New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

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supermop
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New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

messing with massings:
platform massings.PNG
(46.37 KiB) Downloaded 13 times
EDIT: At Planetmaker's suggestion I have given this thread a more interesting (?) name.
Last edited by supermop on 03 Apr 2015 00:35, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Bluestone Project (MRoads?): 32bpp Street Infrastructure

Post by Phreeze »

looks nice so far :)
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Re: Bluestone Project (MRoads?): 32bpp Street Infrastructure

Post by supermop »

Ok obviously this is not related to streets but here is something I've been working on the past day:
Brick and steel arch.PNG
Brick and steel arch.PNG (538.5 KiB) Viewed 2383 times
Needs more work on brick details (foundations etc) and need to decide how much of the roof to leave open/glazed/closed. It will also be tricky to create the masks to paint the blue areas to CC, especially as I'd like them to be dark but glossy - like the paint found on these 19th C structures. Gloss doesn't mask easily as you need to retain the highlights as white rather than color.

As you can see I'm playing with different arch styles: full height or just a window, and open or closed with doors or glass. A station set could select between these but the first goal is to replicate and replace the default station, which is too dumb to include such variation. Roof could be grey shingle, or lead, or tin, or copper. Or could be entirely open or glass. After the basic three stations are roughly modeled I'll focus more on benches, clocks, signs, and other fixtures (monorail and Maglev could have platform doors)...


more to come
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Re: Bluestone Project (MRoads?): 32bpp Street Infrastructure

Post by supermop »

More modular experimentation.... Have worked out the basic roof and window options for the basic steel arch train shed. Rendered glass cannot directly be used in game, so this is just conceptual. In game i will either leave all fenestration open, or add a solid opaque sprite that is masked to a transparent grey like the default 8bpp stations.
Brick Fenestration 1.png
Brick Fenestration 1.png (180.57 KiB) Viewed 22677 times
Brick Fenestration 2.png
Brick Fenestration 2.png (161.1 KiB) Viewed 22677 times
Brick Fenestration 3.png
Brick Fenestration 3.png (148.41 KiB) Viewed 22677 times

The small details are pretty insignificant, but they include tall arches with either windows, doors, or nothing, and smaller arches with windows or nothing. The flashing/gutter along the edge of the roof will either be copper or zinc colored. The solid roof area may change material.

Under the roof, we have basic two sided platform bays, buffers, and a full platform height empty floor tile. The buffers barely show through the roof so they are very rudimentary. I don't want to add much more than this, but various benches and signs could be added, as well as single sided platforms, and maybe over and underpasses for passengers. If waiting passengers are shown, it will be as drawn or architectural style scale people, not rendered models. A version with iron columns instead of brick walls is planned, and perhaps optional wider sheds for 3 or 4 tracks.

A lot of work needs to be done on the render settings, and extra texture detail. The concrete track floors will be given so relief with drains and gutters, and brick walls will get weepholes and tiebars.

Maybe I should split this off to a new topic?
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Re: Bluestone Project (MRoads?): 32bpp Street Infrastructure

Post by supermop »

And one more just to show how poorly detailed the platform bays and buffers are. Although I did model wear on the insides of the rail head and you can't even see it this close... not to mention rail will be replaced by whatever rail set the user specifies...
Brick Fenestration 4.png
Brick Fenestration 4.png (442.74 KiB) Viewed 22655 times
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Re: Bluestone Project (MRoads?): 32bpp Street Infrastructure

Post by Densha »

Graphics like these could even work for a 3D game! Looks awesome!
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Re: Stations in 32bpp

Post by Mizari »

Why not just make it single-sided?
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Re: Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

Mizari wrote:Why not just make it single-sided?

I'd prefer single sided, and the scale of the station plus a concrete floor should make that more workable than with the default graphics, but the main objective for me right now is to capture the spirit of ogfx stations. If I am able to get a coder to help and/or if NML stations come out soon, I'll then maybe expand with more option and building styles after we cover the scope of the default three ogfx stations!
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

Feel a little cooped up between brick walls? Want to improve passenger flow in your concourses? Nostalgic for the station halls of TTO? Improved steel mill production so much that you've collapsed the global market for iron futures? Or just really into the Bessemer Process? Replace those masonry walls with iron and steel columns and bracing arches!

These bother me a tad as the single steel circle in the transverse arch would not be sufficient to provide lateral bracing for the roof structure, but I think it looks cleaner than two circles in the corners, or conventional truss members.
Your new iron and glass train shed in smart Navy paint...
Your new iron and glass train shed in smart Navy paint...
Iron and Steel 1.png (238.01 KiB) Viewed 22483 times
Without all the roof surfaces to better see inside...
Without all the roof surfaces to better see inside...
Iron and Steel 2.png (246.43 KiB) Viewed 22483 times
Or warm up with a nice Burgundy...
Or warm up with a nice Burgundy...
Iron and Steel 3.png (245.29 KiB) Viewed 22483 times
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

So rather than trying to cram a tiny station building onto a side platform, I've decided to draw the structure on open platforms as a basic shelter. The OGFX monorail and Maglev stations already do this, so I feel it is in character.

For the basic rail station I've based the structure on the cast iron and steel members from the column and arch roof shown above, but scaled them down to support a small cantilevered roof. I was thinking the roof could be corrugated metal painted in CC, but I am also considering bare galvanized, or shingles as shown on the arched roof.
Iron Shelter 1.png
Iron Shelter 1.png (243.71 KiB) Viewed 22447 times
Iron Shelter 2.png
Iron Shelter 2.png (245.94 KiB) Viewed 22447 times
The shingles I've been using do not look so good on such a flat roof, so It would need coping, flashing, and a better texture. A ceramic tile roof would also be nice, but would have to be modeled, not textured.
Iron Shelter 3.png
Iron Shelter 3.png (429.11 KiB) Viewed 22447 times
I was thinking It may be best to reverse the CC and cream accent paint on these shelters, but that then got me thinking on how light colored CCs will look. Stations do not yet support 2CC, so the user cannot select a main color and accent to taste.
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by V453000 :) »

The details are cute but have you tried to render it with actual game camera settings? :)
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

Ok, I've plugged these guys into my dimetric rigging, although there are still some exposure and contrast settings to be decided on.. I usually would forgo the built in HDR functionality to more easily get consistency across renders, but the shadows on these may end up too strong without it.

I've also finished up a possible end condition for the small shelter: a hipped roof return with flashing over the roof seams.
Galvanized Shelter.png
Zinc!
(1.35 MiB) Downloaded 9 times
I also did a bit of work on the concrete track bed and gutters along the base of the platforms. I need to add some grime down there.

Below are some unretouched samples of basic platform tiles rendered at 4x zoom. The constituent parts will be rendered separately for final sprites.
Station Sprite Test 5.png
Racing Green
(430.19 KiB) Downloaded 9 times
Station Sprite Test 6.png
Refined Navy
(429.99 KiB) Downloaded 9 times
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by PikkaBird »

when they're rendered like that, the shelters look a little... tall? :)
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

PikkaBird wrote:when they're rendered like that, the shelters look a little... tall? :)
Hmm yes the height got away from me a bit when adding all of the structure above the columns. I think it still works when they are back to back or next to the big shed, but as a single tile by itself they look a bit lost. I can cut 500-800 mm out of the column easily to shorten them.
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

No new work on the shelters, but I have been experimenting with the concrete rail base. I actually think the 'outdoor' platforms should just have gravel ballast beneath, but I've yet to model that.

As is the rail base is ok for single track bays, but I've tried to come up with some ideas for making the empty space more interesting for cases where platforms are on one or neither side. In real life these floors that I have seen are largely flat, but I've tried a slightly raised walkway in the center, and possibly drains at gutters...
Concrete Bed 1.png
(1.23 MiB) Downloaded 8 times
Concrete Bed 2.png
(1.24 MiB) Downloaded 8 times
Concrete Bed 3.png
(1.25 MiB) Downloaded 8 times
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

First meager steps towards gravel ballast:

I've decided that I will need to 'dig' down the rail bed a bit for the gravel, in order to allow enough space for a nice mound of ballast while keeping the rails themselves at about the expected height. The main down side to this, is that I will need to render neighboring bits then crop, similar to the TTD monorail trench. The other option, to have the gravel start at zero and build up, risks leading to a creep where each incremental detail leads to rails, then platforms, then roofs being nudged ever higher, and the station is fairly tall already.

For the basic two sided bay platform, the shape of the gravel at least is pretty satisfactory already.
Gravel Bed 2.png
Gravel Bed 2.png (550 KiB) Viewed 2376 times
The oil stain in the center could use a better approach - right now it is a translucent rectangle with gradient floating over the rail bed - and more grime could be added to the sides.


In the case of greater open space with single sided platforms,even at this larger scale, there is a bit of a void. It doesn't look so bad with concrete, but here you really notice patterns caused by the texture repeat. The texture may need some procedural effects, and the mound in the center may need to be replaced with some kind of conduit or walkway.
Gravel Bed 1.png
Gravel Bed 1.png (531.48 KiB) Viewed 22198 times
When we size the png to the size of a 4x zoom sprite, I think the moire patterns get worse, not better:
Gravel Bed 1 Z4.png
Gravel Bed 1 Z4.png (134.6 KiB) Viewed 22198 times
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by doxlulzem »

I think you should do concrete bed for electric rails and gravel ballast for unpowered. And looking good! Think you might make a total 32bpp graphics thing or are you just content with roads and stations at the minute?
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

doxlulzem wrote:I think you should do concrete bed for electric rails and gravel ballast for unpowered. And looking good! Think you might make a total 32bpp graphics thing or are you just content with roads and stations at the minute?
I'd like to have some thins change based on rail type, like platform details, but I think it would be best for the trackbed to remain somewhat consistent to whether the station is indoor or outdoor. There are a lot of ideas I have for things I'd like to do - 32bpp is not central organizing theme, but I find modelling and rendering more amenable than pixel art personallly. I don't have any plan to do a baseset, but eventually it may be possible to cobble bit together between different things I make if I ever finish any of them.

My main goal with stations for now is to create something that could be an ogfx+ station set. My goals with houses are more along the lines of studying and celebrating certain architectural paradigms, so progress only seems to happen there when something really inspires me.


On the topic of OGFX stations, the second 'type' to model is the monorail station. The goal would be that this style of station building would be available for all rail types, from around the 1960s onward. The main feature of the ogfx 8bpp monorail train shed is a catenary suspended glass ceiling, so I've been toying with different real and potential roof technologies in that style. These types of roofs first stated to appear at a large scale in the early 60s, as did the first concrete beam monorails, so it seemed spiritually fitting to aim for a late-middle 20th century style. Most of what I've modeled so far is creeping towards archigram though....
Tensile 1.png
(246.04 KiB) Downloaded 3 times
So far I am mocking up the roof surfaces as simple membranes, but I do not yet know whether they will be tensile roof membranes (high technology fabrics) or some kind of suspended glass panel system, nor what portion will be covered or opened. Most of these shapes are for a 2x2 tile area, but I feel this type of structure looks better spanning longer distances - 4-5 tiles. The columns are just placeholders for now, and most cables will become even thicker to show up better. In the lower left you can see some space frame elements I am working with for a later spaceframe roof - I may scale these down to have catenary shaped spaceframe members instead of cables, but they turn into noise at small sizes at ottd scale.
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

The stone foundations I've been using beneath the brick parts so far are just a crude placeholder texture, so I've been thinking of replacing them with a better material with a bossage stone style bump map. I could not find bump maps of the type of stonework I had in mind so I went about trying to create my own from actual surfaces.

I first created 13 surfaces from noise height fields and trimmed them to be 900x400mm:
Bossage WIP1.PNG
(136.39 KiB) Downloaded 2 times

Next I messed around a bit with the z scale and position, then joined them to an underlying 1000x500x500 polysurface, and added a 10mm chamfered edge:
bossage wip 2.png
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Next I picked a few blocks to reuse to create the fourth course of stones, rotated them 180 degrees to be less obvious, and ensured the blocks would tile when cut down:
bossage wip 3.png
(756.9 KiB) Downloaded 2 times
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Re: New Steel: OpenGFX Inspired Stations in 32bpp

Post by supermop »

Next step was to set up camera and view extents to get a texture from the model:
bossage wip 4.png
(596.66 KiB) Downloaded 2 times

Instead of actually rendering, I instead used the Zbuffer of the image to get a greyscale image based on object distance from camera:
Bossage bump wip.png
Bossage bump wip.png (33.88 KiB) Viewed 21792 times
The range is a bit off though, as all of the surfaces are within a few centimeters, and the black background is at infinity...


Next step is the clean up the greyscale in Photoshop. In addition to cropping the image to my desired tile size, I also adjusted the levels to darken the surfaces a bit and bring out contrast between the clean cut stone, chamfered edges, and bossed face:
Bossage bump wip 2.jpg
Bossage bump wip 2.jpg (45.73 KiB) Viewed 21792 times
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