Brickland - Resurrected

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TrueBrain
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Brickland - Resurrected

Post by TrueBrain »

Brickland - Toyland, only playable

Out of pure boredom, and a lot of nostalgic, presenting you: Brickland.
zoomin-test2-forum.png
zoomin-test2-forum.png (259.71 KiB) Viewed 18197 times
It's a 32bpp graphical set, which replaces Toyland to be playable. As we all know, Toyland hurts your eyes and make you go insane. Brickland will solve that by making it totally awesome.

Progress
  • - 32bpp only!
    - Replaces Toyland terrain (dirt and normal, and the two stages in between).
Bugs
  • - Don't load Toyland in 8bpp when you have this grf active. You will flame me for it. I warned you. Seriously. Don't.
    - Shadows are wrong on tile edges, and needs fixing. This only is not as easy as one can hope.
    - GRF Info is too bare. It contains no real version, nor description. You will often have to redownload the grf to get the latest, with no-way of telling you if there was an update or not, except for me telling you.
Origin and creation
The models for this set are created with LeoCAD. LeoCAD exports as 3DS, which Blender then imports.
I spend a great deal of time in making a good Blender master file (from scratch) and writing some scripts to automate generation and re-generation of this set. Basically, after a model is made in LeoCAD, it only takes minutes (seconds?) to prepare it for export. Pressing the button: Run Script, makes it generate the correct images, and in the end the right GRF. The result is attached here.

I am far from any Blender artist, up to the laughable. The keys I learnt so far: CTRL+J, L, P, and a few buttons here and there :P All models you will see in this set are a direct result of LeoCAD, not of Blender ;) Blender is merely a means to an end, meaning it make very very good renders with pixel-perfect lighting :)

Official LEGO colours are used to keep it as nostalgic as you can get it.

A lot of time and thought and experiments have gone into how much studs should go on a tile. Originally the idea was 4x4. It turns out this is not pleasant for the eye, nor really useful. A 6x6 (as it is now) turns out to be much better, and also easy to generate on a pixel-perfect level. With the introduction of zoom-in 32bpp GRF support in OpenTTD, it becomes even more cool, as you can just zoom in and see all the little details.

At this point I do apologize to Wolf01 for stealing the name of this set without asking him. You can read up on the old work on Brickland here: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=34999

Future work
Landscape is merely a proof-of-concept. After this, work has to be done on stuff like roads, rails, trees, houses, trains, ... It will be a slow and painful process, and will take years if not centuries to finish. Mostly, it is meant to keep me entertained. If I don't like what I see, I will dismiss it.

Contributions
At the moment I am not really looking for any contribution. But if you have made this awesome train, house, or what-ever in LeoCAD, feel free to post it. I might or might not use it. Time will tell what a good scale would be etc, so I can't tell you anything about that yet. If you post any LeoCAD model, please do mention if you are the original author, or if you downloaded it from the Internet somewhere. Also, if you ever want your model to be included in this set, make sure you agree on the terms of GPL, as the set will be released under that.

Source
How cheesy, but at the moment I am finishing up the last bits and pieces of the blender files. Once done, I will upload them somewhere and put the link here, instead of this text. All will be released under GPL, or what-ever-the-f***-of-license holds for art work.
Attachments
brickland.grf
(2.39 MiB) Downloaded 640 times
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bokkie
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by bokkie »

Well, have fun! :) We'll see your progress, I think a Brickland would be nice.
Isn't this also something for Andythenorth? Or isn't it fun if it isn't pixel-pushed by hand (or computer actually since Pixa does the work for him).
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by GeekToo »

Toyland hurts your eyes and make you go insane. Brickland will solve that
Congratulations. I just tried it, and you at least succeeded in solving the first issue, great.

Much better than original. Gridlines planned?
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by TrueBrain »

Not sure; it looks awesome without gridlines (in my opinion :P) .. depends how it turns out. Adding them is relative easy, so we will have to see. For now, no :)
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by XeryusTC »

I'm not quite sure if I like the two stages of the bare tiles. That the green and brown flip seems quite odd to me. I think it would be better if the first stage would still be fully brown, the second stage would turn the ground green but keep the studs brown and that the third state would turn half of the studs green too. That seems way more natural to me than the flipping you do now between the 2nd and the 3rd stage.

Disclaimer: I made this post based entirely off the screenshot so I don't know what it looks like in game.
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TrueBrain
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by TrueBrain »

Try it ingame; I really like it there. Nevertheless, I will try your suggestion, maybe I like it more :D

PS: trying it ingame is as simple as adding the GRF and starting a Toyland ;)
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by Hitperson »

reminds me (somewhat) of "lego loco"
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GeekToo
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by GeekToo »

Looks like the set is suffering from the problem mentioned in: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 5#p1002625

See the white pixels at the edges of the red/white checkered tile. Very reassuring that even an OTTD dev agrees with me that straight edges look better. Sorry TB to abuse this thread to prove my point to use straight edges , but it was such a beautiful example. No discussions about it here, continue the discussion in the thread mentioned.
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Trindington Transport, 4th Feb 1980.png
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TrueBrain
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by TrueBrain »

Hehe, I have no clue what the discussion was about, and honestly I don't care (I try to keep out of graphical discussions in regards to OpenTTD. The dev-team has more clever people to deal with that). Let it be stated that I am not a dev in these regards, and do threat my opinion as any non-dev. Don't go running of I agree with something, as I have no clue what you talk about to start with :D

That said, the white graphical issue is purely because you compare a zoomed-in pre-rendered 32bpp image with a 8bpp image that is blown up 4 times. In result, the 8bpp image has to be blocky and ugly on the edges (as there is no additional info for the zoom-in algorithm), where the 32bpp is rendered with fine edges (infinite-fine if you could zoom in often enough). Of course then there will be free space between the two (as they are non-overlapping), which results in artefact . In your case that artefact is white, because you had something white under it. You can also get it in all kind of different colours if you are creative enough ;)

On top of that, my x-offs/y-offs is slightly 'wrong'. But when all ground tiles are rendered, nobody will ever notice it, as they will all connect perfectly together :D It is also the reason I totally don't care about it at the moment :D

It is one of the beauties of doing a whole set yourself; you can do what-ever the f*** you want, as long as the end-result looks uniform :D :D :D (and I am arrogant enough to ignore all past experience and opinions on the matter; realism is overrated :P)
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by Illegal_Alien »

Maybe i can help, but with this little cute program; http://ldd.lego.com/ you can design Lego models. Not sure if they are usable for this project though.
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by TrueBrain »

Only if it can export to 3Ds (or Blender).

More over, for now I first need to find a style I like for all that :D
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by AndersI »

LeoCad - http://www.leocad.org/trac - can export in 3ds format. As it can import the standard LDRAW format, any model in LDRAW format can be exported to 3ds with the help of LeoCad. LeoCad works both on Windows and Linux.

MLCad - http://mlcad.lm-software.com/ - is probably the widest known system with LDRAW compatibility. MLCad is Windows only. No 3ds export.

For the Mac there's BrickDraw3D - http://olson.pair.com/brickdraw3d/ - functionality unknown to me.

The already mentioned LDD from Lego can 'sort of' export in LDRAW format, but wouldn't be my first choice when the end result should be a 3ds file.

www.ldraw.org has a model repository (at http://forums.ldraw.org/) with a lot of official Lego models and fan creations - I don't know under which license they may be used (if at all).
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by Zephyris »

... is specialised software really needed? They are, after all, just Lego bricks; model one and you have modeled them all! All you need to do is stick them together in your favorite 3D software using snap to grid.
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by TrueBrain »

Feel free to start your own set. For mine, I use LeoCAD, and if I accept other models, I will only accept ones made in LeoCAD. Free world and all ;) And with this, lets get back on thread, and not go into how and why LeoCAD :)
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by foxthib »

Hello,

I am totally new on the openTTD world and i wonder if it's possible to use this "mod" for normal game ?
An other question, this project is still alive ? If yes, why i don't find it in the ingame tool and where can i get the lastest version.

Thanks in advance ! I really like the concept of this game and this GRF !
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by kamnet »

foxthib wrote:Hello,

I am totally new on the openTTD world and i wonder if it's possible to use this "mod" for normal game ?
An other question, this project is still alive ? If yes, why i don't find it in the ingame tool and where can i get the lastest version.

Thanks in advance ! I really like the concept of this game and this GRF !
This NewGRF is not available online simply because its author has not decided to add it. It's available in the first post, you'll need to install it into your "newgrf" folder. It's playable in any game, but it may not appear as complete. As far as I know it is no longer being worked on, so what you see is what you get.
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by foxthib »

Hello,
Thanks for your reply !
It's weird because for me it's only works on toy game, not for temparate one.

Thanks anyway, I will try to find so software or whatever to complete this grf if I figured out how !
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by Alberth »

foxthib wrote:It's weird because for me it's only works on toy game, not for temparate one.
Why is that weird? Brickland makes much more sense in toyland than it does in temperate, imho.
Anyway, it's programmed like that, apparently.
foxthib wrote:Thanks anyway, I will try to find so software or whatever to complete this grf if I figured out how !
Anything that makes 8bpp images works, you need the DOS palette (it has more colours than the Windows palette).

Likely this page is a good starting point: https://www.tt-wiki.net/wiki/GraphicsTutorial
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by foxthib »

I said weird because :
kamnet wrote: It's playable in any game
and for me it's only in toyland. In fact, I'm looking for changing ground textures and this one is really cool but, as i said, not works in temperate and i really cannot play in toyland !

I just tried to change grf. First, I tried with grf wizard but failed then cmd+grfcodec but don't understand what it did (said remplace/rename files .bak and .new but they never appeared in the folder and I didn't find them into the game, I only had new file .grf but cannot use it ingame).

I'm totally lost in this kind of modding. It's strongly complex, I don't know why and seems doesn't work with the way i tried. I will understand if we was in 200x years but we are in 2017 ! Why there are not just .png or whatever type of files then you can just manage them with editor and that's it. I suppose in 2004, when the game was created, it couldn't is so simple due to technology and now change the engine of game is too hard to be done.

It's really pitty because with 2 or 3 simple graphicals updates (specially ground and faces^^) this game could be awesome ! (it's already awesome but not graphically ^^). The futur for games will be modding and easy way to work with !

Thanks for your reply, maybe I will be patient enought and try again and again and again until that's works hehe !
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kamnet
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Re: Brickland - Resurrected

Post by kamnet »

foxthib wrote:I said weird because :
kamnet wrote: It's playable in any game
and for me it's only in toyland. In fact, I'm looking for changing ground textures and this one is really cool but, as i said, not works in temperate and i really cannot play in toyland !
I misunderstood what you were asking, my apologies. The first post int he topic did clearly state that this only worked in Toyland.
foxthib wrote: I'm totally lost in this kind of modding. It's strongly complex, I don't know why and seems doesn't work with the way i tried. I will understand if we was in 200x years but we are in 2017 ! Why there are not just .png or whatever type of files then you can just manage them with editor and that's it. I suppose in 2004, when the game was created, it couldn't is so simple due to technology and now change the engine of game is too hard to be done.

It's really pitty because with 2 or 3 simple graphicals updates (specially ground and faces^^) this game could be awesome ! (it's already awesome but not graphically ^^). The futur for games will be modding and easy way to work with !

Thanks for your reply, maybe I will be patient enought and try again and again and again until that's works hehe !
Keep in mind that we're dealing with a clone of a game that was created in the early 1990s, and the core purpose of OpenTTD is to faithfully be a clone of that game. The game was originally created for MS-DOS and has chugged on through 9 operating system upgrades over a span of 20+ years. It's not coded as a native Windows application.

Updates are not just simple changes in graphics. The code behind the game is quite complex and, from what I've heard from other developers who are not on the OpenTTD developer team, some of the best written code given the complexity of what the game actually does behind the screen. BUT, the good news is that if you give yourself some time to learn the code, you can learn how to make the changes you want. We have an active developer community of those who work on the game directly, as well as an active community of coders and artists who freely contribute their work here, with NewGRFs being created and updated regularly.

To get a handle on what you're wanting to do, you might want to start again with the first post in the thread here, and follow the link to the previous project that this was developed from. Both TrueBrain and Wolf01 are still active here, you could message them and talk about some of the issues you're having. As was previously posted, you should take some time to learn NFO and NML, the languages we use to create NewGRFs. There is a separate sub-topic here dedicated to understanding the coding, and you can post your questions there. We also have an IRC channel where developers regularly hang out on, you can ask questions there as well and openly interact with others.
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