New Graphics Problem

Ben_Robbins_ · Post by **Ben_Robbins_** » 03 Aug 2006 21:13

I can't deside where to put this, so here will do. Its a devloping problem about graphics/graphics engine for openttd...so who knows where to put it. (apologies for my incorrect termonology, I'm not 100% shore of the definitions)

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For the new 32bit graphics, there to be saved as .png for the final renders (right?). When rendering from blender with anti-alysing on the edges of sprites have opacity values, wich allow them to blend well into the the sprite behind them.

1) Am I correct to asume that the 32bpp graphics engine will allow the opake areas to let the sprites behind show threw?

For tiles that are to be tileable, and have no addional tiles behind them, it is inportant to make them not have this opake edging. In blender if i turn of anti-alysing, I get a lame render quality, and still dont get a perfect edge (not to shore why).

2) Is there any known way of making a render with anti-alysing on, but not having it apply to the tile edge? Cause at present theres a lot of post render work becuase of this

3) The new graphics engine: Is egladil the person who is writing it yeah? or is there a group of people doing it? If so...who? And is there a list of the proposed features, casue at present I just want to work on graphics that are proposed to be useable, rather than just being hopeful.

(A link to where the graphics engine was initial discussed would be appreicated if anyone knows it, because I'm not exactly shore what to look for)

4) When the graphics are finally used, are the meshes nessesery to upload, becasue I was recenetly told that only renders where needed. If this is so, then is blender the compulsary piece of softwere to use, (asuming an identical lightsetup can be produced in alternative programs).

Thanks

DaleStan · Post by **DaleStan** » 03 Aug 2006 21:29

Ben_Robbins_ wrote:... deside ... devloping ... termonology ... shore ...
... anti-alysing ... wich ...
... asume ... opake ... threw
... addional ... inportant ... opake ... of anti-alysing, ... dont ... to shore ...
... anti-alysing ... theres ... becuase ...
... casue ... useable ...
... appreicated ... shore ...
... nessesery ... becasue ... recenetly ... compulsary ... softwere ... asuming ...

I hadn't noticed this before, but your spelling here is utterly atrocious. Spell checkers are available for IE, Mozilla/Firefox and Opera, so please go get one. (I even gave you the benefit of the doubt and installed the en-UK dictionary before complaining about your spelling.)

Yes, the current plan is to use .png files.

1) ITYM "transparent areas", and I don't know if partial transparency will be supported (it's computationally expensive), but I'm sure full transparency will be supported.

4) AIUI, only renders are required, and thus any program that produces compatible images should be acceptable.

Ben_Robbins_ · Post by **Ben_Robbins_** » 03 Aug 2006 22:34

Hey Dalestan.. Don't be a t*sser, I find it rather iritating. Can you please give helpful answers, or just not reply?... If you have enough time to install the en-UK dictionary, then maybe you could have had enough time to type in full what ever the hell 'ITYM' and 'AIUI' stand for, and give a helpful answer.

Usually your extreamly helpful, and I'm appreicative of your help/answers but evendently you have a side that I find pathethic, and you seem to have some desire to insult for no real reason. Please address the problem in hand, not obsess about your personal desires for perfect spelling.

Really...what have you gained? nothing...and you didn't answer the question. Pm me if you have conserns with my spelling, becuase its irelevent to this topic.

DaleStan · Post by **DaleStan** » 03 Aug 2006 23:34

ITYM: I Think You Mean
AIUI: As I Understand It

Google, Wikipedia, and Acronymfinder are your friends here.

And in your defense, you are at least consistent with your misspellings, unlike many lazy spellers.

Aracirion · Post by **Aracirion** » 04 Aug 2006 00:06

Ummh .. before the irrelevant things start to take over:

* we need to know how sprites have to be done so they line up correctly in the new 32bit engine.

* It would be best if we could get into direct contact with the prgrammer(s) of the new engine.

dmh_mac · Post by **dmh_mac** » 04 Aug 2006 10:47

About the semitransparant edges giving funky effects:

The trick here is to change the way rgb is calculated for semitransparant pixels. You can do this in the renderbuttons section of blender (F10 key).
At the bottom of the render panel, instead of using "sky" you have to use either "premul" or "key" (I'm not entirely sure, would need some tests).
This way the rgb of the pixels isn't combined with the background rgb, which is what usualy causes the halo like effect around sprites.

About the use for .blend files being uploaded:

Since during the production of ottd, changes to the sprites are probably desirable, it will be very usefull (for future artists, etc.) to have acces to the original blend files.
This also justifies using blender (or at the least exporting from another application into blender for final rendering), since scattering the sprite source files over different file formats would be messy and even unworkable for some.

Aracirion · Post by **Aracirion** » 04 Aug 2006 12:39

Great, Thanks a lot dmh! it was key...

Ill update the lighting setup accordingly

by the way, are you still modelling? cause I felt somewhat bad when I took the lighting setup from u and then u diddnt respond a lot really ........ I thought you might be hurt ?

Ben_Robbins_ · Post by **Ben_Robbins_** » 04 Aug 2006 13:11

dmh_mac: Cheers, that was very helpful

I can see what your saying about everyone using blender, but im begining to consider rendering from max, as I would be saving HUGE amounts of time, and I'm also begining to think that saving time may be more inportant now, as the amount of work complete recently dropped when crazy removed everything, thus just getting stuff rolling/complete would seem more inportant at present, even if it does sacrafise ease of editing for other people at a later date

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 05 Aug 2006 06:49

I think the default lighting setup had Key set.... if not, then Key is the correct setting.

Key - Takes the colour of the edge pixel without alpha, then applys the alpha channel to it afterwards (standard for most software like Photoshop)
Sky - Multiplies the edge colour by the sky colour set in blender (so you get a blue edge in the defulat blender setup)
Premull - takes the edge colour and multiplies it with Black, this is reversable by some packages to get Key. (its rather close to Key)

so "Key" is the one you want.

Alltaken

Aracirion · Post by **Aracirion** » 05 Aug 2006 11:00

Yes ... thanks ... probably I set t to sky while fiddling around with it .. thats the downside of trying out every button

... anyway, thats the way I usually learn stuff

umh .. somthing else .. in order to make the tiles lineup correctly I had to set the zoom to a slighte higher level (35.1 instead of 35.35). With 35.35 the tiles still had edges in photoshop. is this ok, or would the engine handle tiles differently so it should be left at 35.35?

dmh_mac · Post by **dmh_mac** » 05 Aug 2006 11:55

Aracirion wrote:Great, Thanks a lot dmh! it was key...

Ill update the lighting setup accordingly

by the way, are you still modelling? cause I felt somewhat bad when I took the lighting setup from u and then u diddnt respond a lot really ........ I thought you might be hurt ?

Don't worry, you haven't hurt my feelings. The light setup I made for when we needed a light setup to get things roling, I always considered it to be temporary.
I haven't been modeling or posting much lately, because I've been bussy with some other things, but I do regularly check the forums.

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 06 Aug 2006 04:42

cutting tiles is a big challenge, i used a post process mask system to cut out larger tiles (that overshot the edge of the actual tile size). it worked very well for ground tiles, but would not be so appropriate for buildings which go higher than the back edge (although i also designed them to do that too)

Alltaken

Ben_Robbins_ · Post by **Ben_Robbins_** » 06 Aug 2006 18:25

Cheers for the help. Still wondering who is behind the programming side of this whole project, and is there any means of a) seeing a progress bar, that you don't need to be a coder to understand, and b), does anyone know where the first topic is, where the engine is/was originally discussed.

A new question, wich also breifly came up a few months ago, is how shaddows will work. If a buildings shaddows exceed the area of the tile its on, is it going to be posible to darken the additional areas the shaddow covers, in the same way that a plane casts a shaddow as it flys over head?

Alltaken: is the tile shape exactly the same as this: http://wiki.openttd.org/images/2/28/Model_square.png
By exactly, I'm talking 'on a pixel level.' and only counting the completly white area in the center and nothing else. If yes...good, cause thats what ive been going to. If no, bummer, can you post the alternative wich you have used for masking.

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 07 Aug 2006 12:23

nope its not exactly the same, i'll upload them all to the Stickied thread soon (need to check i did them all)

Alltaken

Aracirion · Post by **Aracirion** » 07 Aug 2006 14:08

Alltekaken: couldn't you add it to the wiki? so that everything is in one place?

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 10 Aug 2006 03:16

does the wiki handle .zip files? i don't think it does yet

Alltaken

Aracirion · Post by **Aracirion** » 10 Aug 2006 10:40

you can upload zip to the forum and then add a link t the wiki, I did it like that with the light-setup. I just think its nice to have one single plkace where you can look when you have a question, so you don't have to read several pages until you find an answer.

Ben_Robbins_ · Post by **Ben_Robbins_** » 10 Aug 2006 11:16

I wasn't actuatally talking about every single tile. I was asking about an stencil that has the pixel perfect size of 1 plain flat ground tile. Could you post that into here?

It would be nice to see ground sprites stuff as soon as posible, however much of an uncompleted state it is in, as all other graphics need to sit on to this, and blend well.

Anyhoomes, the questions in my last post remain unresolved, if anyone has any ideas/clues..?

Alltaken · Post by **Alltaken** » 10 Aug 2006 14:39

ok here are the outlines for just the flat stuff

This is how they are on my PC, the 64, and 256 are not complete (but the shape is correct), the 128pixel one is finished and finalised.

the edges will all line up and are finalised, but it will all involve a bit of hand moving of the cut-out to get it right.

Alltaken

Ben_Robbins_ · Post by **Ben_Robbins_** » 10 Aug 2006 15:07

The large one is exactly the same as the one I linked to on the wiki!

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