Danish Houses Set

Discuss, get help with, or post new graphics for TTDPatch and OpenTTD, using the NewGRF system, here. Graphics for plain TTD also acceptable here.

Moderator: Graphics Moderators

User avatar
Chrill
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 15972
Joined: 18 Dec 2004 17:35
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Contact:

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Chrill »

This is a really good start. Keep this up and you'll be finishing a fantastic building set in no time!
Image
My Scenarios:
Archipiélago Hermoso (Latest Release: Version 3.2)
Turnpike Falls (Latest Release: Version 0.91)
User avatar
3iff
Tycoon
Tycoon
Posts: 1093
Joined: 21 Oct 2005 09:26
Location: Birmingham, England

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by 3iff »

They are excellent. It might be worth comparing these to another house set, perhaps Swedish houses, to see whether the sizes match?

In any case, a good mix of building sizes is not likely to be a problem. I have 2-3 different house sets active in my games to ensure a range of different layouts.

Good drawers are always difficult to find, that's why so many people are encouraging your efforts!
User avatar
planetmaker
OpenTTD Developer
OpenTTD Developer
Posts: 9432
Joined: 07 Nov 2007 22:44
Location: Sol d

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by planetmaker »

Don't let yourself fool by any scale arguments. OpenTTD has no canonical scale. Draw your houses so that they look nice - and maybe somewhat comparable in size among eachother (but don't be too strict there either... huge differences in size are hardly representable so that either the very small ones look too tiny or the very large ones don't even fit on an area of 2x2 tiles (which is the maximum for houses).

EDIT:
what I'd find really interesting, if you (also) drew the sprites (also?) for the 2x zoom level, thus with twice the size and details. :) Scaling down details is easier than scaling up. And the zoom-in levels become IMHO increasingly popular given screen sizes.

And a technical advise:
I didn't check any sizes; however you're probably aware of the tile sizes available 64px width in the horizontal diagonal, 32px height in the vertical diagonal. Houses can come with a ground coverage of 1x1, 1x2, 2x1 or 2x2; their height can be arbitrary, but I suggest to stay below 80px, or at least 120px as otherwise clipping errors during displaying will happen.

Concerning coding of the sprites, it's good practise if the sprites are found either
* in different files for each house; but the placement of the sprites is identical to the pixel in each of the files
* the sprites are in one file for several houses and for instance ordered in rows. But the pixel-coordinates for the sprites are identical except for a fixed offset whereby the offset is constant between different houses. Eg. 1st sprite at (100,100), next at (200,100), next at (300,100) etc

Thus placing the sprites predictably in the file(s) makes the coding proces *much* faster than when this is not done. Otherwise one has to visit every file, measure where each sprite is placed etc... very tedious.
You can simply create yourself a template (where you indicate the place for sprites with evenly-spaced blue boxes) and draw your new sprites onto a new copy of this template you created yourself. Alternatively look e.g. at SwedishHouses


And a community advise:
you should decide on the conditions (license) under which you place your sprites. It proved good practise and practical to either use CC-BY (thus attribution required) or using the same license as OpenTTD, GPL v2 or GPL v2+. Anything else quickly makes it a mess and legal hazard to do anything with the sprites, and if it is only to change the resulting grf in order to make it work better with future, newer versions of OpenTTD.
User avatar
Krutzelpuntz
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 27
Joined: 18 Jan 2016 21:47
Location: Aarhus, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Krutzelpuntz »

All my work is released under the GPL 2 licence, but really it's something I do for fun, and if anybody wants to use anything,
I'd just be more than happy to see it in game, also in other projects.

I'm sure I will be back to your coding advice, planetmaker, when I get that far.
Right now it does not make a whole lot of sense to me ;)
But thanks!

It's also very nice to know the restrictions I have, I'll have to look more into that later again.

About the 2x zoom level, I'll keep what I have done in the bigger size, but I'm generally scaling down 65-70%, so they are not a perfect duble size..
I don't know anything about this 2x zoom thing, but I guess it's a possibility.
If I get far enough, and needs things to do, I might look into it. Rescaling will continue :) (soon done anyways)

Image

I just scale the sprites 80-70-60-50% and see what size looks best.

Again, thank you for the praise everybody, it warms my heart :D



Edit: I discovered that one can make a building check for an adjacent road, about which I'm stoked!
That has been my greatest concern about the city houses.

Now I would really like some houses with a small front garden, but that would make the house break up the "line"
and houses don't really do that..

Here's an illustration, thank you to Mr. Irwe for the house used in the example, from Swedish Houses :)

Image
a. The buildings are in line, but the oriel sticks out in a weird way, and there is not room for a front garden
b. This is the front garden I want, but it conflicts with the other building.
c. And it gets real bad here :(

Is it possible to, like the building checks for a road, that it will check for if the adjacent building has front garden or not, and then place the right building.
So if the first house like this on a street is a front garden house, it will only place front garden houses on the street?

I'm just wondering, before I get too far what I'm able to do, and whats not, and if it is too much trouble.
Jimbow
Traffic Manager
Traffic Manager
Posts: 243
Joined: 29 Sep 2006 07:28
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Jimbow »

Your buildings looks better with the new scaling :)

With regards to your question about breaking of house lines, I think there could be a compromise between a and b. If you move your house (like my red line in the picture), so you have a few pixels of green in front of the house, the braking of houseline will not be that bad.

Regarding wishes for buildings, I do not have any at the moment, but maybe it will be a good idea to make categories for buildings to include in the set.
As far as I have read in the forums, each city is divided into zones.
It will be a good idea to think of what timeframe the set should be in.
It could be cool if more modern houses will be placed in the city as the years go by.

So my point is that by making different categories with time and zone, it might be easier to find buildings to include in the set.
Attachments
House.png
House.png (59.85 KiB) Viewed 3981 times
User avatar
Krutzelpuntz
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 27
Joined: 18 Jan 2016 21:47
Location: Aarhus, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Krutzelpuntz »

Jimbow wrote:Your buildings looks better with the new scaling :)
......
Yeah, I think so too.

I don't have a plan with this set yet, I appreciate your request, as I'm a very unorganized person, and I could use some organization.

For now my goal is to get some cityhouses made, along with some railroad related buildings, especially stations, depots, and a bit candy, like the water tower.

For the cities, I have four categories in mind.
1800
1900
1900-2000
2000+

Here's some illustrations of the general style for each.
1800
Image
1900
Image
1900-2000
Image
2000+
Image

About the zones, I'd love a link to the thread where it was discussed.
I don't know anything about it

And my progress:
Image

Not 100% done, but it's generally there.
For now I have lifted the oriel, and dumbed the idea of having the front garden, I think, but thank you for the advise :)
Jimbow
Traffic Manager
Traffic Manager
Posts: 243
Joined: 29 Sep 2006 07:28
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Jimbow »

Wow you are making a really good progress! :D

About the zones, according to http://newgrf-specs.tt-wiki.net/wiki/NM ... town_zones you can have five zones in a town.

This page might be very usefull for the coding of the houses:
http://newgrf-specs.tt-wiki.net/wiki/NML:Houses
User avatar
Krutzelpuntz
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 27
Joined: 18 Jan 2016 21:47
Location: Aarhus, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Krutzelpuntz »

I have some more structure now, and the current goal is to make 10 sprites for 17-1800 era city houses.
They will have three constructions states, and a 90° rotation.
I will update first post at some point, to show the development status.

Thanks for the tips Jimbow, I hope to get some Copenhagen buildings suggested ;)
Attachments
1800 1.png
1800 1.png (29.13 KiB) Viewed 3824 times
S-Transport
Chief Executive
Chief Executive
Posts: 748
Joined: 25 Jul 2014 19:35
Location: Giebichenstein, Germany

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by S-Transport »

Very nice!
Greetings, S-Transport
My pictures
User avatar
Krutzelpuntz
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 27
Joined: 18 Jan 2016 21:47
Location: Aarhus, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Krutzelpuntz »

Thank you :)


First post has been changed
arikover
Route Supervisor
Route Supervisor
Posts: 466
Joined: 15 Jun 2007 09:27
Skype: madchimiste
Location: Berlin, Deutschland

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by arikover »

Amazing stuff!
Jimbow
Traffic Manager
Traffic Manager
Posts: 243
Joined: 29 Sep 2006 07:28
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Jimbow »

I really like your drawing style and skills! :D :P
The houses look really good.

Regarding your update of the first post, I think the best strategy would be to finish the sprites for the house set first.
If you keep posting beautifull houses, there might be a good chance that a coder will help you coding your sprites so they can be released. :wink:

If you are posting sprites for many different kinds of NewGRF sets (houses, stations, trains, industries), chances are that nobody wants to code any of your stuff, because you need quite many sprites to release a complete set. So my advice is to keep focus at one thing at a time. :)

Regarding your time frames, I think that only a smaller number of people is playing games that start before 1900. By that I mean that you do not need to have a complete town set for 1700-1800 and 1800-1900. It would be fine if you had a complete set with pre 1900 buildings.
When you do have a complete set of pre 1900 buildings, you can start adding more modern buildings, so that new buildings will be added to the city for each centry.

How do you like these ideas?
Of cause it's not my decision what direction your set should go, it's only ment as advice that you can use if you want. :)

To organize suggestions, I have made a spreadsheet with the house categories and the different time frames listed. My idea is to insert links in the sheet to pictures or other informations about the houses.
Attachments
Danish house set.xlsx
(10.92 KiB) Downloaded 146 times
User avatar
Krutzelpuntz
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 27
Joined: 18 Jan 2016 21:47
Location: Aarhus, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Krutzelpuntz »

Jimbow wrote: Regarding your update of the first post, I think the best strategy would be to finish the sprites for the house set first.
If you keep posting beautifull houses, there might be a good chance that a coder will help you coding your sprites so they can be released. :wink:

If you are posting sprites for many different kinds of NewGRF sets (houses, stations, trains, industries), chances are that nobody wants to code any of your stuff, because you need quite many sprites to release a complete set. So my advice is to keep focus at one thing at a time. :)

Regarding your time frames, I think that only a smaller number of people is playing games that start before 1900. By that I mean that you do not need to have a complete town set for 1700-1800 and 1800-1900. It would be fine if you had a complete set with pre 1900 buildings.
When you do have a complete set of pre 1900 buildings, you can start adding more modern buildings, so that new buildings will be added to the city for each centry.
I see what you mean, and I'm open for reconsidering my planning, as said I'm not very good at it. :wink:
What I'm thinking is, I'd like to expand the game more in direction of the 1800 era, get some more steam action, as in 1950, you'd already have electric trains.
(First S-train in 1933)
And in 1935 we had a diesel express.

Why not go back a few hundred years, and explore the steam era? That's why I have been making all these early houses.
But maybe it would be best to first get a release out, of 1950+ houses, before starting the earlier ones?
Jimbow wrote: How do you like these ideas?
Of cause it's not my decision what direction your set should go, it's only ment as advice that you can use if you want. :)

To organize suggestions, I have made a spreadsheet with the house categories and the different time frames listed. My idea is to insert links in the sheet to pictures or other informations about the houses.
I really like your suggestions, they are very relevant and helpful, please keep them coming.
The sheet may help very much, as I'm struggling to figure out when they built what.

You are very welcome to find links, and pictures for the different centuries.
It takes a lot of time for me, and it could be nice to get some more drawing going on :) (Edit: I also have a hard time figuring out how to make the cities evolve, as most of the inner cities today, seems to be built before 1900. I'd like it to be like this in game too, but I don't really know how.. ?( )

Also, I'm in doubt how many of each building type I'd need to make. (Inner city, suburbs ect.)
Is there any way to extract a grf file, like the base one, or Swedish houses, to see how they do it?
I spent the whole evening yesterday, and I just can't figure out how to do it...
Yoshi
Transport Coordinator
Transport Coordinator
Posts: 278
Joined: 21 Dec 2010 17:24

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Yoshi »

Here is a list with all default houses of TTD:
http://newgrf-specs.tt-wiki.net/wiki/DefaultHouseProps


And: :bow:
I really like your drawing style :wink:
User avatar
Chrill
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 15972
Joined: 18 Dec 2004 17:35
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Contact:

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Chrill »

I enjoy playing the late 1800s, so I'd say you are in the right era. Houses from late 1700s and over the 1800s sounds fantastic for me personally. You do your thing, because it looks brilliant!
Image
My Scenarios:
Archipiélago Hermoso (Latest Release: Version 3.2)
Turnpike Falls (Latest Release: Version 0.91)
Jimbow
Traffic Manager
Traffic Manager
Posts: 243
Joined: 29 Sep 2006 07:28
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Jimbow »

You can see details of the Swedish House set at this page: http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/swedish-houses.

A usefull spreadsheet is avalible at http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/swe ... 0stats.xls.
Something like this needs to be done for the danish set.

I will see if I can find good solutions for some of your questions. :)
User avatar
planetmaker
OpenTTD Developer
OpenTTD Developer
Posts: 9432
Joined: 07 Nov 2007 22:44
Location: Sol d

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by planetmaker »

When it comes to making a list for things, I highly recommend to use an online service like google docs for that instead of spreadsheet files passed around. It has the big benefit that there are not many versions which differ from person to person, but one which everyone can view and edited by contributors, even concurrently - and everyone else can easily look at it (and contribute, if permission granted) from everywhere and with every device without installation of any software.
User avatar
Krutzelpuntz
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 27
Joined: 18 Jan 2016 21:47
Location: Aarhus, Denmark

Re: Buildings from Denmark - Beginner at newGRF

Post by Krutzelpuntz »

Here's a doc, you can put in suggestions, and well, everything you think I'd find usefull

Please notice me if you do any major changes, I don't think I'll check it very often myself :)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FiT ... sp=sharing

Everyone with the link can change it.

Thank you everyone for the help and praise, it's very nice.

Although I may have to pause for a few days, until I find a mouse,
I lost my wireless receiver while moving, and my finger are beginning to hurt by using a broken touch pad... :(

I guess it's a good time to plan out, where to go next :)
User avatar
Krutzelpuntz
Engineer
Engineer
Posts: 27
Joined: 18 Jan 2016 21:47
Location: Aarhus, Denmark

Re: Danish Houses Set

Post by Krutzelpuntz »

Doing nothing is quite hard, so I had to do something, while waiting for my mouse receiver to be sent to my new home :)

I changed the planing (again) ( ;) ), now I'd like to get a 1900-1950 set AND a 1950-2000 set made, and hopefully that can be released as an alpha.

Then I want to go back in time to 1700 and up, so earlier games will be more interesting.
After that is done, I'll look forward and add the modern architecture of today, but that's far ahead.

I also changed the project name, to fit the Swedish Houses Set, which I plan to be some kind of compatible with.
(Fx same space in front of the buildings, so it won't look too weird together)

I'm starting early 1900, and working my way up through the history, I found a nice PDF and put it in the google doc.

Cheers

Oh, I have scratched all vehicle plans, I realized it had little with houses to do, but I'm still interested in doing it at some point, it'll just be in another project.
Attachments
1900 houses1.png
1900 houses1.png (6.72 KiB) Viewed 3517 times
Post Reply

Return to “Graphics Development”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests