Transport Tycoon Forums

Hi, first time posting and first time creating a NewGRF after playing OTTD for what feels like forever.

After stumbling upon Andrew350's Washington State Ferries, I felt compelled to finally try out this NewGRF stuff with the Canadian version of WSF, BCF, because OTTD needs more ships! Also more ro-ro ships!

After choosing to create BC Ferries ship, I decided to try out making the Spirit Class ferry. I timeboxed myself to try and create this within 3 or 4 days. I was having troubles trying to get perspective, sizing, xrel, yrel and so on all correct, so most of it was trying to replicate other ship sprites have (credits to Andrew350 who's jumbo mark II which I used as a sizing guide and andythenorth's FISH ships which I also looked at to get some graphic inspiration) but I've reached the end of my time limit so I'd like to release what I have.

Current issues I've found so far are that the sprites don't really align right when they turn and the sprites don't seem too consistent for the different angles.

Feedback and tips are greatly appreciated. I'd like to improve my drawing skills so any advice or more tutorials would be appreciated!

YES!

Very excited to see this development! We can always use more ships, and I especially like the local flavor

You've chosen to jump straight into the deep end by starting off drawing ships, I like it! Ships are hard, especially when trying to figure out everything else that goes along with making NewGRFs, but you've got a good start and it's looking good!

I played around with it a little and have a few observations:

- Some of the shapes/structures could be more well defined by using more contrasting colors to accentuate details. I can see the detail when I zoom in, but some bigger color differences will help make features stand out more. It looks like some views have this more than others, so maybe it's something you're already working on. Many of my own drawings (especially the WSF ships) tend to have the same problem, and it's something I'm trying to correct moving forward, but it takes practice

- The north-facing view appears to be a copy-paste flip of the south-facing one, which obviously doesn't work (wrong perspective). Usually these two views need to be uniquely drawn, but in this case since it's a ro-ro ferry, you can just keep the same south-facing view and simply move some of the topside features around; no need to draw a whole new sprite from scratch, just change the details around front to back.

- The / and \ views are not aligned properly (as you mentioned) causing the weird 'jumps' when changing direction. Are you familiar with the NewGRF Developer mode in OTTD? If not you should definitely activate it as it will help you immensely, especially when it comes to doing alignments. The key points there are using Ctrl+B to show bounding boxes, and using the in-game sprite alignment tool to find the offsets needed in your code. It still can be a bit fiddly, but it's much better than guessing

- You correctly changed the lighting on each view. Good job, that is usually something that gets missed

I know you said you limited your time, so maybe you're already working on these, but that's just a few of my initial observations. Overall it's a good start, I look forward to seeing this progressing! If you need any help don't hesitate to ask.

Also, welcome!

Andrew350 said it all so I'll limit my comment to that I will be including these in my Canadian GRF collection preset.

In case you don't see the developer settings under the ? icon, do this:

Find openttd.cfg
Load it into your plain text editor of choice
Scan down to [gui]
Locate the following and set the parameters as shown: Save to openttd.cfg
CAUTION - DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE.

Hi again,

Apologies for the big delay, work happened and then school happened and then my computer broke but we're back in action and the summer is looking up so hopefully I'm here for a bit longer to draw some more ships.

Also thanks to andrew and wally for the replies they were quite informative for a newbie like me.

I'm a bit sorry to say that after all this time I don't have anything to show other than this completely unrelated house I drew of a Vancouver Special (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Special) but I do come with a plan.

I've a week off before school starts again and so this gives me another perfect opportunity to timebox myself into releasing a new ship! I've set the lofty goal of creating the Powell River class ferry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_River-class_ferry). I'd also like to be able to make it so that when the ship is fully loaded with passengers, cars will appear visible on the deck. I've no idea how to do this unfortunately but no time like the present to learn! If not, I'll just have a static ship as before.

Further down the line, I'd like to include implementing andrews suggestions to fix my Spirit class ship as well as making a Canadian town set based on the architectural style of Vancouver (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism, have you guys figured out where I'm from yet?). Big goals I know but we'll see where this summer brings me. Stay tuned in the next week to see if I follow through on any of my promises!

Nice house.
Suggestion:
You have several good ideas. Prioritize them. Focus on your current priority. This doesn't mean that you have to ignore the others. Ideas always occur randomly and you can add them to the appropriate priority, but be sure to return to your current focus.

Hi again,

Been 5 days so let's show off some progress!

There's a new ship and as expected its the Powell River Class Ferry.

I do have the ship with visible cars on the deck when fully and half loaded and it looks good when in motion, but I think it looks a bit weird when unloading because of how the ship aligns itself with the dock. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve this I would happily accept them.

I've also fixed the alignment issues with the Spirit Class ferry but I still need to fix the north south sprite. I'll fix that eventually.

I'm learning a lot and this is pretty fun, any more ideas are appreciated. School is starting soon but it's a lighter semester for me (I hope) so I may still have some time to work on this. Stay tuned!

kusev wrote:I do have the ship with visible cars on the deck when fully and half loaded and it looks good when in motion, but I think it looks a bit weird when unloading because of how the ship aligns itself with the dock. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve this I would happily accept them.

You can dig a two tile channel into the coast and put the dock at the end of the channel or you can use my Sea Lanes, Channels and Buoys GRF to lay a similar channel through the water. You might also want to check out Michael Blunck's Maritime Collection.

This all looks very good, I like the new ferry, and the house looks good too

To kind of expand/counter on wallyweb's suggestion of focus: The most important thing to remember is that this is all for fun anyway, so be careful not to force yourself too much to do something if you don't want to. Take breaks, wander down a rabbit hole of new ideas. Do what interests you in the moment and don't force yourself to do things just to get them done, that's a good way to get burnt out

Just don't wander too far down the rabbit hole or you'll never get anything finished...not that I know anything about that...

Love that Vancouver Special!! (I grew up in one...)

Planning to do any BCER/BC Hydro Railway equipment? How about the SeaBus? (In 80s Metro Transit orange? )

Bc ferries loaded...

Juracy wrote: ↑24 Jul 2019 19:44 Bc ferries loaded...

Which mod is that fancy dock with the parking lot?

JustMoreMemes wrote: ↑30 Mar 2023 17:42

Juracy wrote: ↑24 Jul 2019 19:44 Bc ferries loaded...

Which mod is that fancy dock with the parking lot?

Overlapping dock, from ISR/DWE objects