[UNIV] Comic Set

[Gremnon]

Yes, it is the same one all three times.

[petert]

Is there a possibility for the houses to actually be constructed like the default grf houses? Or are you trying to keep the comic theme?

Edit: Actually, it looks like planetmaker has already made his choice in revision 57

Feature: Add 11 more houses. They follow the construction scheme: outline, b&w sketch, gray-scale, done

[Gremnon]

I think he's keeping to the comic theme. I may be wrong.
I'd prefer it was kept comic.

Which gives the idea that perhaps it could be a replacement for toyland, and possibly with a kind of comic conversion, complete with vehicles, it could make it playable. ECS, I know works even in toyland, which is an interesting challenge, incidentally.

[planetmaker]

Question: I can't really tell, but does the final building stage for all three of them look the same?

Yes, the right most is the same for all. It's the final building, all construction finished. Basically that's my default image layout (with a random house chosen, showing all construction stages and the final building) which I use for all sprites so that I only have to get the alignment correct once and then have it correct and fixed for all houses at that very same time.

Is there a possibility for the houses to actually be constructed like the default grf houses? Or are you trying to keep the comic theme?
Edit: Actually, it looks like planetmaker has already made his choice in revision 57

Feature: Add 11 more houses. They follow the construction scheme: outline, b&w sketch, gray-scale, done

Not at all. I added more houses. I added them with the gray colour scheme. But it's not meant to be the final word and can be changed moderately easy... otherwise I wouldn't have asked here _after_ I commited that . I did that basically to get a better feel of how the pure gray-scale version looks like (the other houses are still slightly differently, though similar) The "advantage" of the grayscale version is that I can save one real sprite (=image). The 3rd construction stage can be done by means of simple in-built re-colour-sprite feature of OpenTTD, usually used for newspapers But file size is a very weak argument here as it mainly must look good.

I think he's keeping to the comic theme. I'd prefer it was kept comic.

Well, it is comic - that's what it's meant to be. But even comic-style could show in a comic-way "real" construction stages. But then... that's a whole artistic challange then on its own.

Which gives the idea that perhaps it could be a replacement for toyland, and possibly with a kind of comic conversion, complete with vehicles, it could make it playable. ECS, I know works even in toyland, which is an interesting challenge, incidentally.

Yes, it works in toyland and it works in toyland deliberately (I even thought about making it toyland only ) But something I really consider doing is to disable it in arctic climate: I simply have no snow support for the sprites. Thus this set currently cannot build houses above the snow line which will fail terribly with towns above the snow line...

[Auge]

Hello

About construction stages: I prefer version one, followed by the greyscale version.

*btw* It would be a pity if the set ends as toyland only set.

Tschö, Auge

[petert]

*btw* It would be a pity if the set ends as toyland only set.

Why? Comics would suit toyland much better than temperate or other climates.

[planetmaker]

Might I suggest something a but more like drawing? Like first the outlines, then a part colored in, then the next part and then the entire building ofcourse. You could just go with having half of it colored in or only specific colors/sides done first.

Frosch proposed the same or something similar. The problem I have with this approach: I find no good sequence (or settings) of the usual image manipulation tools (colour selections, replacement, shifts,...) which give me the possibility to change parts of a house only. One would think it's easy. I tried, but I failed. But I'm not a pro with these kind of image tools either.
As I see it, this option would mean to hand-recolour every pixel. Well...

EDIT: and before I forget:
I enabled the generation of nightlies. They are as of today available from http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/comic_houses/nightlies/.

Also as of today, the NewGRF won't work in arctic anymore.

[petert]

Nice job! I really like your signature with the comic houses grf in it. With what program do you make it?

[planetmaker]

Nice job! I really like your signature with the comic houses grf in it. With what program do you make it?

I use gimp. It's a simple piece of a screenshot. Then added a layer with a gradient which is applied as brightness correction and on top the text.

[petert]

I also noticed that style in the #openttdcoop banner. Did you make that too?

[AndersI]

Opionions? Critizism? Further Proposals?

Just to be different, I'd prefer a combination of (1) and (3), ie. as (1) but grayscale only until the final sprite.

[XeryusTC]

[Frosch proposed the same or something similar. The problem I have with this approach: I find no good sequence (or settings) of the usual image manipulation tools (colour selections, replacement, shifts,...) which give me the possibility to change parts of a house only. One would think it's easy. I tried, but I failed. But I'm not a pro with these kind of image tools either.
As I see it, this option would mean to hand-recolour every pixel. Well...

You could use a paint bucket (as Photoshop has, I'm sure GIMP has an equivalent) to replace an entire color by white. That way you can also create the construction stages in just a few clicks

[XeryusTC]

Doublepost! To show what I meant.

proposal.png (10.62 KiB) Viewed 3975 times

Alternatively you could add the red, green and blue channels one by one to also make a kind of inking impression, but then more like printing.

[petert]

Nice job. Although the roof in the 3rd stage looks quite undeveloped compared to the rest of the house. Maybe color it in a bit?

[Benny]

Ah, good to see that someone volunteered to code this set.

Not sure what I think looks best of the different buildng stages. They all look good to me.

[planetmaker]

Doublepost! To show what I meant.

proposal.png

Alternatively you could add the red, green and blue channels one by one to also make a kind of inking impression, but then more like printing.

Thanks for that. I actually always tried to select the colour before by masking it - and then filling in the selection. Maybe I should indeed give it a try w/o masking it beforehand and just choosing appropriately narrow colour matching and just filling a few times adjacent colour tones.

Seperating the colour channels is something I toyed with. At least the things I came up with looked terrible to me.

[Auge]

Hello

*btw* It would be a pity if the set ends as toyland only set.

Why? Comics would suit toyland much better than temperate or other climates.

The comic style buildings fits none of the schemes, neither the normal climates nor the toyland. So it fits all or nothing (thatswhy: "as toyland only set"). This said it could be used for toyland but also for all other climates (more or less). I like the idea to build it (in future) as a complete graphic replacement set.

Originally (for Simutrans) it is a graphic replacement with german style buildings, streets and vehicles. So it would fit perfect the temerature climate (IMHO).

Tschö, Auge

[A. Brose]

Originally (for Simutrans) it is a graphic replacement with german style buildings, streets and vehicles. So it would fit perfect the temerature climate (IMHO).

Hi there!

Actually pak96.comic is a complete graphic set with a couple of climate styles (Germany, Italy, North Africa, Scandinavia, ...).
Therefore we could also make an Italy set or Austria/Switzerland set...

[planetmaker]

My thought actually was to make different kind of houses available depending upon the selected climate (toy, temperate, subarctic, subtropical) and maybe to allow some manual adjustments and selections via a grf parameter. E.g. scandinavian houses could go well in subarctic climate, the German and Austrian ones in temperate and Italian maybe in subtropical climate.

[osai]

Nice work,

here comes my proposal. I liked the first quite much. Though I reduced the strength of the contours in the first and second stages.
I also like the grayscale version in version three (picture three), but it doesn't look to good between too colored variants.