South-West German houses set

[super_dan]

Hey there,

As this is my first post on the TT-forums, let me start by saying a big thank you to this community, who did so much for and to my favourite computer game of all times, and who taught me to draw and code my own addons - basically, NewGRF files. Having spent quite some time on this forum as an unregistered user, I now figured out it's time to pay my dues by sharing my own ideas and creations. Nevertheless, I still hope to learn more about drawing and coding NewGRFs and would welcome criticism of all I post here. So let's start with this...


South-West German Houses Set

Right now, I am working on my first major NewGRF set which will be a replacement of town houses. Originally, I just wanted to create a new time level for the Total Town Replacement Set with old-style houses available prior to 1930 as I always start my games in 1850 or even earlier. As time went on, however, I developed other ideas (see below) which turned the project into a full scale houses replacement set.


So far, my ideas for this set include:

Focus on South-West Germany: Regarding the set's name this might not come surprising. More specifically, the set will include real examples of houses located in the German federal state of Baden-Wurttemberg only. This choice, however, is not based on any distinct feature or the existence of a special style in that region. In fact, the houses included will also resemble those of regions close to it, like Bavaria or parts of Switzerland. With this set I basically want to bring my own home to the world of Transport Tycoon.

Six time levels within the period from 1750 to 2050: As already mentioned, the set aims at games with starting dates prior to 1930. To simulate the change of trends in real architecture, the time levels will overlap with an old one slightly giving way to the following.

'Special' town buildings and unique buildings: The set will also include special buildings that can only be built once per town (like a town hall, a church, or a hospital). In large towns these buildings can be replaced by unique forms that are only built once per game.

Distinction between rural and urban towns: To simulate the difference between rural and urban areas, the set will make a distinction between (small) rural towns and (larger) urban towns:

rural towns versus...

rural_style.png (59.45 KiB) Viewed 8329 times

...urban cities

urban_style.png (51.23 KiB) Viewed 8329 times

(these two images also show examples of what I have drawn so far)

Overall, the set will probably be more of an eye candy addon than altering gameplay (even though I am thinking about that as well). My primary goal here is to provide the game with a more authentic look for those who care about that.


I will update this thread whenever there is news or progress. However, I would also like you to express your opinions and thoughts about my concept, and of course advice and new ideas are most welcome. Especially since I would rather call myself an expert in drawing and am still learning how to code the graphics using NML.

[SwissFan91]

These look awesome! Nice work.

Do you plan on making snowy sprites further down the line?

[STD]

Your new set of cities looks just impressive. I love everything that you showed in the screenshots . You a huge thanks for doing this work. And for a suggestion - go ahead to do a set. On this forum there are a lot of experts both in drawing and in the coding of sets grf. I have no doubt that you will have all the help and will give quite a few tips .

[Pingaware]

Seriously impressive first post Really looking forward to seeing how you progress with this. Good luck!

[S-Transport]

The pictures look very nice!

[kamnet]

These do look great, and please also make them available in Arctic climate, even if you don't have snowy sprites yet.

[super_dan]

Thank you very much for the encouraging post and sorry to have kept you waiting for so long...

The good news is neither me nor the project have vanished since the last post. In fact, there will be a first release of this set sometimes near the end of October (I'll be on a longer trip for the next couple of weeks, so I can't do it faster).

However, this initial release will not have all of the features mentioned in my first post yet. You will encounter very "rural" small towns that get more city-like the bigger they grow. But I am going to redesign the time level aspect to make the set a little more simpler with smooth transitions instead of eras (like TTRS). The release will also feature some special and unique buildings like cathedrals and town halls.

Cathedral and town hall (the little red building in the front)

Landmarks_01.PNG (27.71 KiB) Viewed 7563 times

So I hope you're all still interested in this set

[super_dan]

In addition there are some issues that I have to fix or where I need some help.

First thing is, the landmarks that exceed a single tile pretty rarely are built in the town center when a town has grown large. But buildings like the cathedral shown in the last post are confined to the centre area, so in consequence they are hardly built at all in-game. Is there a way to force the appearance of such multi-tile buildings apart from likelihood, which seems not to work well?

Second problem I have is a topic that has been discussed extensively here before:

A nice little village in the black forest...

Black Forest mock_up_small.PNG (199.7 KiB) Viewed 1673 times

Despite reading through most of the topics related I haven't been able to solve the problem how these Black Forest Farm Houses can be made to be built on a specific slope tile and only that one. Any Ideas?

[luxtram]

So I hope you're all still interested in this set

I am, and I believe that many others too.

Is there a way to force the appearance of such multi-tile buildings apart from likelihood, which seems not to work well?

Disclaimer: I am not very familiar with the coding yet.

Are you using the availability_mask to allow it to be built in the town centre only? Then you can set probability high and control the number of buildings with same_house_count_town switch on the construction_check. Have you tried this?

Code I could come up with would be something along these lines

Code: Select all

switch (FEAT_HOUSES, SELF, switch_your_church_construction_check, same_house_count_town) { /*  same_house_count_town is a keyword */
    0: return 1;
    return 0;
}
item (FEAT_HOUSES, your_church) {   
    probability  : 15; /* maximum */
    ....
    graphics {
        ...
        construction_check: switch_your_church_construction_check;
    }
}

What you could also do is to make this building available as an object. This way people can place it at their will (it would not produce or accept passengers then though).

One more thing. Could you specify this to have an open licence like GPLv2, as this would allow others to extend upon your work. For example I am working on the Luxembourg set and I see that I could potentially incorporate at least some of the houses into that set (with proper attribution of course).

[luxtram]

able to solve the problem how these Black Forest Farm Houses can be made to be built on a specific slope tile and only that one. Any Ideas?

You could again use construction check:

Code: Select all

   
graphics {
    ...
    construction_check: return nearby_tile_slope(0, 0) == SLOPE_NE;
}

You check nearby tile with offset 0, that is, your current tile , to have certain value https://newgrf-specs.tt-wiki.net/wiki/N ... ile_slopes.

PS. What is the grf for the road you are using in the last image?

[S-Transport]

Surely I am still interested!

[YSH]

Are you using the availability_mask to allow it to be built in the town centre only? Then you can set probability high and control the number of buildings with same_house_count_town switch on the construction_check

You wouldn't even need a switch for churches, you can just HOUSE_FLAG_CHURCH, and only one will be build for each town. You can also use the HOUSE_FLAG_STADIUM, which in the original game controls stadiums, but can of course be applied to town halls or something like that in your set.

[SwissFan91]

Pleased this is still alive!

I made a Swiss Town Set but it never quite made it through to completion. However, I drew over 30 buildings complete with construction stages and 5 (!) snow sprites. Feel free to use any of the sprites (posted here) as I'd love to see your set grow.

[S-Transport]

Anything new about the set? I would be very glad!

[SimYouLater]

Nice work on this! May I recommend that you use a Public Domain license? The problem we have here is that we legally require NewGRFs to have a license but they can make it impossible to do anything without specifically getting the permission of the original creator(s) and/or including source code, so a Public Domain license will make sure that even a lack of source code or inability to contact you will not get in the way. It will mean that people might not credit you, but in practice they usually will regardless, and the community will have unrestricted access to the NewGRF in case you go off the radar forever.

[Haldir]

This set is just for what i am looking for. I like to build german towns and no former set have good looking german buildings. I hope, that the construction of this set is going on.

greetings

Haldir

[Badger]

This set is just for what i am looking for. I like to build german towns and no former set have good looking german buildings. I hope, that the construction of this set is going on.

greetings

Haldir

21 months since the OP last posted, I'd say this is pretty dead to be fair.

[super_dan]

This set is just for what i am looking for. I like to build german towns and no former set have good looking german buildings. I hope, that the construction of this set is going on.

greetings

Haldir

Who wakes me from my forum slumber

Just kidding, of course. Unfortunately other things have gotten in my way during the last two years. So here's the status of the set:

- The rural part is quite finished, but the buildings have no construction stage drawings yet.
- I have coded these buildings (in a simple nml-file) and play-tested the grf-file

I really would love to see my stuff becoming fully playable or even part of a greater "All-German" houses set (which I would even be willing to contribute some more drawings to, given I find the time to do them). So here's what I will do:

I'll upload all the stuff I have done so far in this thread. Please just give me a few days, since I need to sort the files first. I will also start a new thread posting drawings I have made over the years (not related to this set) and which really slumber away in my hard drive. So make sure to take a look at that if other things might be suitable for such a bigger set.

[michael blunck]

@super_dan
See also here: Sammlung süddeutscher Häuser.

regards
Michael

[S-Transport]

Very nice to hear from you again, Super Dan!