[OTTD] Central European Towns - Development Thread

[super_dan]

Just wanted to give a quick update: After some hiatus due to a rascal called real life, I am back at working out this set towards a release.

Graphics from other sets?

That is definitely the plan. However, I've been stuck quite some time figuring out a good concept for what house types to include and how to distribute them over the town zones and historical eras. Lately, I found that the already good availability of graphics somehow misled me into planning according to what I have rather than following the initial concept. So for now I even reduced the number of included graphics. I want to focus on the set working so that the look and feel promised in the first post works out. But variety will be added for sure.

I also recommend making these landmarks as objects, so we can place them where we want in the cities.

There will be an objects set including all the "special" buildings such as high schools, cathedrals or hospitals.

[kamnet]

Just wanted to give a quick update: After some hiatus due to a rascal called real life, I am back at working out this set towards a release.

Welcome back!

[Quast65]

Yes, welcome back indeed!!

There will be an objects set including all the "special" buildings such as high schools, cathedrals or hospitals.

Please consider offering the other "normal" buildings via parameter.

[SwissFan91]

If you need anything from the TARS set let me know!

[acs121]

snip

Hello,

It'd be a pleasure if I could use the set for a regular game and give some feedback about it. I am very interested in it because I like very much the style of the buildings in this set and it'd avoid me using eyecandy each 2 tiles and keep up a city's population.

Hoping to see more soon !

[super_dan]

Still working on it...

however, I've now changed my strategy for the release plan quite a bit:

I had to rework a lot after I couldn't commit myself to it for a while now. But I'm making good progress within the new plan, and I will publish a pre-1.0-release as soon as I get it ready. It will most likely contain all the main features (town types, historical eras, old town generation, city parks); however, it will probably lack sprite variety still.

The plan for future updates will then be adding more sprites as well as introducing parameters (for the definition of the population boundaries of the three town types, for example). And of course, like that we can factor in all the player feedback we hopefully will get.

[Emperor Jake]

Good to see this project still lives

[super_dan]

First version (0.7.0) of the set is released. You can find it in the in-game content download.

I have made a release thread for bug reporting: viewtopic.php?t=91065

For suggestions and ideas I would like to keep this thread active in order to keep an overview of what NEEDS to be done and what CAN be done.

Thanks for the patience. From now on all development will be public.

[Argus]

The Czech Republic also belongs to Central Europe, so it would be appropriate to add some Czech and Slovak buildings, if possible. As we are surrounded by Germany and Austria, the architecture is very similar, at least in the border areas.

[super_dan]

You are right with both your arguments. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are indeed considered Central Europe. However, their architecture is also similar to Germany and Austria's to such an extent, that I would find it hard to add sprites for normal houses anyone could clearly identify as coming from those regions specifically.

What we will do instead is including prominent landmarks from those regions. I don't seem to find much time these days to finish it, but here is an example of the "Paladium" City Shopping Mall from Prague (the modern back alley building is still missing).

graphics_palladium_praha.png (5.79 KiB) Viewed 2522 times

Of course, suggestions for further examples of noteworthy buildings to include are always welcome.

[belgi]

You are right with both your arguments. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are indeed considered Central Europe. However, their architecture is also similar to Germany and Austria's to such an extent, that I would find it hard to add sprites for normal houses anyone could clearly identify as coming from those regions specifically.

What we will do instead is including prominent landmarks from those regions. I don't seem to find much time these days to finish it, but here is an example of the "Paladium" City Shopping Mall from Prague (the modern back alley building is still missing).
graphics_palladium_praha.png


Of course, suggestions for further examples of noteworthy buildings to include are always welcome.

It looks very good.

If I were a megalomaniac, I would like Prague Castle, but it is a vast building and it would probably be unnecessary for it to take up so much space in the game. But I can think of the Petřín Lookout (which is a smaller copy of the Eiffel Tower from Paris), the building of the National Museum or the monument on Žižkov Hill. And that's just Prague. The castle tower in Český Krumlov or the revolving auditorium with part of the Castle Garden would also be interesting.

But I understand that you can't have everything. So thank you for every piece of Czech architecture.

Have a nice day

[RoyalExamination9410]

Would be nice for the major buildings to be made available as objects so that they can be preserved

[Quast65]

Not just the major buildings, all please

[erazortt]

Looking great so far! Since we are however in that season of the year, I need to ask: Is snow-awareness something you would integrate?

Here is a small preview. I implemented it into your code and added an addtional snow sprite for one house. It can be seen a couple of times in this screenshot:

The house is twice below the snowline, and multiple times above it. (Not sure why it was so often here, in the other towns on this map its just once or not at all, guess it was just coincidence)

What do you think? Would you like some contribution (code/sprites)?

[super_dan]

What do you think? Would you like some contribution (code/sprites)?

For some reason, my notifications both here and on Github were deactivated, so sorry for the late reply.

Snow awareness is planned, however I haven't identified it as high priority and thus not mentioned in the dev road map in the other thread. If you would like to contribute, however, we could speed up that feature
In each house sprite there are two additional sprites on the right for snow sprites (ground and building). Codewise, they have not been integrated so far.

If you make a pull request, I will look at your solution. It looks really promising. Before putting time into drawing, I would prefer if we can get the code to work.

If, in addition, you like to contribute more snow sprites, please send me a pm. then I can get you access to the layered versions of the sprites which are easier to work with.