New Graphics - Blender ".blend" thread (Works In Progress)

[Rubidium]

The "problem" is that there is no "one scale fits it all" measure. As you can see in (O)TTD(P) the vehicles do not exhibit the same scaling, though it still looks pretty good. That is what "we" should go for, not making all buildings exactly the same scale because then "normal" houses would be 1 pixel *or* skyscrapers take more space than small cities take.

[GeekToo]

The proposed guidelines are not too bad as a rule of thumb:
-I counted the number of pixels for a storey for a couple of buildings in the original game. They are 6 to 8 pixels high. When a tile is 12,5 m high, one pixel is app 40 cm high and 20 cm wide. So the storeys are 240 to 320 cm, which I think is pretty realistic.

-For the helicopter: The Sikorsky helicopter's fusselage is 44 feet. Applying the 1:2 rule, it would become 22 feet =app 6m 60cm, and that is pretty close to half a tile ( in the original game it is 31 px, which is half a tile).

So I'd assume that a tile for the helideck is app 25*25 m, and for the building below it, it is 12.5m

Maybe for buses, this does not work out well, haven't checked it.

I think the rules Ben mentioned should serve as a guideline, to give the artists an idea of the dimension they're working on. So buildings have app. the same storey height compared to each other, and bigger planes look bigger in the game than smaller ones.

And if that means that planes are smaller than in real life, compared to building, but it looks good in the game, so be it.

[TagDaze]

Thanks, GeekToo. I just needed some confirmation, and you gave it. What colour should I use on any texture maps as company colours? You know, what colours are replaced by the game with company colours.

[GeekToo]

From the wiki:

Firstly the sprite is loaded. This can be 32bpp, 16bpp, or 8bpp paletted. Most PNG formats should be fine. This data is copied into the RGBA parts of the RGBAM format. Additionally two text (tEXt) data fields are read containing the X and Y sprite offsets. These must be present.

Secondly a mask sprite (with a filename suffix of 'm'), if available, is loaded. This is used for colour remapping, and must be an 8bpp image with TTD's palette. If any pixels in this image are not transparent (colour index 0) then the existing RGB data at that pixel is cleared and the M part is filled. The alpha value is left from the original RGBA image, to allow for translucent remapped parts.

[TagDaze]

So if I understand correctly, as a modeler/texturer I would just have to use, say, a really bright colour of green, so the person who implements it would just use that colour to tell the game what colour needs to be replaced, right?

[PPT]

I wouldn't want real life scaling.

Smaller things would become too small and planes would be too fast to enjoy watching.

The skyscrapers are already a problem for me because they obscure the streets and I can't see the vehicles running on those streets.

Since the game is about transportation and not buildings this is already a problem.

[Jupix]

Thanks, GeekToo. I just needed some confirmation, and you gave it. What colour should I use on any texture maps as company colours? You know, what colours are replaced by the game with company colours.

Check out #3.5 in this post. Whether that information is up-to-date, I don't know.

The skyscrapers are already a problem for me because they obscure the streets and I can't see the vehicles running on those streets.

Use the transparency mode?

[TagDaze]

Interesting. When I started out modeling for OpenTTD I read through that guide, but I didn't understand much of it, let alone how to apply it. I get it now.

[athanasios]

If you stick to 2 pixels = 1m (... I 've said this 1024 times ) height for buildings (original tile size) you will be OK.
Here I believe some original buildings have to be downscaled, so we have a uniform scale for buildings. Vehicles is another story.
And we do not need to draw Petronas Towers and make them fit each in one tile...
A 10 - 12 storey building is enough. If later > 4 tiles buidings and bigger height are implemented we can go higher.

[Ben_Robbins_]

After making quite a few mockup’s I think height/width wise we could get away with trains at 1:1. The other ratio’s still seem about right, after more messing. The common contact, or near passing, of trucks and trains means they should really stay about the same relative size I think.

Rubidium: For full zoom details will be clearly visible that were not in the past, and therefore when anything stands next to something else it needs to appear the right comparable size. So from a modeling perspective it is a lot easier if there are some figures to go by. I think it can still be believable if we change the ratios for ship and air, as seeing these in the same place as buildings/trains/roads is rare, so it doesn’t seem so instantly apparent as being the wrong size, and this also means that for most of the ships/planes they would be a similar size to how they were in the original. (e.g. a hovercraft is 1.2 tiles long) Only the few extremely large variations would start to be a problem such as oil tankers, or the A380.

[Red*Star]

[...]
For trains and road vehicles I think it should work ok at the 12.5 scale. For buildings though, I think we need to make the elements of the builds to the 12.5 scale, but the overall scale of the buildings should be kept similar to the originals.

If we can sort out, and update, the specs, which have now actually been discussed with devs, then hopefully we can start making progress again!
[...]

I see one big problem with this. Looking at the older 3D Models, Ben, at least this one*) has exactly the problem that I marked red in your post quotation (and if there's one building there are probably many others with the same problem ).
Isn't it a lot of (mindless) work to redo /any/ of all of the already created tiles and scale the building elements?
And regarding especially the example I've linked to: Wouldn't it look weird if the building would get double-sized doors and windows?
Currently (with the 'old' measurement of 25m per tile) the floors are approx. 3.3m in height, the windows 1.2 m in width and 2.7m in height. With the 'current' measurement of 12.5m per tile the floors would get 1.67m in height, so the building would need to be "refitted" to a two-storey building which would completely destroy it's character/personality: We would change a block to a single-family house or something like that.

*) From the wiki:




- edit -: created a mock-up... it would look totally weird ...

scaled the "building elements" by a factor of 2

modified_Dmh_mac_-_001.png (61.06 KiB) Viewed 3440 times

This is not something like the building that you can see in the 8bpp "original"

Relations are completely messed up .

[GeekToo]

Relations are not messed up if you scale them right: rescale to 64 px, and make every storey 7px as in the original, so increase the height. ( Of course for this mockup, the simple rescale makes the perspective of the ground tile and roof incorrect, a real rerender would be needed. The point is just the scale relations of the buildings)

Some rerendering is inevitable to keep things in scale

[Ben_Robbins_]

Red*Star:

The reason it can’t be 25m for a tile, is because of the road tiles. Roads are not that big. There are some buildings that were made to 25m tiles, but also plenty, if not more made to 12.5m scale. Therefore either way involves some refitting, and character will be lost on some, gained on others.

Your mockup would require a few alterations, such as changing the long thin tall windows, but actually I don’t see that as that good of an example of how weird it would look. You have made a building where the elements (doors/windows) are in scale, but the over all size is maybe smaller than reality. It's believable, and fitting in scale.

[athanasios]

I am a bit puzzled. 128 is OK with graphics details. If we zoom to 256 I was thinking to make buildings only double scale of 64 so we can have equally scaled vehicles, bigger buildings fitting in 1 - 4 tiles and more grass and gardens around smaller houses. A tile of 25m means that an aircraft as the A380 can fit in 3 tiles which is acceptable. OK a supertanker will need more than 10 tiles but we don't use such large ships in game anyway and there aren't many in the real world either. The mess I understand will be the code as it will have to change dramatically.
By the way: The building above is very nice. Still It could have 3 instead of 4 floors as original and 4 windows instead of 5: they are too many.

[Red*Star]

@GeekToo: With relations I meant the differences between the new and the old building, not the relations of the model itself. Increasing height would be a solution, probably.

Red*Star:

The reason it can’t be 25m for a tile, is because of the road tiles. Roads are not that big. There are some buildings that were made to 25m tiles, but also plenty, if not more made to 12.5m scale. Therefore either way involves some refitting, and character will be lost on some, gained on others.

You're right on that. What I posted was just something that came into my mind while modeling my first building this weekend. Firstly I thought I've messed it up completely because I thought the scaling would be 25m, then fortunately I found out it was 12.5m (the scale I used). Because after reading your scale debate I was completely confused, I thought to add my concerns which resulted in the post above.
Nonetheless it's shameful that we will "losing" so much good sprites (in the way that we probably have to remodel them or parts of it).

Your mockup would require a few alterations, such as changing the long thin tall windows, but actually I don’t see that as that good of an example of how weird it would look. You have made a building where the elements (doors/windows) are in scale, but the over all size is maybe smaller than reality. It's believable, and fitting in scale.

Sorry, but I don't think so - but that's probably a matter of taste. Maybe either the roof slope should be increased or - as athanasios suggested - we should go back to the original count of floors.

[Dave]

Forgive me for barging in here to ask a relatively simple question, but what is wrong with the original scale, even in 32bpp?

[belugas]

Forgive me for barging in here to ask a relatively simple question, but what is wrong with the original scale, even in 32bpp?

Hehehe... so tempting that i cannot resist
It's because it is not REALISTIC!!! Muwhahahaa!

[LordOfThePigs]

I think the graphics people are nice, but they seem to have a problem with understanding one simple thing: The devs won't accept graphics that do no respect the original scale.

[athanasios]

Forgive me for barging in here to ask a relatively simple question, but what is wrong with the original scale, even in 32bpp?

Don't try to flame us Dave!
Generally there is nothing wrong with original scale, even in 32bpp. OpenTTD will soon (don't know what time period that equals to) support 128 and 256 tilesets. For 64 8bpp you couldn't do better but here graphics are bigger offering more posibilities. So scaling has to be reconsidered. The point is that we want to have a nice looking game, not a cheapo 3D commercial crap of hundreds of MBs where e.g. trains are much longer than the city!

That there exist scale issues in original that have to be fixed by new code in OpenTTD we all are aware of. They will not remain there forever. The question is: When and how? I prefer to remain in 64 tileset and artists draw with what is currently available and when new code can be introduced in game to do it simultaneoulsy with new proper graphics. Not to waste time for graphics that are a continuation of bad scaling.

[DaleStan]

OpenTTD will soon (don't know what time period that equals to) support 128 and 256 tilesets.

Can you provide a cite for that? As in, a post in which a dev has said as much?