Transport Tycoon Forums

SwissFan91 wrote:

michael blunck wrote:Yikes! What sort of contagious disease did attack those poor houses?

regards
Michael

I'm addressing that. I guess it's better to draw big lumps of snow during the snow transition. Has anyone got any tips on doing so?

Shouldn't roofs have less snow than the landscape since houses have heating? Is a snow transition for roofs necessary?

Maybe just the edges of the roofs (above the overhangs) should have snow in the transitions. Only in full snow should the main (heated) part of the roof have any snow on it, otherwise it would usually just melt away (as Purno said).

Purno wrote: Shouldn't roofs have less snow than the landscape since houses have heating?

I don´t think so. In older times, w/o thermal insulation (of the roof), thrifty heating was too marginal to melt snow on the roofs, especially in continental/alpine climate. In fact, the snow itself played an important role as thermal insulation. And with modern thermal insulation, the only source for melting snow on roofs are warmer temperatures from outside (mostly direct sun, but also warm air).

Purno wrote: Is a snow transition for roofs necessary?

It´s not "necessary", but depends on the ideas of the artist.

In any way, the correct procedure to do it would be like this:

- when snow first starts to fall, it will cover the roof in full, not in "speckles" (s.a.), although as a very thin layer at first, but nevertheless, I´d make the full roof snow-covered,
- with more snow falling, one could try to draw the snow "thicker",
- when melting, snow usually slides down from the upper parts of the roof, with the last remnants usually hiding in some shady places (behind chimneys, dormers, roof edges, ...).

regards
Michael

when snow first starts to fall, it will cover the roof in full, not in "speckles" (s.a.), although as a very thin layer at first, but nevertheless, I´d make the full roof snow-covered,
- with more snow falling, one could try to draw the snow "thicker",
- when melting, snow usually slides down from the upper parts of the roof, with the last remnants usually hiding in some shady places (behind chimneys, dormers, roof edges, ...).

This is my thinking, too. I may end up drawing all of my graphics having 'thick snow' in December/January.

[EDIT] Although, thinking about it, this approach may look odd in that, during the transition when first snow arrives, roofs will have a full covering while the ground tiles will only have a dusting..

SwissFan91 wrote:

when snow first starts to fall, it will cover the roof in full, not in "speckles" (s.a.), although as a very thin layer at first, but nevertheless, I´d make the full roof snow-covered,
- with more snow falling, one could try to draw the snow "thicker",
- when melting, snow usually slides down from the upper parts of the roof, with the last remnants usually hiding in some shady places (behind chimneys, dormers, roof edges, ...).

This is my thinking, too. I may end up drawing all of my graphics having 'thick snow' in December/January.

[EDIT] Although, thinking about it, this approach may look odd in that, during the transition when first snow arrives, roofs will have a full covering while the ground tiles will only have a dusting..

I agree, that will look odd, if the gardens have no snow while the adjacent grass has some. Though I also agree that the very fine snow patches as shown in the screenshot look a bit funky, too

And as I didn't mention it yet: what I see so far looks tasty

i have a feeling your snowline-transition detection is one level too low. there's partially snowed houses on the same level as green grass, and fully snowed houses on same level as partially snowed grass, etc.

Eddi wrote:i have a feeling your snowline-transition detection is one level too low. there's partially snowed houses on the same level as green grass, and fully snowed houses on same level as partially snowed grass, etc.

I'll look over the code

From my tile grid newobject grf:
This places the appropriate ground tile under the sprite.
It will also transition the ground tile for variable snow lines.
I can (and have done) add different sprites for each ground tile that also transition with the variable snow line. This is not an issue.

So the question remains ... How can we detect the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 snowed tiles?

wallyweb wrote:So the question remains ... How can we detect the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 snowed tiles?

Very simple, check for height differences, not for tile types:

* query the tile height and the snowline.
* calculculate the difference and
** height - snowline <= -2: no snow
** height - snowline = -1: 1/4 snow
** height - snowline = 0: 2/4 snow
** height - snowline = 1: 3/4 snow
** height - snowline >= 2: 4/4 snow

You only need the tiletype to check whether it is a ground tile.

See e.g. http://dev.openttdcoop.org/projects/ope ... locks.pnml which makes mathematically slightly faster use of comparisons and creation of a properly crafted temporary register which then is used to decide on the snowyness of the sprites to show.

OpenGFX users can enjoy smooth transitions e.g. for rivers, locks and canals already since last Christmas

EDIT: Also mind that the definitions of the height variables differ in grf v7 and grf v8. The linked code is grf v8.

planetmaker wrote:Very simple, check for height differences, not for tile types:.

Should be easy enough.

... .pnml

Unfortunately I only code in the pure environment of NFO ...

which makes mathematically slightly faster use of comparisons and creation of a properly crafted temporary register which then is used to decide on the snowyness of the sprites to show.

which should be doable in nfo?

OpenGFX users can enjoy smooth transitions e.g. for rivers, locks and canals already since last Christmas

Is Saint Nicholas aware of this?

EDIT: Also mind that the definitions of the height variables differ in grf v7 and grf v8. The linked code is grf v8.

Good to know as I code for OTTD/TTDP compatibility.

Now all I have to do is find out in which variables snow line and tile height are hiding. I assume that GRFSpecs will have these ... It will, won't it ?

Thanks for this.

wallyweb wrote:

planetmaker wrote:Very simple, check for height differences, not for tile types:.

Should be easy enough.

... .pnml

Unfortunately I only code in the pure environment of NFO ...

which makes mathematically slightly faster use of comparisons and creation of a properly crafted temporary register which then is used to decide on the snowyness of the sprites to show.

which should be doable in nfo?

OpenGFX users can enjoy smooth transitions e.g. for rivers, locks and canals already since last Christmas

Is Saint Nicholas aware of this?

Of course The changelog as of 24 Dec 2011 knows it

EDIT: Also mind that the definitions of the height variables differ in grf v7 and grf v8. The linked code is grf v8.

Good to know as I code for OTTD/TTDP compatibility.

Now all I have to do is find out in which variables snow line and tile height are hiding. I assume that GRFSpecs will have these ... It will, won't it ?

Thanks for this.

Of course all that can also be implemented in NFO; NML cannot do more than is feasible with NFO. But it might (or might not) turn out much more lengthy for cases like these (would take me hours to figure out these things in NFO - less test them). Tile height is var 0x62 for objects, snowline is global variable 0x20 for varaction2 usage.

planetmaker wrote:...

/me goes to play with his new toys.

Here's something I finished off and added: From:

Here's my brainstorm for how to draw snow transitions:
*edges = top of walls, fences, railings etc.

Here's an in-game screenshot for reference (with the OLD method of snow on buildings): What do people think? Advice would be very much appreciated.

Nice

I think at 1/4 snow the snow patches could be less but slightly larger
At the no-snow stage the grass could be like the surroundings - similar like for all the snow stages.

Thanks for the feedback, PM. I hope you noted that the screenshot is with the OLD version of doing snow transitions, not the outlined method above it

The grass below the buildings will be fixed, too. That is unintentional.

SwissFan91 wrote:Thanks for the feedback, PM. I hope you noted that the screenshot is with the OLD version of doing snow transitions, not the outlined method above it

Sorry, no, I overlooked that

I've stressed it a bit more now

Here's something I did quickly:

OLD: NEW: Done based on the criteria I outlined above. Thoughts?

Very nice, definite improvement.