New Size Relations in 32-bit

[Celestar]

OpenTTD supports without problems 500MHz CPUs and 128MB of RAM...

Celestar

[DaleStan]

I *think* that was sarcasm on Alltaken's part.

[Dextro]

OpenTTD is great with the current scale, maybe just add a few more 4/6 tile buildings would be enough to make it better looking without changing the gameplay too much. Maybe add in some changes to the economy to tone it down a notch since some trips would become way to profitable but the game is almost great as it is soo I voted for option 2.

[DarkFenX]

Shame that 3) isn't possible. Voted for 4)

[Aracirion]

I *think* that was sarcasm on Alltaken's part.

I think it's good making Openttd usable on old machine, but obviously making better Graphics will need better computers, and if keeping system requirements down is first priority, then who got that stupid idea of making higher resolution graphics in the first place?

Really, the only question is is it at all possible to run 256px sprites, not is it possible to run them on a 486 with 32mb ram! At any rate my activity monitor tells me that it is quite normal for a program to take 1gb virtual memory, while I only have 512 in physical ram.

And by the way, would it be too difficult to make two versions, one with 256px sprites and one with 128px sprites?

[mexicoshanty]

Maybe OTTD 32bit should be version 2? Then the original OTTD can remain true to the original TTD and always run on those old machines. When TTD was created it didn't run on everything right down to an Intel 4004. If we create OTTD 2 to run on the hardware avaliable today give it 15years and it will run on everything, including your toaster.

[Ben_Robbins_]

DaleStan: My last post wasnt a hitorical question so obviously I'm not going to explain why 'I think its not true.' I understand your explanation though, just.

Would other on/off options be avaiable for people to cope with there computers ability's? such as turning off the alpha layer in the png's, or altering the max zoom level or amount of colours (8bpp/32bpp) seperatly. Same for animated tiles, or shaddow tiles or anything else. Personally I would prefer the 256px sprites zoom level over everything else, and would prefer to be using 256 colours in full zoom than anything if it was a forced comprimize. If its single player, (or more?) also would it be a posibilty to have the team colours fixed to some tempory sprites rather than having to constantly colour the sprites in real time?*

I would like to press on with making graphics, but 18 months down the line and we seem to be getting told it was a false start. I'm not shore why its taken this long really, but I would like to have some solid ground to work on, and have some certainty that tommorow I won't be told something else wich is equally as unmotivating.

Dito to Araciron's Questions.

*=assuming thats how it works?

[DaleStan]

With 256-color graphics, the required team-color recoloring is quite fast, and due to the magic of NFO, each individual vehicle (not "vehicle type", but "vehicle") may select one of over 10k different color schemes, and change the selected scheme as often as once every 32 days.

I'm not sure how useful caching will be under those circumstances.

I don't know how fast it is to recolor 24/32 bpp graphics, so it might be more useful there.

[Celestar]

And by the way, would it be too difficult to make two versions, one with 256px sprites and one with 128px sprites?

Not difficult at all if you ask me. That's why I'm saying that both sprite sets should possibly be included.

Celestar

[prissi]

Speaking for Simutrans, the rendering on demand for player vehicles is quite fast. Usually most of the tiles is landscape, only few of them needs to be player colored.

[Alltaken]

128px is actually sufficient. especially with a scale refactor which will make things feel larger again anyway. (but keeping roads to the same number of tiles etc....)

256 should be designed for by the artists (perhaps for screenshots) but don't need to be played at. that is the future proofing part

Alltaken

[DarkFenX]

Well, it's not about size relations of ttd objects... Dunno if it was discussed or not, i hadn't found anything using search.
What if ottd view won't be dependant upon screen resolution (like it's done with GUI of lots of games, wc3 is one example)? If we had, for example, 2 modes - 640x480 and 1280:960. Any screensot made using 1st mode would be exact copy of 2nd, but with worse (all image sizes would be reduced in 2 times, both of interface elements and map objects) quality... Non-standard (other than 4/3) resolutions can be handled in another way (extending of screen - adding 64 horizontal pixel lines to the playfield, for example, if we switched from 1280x960 to 1280x1024, in other words, like it's currently done in ottd. Same for widescreen).
I offer this cuz i've tasted different game feeling using 800x600 and 1600x1200 resolutions... Gui buttons of 2nd are too small. Can't imagine how it'd be 'convenient' to press them on higher resolutions.

[Raven]

if you go 128 count with my stuff, sure.

But I'm a bit of a whole-set-modeller with no time, so I make my models look fine for the rendering size they're meant to. 256 might be a bit out of the question then. (or not, who knows, going to check out the wiki)

[charlieg]

I haven't read the rest of the thread but I will note that the main issue with the increase in airport sizes (for affecting realism) will exaggerate an already existing problem with (Open)TTD - the way traffic is generated.

Airports have a very, very large catchment area compared to other modes of transport. Train stations have a much greater catchment area than bus stations. But in (Open)TTD this is not true; they all have similar reach.

In a real-world economy, generally it can be said that buses bring passengers to train stations and buses and trains bring passengers to airports. Airports are long haul specialist modes of travel. Trains medium-range and buses short-range. However the way (Open)TTD handles passengers does not lend itself well to this model. Airports have to be slapped in the middle of cities which is incredibly unrealistic - how many airports are there in the centre of major cities? In the UK all major airports are well away from the major cities.

My point is that to move to more realistic sizes, the problems in OpenTTD transport economies really needs tackling. Airports must become either much greater in terms of catchment area or there must be a way to effectively deposit passengers at an airport without side-effects (heavy loss-making vehicles for instance if buses/trains are simply dropping passengers off - in reality people pay for each part of the transport chain).

[athanasios]

If you read various threads you will find out about passengers with specific destination patches. These will solve issues you have raised and bother many off us too. Thank you.

[gks]

Is something moving here?

[athanasios]

The dust from your bump!

[Mooияakeя™]

I like that idea of the bigger planes as right now it's not to scale that much. Has nothing been decided at all on this in 2 years? Or is there a link somewhere this is going on?

Great idea in fact.

[audigex]

Remember that with bigger sizes comes a lot longer development time.

You can throw out one train a day in 8bpp if you want, I can't see it being that quick with some of the stuff coming out now.

Of course, from a player point of view I really want better graphics (If we can get it so that I can zoom in to the point of one carriage on the screen, that's awesome) but at the same time, if that means that the entire community has to work on one set to do it, it's not worth it.

Most people can, if they want to, make a sprite on paint - making these bigger monsters takes much more effort+time.

[gks]

Ummh,buildings look a little small.Well also airplanes but the buildings are to correct.