Total Graphics Replacement discussion

[mdhowe]

I need to replace the grass to reflect the non-copyrighted version (or should it be transparent without grass?)

Yes, I don't think you need to include the grass. Transparent blue will do. I think the house needs a bit more shading too. Good work though!



Here's my latest graphic, a new road depot. Opinions, suggestions?

[Wolf01]

the cab in the roof should be more high and with a little door, now seem like a giant hangar readapted

[MeusH]

It is really good! But I think the roof needs more texturing.

[Wolf01]

also a emergency stair in the back should be cool, red or black color

[MeusH]

Is it sarcasm?
The stairs are too small detail to draw on such a small image!

[Moriarty]

Too small? I wouldn't have thought so. Keeping things to scale, assume the stairs height is the same length as a bus, and you can see one of those can't you?

[mdhowe]

Here is the latest version of the road depot. I extended the top part and added some windows to it. I also shaded the roof a bit more. I would have added a fire escape but the graphics are already the size of one tile like the original version so it wouldn't fit.

I think it looks a bit like a submarine now or is that just me?

[MeusH]

It is very good now, I like it

[Wolf01]

yes, now is ok

[lucaspiller]

In reply to Alltaken's post on November 22nd:

Thanks for that, it will definately help me a lot. The current colours are just for testing (the grey is the default colour blender uses, and the blue looked good with it).

The buttons and spacing in Firefox are approximately 38x38 pixels (10 bigger than the ones I have done), so it is quite a major difference. Remember that some people will still be using 800x600 monitors (or even 640x480 - eeek) so some sort of button grouping / hiding feature as you suggested would be needed.

I need a way to notify the user when they move the mouse over a button, currently I have two different colour buttons, the blue and a pale yellow - it looks ok, but I think it could be better. I like the Firefox system (box appears over button) - but I don't think this would be as good unless there is some sort of toolbar.

I don't really like the toolbar in (O)TTD because it takes up valuable room. As you can probably tell I have tried to defeat this by making the buttons transparent, as in RCT2 / LoMo. I think rounded buttons would be good but then it would probably look too much like RCT2 / LoMo - how many types of rounded buttons can you have? Also I prefer 2D buttons with 3D piccys on them, sort of like in RCT2, LoMo (not 100% sure about LoMo) and Firefox.

At the moment (and for near enough the last month) I have been really busy because of college - luckily it is nearly Christmas so I get a couple of weeks off then. Apart from work I don't have anything planned so I expect I will be working on this. Pop me any ideas and I will try and get back to you on them.

If you don't use Firefox, use it. Apart from knowing about what we are talking about you will be giving your computer a really nice Christmas present. Please note: I do not want to start an argument involving Firefox.

[Alltaken]

yo lucaspiller.

if you want any feedback from me while you are doing the graphics, then you can contact me personally either by going on #openttd or contacting me on MSN your_mums_hot(at)hotmail.com

as for time constraints LOL we all have them so i think we all understand.

if you guys remember what simcity3 (or was it 4) did, they stuck the buttons in the bottom left corner, and made them all rounded..... IMO thats UGLY. i would far prefer a toolbar style one.

lucaspiller, as for you saying you wanted transparent toolbar, how about you just have Icons along the top. and when you roll over it, a transparent button (with shading for dark/ highlight) pops up underneith it.

once a toolset is dropped down or open this toolset is a transparent (but you can see the edge of it again) with icons within it. then when you hover over these buttons they come out in colour (if they were all grey previously)

just ideas. i don't know if they would work well LOL.

Alltaken

[Red*Star]

Hello!

The following is a result of having done too much math exercises , losing interest in it and then surfing on the pages of OpenTTD wiki... which inspired me to play around with Photoshop to create this...

http://wiki.openttd.org/index.php/Graph ... #Buildings
(under "industries")

...forest. MeusH (I don't know his name in this forum, not even if he is registered here) already told me that currently my version is not "TTD standard compliant", at least if it should be used to replace the original TTD forest graphics.
Well, I think I can fix this problem(s), if I
1. (won't be that hard, I guess) find someone who codes the new forest (as MeusH wrote on the Discussion section of the Graphics Replacement wikipage),
2. know some little things about the forest/the interpretation of the gfx by the OTTD engine: for example, if I have to create all three climate versions.

Hope you can help me, so I can help you and the project to do come a little step closer to the "full originalTTD gfx replacement state"

Bye, Red*Star

PS: Although the forest is not my absolutely first isometric sprite, it's my first one for OTTD, so opinions are welcome - do u like it or not, if so, why ....

[MeusH]

Take a look here, Red*Star

[shampie]

Can a road depot not be made like half the square size with a parking lot aside? or less square.. just looks so ugle-fully plain! (pardon my french but I like makeing words up!)

[Red*Star]

Concerning my forest...

After some reconsidering I came to the result that it would be cool if it can be implemented a little different than the original TTD forest: It always disturbed me that all forest tiles looked the same - so I made the version that currently is on the wiki (see above, my last post).
MeusH told me that it would be difficult to include that sprite into OTTD, so maybe the following alternative is easier to paint (for me ) and to code:

First of all we start with the ground, looking like the first picture, then we only put trees on the tiles I've marked with the T-crossing (second picture).
For that there are two options:
1. Each tile has 9 trees looking equal, as it was in TTD, but now with the trees mdhowe created (that ones you also can see in the wiki) - 3rd pic.
2. We find someone who codes a new forest engine with dynamically adding trees / cutting down trees, which would, again using mdhowe's trees, result in a more loose look of the forest (4th pic).

I for my part would prefer option 2 - the 3rd pic is looking terrible...
The new engine then probably has to look something like this (I know, this is NOT the coding forum, but I can still create a new topic there) :

Code: Select all

(Yes, I know, OTTD is written in C, so it's not object orientated, although I pretended that in this pseudocode.
By this way it is easier to show what I mean with the "new forest grow engine".)

Each "game cycle" (or whatever is used as time unit in OTTD) for all forests this code has to be executed:

iterates (through tiles i = 1 ... tile.count)
{
	// randomly choose one of tile's trees and "water" it ;)
	tree = tile[i].getRandomTree()
	tree.growOneStep()
	// the next-to-last tree grow step will be identified with the cutdown-state of the tree, after which it will be...
	if (tree.currentGrowStep == LAST_GROW_STEP_CONSTANT)
		tree.remove()
		//...d. :)


	// randomly decide if to plant a new tree
	if (tile[i].treeCount <= tile[i].treeMaxAllowed && randomFunction(SOME_GLOBAL_PLANT_CONSTANT) == true )
	{
		tile[i].appendTreeAtPosition(tile[i].pickRandomLocationOnTile())
	}

}

[Born Acorn]

We kinda need something that is the same size (tile wise) as now, so its no extra work for the developers. Also it should be inscale to all the other trees.

[MeusH]

I really like the fourth image, I think if trees would be densier and that forest's size would be same as nowdays forest, it would't be a big problem.
Also, placing a lot of random trees around forest, just like fields around farms won't be difficult to code

[Red*Star]

We kinda need something that is the same size (tile wise) as now

Sorry... what? So it's ok what I've done? Or not? I mean: It will be prac-ti-ca-ble?

Well, the scale of the trees so or so matches the other OTTD trees, if you take that ones mdhowe created for the additional tiles also as for the standard trees growing elsewere on the map.


Additionally: Here's the snow version of the ground I created today. Any criticisms, opinions? Perhaps the snowy trees follow in the next week(s).

Anyway, now I go to bed, so: Good nite .

[Born Acorn]

I mean so it will be the exact same shape and size as the current industry.

[Red*Star]

Ok, now I got the idea WHY they have to be the same shape... because of the savegames compatibility, eh? *rolleyes* I'm such a fool

Well, I'll work on that. I found these two forest shapes in the current graphic of OTTD:

Code: Select all

OOOO    OOOO
OOOOO   OOOOO
OOOOO   OOOOO
OOOOO   OOOO
OOOO

So before I again do something wrong (resp. do useless work) could you just say that these shapes are correct? Thank you.

@MeusH: Thanks. But with my new-tree-grow-engine I don't meant to put trees around the forest, but instead put random trees ON the forest tiles, so it no longer lookes as if the same tree is 9 times repeated on one tile.

About palettes: I searched on the forum to get infos about the allowed palette colors - some of them are reserved, aren't they? E.g. for company color, etc.?
Can you tell me if this also applies for non-player-owned shapes like houses etc.? Until yet I only found some sample palettes, but nowhere was written which of that colors I can use and which not.