New Graphics - Blender ".blend" thread (Works In Progress)

[Zephyris]

Ben_Robbins_, is that grass texture a non-post-render modified blender texture?

[Ben_Robbins_]

Gramble: The original dimensions are that everything is to real scale and a tile is 12.5. There is no problem working out scales from this. However recently there has been some debate on how things should be scaled. The reason for the lack of trains in the wiki is partly because of this, and partly as crazy_valcav, who made a lot of wagons/trains, removed his.

Zephyris: Its a particle effect in max. It has been edited post-render. To save render time I actually rendered the rail alone and photoshoped together the rail with the existing grass tile. Particle effects are particularly time consuming with the lighting setup.

[Zephyris]

Thats unfortunate... It looks like I'm going to have to photoshop my houses onto tiles...

[Buran]

What game do I have to have to use these graphics? I'm fairly new to the whole modding thing, so please be patient with me!

Any extra help in getting these graphics into the game would be appreciated. (For example, where can I download them?)

[LordAzamath]

What game do I have to have to use these graphics? I'm fairly new to the whole modding thing, so please be patient with me!

Any extra help in getting these graphics into the game would be appreciated. (For example, where can I download them?)

Well. As far as I know, there are very few graphics released. Actually they are released for testing, but anyone hasn't complained about them yet (AFAIK) Two of them are done by me and one by GeekToo. You can find the list here and the instructions here

The others that you can see in these forums are actually just artwork. AFAIK no coding has been done for them yet. It would be great though if somebody would be so nice and start asking for permissions and start coding

Good OpenTTD'ing
Lord

EDIT: I found out today, that the tropical_flats.tar, which I uploaded here consisted unfinished 32bpp toolbar graphics (I think they are Joed's) and pngcodec.exe. I'm sincerily sorry for distributing that w/o authors permissions. I now uploaded there a new tar, which doesn't include joed's work nor pngcodec.

I owe somebody an apoloogize now I suppose for distributing them. That means - sorry.

Lord

[GeekToo]

Just for fun (to keep me away from grass and rocks for a while), I started modelling a bus (Foster II) today. It's a long way from being finished, just wanted to know if I should continue it, or that it does not stand a chance at all.
I started a bus because there does not seem to be much modelling of RVs.

[athanasios]

well, we will need a replacement for standard vehicles, so it is a good idea. Second would be to come in contact with George and see if can cooperate in making his LVs in 3D.

[Ben_Robbins_]

Models can always be improved upon. You have the right shape and with some elements (the wheels) some good detail. I suggest you keep going the way your going, and it should look good. 1 suggestion is just start rendering at the scale it will be when done, because on a bus I tired a while ago I added some details that just looked like noise at the game scale.

p.s. sorry I'm not modelling anything currently, busy on port folio.

[GeekToo]

OK, I've continued to work for an hout or so on the bus. Scaling to the game level seems like a good idea ( though a little frustrating, losing all the nice details), but I did not do that yet. Since not much seems to be going on in this thread atm , I thought it might be nice to post an update on the bus.

[athanasios]

Cool! I think you forgot the driver's window. I wouldn't go into that bus. Unless it is still work in progress, so I take my words back.
(I am joking!)

[Moriarty]

On the matter of modelling new buses, I created this thread rather than go off on another tangent here:
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=34452

[LordAzamath]

I made a little correction to the tropical flats. I uploaded the corrected version here. I think you all should update, because I removed a lightning glitch and now it looks more ok.

If someone notices some errors like a typo in pngcodecing or something like that, please pm me. I think it's ok now

[GeekToo]

Another update of the bus, though work is keeping me rather busy at the moment, I managed to make some progress. Any comments are welcome, still work in progress

[Ben_Robbins_]

Geektoo: The bus looks really nice, very modern, and a model that is really good. It just needs some texturing to finish it off. Dirt/marks/lines between the panels of metal etc. Another concern is the length. It is looking more and more likely that everything will need to be squashed down to fit the original sizes, which will make your coach rather too long. I've done some rough 'squidging' and scaled it down in the attached example, as this may be what we have to make the vehicles appear like...

[ZxBiohazardZx]

Ben: in my personal opinion i like Geektoo's bus more, and why cant we do longer buses? i think George has a set that allows bigger busses and trucks, why not use that?

and didn't alltaken have some trucks / busses on his web-page or something like that?

[GeekToo]

Ben, thanks for the comments, I know the model still needs some work: flashing lights, mirrors, texture etc.
Maybe the dirt etc. won't be visible on the 64 px scale, so I don't know if I'll spend time on that now. Maybe the lighting needs some work too, I added some filler lights to make the bus look better, the standard lighting is very good for buildings, but for vehicles, it makes them look rather boring, with a very dark front end. I guess we'll have to discuss that in the future

ZxBioHazardZx: George indeed has longer buses, but they do have graphical glitches: driving through tunnels and in stations, or too close to each other make them overlap, or appear through the tunnel roof (though I really like the models). But I think Ben's point was to use the proper scaling, not to make my model look better.

I don't want to make those glitches, so instead of using grf's with longer buses, I think the thing we really need is the return of the extra zoom levels. I really miss the detail that was introduced with these extra levels in the 32bpp branch. But the dev's promised they would be back, for me it's the #1 on my wishlist. If I can help with speeding this development up, by testing or bugfinding, please let me know. Cause the bus is my first 'real' Blender project, but I've got almost 20 years experience in C-programming, and would be glad to help to get the extra zoom levels back sooner

For an example why I want that: my bus, rescaled to the currently available zoom level

[athanasios]

Still it is longer than the normal lenght of buses, but I like it as it is. I don't mind about the glitches.

[GeekToo]

Still it is longer than the normal lenght of buses, but I like it as it is. I don't mind about the glitches.

Well, I do mind about the glitches, but I also do mind reducing the size of the bus to half a tile, completely losing all the detail (it's worse enough for even a complete tile).
So I started to use my bus in the game for one view, and had some problems with company colours, but I've solved that. But I still had a problem with the bus in tunnels, where it did appear through the roof of the tunnel, and in stations, where it did show bigger than the station edges.

For the stations, I don't have a quick solution, but for the tunnels I think this is a coding problem, because I don't see the necessity to reduce the bus to half a tile size, just to be shown correct in tunnels. And I think it can (and should) be solved in code. So here's my dilemma: should I dive into the code and try to repair the glitches in tunnels, or complete my set of graphics first, accepting the glitches in tunnels. Let me know what you guys think is more important, to get my priorities right.

[athanasios]

Graphics please.

To my opinion, besides the glitch, tunnels are a problem because they should be double height (or 1 1/2) than what they currently are. Some things have to change one day...

[GeekToo]

So, graphics it's going to be.

I've detailed the model further, but it does not show on 64 px sprites.

I've made a tar file for testing that can be downloaded. It does contain only 4 views of the Hereford and Foster bus( same sprites).

Reason: I like to have feedback on the color scheme, lighting and scaling.
Furthermore where should the company colours be applied ( only applied in one view now )? It must be small, since it is only 8 bpp for company colours.

And the best way to judge it, is to apply it in the game.
Installation as usual for 32bpp: put the tar in the data directory, and start a nightly with a 32bpp blitter