent where the previous pane is the same? That saves space.
Development Projects Site:
http://www.as-st.com/ttd
Japan, American Transition, Planeset, and Project Generic Stations available there
Post Reply

Return to “Suggestions”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest