Dutch Road Furniture Development

[oberhümer]

What you need now is roads that really match.

[FooBar]

I tried to match mine as best as I could without spending too much time on every sprite. I'm sure there's also room for improvement in my sprites.
But yes, the shading of the road itself is not ideal for this purpose.

[planetmaker]

What you need now is roads that really match.

http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/ogf ... ucture.xcf <-- one should be able to easily generate matching road graphics for terrain by just adding another layer with the road in that file (and subsequently exporting the right layers)

[SwissFan91]

Great work FooBar. The speed at which this sat is moving is great

I thought there would be a big influx of people drawing newobjects the minute it was included in OTTD, but I guess they're all coming along now

[Leanden]

If i modify the sprites to match up with the UK Road Set, could we get some compatibility for it?

[FooBar]

I just had a discussion with planetmaker on how that would be possible code-wise. The code shouldn't be the problem, so I'm happy to accept sprites for other road set support!

Mind you that the current sprite count is 178. In the future this will increase as I add "end pieces" which provide a nice ending for the shoulders and a merge thingy for the third lane. And then the sprite count will decrease again as I do some optimizations for the median+third lane sprites as I made a bad choice there combining both sides in one sprite.

So if you still want to make the sprites, I suggest starting with the shoulder sprites as those will not be changed (only new ones will be added later). If I haven't done the sprite reducing by the time you've finished that you can draw the individual pieces needed for the third lanes but just not make them into sprites as that would mean that you'd have to do that again later

The (templated) graphic files can be found in the repository. Filenames are in Dutch, but you need the ones starting with middenberm_ and vluchtstrook_. Their contents will be self-explanatory. The vluchtstrook_ are the ones that I recommend you to start with.

Just take your time with this. Best way to test if your sprites are OK is by getting a source checkout and changing the actual graphic files in there. Then recompile and check ingame and adjust the sprites (not the code as that will break the original sprites) if necessary.

Great work FooBar.

Thank you

http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/ogf ... ucture.xcf

Had a look and could indeed be very useful. Maybe I'll use it to add stripes to the desert road sprites... Those don't work out very well right now with the third lane.

[SwissFan91]

I can't wait to see motorway exit sprites

[FooBar]

You mean signs or actual roadway surface graphics?

While both would be purely eyecandy, I'm not really seeing how the latter could be made to look good. Suggestions (i.e. drawings or mockups) to that extent are more than welcome!

[Leanden]

You'd have to put them on the hard shoulder graphic on the little grassy bit.

[SwissFan91]

I can't draw what I mean at the moment, but I'll try and explain.

Perhaps a tile where the hard shoulder becomes a fourth lane. Then, another tile where this fourth lane leaves the motorway and goes diagonally across the grass tile which it is on.

This could then join a motorway running perpendicular, or a minor road.

[FooBar]

Ah, so something like this quickmockup then maybe?

Not too happy about that really, given how the road still needs to connect like a normal road. I unfortunatly cannot push the white area further onto the road tile as I'm already pushing the out-of-tile glitch limit. Plus then vehicles would drive under the white area and not on top of it!

But even with the silly-road-in-the-middle it looks better than what is currently possible with the tiles this set to give the 'ultimate motorway feeling within TTD limits'. So I'll add it to my list, but only at the very bottom First I like to do the guardrails, the occasional typical Dutch "talk pole" (I have the classic version of those in a Lego set which is just brilliant!) and of course direction signs.

[kamnet]

Do what is realistic within TTD. It would look dumb for all the vehicles to pass up the turn lane and then all the sudden make sharp 90 degree corners.

[FooBar]

Do what is realistic within TTD.

Then that is what the set provides as it is now. Still, this looks quite alright from an eyecandy point of view and of course it would be completely optional on a don't-use-it-if-you-don't-like-it basis.

[FooBar]

Now trying to get one of these motorway gantries drawn. Nevermind the vertical supports. I believe the first versions of these things had only one vertical support at either side and the truss on top and later versions came with the upsidedown V shape supports as you see in the picture. Of course the latter will be in this set as well.

I think the shape of the truss came out quite alright. What do you think?
Probably get one of them oversized LV4 vehicles under it to see if the height is alright.


EDIT: Added a second gantry in slightly different colours (top left one). I thought the first one was too bright, but this one seems too grey. I'm kinda missing a colour inbetween white and the lightest grey in the palette here... Suggestions?

EDIT2: Or just the whole thing brightened up? (bottom one) Cast your votes now!

[Leanden]

I think the top left one looks best.

As for the turn off graphic, I would really like and would use it.

[FooBar]

I wasn't completely happy with the third attempt so I made a fourth. Top left and right are the same as in previous screenshot. The new one is the bottom left and I think that will be the one. It's basically a combination of all previous three

As for the turn off graphic, I would really like and would use it.

Good! Then I'll make a left-side traffic version as well and then you have to draw some more sprites if you still want UK Roads support

[Leanden]

Tell me once you have your third lane sprites completed to satisfaction, and then ill start modifying them to match with UK Roads. By the way, when coding for support, itll have to be supportive of both UKRoadSet and my UKRoads/wSigns pretty please

[FooBar]

Fair enough Don't expect that to be next week though.

And yes, it's no problem to support both versions. That's just a matter of checking two GRFIDs instead of one.

[Leanden]

Hmm actually, because my signs are drawn straight onto the roads themselves, using this with my sign set will draw signs right in the middle of the motorway

(Or does your graphics draw over the grassy bit entirely, because in that case then my signs will be covered

[FooBar]

My graphics cover the grass entirely, so with a bit of luck your signs will be covered as well.
You can actually try that out right now with the current release. Yes it won't look good with UK roads, but surely you can see if your sign gets covered or not.