Silverx50's Workshop

[Silverx50]

I code my stations in NFO. I mostly rely on examples and I have found it easier to find more examples of code in NFO.

ah ok.

So been busy again, not yet finished but wanted to share the progress.
still need a lot of texturing and details added. but the main things are done. I said earlier that I'd make it in 3 parts but it will be 2 parts unless I make Big Ben separately.

[luxtram]

I said earlier that I'd make it in 3 parts but it will be 2 parts unless I make Big Ben separately.

I did a little research and comparison.

It is stated here https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 156AACGIld that

Clock Tower (Big Ben) height is 96.3m and width is 12.2m and Victoria Tower height is 98.5m and width is 22.9m (if I interpret these measurements correctly).

So if I put my drawing next to yours

Comparison

BigBenComparison.png (29.19 KiB) Viewed 5488 times

then it appears that heights are about the same, but my tower must be thinner.

It was my first drawing and I think I had impression that isometric view would skew the proportions this much.

I still afraid that also your Victoria Tower is a bit too slender looking though, but of course you could make them go slightly out of the proportion.

[sanderNL]

thank you, have you done anymore drawing yourself?

Nope, but I think I'll start again soon, as I see those impressing things you two have made!

[Quast65]

still need a lot of texturing and details added.

Luxtram is brilliant!!
I was reading this in his thread about how he made textures for his roofs: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=74911&start=20#p1172243
And it gave me an idea of applying that effect to a complete building without texture (but with shading), so I tried it out on Westminster Palace (using Photoshop).
I cut out the silhouette of the building from that noise-sheet, layed it over the palace, put it on "Cover": 25%:

Example72.png (90.56 KiB) Viewed 5465 times

Then merged the layers without losing the transparancy background (So with the "merge visible layers" command in the Layer menu)
And I then copy/pasted the result in my worksheet that only uses the DOS-palette colors (so it instantly changes all other colors into the nearest color in the DOS-palette)
And this came out (original building is on the left):

Example73.png (78.57 KiB) Viewed 5465 times

I must say, not bad for 5 minutes work....

Tweaking the percentage of the cover setting will make the texturing even heavier or lighter, depending on taste and what you want to achieve.
The building will become lighter or darker, but you can counter that effect with other Photoshop settings.
So maybe you will have to import it a couple of times into a DOS-palette worksheet to see the actual effect it will get ingame, but it is so much faster than applying textures by hand!!

[luxtram]

Luxtram is brilliant!!

Thanks! I am happy that it worked so well.

It looks like I might have to create another thread "luxtram tricks and tips" as I have few other such techniques I am using and perhaps those are actually useful for others too with some surprising results. Hmm. Or perhaps something with more general name, as it would then perhaps encourage others to share too.

[Silverx50]

yes I also saw the post Luxtram made in his thread.
thank you for documenting it for Photoshop.
had never seen photoshop in Dutch before, I have mine set to english like almost any tech I use.
but found it fascinating that you translated 'dekking' to 'cover' in my photoshop it's called opacity. but you use the english commands for the layer menu.
is not everything translated?

this will be very time saving with good results and will not make me hesitate to draw big buildings.
I'll most probably be able to continue drawing at the current pace for the next two days, after that it will be two weeks of much less work.

[oftcrash]

Luxtram is brilliant!!

Thanks! I am happy that it worked so well.

It looks like I might have to create another thread "luxtram tricks and tips" as I have few other such techniques I am using and perhaps those are actually useful for others too with some surprising results. Hmm. Or perhaps something with more general name, as it would then perhaps encourage others to share too.

Please do! I've been trying to create a baseball stadium for a while, but just can't get it right. And I have a bunch of other stuff I'd like to try out.

[Quast65]

but found it fascinating that you translated 'dekking' to 'cover' in my photoshop it's called opacity. but you use the english commands for the layer menu.
is not everything translated?

I use a very very old version of Photoshop (7.0, I believe from 2002 ), it works just fine for me (I only use it for OpenTTD), so I dont have the need to upgrade
And its completely in Dutch.
No idea that "dekking" should have been translated to "opacity", thats why I included the screenshot, so it would be clear what I meant for users with other languages.
The english command for the layer menu was just a lucky translation by me

this will be very time saving with good results and will not make me hesitate to draw big buildings.

My thoughts exactly! This will make it a lot easier to texture, try it out also on some parts of Rotterdam CS (like the part above the main entrance with the gradual shade or on the "flap" on the right), it gives some nice results!
And this also means that you dont have to use it on the entire building, you can also just use it on some specific parts of the building.

However! Keep in mind that it doesnt recognize animated colors (so for example the blinking red)! So it may happen that after coding you see some animated colors and have to change those by hand.

I'll most probably be able to continue drawing at the current pace for the next two days, after that it will be two weeks of much less work.

Taking a break is always good!

[Silverx50]

haven't had that much time to draw much this week, so it's been going slow.
made some progress on the Palace of Westminster. still plenty of work to be done before it can be called finished.

palace of westminster mock up.png (128.91 KiB) Viewed 5284 times

there are these two buildings that I'm wondering if I should add or leave out.

question.png (385.97 KiB) Viewed 5284 times

well that's it for now, next round of free time will be spent finishing up Rotterdam CS.

[luxtram]

haven't had that much time to draw much this week, so it's been going slow.
made some progress on the Palace of Westminster. still plenty of work to be done before it can be called finished.

palace of westminster mock up.png

there are these two buildings that I'm wondering if I should add or leave out.
question.png

well that's it for now, next round of free time will be spent finishing up Rotterdam CS.

This is utterly cool! I see that there are many repeating parts but it still feels like a lot of work.

About these parts, it is probably up to some Brits to say if those have any real importance, but they would definitely made the waterside more interesting. Geometry of the building also would not allow to have them as separate objects unfortunately.

[Silverx50]

This is utterly cool! I see that there are many repeating parts but it still feels like a lot of work.

About these parts, it is probably up to some Brits to say if those have any real importance, but they would definitely made the waterside more interesting. Geometry of the building also would not allow to have them as separate objects unfortunately.

thank you, and indeed if any Brits can tell me if those buildings are an important addition or not will be appreciated.

did some more work on the shard, the colors still need changing but wanted to get it done in a color that I could work with easier. the light blue that the smaller building has wasn't nice to work with and I don't like it for the finished version either. anyway, the top still needs tweaking to look better, but think the shape is pretty good.

[Silverx50]

I hadn't posted these yet, but I had called them finished.
but in doing the Rotterdam textures the way I have done them I think I'm going to put in some more work into the roof of Utrecht Centraal.

[Leanden]

The british buildings look great, i wouldnt worry about those extra buildings too much, but i would say the tower if big ben looks too thin, the step from the clockface to the tower isnt that much defined and you could get away with not showing it all and just having the tower as a continious vertical face.

[Quast65]

Good stuff!!

A couple of remarks regarding Utrecht:

The lines inside the roof accentuating the wave-shape of it are not entirely correct. They should exactly follow the outline of the wave-shape.
I hope this will illustrate what I mean, I selected the outline and moved it inwards, as you can see some of the lighter pixels are outside of the shape, they should all be inside of it.
Also I think the two pixels in the red circle should be deleted.

Example76.png (13.32 KiB) Viewed 5180 times

Regarding the Catharijne Tower:

Example77.png (57.28 KiB) Viewed 5180 times

1. The shadow is going the wrong way for the flipped version
2. I am not too sure about the lighted windows on the dark side, I think it is better to keep them all dark. Or have them in a green that is slightly darker than the ones on the sunny side. Right now I think they are too bright.
3. All of the windows could use a tiny bit of texture (like you did with the bright ones on the shaded side)
4. The shading is the wrong way for the flipped version, the lighter line is facing the shadow side and vice versa. (also for the grey lines, dark line is facing sunny side)

Also I think that the green and grey lines could use a bit of texturing, try to use the method I used with Luxtrams noise graphic on just those lines.

And regarding the roof, you already stated that you would probably rework that a bit, a little tip to make it even better looking, keep in mind what part of the roof is facing the sun and what part is in the shade and try to reflect that a bit in the graphic. It will give an even better effect to the wave-shape.

Keep up the great work!!

[luxtram]

It is pleasing to see this new version.

3. All of the windows could use a tiny bit of texture (like you did with the bright ones on the shaded side)

I think that glass and fabric (from what the shades probably are made of) are fairly smooth materials unlike something like brick wall or plastered wall. So perhaps it would look more natural without additional texture effect. But there could be shadows or reflections (from clouds, sun), but this not the biggest concern for me.

Does something like this look convincing?

Clouds

Clouds.png (8.75 KiB) Viewed 5132 times

Well, it is in fact also good as it is for me.

2. I am not too sure about the lighted windows on the dark side, I think it is better to keep them all dark. Or have them in a green that is slightly darker than the ones on the sunny side. Right now I think they are too bright.

I am also not sure about this choice here. That is, I am not sure that this illumination would be visible (especially when shades are on) during the daylight.

[Silverx50]

I'll work on the things you mentioned and work towards finishing this and Rotterdam in the coming weeks. Still one more week of hardly any drawing possible.
but had been wondering about the size for Delft Station which I think will be my next station before moving to Arnhem station.
the finished version of the station should house 4 tracks (it has two right now) so I was thinking at least 4 wide but how long should it be?
at first thought I'm thinking 5 tiles.

[sanderNL]

I think 4x5 tiles would be the right size, maybe 4x6 so that longer trains fit in the station too, but I wouldn't make it bigger.

[Quast65]

I'll work on the things you mentioned and work towards finishing this

Apart from the discussion about the shading/color/texture of the windows, I think a little reshaping of the windows might also make it look better:

Example78.png (13.05 KiB) Viewed 5084 times

To me with the old narrower windows the lines dont always look/feel straight (even though they are), I think that an one pixel wider window gives a better effect, at least to me it looks a bit better What do you think about that?

but had been wondering about the size for Delft Station which I think will be my next station before moving to Arnhem station.
the finished version of the station should house 4 tracks (it has two right now) so I was thinking at least 4 wide but how long should it be?
at first thought I'm thinking 5 tiles.

Well, your picture almost answers that question Look at the size of the old station and compare it to the new one. The old one is already in a set and is 4 tiles long. I would say that the new one should then be 6 tiles long.
However I would preferr it to be 5 tiles long (to save a bit of space, you know me ), but if you are not able to get the shape correct on 5 tiles, 6 tiles would be good too. Elongations, if you have longer trains, can be done by separate single tiles that just have tracks under them and some eyecandy on top (like some of the metro-stations already in a set).
This may give you an idea of how it will look:

DelftMockUp1.png (104.88 KiB) Viewed 5084 times

Note that I left some space between the busstops and the tunnel, that can be used for overlapping tiles to hide the tunnel. Also tiles can be included that overlap the tunnel on the other side of the station.

Also, google maps gives a nice view of the inside and outlines of the building, might be handy

Example79.png (64.03 KiB) Viewed 5084 times

[Quast65]

Sorry for the doublepost, but I noticed some other thing odd about Utrecht CS:

Example80.png (51.09 KiB) Viewed 5037 times

In circle-1 the wavey roof is visible in front of the green building, however in circle-2 it is not in front of it. That is strange... Either both roofs should be in front of it (and then the green building should not be drawn towards the edge of the tile), or the left roof should be cut off like the one on the right (and then the green building can be drawn to the edge of the tile).
So, I took a look at the real building to see how its done and noticed something from this picture:

Utrecht_CS.jpg (100.04 KiB) Viewed 5037 times

The building is actually not completely square shaped!
So I took a stab at drawing it a bit more like reallife and came up with this:

Example81.png (5.41 KiB) Viewed 5037 times

How does this look to you? If you are ok with this shape, I will try to draw the other direction (as it cant just simply be flipped as the cut would be on the wrong side).

[Quast65]

And sorry for the triple post
But now also with texture:

Example82.png (6.72 KiB) Viewed 5019 times

EDIT:
Couldnt help myself, had to do the other direction...

Example83.png (6.67 KiB) Viewed 5005 times

Didnt do the roof as that direction had some shadow issues and maybe you already had fixed that.

EDIT2:
Version with better ending at the right:

Example84.png (6.6 KiB) Viewed 5002 times