Best Spot to learn grf editing ?

OpenTTD is a fully open-sourced reimplementation of TTD, written in C++, boasting improved gameplay and many new features.

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randykshlerin
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Best Spot to learn grf editing ?

Post by randykshlerin »

Hello everyone I like this OpenTTD very much and have had considerable fun playing others grf's.
Theres been this one idea I have had to try and make a scenario using a specific grfs that well its not working very well so far.
So I thought since I have modded other games Id have a crack at making edited versions of the grfs to get the scenario to work properly.
I am aware if the forum / wiki guides and yet am hopeful someone may have something a little more youtube video instructional type deal.
I learned how to play and load the games through hellish's channel but it honestly only shows how to use .grf not how to make them.
Any links to video instructions would be appreciated, alternately pages with photos would also be good.
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kamnet
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Re: Best Spot to learn grf editing ?

Post by kamnet »

I'm not aware of any video or other visual guides to NewGRF development and editing. Most of development is working with code in a text environment. There isn't a visual or graphical editor. The most simple of NewGRFs are comprised of a plain text file and a spritesheet which has your group of graphics that you want to use (if your NewGRF even needs graphics). More complex NewGRFs will break down various parts of the code into individual files which are then referenced and compiled.
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LaRoso
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Re: Best Spot to learn grf editing ?

Post by LaRoso »

Learning to make a grf isn't easy. As kamnet said, it is almost text based only. The mentioned text guides on one hand, the coding on the other hand. Also the tutorials existing don't cover every existing aspect. If you want to make more complex grfs you will have to teach a lot yourself by reading other peoples code they uploaded to github for example (most coders do that), as the tutorial only explains the basics and the most common features. The grf coding community is a relatively small community and most of the people work on their own projects and don't have the motivation to write some easier understandable tutorials or even do some videos. I would do it, but I'm absolutely not good yet at coding and I'm happy if I can get the things I wanna make to work, so I don't see myself in a position to do that.
But I agree, it would be nice to have some more guidance.
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kamnet
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Re: Best Spot to learn grf editing ?

Post by kamnet »

One of the most interesting things about the code is that just because it's documented to do one thing doesn't mean that it can ONLY do that one thing. By learning how to code and using your imagination, new things are regularly discovered.
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Re: Best Spot to learn grf editing ?

Post by michael blunck »

LaRoso wrote: [...] most of the people work on their own projects and don't have the motivation to write some easier understandable tutorials
Oh, I wrote a lot of tutorials.

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LaRoso
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Re: Best Spot to learn grf editing ?

Post by LaRoso »

kamnet wrote: 31 Jan 2021 20:00 One of the most interesting things about the code is that just because it's documented to do one thing doesn't mean that it can ONLY do that one thing. By learning how to code and using your imagination, new things are regularly discovered.
Yes. Although you have to learn the basics and understand the mechanics. If that's done, you can get creative
michael blunck wrote: 31 Jan 2021 20:22 Oh, I wrote a lot of tutorials.
Okay, I didn't know that existed to be honest. I wish I would've known earlier. Thanks for your work there!
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