zBase (32bpp base set by Zephyris)

[ajee]

Hi Z,

Thanks a lot for your hard work for zBase, super cool.
However, I tried to play toyland, and it seems "Teapot-House" is always wrapped in gift paper.

teapot.JPG

Is there a bug? Thanks in advance!

AJ

Hm, interesting. I shall investigate when I find time. Thanks for the report!

Pleasure is mine, planetmaker!

[hyperman]

Hello, I hope this is the correct place to ask for modifications on zBase.

I am the author of the thread OpenTTD for young children - viewtopic.php?f=29&t=86926&p=1231043#p1231043

One of the absolute unnegotiable requirements for getting my son on openTTD turns out to be a railway/road crossing with both blinking lights and barries going up and down. Now I like zBase very much, but it turns out to be a bit lacking in that very specific department. So I come here with that as a feature request / early Xmas present request - can you add this? I of course understand it very well if this is impossible or even if I am doing something wrong.

Thanks in advance.

[JIFP]

Hi

I'm quite new to OpenTTD, and am still learning the basics.

I'm facing trouble in downloading zbase. When downloading from the in-game option, the download gets stuck at 99%. I've even left it at this state for approx 20 mins, but it's still the same. I also tried downloading the zip file from http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/zbuild/push/LATEST/ , but the download fails.

Please help!

[embeddedt]

I'm facing trouble in downloading zbase. When downloading from the in-game option, the download gets stuck at 99%. I've even left it at this state for approx 20 mins, but it's still the same. I also tried downloading the zip file from http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/zbuild/push/LATEST/ , but the download fails.

It seems that openttdcoop is having issues; here's a mirror link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1maPK3I ... sp=sharing

No need to unzip, just copy this file into `baseset` and you should be good to go.

[JIFP]

It works!

Thank you for this. You guys have done a great job!

And these graphics look great!

[HayabusaShinkansen]

I'm a long time fan of @Zephyris' ZBase. Frankly, wouldn't have played OpenTTD without it.

For some years been thinking about combining ZBase's 3D sources (they are blend files https://blender.org/), with the Godot game engine (https://godotengine.org/, which lets you write easily write good-looking 2D or 3D games in a language based on Python), with OpenTTD - by connecting to a game using the communications protocol (I read there is a reference implementation in Java, although unfortunately it went down with http://openttdcoop.org/).

This would let you walk around the 3D world, marveling at your cities, watching your trains and buses go past, and planes overhead. I've done some testing and it's fairly easy to get Zephyris' 3D models into Godot. I'm very impressed with Zephyris' work too. It's very well organized, and very slick. It's an amazing effort.

This would only be a viewer, played alongside a running game. No intention of being able to issue commands in the 3D viewer. I think this idea has been discussed in another thread and the conclusion it's not worth it. I discounted doing it only with a save file, because that would be static and the magic of OpenTTD is watching the vehicles run around.

It would be a big project done only in spare time, consisting of:
1. Importing Zephyris' zBase blend files into Godot via GLB format. This would need to be automated, because there are so many of them. Also some troubleshooting is required, since some are not compatible with the latest version of Blender.
2. Coming up with a model that can represent the OpenTTD game state in Godot.
3. Writing a Godot module that can communicate with OpenTTD, and update the mirrored game model held by Godot (in Godot's Python-like language - I've done multiplayer in it before, or a C++ module which Godot can support too).
4. Writing Godot code to take that game model, and refresh the 3D world display. (You might even do that all in C++ if that saves time, and have the module pass Godot the changes).
5. Godot modules to fly or walk a character around. That's the easy part. So is having pedestrians wander around. Godot thrives on that.

Conceptually it's simple, but even simple things can take a lot of work.

Ultimately others could add support for other game sets, since you could potentially import from anywhere, including other Blend files, and even MagicaVoxel (though 3D pixelart might look very strange), but all that is a long way off.

Questions:
@Zephyris, are you okay with this?
Anyone interested in this?
Anyone interested in helping? And if you want to go away and do it by yourself, I won't stop you!

[Zephyris]

Go for it!! Sounds cool.

[HayabusaShinkansen]

Thanks @zeophyris. I'll do zBase proud!

I've started researching and will post questions for the OpenTTD developers here: viewtopic.php?t=90601 (thread waiting mod approval)

Once I have something, I'll post it on GitHub.

[smurfix]

Do you happen to have a copy of the "zbasebuild" repository?

I want to build a tweaked version of zbase (and add the 16 missing sprites so jgrpp stops complaining at me) but I couldn't find that code anywhere. :-/

[HayabusaShinkansen]

Do you happen to have a copy of the "zbasebuild" repository?

I want to build a tweaked version of zbase (and add the 16 missing sprites so jgrpp stops complaining at me) but I couldn't find that code anywhere. :-/

Unfortunately no, but in another thread asked Zephyris if he would reupload it since openttdcoop.org is down. I'd like to be able to add to Zbase too!

[Dennis007]

Zbase still works great. Thanks for this. Now i can see my stations better.

[Zephyris]

I didn't do any of the coding, so I don't have a copy I'm afraid. We need openttd coop back!

[goremaniac]

Are you looking for this ?

http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/

There is a folder called zbuild.

Posting link assuming its allowed , if not let me know

[kamnet]

More directly, the last build and source files from 2015:
http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/zbuild/n ... 3/?C=M&O=D

[Zephyris]

I didn't do any of the coding, so I don't have a copy I'm afraid. We need openttd coop back!

[true2thepen]

Anyone interested in this?
Anyone interested in helping? And if you want to go away and do it by yourself, I won't stop you!

Have you started working on this? Repo anywhere? I would be interested in helping.

[HayabusaShinkansen]

Have you started working on this? Repo anywhere? I would be interested in helping.

Hi, @true2thepen. Thanks for asking. I did some work on it. I was able to do a proof-in-concept accessing the map from other processes. At the time Godot was transitioning versions, and their new version plugins weren't working, though perhaps they are now. (Godot itself is very fast to develop games in, but compiling it - necessary for plugin modules - is a real pain because of their weird configuration tool, and the plugins break with the versions changes. This sucked up most of my time.) Also had a pending question for @Zephyris about the wear textures for the models. Sorry I didn't see your post earlier, because this idea got almost zero interest on tt-forums.net (Listen to the crickets: viewtopic.php?t=90601 ), so not great encouragement for a project which is I estimate is some months of solid work.

Please post on viewtopic.php?t=90601. A good starting point would be just a map you can fly around, and take it from there. The code itself is conceptually simple, but it's still a couple of weeks work at best, and the devil is in Godot's plugin module interface. Zephyris' models are nicely organized, but organizing them needs to be done manually and that will take a while.

[Zephyris]

Answering your texture question, if I recall correctly they are all procedural textures in blender rather than being texture images...

[HayabusaShinkansen]

Answering your texture question, if I recall correctly they are all procedural textures in blender rather than being texture images...

Thanks, @Zephyris. I'll reverse engineer a similar texture in Blender to keep the look-and-feel.

Time permitting, I'll assemble what I've done so far and create a repo for it. Anyone interested in contributing please post on the other thread viewtopic.php?t=90601 .