[UNIV]Thomas the tank engine set [Coder Needed]

Bad Hair Day · Post by **Bad Hair Day** » 08 Apr 2006 14:43

This sprite is causing problems and I'm just not happy with it.

The main problem is the red line along the top of the tank. Any ideas on how to deal with it?

jebartle · Post by **jebartle** » 08 Apr 2006 16:00

Glad to see some progress on this set. my grandson is very excited that he will be able to use Thomas and his friends in his game. Grandpa does most
of the work but it's his railroad. Thankyou for bringing us this set!

JEB

Snail · Post by **Snail** » 08 Apr 2006 17:17

Nice to see your progresses on that steamer!

2-10-0, Your model is at a good stage already. Since you asked, however, here are a couple of suggestions that might enhance it a bit.

If I got the idea of the engine right, the red stripes should follow the highest border of the lateral tanks, and the engine has red rings around the boiler. Furthermore, there is a dome on top of the boiler and the wheels are blue. I think these are the points you could work on to make it look better and more accurate.

I did a small sketch showing how I solved these problems in my learning process. So:

1. First of all, the rings. In a tender engine, they're visible all across the boiler; in a tank engine, however, they're partially hidden by the tanks so you can only see the top on the diagonal views. The best way to draw them, IMO, is to draw them as a two or three pixel long diagonal line, starting from just on top of the tanks and arriving to the top of the boiler. Of course, the lines should be properly shaded: the first pixel will be dark (coz it's meant to be partially covered by the tank), the second will be bright (coz it's the one that gets the most light) and for the third one you can use your judgement (it has to be darker than the second tho). Occasionally you might want to draw a 4th pixel just left of the topmost one: but that should be done only for large engines, which Thomas is not.

2. The tanks. To give the idea of them, the way to go is play with the shades (that's where the beauty of drawing trains is

). The tanks should be considerably brighter than the boiler; especially the top pixel line of the tanker should be visually detached from the bottom pixel line of the visible part of the boiler, to give the idea of deepness and surface change. You can see the scheme of this on my 2nd sketch on the bottom: the red pixels are the top part of the tanks, and the green pixels are the bottom part of the boiler. As you see the corresponding pixels in the true sprites, the shades of grey I used are very different, and this gives the idea of deepness.

Now, what to do with Thomas? Well, the top line of the boiler is red, because of the stripe, so you should draw it red. But the red line you drew in your sprite is a bit too high. The lateral tanks are not that tall. So, that red line is actually the bottom part of the boiler. See? So, in order to enhance it: (1) draw the red line a bit lower, maybe one pixel or a couple; (2) recolor your original red line to dark blue, so that it correctly becomes the bottom of the boiler: (3) try and draw the rings the way I showed earlier, as diagonal shaded lines.
When you do this, don't forget the shading. The new red line you will draw as top of the tanks should have two, if not three, shades or bright red (the TTD palette is limited, but allows you to do this). For reference, see the tanks of my three models.

3. The domes. Thomas has one blue dome on the boiler, which is two pixels long on the horizontal view. But, because of the way TTD trains are designed, when you switch to diagonal view, the best results are obtained if you shrink the dome to the width of one pixel (I learnt this through trial and error). Look at the domes of the 141. There are three and the only way to do them was to shrink them to one pixel. Same goes for Thomas.
Also, domes should be shaded as well. The top pixel is bright, as it gets the light. The bottom pixel is dark, to give the idea that there is something raised on top of the boiler (I know it makes little sense to say it, but TTD sprites are so small that dirty tricks like this actually work

). So, try to reshape the dome; I think you should limit it to the leftmost part of the 2-pixel dome you drew. This will free one pixel up for the topmost part of the ring.

You also might want to check the wheels. Stevenh drew very good models with blue wheels you might want to check out (as you see, he drew the external part of the wheels in grey, which is a very good solution). Now, I'm not saying you should copy others' solutions. But sometimes, especially when you start, it's useful to see how other artists solved problems.

I guess that's all for now. Try harder and enjoy!

Of course, everything changes when you do the other diagonal view, and mirroring won't work

You'll have to play with the shading again.
Btw, I realize there are no tutorials for steamers at all... what if I try and do one if I have time?

stevenh · Post by **stevenh** » 09 Apr 2006 07:17

Bah, had a few fatigued minutes spare:

Post by **Dave** » 09 Apr 2006 12:38

Looks great tho!

Nice to see you including Toby.

Post by **WWTBAM** » 10 Apr 2006 03:15

thanx also if anyone with scenario making experience would like to make a scenario please post in the thread in the general ttd forum. The link to the thread is here. Thanx to DanMack for working on the scenario. Also we are nearing completion of the mentioned locos. All we need is henry and are waiting for 2-10-0 to complete thomas. The only thing holding us up in terms of coding is jonty-comp is having troubles with articulated locos/tenders. So if anyone wants to start doing wagons after henry is claimed do so. I have claimed the troublesome trucks and the log wagon.

DanMacK · Post by **DanMacK** » 11 Apr 2006 17:33

Progress on the Island of Sodor is coming along well. Are there any plans to include the narrow gauge locos of the Skarloey Railway and the Culdee Fell Mountain Railway?

Also, I'll draw Annie and Clarabelle, but I've got a question. They were originally 4 axle bogie coaches. Only for the TV series were they shortened to their current appearance. I'd be inclined to draw them as the Rev. Awdry intended.

Thoughts?

Post by **Dave** » 11 Apr 2006 18:05

I think that's the decision the set will have to make.

As in the TV series? Or as the original stories suggested.

Speaking of which I was reading my old compendium of the Thomas series today... it's great as ever.

DanMacK · Post by **DanMacK** » 11 Apr 2006 19:06

Here are the two coaches - The long versions are more accurate to the original stories, the short versions are more in-tune with the TV series. Which one do you guys want?

Post by **WWTBAM** » 12 Apr 2006 01:29

i yeah i think the book version. But if you get the time to finish the tv version i geuse we could include bioth and lable them correctly. We could even make the book version be available first and at the date the tv series cam out make then tv versuion come out.
edit my other idea was include the original length and if you have spare time make it so the user can refit it to the tv length if they want.

Thalass · Post by **Thalass** » 12 Apr 2006 19:53

This is a great idea! I have a little brother who loves Thomas. This'd be a great way to bring him into the gaming fold while he's still young

It would also be a great set to include in the OTTD 32bpp graphics bit.

Bad Hair Day · Post by **Bad Hair Day** » 13 Apr 2006 17:14

More food! I mean sprites...

Verticals complete.
Horizontals complete.
Tanks are now more visible on horizontals.
Dodgy tanks on diagonal improved.

Peter1x9 · Post by **Peter1x9** » 13 Apr 2006 19:02

robotboy wrote:i yeah i think the book version. But if you get the time to finish the tv version i geuse we could include bioth and lable them correctly. We could even make the book version be available first and at the date the tv series cam out make then tv versuion come out.
edit my other idea was include the original length and if you have spare time make it so the user can refit it to the tv length if they want.

It would probably be better to use a parameter so that the player can decide which version to use.

Snail · Post by **Snail** » 14 Apr 2006 01:58

2-10-0:

Nice to see your progresses! That's much better man.
Now, a couple of details more:

Be careful to the direction the light comes from. To switch from the right-bound to the left-bound horizontal views you started by simply mirroring the image, and that's fine. But at that point, most (if not all) of the shading has to be redone in order to comply with the new direction of the light. Remember, light doesn't hit the head of the engine anymore: it now hits the back. This is a small detail that differentiates a well-thought sprite from another one

This means that the roof shading has to be redone, the chimney as well, and also the red borders should follow a different pattern. You can achieve this by simply copying those parts of the engine in the right-bound sprite, and pasting them on the left-bound sprite in the corresponding places. I tried to draw the process for the red stripes on the back, hope it helps.
Also, the blue dome on the boiler seems to be unshaded on the left-bound horizontal view?

The diagonal view is much better now!

Just a couple of things you might want to think about: you used only 2 shades of red for the stripes, don't you think they look a bit flattish? Maybe you could adopt a couple of shades more and make it a bit more realistic. Also, the lower part of the boiler seems to be painted with a bit too bright tone of blue, and that might cause unwanted contrast.

Oh, and one last thing. It seems your horizontal views show the farmost water tanks, too (the ones on the opposite side). Are you sure they're visible from a TTD perspective? Methinks they'd be hidden by the boiler itself (especially on Thomas, which doesn't have exceptionally tall side tanks). Maybe it's just a matter of personal style. But I prefer to shade my engines' boilers so that the second pixel line from top is the lightest one, to give the idea of a round shape: on your model, the topmost line is the lightest. This doesn't want to be a critic, it's just something you might want to think about (if the tank is invisible, the second line from top should be lighter than the first - see 242TA I attached here).
But this has probably to do with the relative height of the boiler vs. the tanks. Thomas' boiler is kind of small as well. So use your judgement here.

Hope you don't mind if I keep commenting your work like this

I see you have talent, and this set seems to be a very good opportunity to do practice. Nice job so far. Good luck now with the remaining 3 diagonal views

Post by **WWTBAM** » 14 Apr 2006 12:40

I had an idea on how to solve the mail/pax problem. We would code a verry small peice of track to hold mail, this would then trail the train and blnd with the track so it wouldnt look obscure, it would only look obscure on hills and maybe in stations. The only other prob is we would have to notify people what it was for. What do you guys think.

Post by **PikkaBird** » 14 Apr 2006 12:52

Duh, what?

If you're going to add a non-vehicle vehicle, you may as well just make it completely invisible...

Post by **WWTBAM** » 14 Apr 2006 12:53

i didnt think you could do that.

the_new_guy · Post by **the_new_guy** » 14 Apr 2006 13:00

wouldn't you just code one of those blue screen pieces to make the blue screen an invisible wagon.

Bad Hair Day · Post by **Bad Hair Day** » 14 Apr 2006 14:27

Ok...

Thomas is about done. May need a bit more work.

Also, I've been thinking about coaching stock. I remember in the old stories that there were express coaches hauled by the largers engines. At the moments in the set, we have A + C being hauled by everything. So I recoloured some coaches in these liveries.

Pick the one you want working on first.

edit:

I've been working on some freight wagons.

There is:
A tanker wagon (in sodor fuel livery) (other angles need completeing)
A livestock wagon
Open wagon (needs loading stages)
Goods wagon
Toad the breakvan

The Toad, the livestock and good wagons are all ready to roll.

Bad Hair Day · Post by **Bad Hair Day** » 14 Apr 2006 21:16

Loading stages.

Coal anyone? Iron?

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[UNIV]Thomas the tank engine set [Coder Needed]

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