Dutch Road Furniture Development

[SwissFan91]

I think once the hard shoulder has been enclosed by a fence, it will look better. At the moment, it just looks like a dark pavement.

[planetmaker]

I think once the hard shoulder has been enclosed by a fence, it will look better. At the moment, it just looks like a dark pavement.

I disagree. What FooBar's screenshots show is exactly what a Dutch (and similar also German) highway looks like, if not in the immediate vicinity of a (bigger) town.
It might make sense as an alternative view, but in the same manner it could use some bushes or trees - but that's announced anyway

[romazoon]

i really like what your develloping Foobar ! It s allready looking great !

just a question/suggestion : so far from what i ve seen, if one want s to fill up a middle tile between both roads we could have to do like this :

******hard shoulder
-------- road
******hard shoulder
******hard shoulder
--------road
******hard shuolder


so, may i suggest you (if it s not planned allready ) to create a single tile but double sided hard shoulder ?

*****hard shoulder
------ road
==== double sided hard shoulder /or a low concrete wall/or a bush / or guard rail + lights, etc
------ road
*****hard shoulder


And a bit of topic, i was just wondering, is it planned to make the newobjects buildable with a drag and click ? a few Newobject could really benefit from a feature like this... ( it s taking really long to cover totally an highway tile per tile with fences, or in the future with hard shoulder )

thanks for the time your putting into this !

[FooBar]

bushes or trees - but that's announced anyway

I didn't announce bushes or trees, but that's a rather good idea, thanks!

But yes, this will be the basic variant: just a hard shoulder with nothing else on the tile.

Other variants will be with guardrails, lampposts, signs and now trees as well. I'll probably make trees appear randomly such that you don't have to bother with those yourself (and reduces the object list). There will be no trees on the 'empty' variant though, as Dutch construction guidelines stipulate that there must be no objects within 20 meters of the side of the motorway unless they are guarded by a guardrail or barrier. So I'll avoid getting into trouble and just keep enough space.

Currently I'm also considering ditches, but that may be too much...

i really like what your develloping Foobar ! It s allready looking great !

Thank you sir!

so, may i suggest you (if it s not planned allready ) to create a single tile but double sided hard shoulder ?

It is very uncommon in the Netherlands to have shoulders on the inside. Really the only places you see that is on four lane motorways (in which case they are mandatory), but since you cannot make four lane motorways in OpenTTD I'm a bit hesitant towards this. But I'll consider it, maybe in an addon set (trying to keep this as "Dutch" as possible) with some more international stuff in the same style. Shouldn't be too hard to make once the single-sided ones are done.

And a bit of topic, i was just wondering, is it planned to make the newobjects buildable with a drag and click ?

That would need changes to OpenTTD, so it's unfortunately nothing I can provide from within this set. But that indeed would be great, as it's a real pain having to click every single tile.

[planetmaker]

bushes or trees - but that's announced anyway

I didn't announce bushes or trees, but that's a rather good idea, thanks!

He, then I mis-remembered or mis-understood

so, may i suggest you (if it s not planned allready ) to create a single tile but double sided hard shoulder ?

It is very uncommon in the Netherlands to have shoulders on the inside.[/quote]

I'd suggest to use a kind of auto-shoulder feature, i.e. build a road shoulder on a tile's side when there's an adjacent road tile (and maybe lock that in an animation frame, such that it doesn't change anymore after building it - so that new roads built adjacent by a town don't change it.

Look a bit at FIRS fences or OpenGFX+Landscape's fenced land for ideas how to approach it From a sprite perspective it might be an idea to approach it in a rivers manner: shoulders along the sides of the tile overlayed on top of eachother. And on top another overlay by separate corner sprites, if needed. I.e. on a tile not surrounded by any road, all road shoulders would be hidden by default, and only the shoulder elements required by adjacent road are shown conditionally. One can do a bit by variable or animation frame magic there

[romazoon]

It is very uncommon in the Netherlands to have shoulders on the inside. Really the only places you see that is on four lane motorways (in which case they are mandatory), but since you cannot make four lane motorways in OpenTTD I'm a bit hesitant towards this. But I'll consider it, maybe in an addon set (trying to keep this as "Dutch" as possible) with some more international stuff in the same style. Shouldn't be too hard to make once the single-sided ones are done.

i totally understand your reason of being hesitant, i m myself now realizing that a hard shoulder would probably be a bit too much (wide)... and the idea behind my suggestion was in fact to make it more look like this ):

highwaysttd.png (35.6 KiB) Viewed 4965 times

(i m talking of the middle thingy (barrier, guard rail,or low concrete wall) , not the extra unusable lane as it would stay anyway an empty lane...

(image coming from this thread : http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... it=highway)

That would need changes to OpenTTD, so it's unfortunately nothing I can provide from within this set. But that indeed would be great, as it's a real pain having to click every single tile.

it s looking like there is a new feature to ask to the developers

[FooBar]

auto-shoulder feature

Hmmm, interesting approach.
I currently have coded it as four separate views and the user decides what view to build where. Kinda overlooked the possibility to check for nearby roads when I went for this. I think I'll continue it the way I have set it up now and see if that works. It can always be changed later if it would provide considerable benefits. You can check the current code in the repo if you like.

make it more look like this

That could work. I like that, so I'll just go ahead and steal that idea
I wonder how I could have missed that topic; don't remember seeing that screenshot before. Probably posted during a period of inactivity...
By the way the glitches that topic speaks about do exist, but aren't too bad. You can find them in some of my screenshots if you look closely.

[FooBar]

0.2.0 released

The hard shoulders are there! Almost 750 lines of code, corners and everything. While these are just plain hard shoulders, I don't want to keep them from you any longer, so present you with this release that adds only one object.

Version 0.2.0 is now available at the devzone and of course in the content download. Get it while it is still fresh!

[romazoon]

Awesome work ! Bravo !

but i found a bug though, or at least an unwanted effect i guess.

[FooBar]

I kinda didn't consider these types of corners...
I'll draw and add them first thing.

[romazoon]

I kinda didn't consider these types of corners...

kind of understandable, highways rarely have S curve like i did... but thanks for taking care of it, it will look great i m sure.


Also, on the same testgame, i realized that all the hard shoulder adapt to the terrain, wich is looking really awesome......except for where the shoulder would have to follow the slope while the road stay at level... so i m just wondering if you are planning to add a hardshoulder tile that would build a "build on slope base" to keep it straight (like the VAST fences have actually)? or even better would it be possible to keep the slope like it is but to still have the hard shoulder drawed parralel to the street (since the hard shoulder seems to not be larger than the grass inside the road tile )

dutchroad hardshoulders.png (66.5 KiB) Viewed 4854 times

missing a build on slope sprite isnt it ?

dutchroadshouder on slope.png (11.57 KiB) Viewed 4854 times

, an image "trying" to illustrate what is hard to describe with words

i m thinking of a hardshoulder sprites that would keep the ground like it is, and the hard shoulder would be kind of hanging in the air (on the sprite alone), but once used in game the harshoulder would be staying right next to the road, there would be no built on slope(if it s fiting), and suposely, i think it would also allow to "build" the hard shoulder one tile lower than the road, but the hard shoulder would appear sticked to the road at one level higher wich would look damn good i think

of course this is just suggestions (if it s not allready planned) and me trying to bring constructiv critics on this newgrf (wich i wont be able to play without very soon cause really great )

[ZxBiohazardZx]

imo the road shoulder is a bit hard but i do love romas shot for the highway, if only....

[FooBar]

so i m just wondering if you are planning to add a hardshoulder tile that would build a "build on slope base" to keep it straight

Yes, that's a known problem. The thing is that you cannot tell from the tile slope itself if the road next to it is level or not. It is possible to check the adjacent tile, but that is a big pain to code.

I agree it with you that it would look "damn good" if this was fixed, but I'm afraid it's not on my priority list right now. I rather add new objects first.
Made a note so that this isn't forgotten for the future, but for now you'll have to help yourself to some terraforming such that there are no foundations next to the road.

Good suggestion though and thanks for testing this!

road shoulder is a bit hard

Well, that's what you get with a hard shoulder

[romazoon]

thanks for taking time to answer and explain me the situation. I understand you, and also terraforming a bit is tottally something i can deal with

thanks for testing this!

testing is a pleasure for me ! I m always pleased to see new things in OTTD.

[FooBar]

0.2.1 released

In this release I fixed the issue with inside corners connecting directly to outside corners.
Furthermore I improved the graphics of the east and west inside corners such that these better fit in with the road surface.

Downloads in the usual place, see links in first topic.

I guess now I have to have the fingerposts detect shoulders next to them and if so draw a shoulder on the fingerpost tile as well Maybe later

[wallyweb]

/me thanks Planetmaker for pointing me here.
Those curves are well done.
All those shoulders are missing is the occasional broken down vehicle awaiting a tow truck or the occasional speeder awaiting his ticket from the cop in the police car behind him.

About the NA shoulders, in reality they do vary from one jurisdiction (State/Province) to the next, and I have even seen them vary from one section of road to the next. The shoulders are also usually of less durable construction than the main driving lanes, hence they are often seen to be in disrepair. Perhaps a little variance in shading or noise would help.

[davis]

Great work on that grf , i'd love to use it , though it doesn't work with the latest version of Chills Patchpack , would you mind releasing a version without the version check?

[FooBar]

Variations and such is something for later. Drawing these things is a *****, but the result is good and that's what keeps me continuing this. Improvements like that is I think something for when this has reached 1.0 (i.e. I don't know what other new objects I can add).

I do like the idea of the occasional breakdown. Will consider that
In the Netherlands the police never stops vehicles on the shoulder (certainly not for speeding!) but request the driver to follow the police car. As this is mainly Dutch themed, I'm not inclined to add something like that

would you mind releasing a version without the version check?

I could, but it wouldn't help you. The GRF uses some things that are only available in very recent nightlies of OpenTTD (which are also not in the patchpack). Without the check the GRF will just crash. So an updated version of the patchpack is the only thing that can help you out here unfortunately.

[davis]

well , sucks to be me then . thanks for the quick reply though =))

[FooBar]

0.3.0 released

Now it sucks even more to be davis right now, as the motorway medians with third lanes are here!

These work very similar to the hard shoulders. Just build two roads 1 tile apart and ploink the median object inbetween. I hope to see some screenshots of you using these in your games!

Downloads in the usual places.