OpenGFX - Graphics Base Set

[Zephyris]

So... I have been looking through the newBuildings grf to choose houses and buildings for replacing original graphics. Unfortunately, whilst the buildings look good, many of them aren't really suitable for the replacement of original graphics. The problem is the buildings, particularly the specialised ones like the theater, cinema, warehouse, etc., could use their own specialised graphics. So I am putting another building call out!

Please, please, please help; following the guidelines here draw the basic shape and the construction stages of your choice of the original buildings (preferably start with temperate to get one climate done and out of the way). The graphics should capture the architecture of the original building but can vary significantly from the original so long as the building use is still obvious. I will then texture the buildings and create their base tiles.

Attached are the modern office block and a quickly textured version to show what I mean... (I will do the texturing better than this for the real thing )

Modern Office Block Demo.png (3.71 KiB) Viewed 6428 times

modern office block demo 8bpp.png (3.14 KiB) Viewed 6430 times

...but they're awfully straight and neat...

I had a lot of difficulty trying to make them not regular and failed Feel free to try, random action2s can be used for river graphics so if many pieces of bank were made they could be included for variation.

[StopRightThere]

Looking good Zephyris!

Better than the original once it gets textured imo.

[Zephyris]

I have been working on the GUI more, but I can't get the code for replacement of the elrail, tram and lock sprites to work. Can anyone shed some light on how to use action5s with sprite offsets for partial replacement of a set?

[DJ Nekkid]

here is what i did with the autorail-sprites for the metro tracks, hope it can give you some pointers:

Code: Select all

// Action 5 - Mono --> Metro GUI
-1 * 0	05 95 04 \b63
-1 sprites/metro/pcx/tracks.pcx 280	316	01	20	20	0	0  // Autorail GUI
-1 sprites/metro/pcx/tracks.pcx 688 	224 	01 	44 	72 	-16 	-8 // Autorail mousepointer
-1 sprites/metro/pcx/tracks.pcx 308	316	01	20	20	0	0  // Convert GUI
-1 sprites/metro/pcx/tracks.pcx 340	316	01	32	32	0	0  // Convert mousepointer

[Mchl]

Attached are the modern office block and a quickly textured version to show what I mean... (I will do the texturing better than this for the real thing )

Modern Office Block Demo.png

modern office block demo 8bpp.png

Don't forget this one is based on actual buiding. Might inspire you a little

[FooBar]

Can anyone shed some light on how to use action5s with sprite offsets for partial replacement of a set?

Partial replacement is only supported for type 14 and 15. Set bit 7 of the type to enable the partial replacement feature (i.e. add 80 to the type, i.e. use type 94 or 95). OpenTTD GUI sprites is type 15, so partial replacement is type 95.

Having that said, you need to figure out how many sprites you like to replace, and what offset to use. Figuring out the offset is probably the hardest part. Open up openttdw.pcx (which you of course have decoded from openttdw.grf). Look up the first sprite you wish to replace, lets take the fast-forward button as an example. In my openttdw.pcx, the fast-forward button has sprite number 1653. The first sprite in the type 15 range is the partial tile selector looking like triangle that points to the left, right after the flag sprites. It has sprite number 1563. Subtracting those to sprite numbers will give you the offset. In this case 90.

No that we have gathered all required information, lets fill the action:

Code: Select all

-1 * 0 05 //action 5
95 //type 15 with partial replacement
01 //one regular sprite, I'm only replacing the fast forward button
\b90 //the offset we just calculated

 1653 sprites/openttdw.pcx 434 5464 09 18 18 1 1 //and now the realsprite

I hope that explained it.

[Zephyris]

Partial replacement is only supported for type 14 and 15.

Ummm, why? That's the problem; electrified rails, trams and canals are the ones which aren't working...

[athanasios]

The graphics should capture the architecture of the original building but can vary significantly from the original so long as the building use is still obvious.

Many buildings are out of scale and some are ridiculous. I had to change a lot the toyland buildings to get something acceptable.

1. Scale should be uniform.
2. Ridiculous buildings should be dropped.
3. We should create buildings that fit with the cargo and/or quantity of cargo they generate/accept.
4. Make smaller the buildings that cover a whole tile as they block the view.
5. Use a variety of skins and avoid gradients and usage of a single color for walls.

3 & 4 are very important to my opinion.

regards
athanasios

[Zephyris]

1. Scale should be uniform.

Yup, I give the scale to use in the drawing guidelines.

2. Ridiculous buildings should be dropped.

Could you give some examples?

3. We should create buildings that fit with the cargo and/or quantity of cargo they generate/accept.

Yup.

4. Make smaller the buildings that cover a whole tile as they block the view.

Surely with the new transparency toolbar this is not an issue...

5. Use a variety of skins and avoid gradients and usage of a single color for walls.

That's the plan for my texturing...

*edit* and another building.

[LordAzamath]

Wrong lightning?

[FooBar]

Partial replacement is only supported for type 14 and 15.

Ummm, why? That's the problem; electrified rails, trams and canals are the ones which aren't working...

I don't know. That's a question for the devs to answer. I myself pretty much would have liked offset support for the other things too, as that would significantly reduce the file size of my New Tram Track Set. For me, implementing the offset features for all types isn't too useful, since I still would have to deal with Patch.

And for OpenGFX it isn't very useful either, because in the end we need a single complete openttdw.grf anyways.

[Zephyris]

And the temperate farm, ready for coding... the farmhouse sprite will need chopping, I've also altered the offsets for those two sprites...

[prissi]

The hay look more like harvested shortly after the sellafield desaster. Perhaps it should glow a little less? Otherwise very nice reporduction!

[Batti5]

Super 10 time better then the old one, i hope that it get in trunk very soon.

[FooBar]

...in trunk very soon.

All graphics have to be redone before anything will be included with the game. Progress is good, but we're still not there yet.


@Zephyris:
Farm looks very nice! I have to agree about the shiny hay though. A darker yellow would be better I think.

[athanasios]

The hay look more like harvested shortly after the sellafield desaster. Perhaps it should glow a little less? Otherwise very nice reporduction!

Perhaps some more orange?

Ridiculous:
Plenty of Toyland, this:

[Zephyris]

Perhaps it should glow a little less?

Lol, yes. Now I look at it it does glow a lot! I shall post updated sprites shortly.

*edit* missed athanasios' post

Plenty of Toyland, this:

Well yes... tis pretty ridiculous!

*edit2* and updated farm sprites...

[Zephyris]

And the food processing plant... I tried to make this more like a factory (and less like a collection of bits of factory sprites) than the original...

[Raumkraut]

Ridiculous:
Plenty of Toyland, this:

I thought the entire point of the toyland set was a fantasical environment. Made up of the kinds of things you'd find under one of those romanticised, "more innocent times", christmas trees. Sweets, teddy bears, building blocks, wooden trainsets, etc. I thought the whole unwrapping-presents construction stages made that pretty obvious.

I fully expect that any building design in the game would have been based on actual buildings - real or fictional (from comics, etc.). IME British game developers, perhaps especially of the TTD era, like injecting (often obscure) real-world designs and references into their games. Take the previously mentioned Nakagin Capsule Tower, for example.
That said, perhaps some of the more obscure designs could be replaced with notable contemporary designs? London's gherkin, NY "ground-zero" building proposals, or pretty much anything built or being built in Saudi Arabia recently...

Remember though that the game can stretch many years into the future. You can't expect all buildings whose design you today consider "ridiculous" to not be built!
We'd never build enough arcologies with that kind of attitude!

[lead@inbox]

And the temperate farm, ready for coding..

Zephyris, and where is special vehicles by Andy ?