Japan Set Development

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 17 Apr 2006 22:40

Actually I like the station in the blue, better than I would in company color. But either way.

Did you take a look at my page of buildings, and are they all already coded?

lws1984 · Post by **lws1984** » 18 Apr 2006 00:04

Nice stations, now all I have to do is clear up more room in my newgrf list!

Sanchimaru · Post by **Sanchimaru** » 18 Apr 2006 00:07

Ok, I have been testing the latest released GRFs:

About the town names:
> Still, some names are repeated when randomly creating cities. This happened in the scenario creator, I suppose that it's likely to happen too in a new random game.

> I'd like to test the new patch feature with kanji (chinese characters used in japanese) for the towns names (not the whole game) but I have no idea about what / how to do.

About the buildings:
> All very nice! good thing that shrines, temples and Buddhas cannot be removed by authorities (only by capitalist company owners)

> The original game buildings shall definately go. Mainly the small cottages, and churches: they look absolutely out of place. Some modern buildings are ok, but in time we shall replace them too. Well, the cubic modern offices building is actually based in an existing one in Japan, so we could leave that one in as "homage" Or not...

> I think that the blue ゆ board in the bath house is CC, so that it would randomly change color. However, this one is right in blue

> I'm still missing the baseball stadium! (also in CC) and I have tickets for the next season!!

That's it for the moment. My current schedule is:
- improve road crossings, in certain views they are not looking right.
- improve some trees, they look really brighter than I would expect and they lack volume
- finish the last houses, by adding them construction stages
- make a new version of a special building to replace the company's "owner's statue"
- Maybe a couple of new track tiles for stations (underground passes, or panels...) not likely to come soon, though. But who knows...
- finish the new faces, gl2 already told me what was missing, I have to add it

I'm very happy for the advances in the set!

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 18 Apr 2006 00:31

I have done quite a lot of work on updates. I don't want to distract from this wonderful coding and drawing work! But if you get a chance, there are a couple things to look at and questions I have.

1. Which GRF file contains the Shinkansen tracks?
2. I assume the "landscape" file has the roads and the railroad crossings? Or does it?
3. The trees file is JUST trees - no grass, tunnels, etc., right?
4. Sanchimaru, just to be clear, the rest of the houses in the tracking table that don't seem to be coded yet, are awaiting construction stages? Is that it?
5. Are the industry sprites (like Japanese-looking farms) going to be landscape? Buildings? A new "industries" GRF? (I could see an argument for that, if we were going to replace them all with new vectors.)

I have also written Readmes for all the files, you can see them on the public download site. Please take a look at them and make sure they are accurate as to use. Especially please check the credits, I want to make sure credit is where it is due.

DaleStan · Post by **DaleStan** » 18 Apr 2006 07:58

Sanchimaru wrote:About the town names:
> Still, some names are repeated when randomly creating cities. This happened in the scenario creator, I suppose that it's likely to happen too in a new random game.

Point patchman at the town name GRF; this should not happen.

Sanchimaru wrote:> I'd like to test the new patch feature with kanji (chinese characters used in japanese) for the towns names (not the whole game) but I have no idea about what / how to do.

Two steps:
1) Draw every Kanji character glyph (or at least every one you want to use) in all three "fonts" (sizes). See the first ~600 sprites in trg1[r].grf for colors and size guidelines. If at all possible, use the same basic order as in trg1r (all glyphs for each font together, in ascending order), and mark them with their Unicode code points; your coder will thank you, especially if he can't read Kanji.
2) List the Japanese names you would like used, in the same format as you listed the Anglicized names; check twice to make sure this list arrives intact. (You may want to consider attaching a text file instead of putting the list directly in your post; different browsers may use different encodings, and may do strange things to characters they cannot display.)

Currently, combining characters are unsupported, so don't use them. If you absolutely must use glyphs that can only be generated by combining, go ahead and draw them (the combined form, that is), but mark them as such, and make clear notation in the name list when you want one of these non-standard characters.

Aegir · Post by **Aegir** » 18 Apr 2006 08:54

Sanchimaru: Right right right, I'll take those points into consdideration. Thanks for bringing them up again. OH! and about the town names, I'm not really sure. I reckon that patch wise there are some issues with town names, but I haven't touched Szappy's original town name code in the Japanset, I've only copy/pasted them. I'll have a look and see what can be done though, the .grf may just be screwy.

original buildings are handled by the .grf's in here: http://www.aegir.bur.st/files/ttd/index ... /Utilities , I may well end up mergeing that .grf with the buildings .grf later on, but at the moment, that .grf can be used with any building set, TTRS and NABS (Although post 1950 would be rather desolate) included.

krtaylor:

1) The Shinkansen tracks are part of the train set itself, so I have to be carefull about the sprite replacing on my end. I would actually like the shinkansen tracks shifted to my end, but it probably isn't really wise to do so, as it would create issues if people try to use other train sets without shinkansens with my landscape stuff.

2) You assume correct.

3) Bingo. Just trees. I noticed that some people were using the landscape allone, without the trees. I guess I could start doing .grf parameter magic, but this is overall a helluva lot easier. When things get more solid, I may merge everything and use parameters. But also, in this form, the landscape and trees can work in OTTD without them having to lift a finger and code proper support. I doubt parameters work in OTTD. And I don't want to code two seperate versions just for them, or have the OTTD folk start squawking at me again.

5) Yes, I can imaging them being a new .grf altogether. Atleast at the begining. I really try to avoid single monolithic .grf's that take hours to compile, and .lst's that take hours to load (Not that that's as much of an issue due to recent GRFMaker tweaks).

And credits wise, I'm not sure myself. I just code what is thrown at me, almost always drawn by Sanchimaru

And no, I can't read Kanji. Or katakana. I can partially read Hiragana though

.

Post by **WWTBAM** » 18 Apr 2006 09:09

Aegir wrote:3) Bingo. Just trees. I noticed that some people were using the landscape allone, without the trees. I guess I could start doing .grf parameter magic, but this is overall a helluva lot easier. When things get more solid, I may merge everything and use parameters. But also, in this form, the landscape and trees can work in OTTD without them having to lift a finger and code proper support. I doubt parameters work in OTTD. And I don't want to code two seperate versions just for them, or have the OTTD folk start squawking at me again.

As far as I can remember there is a set ottd wants working that has parrameters, so the devs started working on params, so it shouldnt be too long if you were to go down that path.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 18 Apr 2006 22:26

I don't have a problem with having several separate files if it makes the coding easier. We can always combine them later if we want to, and when OTTD supports it.

Aegir, I know I addressed my ?#4 to Sanchimaru, about the buildings on the tracking table that don't seem to be coded yet, but actually, you might have a better idea since you did the coding. Are you waiting for the construction sprites? Some of the old buildings weren't necessarily going to have them, because the idea was they'd be pre-1921 structures that wouldn't be built later - like the castles are.

Sanchimaru, we have some existing sprites for Japanese rice farms, but Aegir doesn't think they look that great. Could you take a look at them please, and maybe tweak them a bit? You'll find them on the scenery page.

http://www.as-st.com/ttd/eastasia

Sanchimaru · Post by **Sanchimaru** » 19 Apr 2006 00:17

I was the other day checking out the sprites in the developement site, we have some stuff there that has been a long time hanging and it's not really finished (some sprites lack detail, some don't have the construction states or are just not properly split so that they can be coded, etc.) I'll make a list of the ones that have to be removed, so that the coder can have an easy idea about what's left to do in one glance. Those, however, can be kept somewhere for further use.

Dalestan, thanks always for your help! I'll get into it as soon as I can.

About the farms: I think too that the sprites are too bright and lack of detail. There is even some building that looks like a pasted photo...
Also, we yet don't have a clear plan for the japan set industries. But let us finish first the buildings, trains and environment ; and once we have a stable version of those, we can calmly think about industries.

And finally: here is the final version for the japanese passenger town station!!
At the moment we can have it be "JR station" in the menu. I am attaching the file, the how to code instructions, and the scheme of what should each platform look.

> most blue parts are CC and should change according to player's choice
> the overpass might be a bit confusing to code in the +1 width tracks... It is supposed to work as the ones by michael blunck. However if you find a problem coding them, just make them all as they are in the last version

Don't hesitate to ask about any inconvenient you might find

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 19 Apr 2006 00:24

Please let me know of which building sprites aren't ready for prime-time, and I'll separate the table. I don't want to ditch them though, I hope you will be able to touch them up and use them. Surely it would be easier to do that, than to do them all from scratch.

I agree the farms may not be 100% finished, but again, we need to do something, the American/European looking farms kind of ruin the whole Japan thing. If we don't do anything about the rest of the industries, we at least have to fix the farms.

Concerning the industries, there is a page with some very old designs for a Japanese industry vector. It isn't hooked into the site, but it still exists:

http://as-st.com/ttd/eastasia/vectors.html

Do we want to re-activate it?

I'll update the station. Are there any more ideas for additional Japanese stations?

Aegir, the Shinkansen tracks are in the trains GRF, so I suppose the Shinkansen station is too? Sanchimaru, any news on a new version of the trains GRF with the bugs fixed? Virtually all the trains are included, I believe, and it's pretty much playable; one more version and we could do a public release.

Also, with coding seriously under way, maybe some other graphic artists might be interested in helping clean up the buildings that need it?

Sanchimaru · Post by **Sanchimaru** » 19 Apr 2006 01:58

checked out!
here is a description about what to remove, or store somewhere else from the scenery page. Listed by name, author; and then comment about it:

house aaronp: garden too big, house without doors or windows. actually the house itself looks more like the building of a shrine where the altar is, but the whole thing doesn't feel as house or shrine at all. We can make later use of it, though.
trees: (me) I have to fix them, many are too bright, and look out of place in the game. Leave them as they are now, I'll post an updated version when ready.
rice fields: some sprites are very bright, mainly the pools, in reality they are not crystaline water, here they look as fountains. But they can work with some adjustments. Park them somewhere until someone gives them a go. Or mark them as orange (not finished / need work)
farm parts: prissi, 915, onodera, c477: photo building won't fit, add texture and detail to the other parts.
torii gate: that was just a test version, you can remove it since now it belongs to other sprites
shrine dummy: smaller scale (it's 1/4, it should be the same size as mine and Korenn's) it just won't work
temple korenn: just add noise/texture and it will look perfect
houses sanchimaru/zimmlock: already in other sprites
small office sanchimaru: already in another sprite
warehouses sanchimaru: those belong to the harbor, there are not such warehouses in the middle of a town. maybe for industries... you can remove them by now, I have them here if we need them later
switchyard: I'm going to work on it, the tracks are too close each other. You can remove it for now.

***

And about stations:
I will give a new go to the harbour sprites, adding the switchyard and maybe something else too...
Appart from that, I'm working on some famous stations, as Mojiko, which is in the way (when I began working on it, irregular/non track stations were impossible) Also, I have been requested to make a version of Kyoto station. However that belongs to a further future.

About industries:
I will look for detailed information about goods, freight and industries in Japan, and we'll ellaborate a nice design using the new features, now that we don't have restrictions.

DaleStan · Post by **DaleStan** » 19 Apr 2006 02:04

DaleStan wrote:1) Draw every Kanji character glyph (or at least every one you want to use) in all three "fonts" (sizes).

Add one additional bit here:
Note that the middle size is drawn with two different colors. This is not visible in the Windows palette, but is visible in the DOS palette.

Glyphs are strange in that the important thing is not that they be drawn in any particular color, but that they be drawn in the second and third entries in the palette. I would not consider it unreasonable to use a strange palette that makes the color differences very obvious (as in the attached PNG).

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 21 Apr 2006 00:39

I have updated the scenery tracking table. I added color codes indicating what is ready for use and what needs work.

Sanchimaru, can you take a look and let me know if you don't agree with any of the codes?

Aegir, I hope this helps, because I do not believe all of the red-flagged buildings (things ready to be coded) actually have been. If some of them cannot actually be coded for some reason, please tell me and I'll change the code so we'll know where work is required.

Aegir · Post by **Aegir** » 21 Apr 2006 08:54

Cheers krtaylor, I'll have a gander. I generally don't use tracking tables much, for the very reasons you sought to fix.

I'll have a closer look

.

krtaylor · Post by **krtaylor** » 21 Apr 2006 16:41

What method do you use to keep track? I know the tracking tables aren't perfect, I am open to better ideas.

Post by **PikkaBird** » 21 Apr 2006 22:59

DaleStan wrote:Glyphs are strange in that the important thing is not that they be drawn in any particular color, but that they be drawn in the second and third entries in the palette.

Why does that make them strange? I would have thought it's the same for every TTD sprite: all that matters are the palette indexes, because in TTD it will get drawn using the TTD palette.

Aegir · Post by **Aegir** » 22 Apr 2006 05:54

krtaylor wrote:What method do you use to keep track? I know the tracking tables aren't perfect, I am open to better ideas.

My head, mostly. I somehow have a knack for remembering sprites that are floating around that I haven't coded, or that need work. It's not an infallible system, but it's what I've relied upon for the most part.

That's not to say that I *dont* use tracking tables, but I tend to get the sprites straight from the author or on these forums first.

DaleStan · Post by **DaleStan** » 23 Apr 2006 02:02

PikkaBird wrote:
DaleStan wrote:Glyphs are strange in that the important thing is not that they be drawn in any particular color, but that they be drawn in the second and third entries in the palette.
Why does that make them strange? I would have thought it's the same for every TTD sprite: all that matters are the palette indexes, because in TTD it will get drawn using the TTD palette.

The strange thing is that its the same palette entry in both palettes, despite the fact that those entries have substantially different colors. (in Windows it EE00EE and EF00EF; in DOS it's 101010 and 202020.

For everything else, it's the color belonging to the palette entry that matters, not the numeric palette entry.

Sanchimaru · Post by **Sanchimaru** » 23 Apr 2006 07:14

Finally one of the new buildings is done, the Murakami Mansion, a residential block of flats (pass 6, mail 3, only central zones)

2 more are to come!

Aegir · Post by **Aegir** » 23 Apr 2006 07:34

Beautiful, I'll get that added in asap.

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