Dutch Road Furniture Development

[Leanden]

Ye ill have a quick look when im at home next.

[FooBar]

What's cooking? Currently a side-order of motorway signs

Five generations worth; from middle to outside: 1946, 1969, 1982, 1997 and 2008. So the first one will be available in 1946 and the last one from 2008 until the end of your game. Once built, it will keep the looks of that era.

You can get them in the upcoming nightly. This time there will be no release on Bananas. That will have to wait until the gantry signs are coded, which are already drawn in six generations.

[RL Conroy]

This set is looking very good right now!

One question though: Do you also include "Matrixborden" on gantries that are adjustable?
If that is possible i will be very happy

[Leanden]

Good job on the signs, will they be available without the hard shoulder as well?

[FooBar]

Thanks! Both of you!

Do you also include "Matrixborden" on gantries that are adjustable?

I've thought about that, but haven't decided. The gantries are already drawn, so it shouldn't be too much work. However "adjustable" would mean a lot of different objects and building the one you want to have. But then what to display on these signs? Speed limits don't make much sense as there currently is no such thing in OpenTTD. So that basically leaves (IMO) a red cross for the lane that cannot be used by vehicles and green arrows for the other two lanes. Suggestions are welcome

will they be available without the hard shoulder as well?

I can possibly have them auto-detect if there's a hard shoulder tile next to it and decide wether to draw a shoulder or not based on that. On the other hand these signs are typical motorway signs; I think you can hardly find any of these signs not next to a hard shoulder.
I don't want to enforce 100% realism though, so I'll have a look how difficult the code will turn out to be and decide whether you can have 'em without shoulders based on that.

[lawton27]

So that basically leaves (IMO) a red cross for the lane that cannot be used by vehicles and green arrows for the other two lanes. Suggestions are welcome

I don't know much about Dutch roads but would there be something like expect delays ahead? or perhaps a works ahead display if you do under construction graphics, it's a permanent feature on most UK motorways .

[RL Conroy]

However "adjustable" would mean a lot of different objects and building the one you want to have. But then what to display on these signs? Speed limits don't make much sense as there currently is no such thing in OpenTTD. So that basically leaves (IMO) a red cross for the lane that cannot be used by vehicles and green arrows for the other two lanes.

You can use 50 and 70 (Most common) for speedlimits (Only for eyecandy ofcourse... Makes it a little bit realistic...), the white arrows to the right and left, a green arrow, and a red cross. Not all signals ofcourse because there are 13 Signals the real "Matrixbord" can display! The flashing lights are VERY simple to do with "Yellow flash" in the Pallette.

I don't know much about Dutch roads but would there be something like expect delays ahead? or perhaps a works ahead display if you do under construction graphics

Yeah, i was also thinking something like that!

I'm made some sprites from a Matrixbord that has all Signals the Matrixbord can use in OpenTTD scale, even with flashing lights! Look beneath! This is a Example combining your gantry with my Matrixborden It is looking good!

[Leanden]

But the signs are on the same tile as the hard shoulder, so surely they are the same object?

[FooBar]

Matrixbord

Not bad! They could do with some depth though and they look a bit big. The distance between two signs should be about the width of one of those things. But not bad at all!

But the signs are on the same tile as the hard shoulder, so surely they are the same object?

No, they're two different objects You either build a shoulder or you build a sign and get a shoulder with it for free.

[Leanden]

Ah ok, so maybe just a callback to see if there are any hard shoulder graphics adjacent to that tile in the same orientation? If not, just draw the sign.

How does the sign work on hills? (For example if you put a motorway in a trench, the hard shoulder goes on the bottom of the hill bit, but what happens with the sign?)

[FooBar]

Yes, a callback would be enough to check whether or not to draw a shoulder, but it also includes eight more spritelayouts

The sign works on slopes as long as the "direction of travel" is level. Other types of slopes are denied. I may revisit those later, as they need additional graphics to work properly. Technically even the slopes that are allowed now need additional graphics to be entirely correct, but I think they work.

Similar restrictions will apply to the gantries.

[Leanden]

The hard shoulders cover my signs nicely on the areas where you don't want them, i.e. highway junctions.

[planetmaker]

I just gave this set short whirl ingame - and it is a very nice eye candy addition to the game

I found some minor cases which could possibly improved:

The yellow circled area shows where the road shoulder slopes down while the road doesn't. Possibly you want to include a slope check for the adjacent tile. Possibly that will be a very lengthy, maybe ugly thing, especially as the user also could just terraform .

The red circled area shows the connection to other roads. Maybe it could extend such into the crossing tile (which could be checked for being a road tile) that the lanes kinda fade out or match to the existing roads there. Or you could install some road block at the end of the discontinued 3rd lane.

When constructing the road shoulders I found myself placing things, then deleting, placing others. Not sure, one would have to try, but maybe it's an idea to allow overbuilding of this object type via OBJ_FLAG_ANYTHING_REMOVE.

[FooBar]

Foundations next to the road are indeed a problem. I may consider improving that code-wise when I'm done with the graphics part of this set, as I consider that far more important than these edge-cases that have a workaround available. But yes, it's certainly something that could be improved! I also accept patches to that extent

For these "end pieces" like in the red circle I already have some ideas. They just need drawing A hook in the code to support that is already in place, so for one time I actually looked ahead

I'll add OBJ_FLAG_ANYTHING_REMOVE to the next release so that anyone can see if that works better. A tip while building is to choose the object that is most parallel to the road and then it will take care of corners automatically for you. If two orientations are "equally parallel" it doesn't matter which one you build.

Nice screenshot though, clearly shows that the set is far from finished

The hard shoulders cover my signs nicely on the areas where you don't want them

Very good. Then that's no problem towards supporting your UK Roads.

[planetmaker]

I'll add OBJ_FLAG_ANYTHING_REMOVE to the next release so that anyone can see if that works better. A tip while building is to choose the object that is most parallel to the road and then it will take care of corners automatically for you. If two orientations are "equally parallel" it doesn't matter which one you build.

One case I only noticed after posting where it will be extremely helpful: when building highway exits on an existing highway. Without that flag I first have to demolish stuff. With that flag, I just build the road on top of it

[oberhümer]

How about replacing those ugly one-way arrows with signs? I think it's done somewhere already.

[PinkMoon]

When I download the GRF file it doesn't work ! It says it need OpenTTD 1.2.0 . But 1.2.0 does not exist yet ! Help please .

(NL: Toen ik de GRF file had gedownload naar mijn laptop en deze installeerde deed deze het niet . Hij vroeg om versie 1.2.0 ,maar die bestaat nog helemaal niet ? !)

[planetmaker]

When I download the GRF file it doesn't work ! It says it need OpenTTD 1.2.0 . But 1.2.0 does not exist yet ! Help please .

(NL: Toen ik de GRF file had gedownload naar mijn laptop en deze installeerde deed deze het niet . Hij vroeg om versie 1.2.0 ,maar die bestaat nog helemaal niet ? !)

That message is correct though. The NewGRF won't work with current stable releases. The nightlies of OpenTTD are currently alpha versions of OpenTTD 1.2.0. Probably the message gives a minimum revision, too? In any case, the solution is simply: grab a nightly of OpenTTD.

[FooBar]

How about replacing those ugly one-way arrows with signs?

Guess who drew those "ugly one-way arrows" in the first place
Problem with signs is that the can't have a height extending above the tile or above the road surface (or vehicles will drive over them).
I admit the arrows don't work on slopes, but I think signs will have a similar problem as there's only one graphic that must work on both flat and sloped roads.

Probably the message gives a minimum revision, too?

The string is "1.2.0 (r22723)", so nightly r22723 would be the minimum required version.

But 1.2.0 does not exist yet !

Crorrect. By writing 1.2.0 now I don't have to release a new version of the grf when 1.2.0 comes out just to update that message. Furthermore I have nothing to add to planemaker's reply

[RL Conroy]

Not bad! They could do with some depth though and they look a bit big. The distance between two signs should be about the width of one of those things. But not bad at all!

Thank you! I am currently drawing them smaller to see how it looks. I drawed some smaller Matrixborden (Look at the attachment)

How about replacing those ugly one-way arrows with signs? I think it's done somewhere already

Problem with signs is that the can't have a height extending above the tile or above the road surface (or vehicles will drive over them).
I admit the arrows don't work on slopes, but I think signs will have a similar problem as there's only one graphic that must work on both flat and sloped roads

The "Czech Roadset" does have signs instead of arrows: http://forum.tycoonez.com/viewtopic.php?p=27429#27429
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Here are my smaller Matrixborden; are these better?