[32bpp] Tropical Bank [RELEASE!!]

[AlienDNA]

This bank looks absolutely brilliant! I say it is definitly ready for inclusion!

[LordAzamath]

This bank looks absolutely brilliant! I say it is definitly ready for inclusion!

Glad you like it. Now for the addon inclusion right now I need a cutter. I really have tried to cut it many ways today, but haven't suceeded.
The problem is that there are fences on my bank. I ofcourse could make it up of one sprite only and then add three 1x1 sprites there, but the problem is that in transparent view things on the bank tile are not normal.

I tried to make cuts just about exactly the same way than in the original, just modifing the cus to fit the new building. Niw the problem was that those sides are always left on back of everything. So the fences above the ground looked weird and strange.

So if anyone want's to play with this bank - please help me by making the cuts. (And possibly pngcodecing too, but that's not so big issue, cos I can do it by myself too:))

Thanks in advance

Lord

[GeekToo]

I did give it a try, to cut it up, but at the moment I did not have a savegame with a bank in it, and I don't think you can add it in the scenario editor, so I don't know if they work.

-I did use the png from your first post, but I think it must be rendered with a width of 96 px, I just did a quick resize myself.
-the names are the sprite numbers of the moderate bank, but that can be changed easily

But I think you can still use them as masks to cut your bank up, when it is rerendered to 96 px. They are already pngcodec'd, but because I could not test them quickly in the game, I think the Y_offset is still off.

If you want to cut up the sprites like in the original, I think you have to make a render of the ground tiles without the fence, and a render of the bank building, including the fences. When the sprites are drawn, the ground tile is drawn first, followed by the building sprite, so anything with a z-value higher than the ground tile, must be rendered in the building sprite, so you can put your bank over different ground tiles

[LordAzamath]

Thanks A LOT

Unfortunatly I can't use it , becauseI was so louzy updater of first post and the newer post had windows in the sides too.
But then again, I can use your sprites as masks, while cutting

Lord

EDIT:
Now I have done the cutting. Look!
There are two pics here. One with transparency on.

@GeekToo

Yes you can add banks with scenario editor. I usually make the city I need, when testing, then save the scenario and everytime I have made updates just load that test scenario

[Roujin]

nice! but you should change the ground sprite aswell so that it matches your new bank. just make the old one black everywhere your new bank is.

edit: and use the rest of the ground, without the fence

err i hope you get what i mean oO

[LordAzamath]

something like this.

note, that isn't an actual screenshot, just a little gimping

[Roujin]

nearly, but i mean also the part where your building is black, like the original transparent tile.. or don't you like that style?

[Ben_K]

nearly, but i mean also the part where your building is black, like the original transparent tile.. or don't you like that style?

He's done that hasnt he?!

[LordAzamath]

Nope. I don't like that style. It's like "I like black. Somewhere is something black? weeeeee"
The purpose of the transparency is supposed to be that, you can see behind the buildings, but that doesn't mean that it should be ugly or just black.
So this is an ingame screenshot with little gimping to show you the transparency.

the stripes in transparenced point are there because my bank is a bit bigger than it should be. That's because when cutting and sizing the antialiasing is turned on. w/o it it's ugly.
There just the transparent-shadows overlap, not the ground

[Roujin]

ok i see

actually, do you know how the transparent thingy works? it's something hardcoded, right? (i think so because someone made a patch once to remove the transparent effect totally)


i'm asking because that question came to my mind while i was playing around with the png stuff. i thought now with 32bpp support you could change the whole transperancy stuff from just a grey mask (old) to real transperancy, meaning the normal building, just with 10% transperancy everywhere, or something.

maybe this is rather a project for coders than for graphic designers tho...

[LordAzamath]

I'm not a developer, but I may have hunch how this works.

NOTE: It's still a hunch and everything are just taken from sky -
All the sprites have a variable, which defines their elevation. Coded into the nfo file in grf file.
So let's take a tunnel as an example.
The lower part of the tunnel, which must stay below the train will get an attribute 100, then the train will get 101 to be on top and the sprite, that defines the roof of the tunnel (it has to be on top of the train then) will be 102.
And in the *big* code there is a function, that defines which sprites will be transparenced. Obviosly the sprite with elevation 102, because you gotta see trains and stuff, which are
101 and 100 respectively
The 100 and 101 values should not be in the way of sight - 64px*32px usually, so there is no need to make them transparent.

This is a part of code I think it could be, if not written to nfo.
It's all made up right now. I believe there is no such thing in the real code

Code: Select all

#Sprite (TropicBankUpper)
define.elevation (102);
#Sprite (TropicBankLower)
define.elevation (100);
#Sprite (#anytrain)
define.elevation (101);

Code: Select all

get.elevation ()
   if {
[
(
elevation==100
)
drawsprite(back)
]
[
(
elevation==101
)
drawsprite(middle)
}
else {[(
drawsprite=(top)
)]}

by that theory my bank floors in the original grf have elevation of 100 and the top parts elevation of 102, so the top part will be transparenced and the lower part not.

NOTE: The code and numbers is for illustrating purposes. I actually have no idea what they might be

Lord

[GeekToo]

Well, actually I am a coder (not for OpenTTD though), and took a quick peek into the source code.

The mechanism you describe ( with the elevations etc ) is about right, but not for transparency. In general, for normal sprites to be drawn on the screen they are sorted based a.o. on their x, y, and z position. So a row of sprites gets drawn from top right to left bottom( x ) , followed by the row just under it on the screen (y) etc. If there is a conflict (same x and y) the z ( height ) gives the sprite to be drawn first on a tile. For speed, there is of course some caching, and dirty bits, so not every tile gets drawn every loop, but that is the idea of the sprite sorting.

For sprite transparency ( at least on 32 bpp blitter, didn't check the others ), the object that needs to be drawn, knows that the user has set the tranparency bit for that kind of object ( like industries in your case). It gives this information to the blitter (the thing that puts colour bit values in memory that gets mapped on the screen), that checks this information, and when a sprite must be transparent, it just darkens the bits a bit that are already on screen for the area the sprite covers.



So for your bank, the industry module knows what the ground sprites are, and what the building sprites are( hardcoded for original sprites, with newgrf you can specify a ground tile (not yet for industries I think)). So it let's the blitter draw the ground sprite normally, and the building sprite with the transparent bit set, resulting in a normal ground tile, and the area where the building is a little darker. There is no 'real' alpha transparency involved, that would indeed require to change the code.

Edit: Made a little proof of concept in the code:

[Roujin]

very interesting...

well my concept was changing the ground tiles to new 32bit tiles with the whole building and transparency, so without transparency they would be overdrawn anyways by the opaque building, and with transparency they would show the transparent building. But this plan failed when i noticed that the city buildings (skyscrapers etc.) mostly share their ground tile (plain one with asphalt)


your poc looks nice! i personally would prefer that to the original transparency, if the pool glitch was sorted out and if the ground tiles didn't have this ugly black... i think without the black parts it would look awesome

PS: would you consider making a patch for this?

[LordAzamath]

your poc looks nice! i personally would prefer that to the original transparency, if the pool glitch was sorted out and if the ground tiles didn't have this ugly black... i think without the black parts it would look awesome

How exactly do you want to get rid of black spots? You know those blackies are drawn in sprites. Most of the sprites are in trg1r.pcx.
The patch could only be done for the 32bpp. I mean they may have the ground sprites. And tell me how many 32bpp sprites don't have any ground rendered?

The answer is many
The one possibility would be that lots of the buildings share the sane ground tile. So when that being rendered, lots of redoing can be saved.
Probably my last sentence was so out of order that nobody understood what I meant I will just experiment a little and let you know of this

Anyway. I think it's soon safe to say that the bank is complete. So now I will ask. It's kinda poll, but only for those who look further into this thread

Is this Tropical Bank ready for inclusion?

A: Whoosh! No! It's ugly
B: Well, if you very much want to...
C: I like it. I think it would be fun to play.
D: GIMME THAT TAR!!!
E: something else

The poll will last for three days or as long as needed.

EDIT: The poll ended because I released it.
Lord

[GrambleX]

D!

I think all the graphics that look OK, should be integrated. It would be motivating and show us what we have to watch for (Textures, Colors, Size).

PS: Thx for the grf of my building. I've just finished the installation of Ubuntu 7.04. Thus I hadn't got time to work with it yet.

[LordAzamath]

Hmm. you used to be Gramble right?
silent voices in my head (gramble - gramblex - gramble - gramblex....must be the same)
EDIT: although you registered in april 2006.... let me think now...

That makes total of ... 1 vote for D
I will update this post, when more answers come
Edit:
1 vote C
1 doesn't know
2 votes D
2 votes something else "(RELEASE IT!)"

which means.... I will

[Roujin]

How exactly do you want to get rid of black spots? You know those blackies are drawn in sprites. Most of the sprites are in trg1r.pcx.
The patch could only be done for the 32bpp. I mean they may have the ground sprites. And tell me how many 32bpp sprites don't have any ground rendered?

well, yes. i thought of getting rid of the black stuff by replacing the sprites. anyway, there could be an independent .tar package with modified ground tiles in 32bpp. that could be used with a transperancy patch. but you don't have to - if you want to run it 8bit, just use the patch, not the sprite replacement package.

something like that was my thought...

edit: or would a 32bit package with modified "original" tiles (ugly blackness removed) be unwanted for legal reasons?

Anyway. I think it's soon safe to say that the bank is complete. So now I will ask. It's kinda poll, but only for those who look further into this thread [...]

Before i answer, 2 questions: did you mean the darkish line inbetween the two tiles with this?

the stripes in transparenced point are there because my bank is a bit bigger than it should be. That's because when cutting and sizing the antialiasing is turned on. w/o it it's ugly.

and, what is that bright spot in the transparency view?
never mind, i just found out what it is >< it's the non-shadow, because everywhere else is part of the building...

actually i think your bank would benefit from a transparency like in GeekToo's poc, because right now that white spot looks a little weird imo ^^

[LordAzamath]

That stripe will be the problem of all anti-aliased buildings, which consist of many tiles.
W/O it the tile edges are too seen and...ugly.

So yes, with those stripes.
If GeekToo will do that patch (or somebody else), then this problem would be solved indeed.
It's not about my picture but more of the engine, not capable to recognise alfa channel while making buildings transparent. That's because it doesn't make transparent, but adds some grey mask.

Lord.
Going to play on [HARDER - NoInflation.ee]

[ThePenguin]

I vote for C.. I would have voted for D but I don't play in the tropical mode. It's looks very nice. I play in the temperate climate. You need to make some for that climate next and I'll be happy

[GeekToo]

I vote for D: let people play with it. It's the best way to get feedback, and it does not mean you cannot improve it even more if you like. But for me, the quality is high enough to distribute it amongst the community.