IDEA - Unified Bridgeset

[krtaylor]

There are several sets of bridges floating around, not all mutually compatible, and none of which are on the Patch graphics page. It's kind of like the situation used to be with stations, and that's why the Generic Stations Project came to be - to collect them all in one place, in one neat set.

Is it possible for the same to be done with the bridges?

They should at least include Purno's bridges, the stone bridge in the BR miniset, and I've seen several other sorts of bridges floating around here and there.

I dunno how much (if any) coding would be required, since mostly they're all coded; can't you just collate the NFO files, and renumber?

[Purno]

This is a good idea, IMO

[eis_os]

Wasn't there someone already working on it, to include various bridges and roadsets...

[krtaylor]

Quite possibly, but if so, I don't know about it. So I hope they post here. Purno, since you are both a major contributing artist and (I think) able to code bridges, would be you able to make it so?

Also, I do not remember all the various bridges I've seen or where they are from. I know there's some in the BR miniset that we'd want to include, and I think the Czech team had some. There's at least one more set around but I don't know where it came from. I think all the old EXE-based bridges got converted to GRFs, but I could be wrong.

[Purno]

Purno, since you are both a major contributing artist and (I think) able to code bridges, would be you able to make it so?

I'm not able to code bridges, the only thing I know about NFO is that it contains lots of hexidecimal code

[Hyronymus]

I think (hope) Oskar meant me (otherwise I look stupid). I tried to merge Purno's bridgeset, RobC's cantiliver bridge and my roadset together. The basis is there but due to new NFO developments it needs refurbishing. Also, not all bridge code seems to be properly transfered. I'm seriously considering a release of my roadset apart from any bridges first because, frankly, my roadset looks slick these days. Szappy and I communicated about the possibilty that we merge my seperately issued roadset with Purno's bridgeset. Yes, this is what I've been doing but the difference will be that Purno's bridgeset is coded in grfmaker and I will code my roadset in grfmaker too first (not that difficult).

[krtaylor]

What I was hoping for was a bridge-set that was entirely separate - I mean, it didn't have any special roadsets, trainsets, or anything in it, just bridges. If it were well documented and coded, then any roadset could recycle the bridges but add the special roadbed tiles. Or maybe eventually the Patch will have another way to do the same thing. But for now, I was hoping for a standalone comprehensive bridges-only set.

[Hyronymus]

Isn't Purno's bridgeset comprehensive enough? I don't see a problem in one big grf with several parameter options btw. If the parameters give total freedom to the user it may be more user-friendly then taking care of 3, 4 independent grfs.

[krtaylor]

What would be the point of the parameters? It's like including more stations. If you don't like a particular station, you don't have to build one, but there's no harm in having it available in the list. Same with the bridges, right? I figure it'd be best to have ALL the bridges in one massive set, as you say, it's easier than keeping track of tons of different independent GRFs.

[eis_os]

Well you can't seperate bridge and the road on it...

[krtaylor]

Sure you can, programmatically. I know what you mean though - the roadbed is part of the bridge. But if you have a special roadset, you can easily enough include the bridges in the roadset itself, except replace the default roadbeds with your new one, and then they'll overwrite and be OK I think.

[eis_os]

well you end up in:

a) each roadset has sprites of all bridges
b) each bridgeset has roads of all roadsets