Dutch stations set

[michael blunck]

Well, its not necessary that stations (or any other object/feature of the game) in TTD must 100% resemble a possible model.

The drawing style is much more important.

For a first attempt (?) the outcome is rather good, but let me put some remarks:

- IMO, this station building is too small. Not (only) because the original is a larger building (s.a.), but because the proportions are somewhat weird.

- although the building has texture, it is too regular. In addition, I´d propose to get rid of those extra light blue pixels on the roof.

- in TTD, the sun is from the right (wherever ...), so the windows on the front are way too bright.

To allow for a larger building without enlarging it by an extra row of tiles, you could "borrow" some space from an adjacent platform, as is shown here:

Freiburg4.png (82.67 KiB) Viewed 2202 times

regards
Michael

[Quast65]

As a resident of Delft, I hope that you keep up the great work on that station! Looking forward to the improvements and the other views!

[Purno]

Hey everyone,

Brand new to the forums (my first post) but a long time TTD and OpenTTD player. This week I decided to try and design a sprite for TTD myself for the first time. What better place to start than my hometown station Delft. I'm quite happy with the result, so I decided to post it to see what you guys think. Seems to be quite a few Dutchies who probably know the station in here. Any comments/tips/tricks etc are very much appreciated.

2 pics attached. With some station tiles from the dutch station set, and some trains from the dutch trainset in the background. However, the station is photoshopped in, since I dont know how to code, and none of the recommended programs run on mac.... If anyone would enjoy coding this station building please let me know... Maybe you can also tell me what else I need to do in order to prep this for coding, other than drawing the other direction...

Thanks

ths

Holy cr*p, that's pretty amazing. Good stuff there.

As for coding, all I know is that stations are coded in tiles, so you need to split up your building into 1x1 tiles. I'm sure there's others at the forums who know the requirement more detailed than I do though

Pretty impressive, I'd love to see more stuff being added to the Dutch Stations Set. Station buildings require quite a bit of pixelwork though, since they need at least 2 views.

Keep it up!

[ths]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the comments. Very helpful:

@Transportman
The NS logo is very prominent indeed, but unfortunately I cant seem to find a way to make it that small and not have it be a weird mess of pixels. The angle the logo has in it doesnt translate very well to this kind of drawing. You were right though, the tower is 8 sided. I made it as much 8 sided as i could get it on this scale. Also I fixed the details in the roof.

@Oberhümer
You were right about the size of the left tower. At least depth wise, I made it a lot smaller. Gives the whole building a slightly more interesting shape too. Right tower is only marginally smaller than the main building, so the perspective kinda messes that up.

@Michael Blunck
I assume that by "too regular" you meant too even / not enough texture right? I roughed it up a bit. Gave it some wear and tear. Also I dimmed down the windows on the dark side of the building.

@Quast65
I know you live in Delft. We actually know each other (sorry, I saw your name in a screenshot in your newgrf tutorial

As for the size, I tried to keep it roughly in size with the stations, trains and platforms in the dutch train and station set. Compared to Hilversum especially, I dont think this should be bigger. (maybe even a little smaller, but it would lose a lot of detail/personality if I do that) It is only a three story building really.. Definitely looks larger than it is in real life....

So attached is also the other view, as well as a snow version. (wanted to see if it would work)

Let me know what you think!

[Ammler]

about the existing source:

Repository: http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/dut ... repository (mercurial)
License: GPLv2

The last coder Xeryus pretty much retired from coding, so you could either continue or start from scratch with the files there, using the DevZone envrionment could help you but is no requirement to fork it.
The current Makefile is one of the very first community frameworks.
if you want to continue the project, please ping us so we can add you to the project.

Greets
Ammler

[Quast65]

@Quast65
I know you live in Delft. We actually know each other (sorry, I saw your name in a screenshot in your newgrf tutorial

lol, Small world

I think it looks very good with the improvements you made!

[FooBar]

That looks absolutely awesome! I've used that station quite a lot in the past 7 or so years, and it's instantly recognisible.

As for the Dutch stations set itself, my idea was to do a complete overhaul once NML supports stations. I have no hurry with that, so I don't care if NML starts to support stations this year or next year. So if you don't mind the wait I can assure you that it will be coded at some point in the more-further-than-near future.

However, if you want this in the set rather sooner than later, I recommend continuing the existing project. Mind you that stations is probably the most complex feature in NFO, so feel free to find a skilled coder first before attempting it yourself. But either way for what it's worth you have my blessing for continuing the project

[ths]

I wouldnt know where to start "continuing" the project, but I wouldnt mind waiting for the NML to support stations. Right now I just enjoy drawing some stations, so I'll try my hand at a couple other Dutch ones and post them here. It would be great to include them with the other stations if you indeed end up doing a complete overhaul, but no rush

[XeryusTC]

Those graphics look very good, it almost wants me to install all the coding stuff on this laptop again and put them into the set. But I wont

Might I suggest that you start the coding from scratch, and also redo some of the graphics. The code is a mess in places and there are a couple of weird bugs in it (see the station name platform for example, there are some edge cases where it behaves weird). some of the graphics also need redoing, especially all of the graphics that have the station platforms in them. Some of the platforms are darker then other which gives weird results if you put them next to each other. It is a lot of work to fix this though so you might not want to do this, which I could completely understand. Anyway, you have my blessing to do with it whatever you want (not that you need it as it is open source )

On a different note, might I suggest that you also make station buildings graphics available to be put in the middle of platforms. I personally quite like it if there is a station building sitting on the platforms instead of at the edge of the station. Like the Hilversum station in the current station set.

[michael blunck]

Mind you that stations is probably the most complex feature in NFO, so feel free to find a skilled coder first before attempting it yourself.

Coding stations in m4nfo is quite easy.

The hard (and tedious) part is the development of the set´s concept, drawing, tile slicing, bounding box handling, etc. pp.

regards
Michael

[jor[D]1]

I wouldnt know where to start "continuing" the project, but I wouldnt mind waiting for the NML to support stations. Right now I just enjoy drawing some stations, so I'll try my hand at a couple other Dutch ones and post them here. It would be great to include them with the other stations if you indeed end up doing a complete overhaul, but no rush

A simple standard station like Beilen, deisgned by C. Douma would be cool.

[FooBar]

There have been quite a few standardized stations, which would IMO be good for this set, if I'm allowed to make suggestions for drawing, that is.

[ths]

There have been quite a few standardized stations, which would IMO be good for this set, if I'm allowed to make suggestions for drawing, that is.

I like the idea of having some standardized, almost generic Dutch stations next to some of the more iconic ones. Do you have any examples of these standardized stations? So I can look them up.

edit: I found some good standard stations, but if you have specific requests, let me know.

[ths]

A simple standard station like Beilen, deisgned by C. Douma would be cool.[/quote]

Beilen would be a good addition, and thats one of the standardized stations. Would be similar in size to the ones already in the set: Vorden, Assen, Culemborg en Winterswijk. I'll try to make that one today.

[FooBar]

Here's an overview of all station building designs that were used more than once: http://www.stationsweb.nl/typeoverzicht.asp (in Dutch). The ones used most often are always good, but just follow your own preference.

[ths]

A "Standaard Douma" station (like Beilen)

For now I'm not making snowy platforms, since indeed, they need to be fixed color-wise anyway. Maybe once we actually do an overhaul of the original set...

[Supercheese]

Very nice!

[ths]

Hey guys,

Im working on two more stations, and could use some help:
(neither is done yet, so dont worry about the textures, colors etc too much)

Eindhoven:
How do you like the idea of having the trains underneath the building like this? In reality they are actually behind this part of the building, but I think it would be kinda cool to have em run underneath. But is it even codeable like this?

Sextant:
I have been looking at it too much, so I cant figure out anymore if the shape is correct, or if the angle of view is messing me up....

[planetmaker]

Hey guys,

Im working on two more stations, and could use some help:
(neither is done yet, so dont worry about the textures, colors etc too much)

Eindhoven:
How do you like the idea of having the trains underneath the building like this? In reality they are actually behind this part of the building, but I think it would be kinda cool to have em run underneath. But is it even codeable like this?

Sextant:
I have been looking at it too much, so I cant figure out anymore if the shape is correct, or if the angle of view is messing me up....

Yes it's feasible to code such stations. But you'll have to draw separate sprites for
- the ground (which will be overlaid with the track sprites)
- the background of the building (where train is drawn over it)
- the foreground of the building (which is drawn over the train)

The back- and foreground of the building will never be drawn independently of eachother. The groundsprite may show as only sprite when stations are drawn transparently.

[Emperor Jake]

Eindhoven is an awesome looking station! Keep it up

Another question: will the eventual overhaul of the stations set include people on the platforms? Something I've always missed in this set.