NewGRF (Air)ports - general discussion

[Roujin]

first a big applause to you, richk i had a look at it a few days ago already, where only the commuter airport was rotatable, and some state machine(s) weren't done yet (planes stopped in mid air ), and still i found it great already

the graphics are nice, i like the tower and the buildings (these are new right?), but i think the depot is a little odd. that "pixel shift" on the roof, it's probably intended, but somehow it bugs me... sorry, my opinion


ah, another thing - in the version i looked at some days ago, there was an airport with the planes using the lane NW to SE when landing/starting, but the lights were moving SE to NW - i guess this was a bug? if this was changed since then, or wasn't even a bug, never mind ^^
i guess i'll look at it myself again right now thank you a lot for your effort, it's really awesome

[some time later]
ok, i noticed it's still like that. On commuter, international and intercontinental, the plane lands in the opposite direction of the lights. Actually i have no idea of airports and how they work, i just thought it's not supposed to be like this.

otherwise, great work folks, no complaints at all

[richk67]

Yeah, its an interesting graphics glitch. If you look at the "normal" airports in say 0.5.2, you will notice the same effect on the International and Intercontinental runways. One goes the right way, the other, the wrong way.

Its due to the sequence for the flashing yellow lights. The direction of the flash is painted in as colours into the sprite itself. To have the same graphic, but with lights going the other way would require a second set of graphics per runway.

For that small an effect, I dont feel it is critical. However, it is something other people can bear in mind, and draw the graphics appropriately in their .grfs.

------
As for the pixel shift on the hangar roof, I think it is meant to indicate a change in the pitch of the roof - sort of a thin skylight section.

One great feature that will work eventually is that you can define a hangar as covering more than 1 tile in my new spec. So you could design a more-in-scale 2 or 3 tile hangar, or a row of hangars (but opens as if it were 1).

[frosch]

Nice project.

Inspired by the Industrial Stations Renewal:
Is it possible, that the hangar opens the door, if a plane is leaving from it or heading to it?

[belugas]

I think it can "fairly easy" be done, since it is based on the newstation specs
If I remember correctly its history, of course ...

[richk67]

You should be able to do a check that says "if block NN is occupied, raise the door. otherwise, lower it".

This will have the effect that if an aircraft reserves the route to the hangar, then the door raises, whether or not the aircraft has got there yet.

Only difficulty will be handling the block test, but that is just a matter of making the station blocks visible to the newgrf. Not too terrible, but a bit more work... OTOH, once the blocks are available to newgrf, then the newgrf programming possibilities are impressive...

[Born Acorn]

I think the tower is a bit tall. Compared to other buildings in the game. I know correct scale isn't TTD's strong suit, but it also looks a design too modern for the style of the rest of the airport buildings.

The terminal buildings themselves are absolutely brilliant. However, I feel less enthusiastic about the tower. It looks like it's a completely different style.

(I'm talking about the independent tower as seen on the old "large/city" airport.).

[PikkaBird]

This is looking awesome, I can't wait until I have the time to play with it properly.

BTW, Rich, will it be possible for a grf to disable any of the default airports, for if we want to code a replacement (or just feel like being mean )?

[richk67]

The system just looks for airportsbasic.grf and airportsextended.grf, and auto-adds them on new game. What you do with them after that is your business... and you could unload them from your game, or load in a replacement that reuses the grfid of the one you removed. Clearly if you have airports and aircraft in those airports, it will cause all kinds of horrors...

So you could for instance have a game where only the airportsbasic are available (ie. TTDP mode)... or perhaps only seaplane airports.

Talking of which, any chance of a nice seaplane, with its vehicle subtype set to 0x08? That would be cool.
A nice splosh as its wheels-landing noise would be superb!!

[athanasios]

One great feature that will work eventually is that you can define a hangar as covering more than 1 tile in my new spec. So you could design a more-in-scale 2 or 3 tile hangar, or a row of hangars (but opens as if it were 1).

Finally! We 've been waiting for this for centuries. Once again thank you.

[Ben_K]

I think the tower is a bit tall...

They need to be or us ATC can't see what happens!! If you have a search around for pictures of Gatwick, you'll see how much taller than anything else our tower is (And it looks similar to the 'metropolitan' tower on the previous page). Also, Heathrow's new tower is 87m high (~287ft)...

[richk67]

Couple of interesting designs: http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/in ... load_id=72
and Schiphol is pretty much the design used by Skidd13: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _small.jpg

Others of interest:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38836263@N ... roltowers/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/planephoto ... roltowers/ (A good medium sized one)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caribb/863 ... roltowers/ Way cool futuristic design
http://www.flickr.com/photos/avsfan/722 ... roltowers/ integral with the building
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eneko123/3 ... roltowers/ small simple tower
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47874803@N ... roltowers/ as primitive as it gets... downhill runway too!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjarbo/393 ... roltowers/ <-- MegaFunky!

[Svip]

I am not going to pick this just because I am Danish and live in Copenhagen. Ah.. who am I kidding, that is why I am showing it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emborg/157333301/ << Copenhagen Airport Tower. I did not find it that pool, only with a search for "copenhagen airport".

[PikkaBird]

Talking of which, any chance of a nice seaplane, with its vehicle subtype set to 0x08?

Certainly... what does vehicle subtype mean? Property 09?

[Born Acorn]

I think the tower is a bit tall...

They need to be or us ATC can't see what happens!! If you have a search around for pictures of Gatwick, you'll see how much taller than anything else our tower is (And it looks similar to the 'metropolitan' tower on the previous page). Also, Heathrow's new tower is 87m high (~287ft)...

Yes, but it's currently too tall for the game's (rather loosely defined) scale. We aren't talking about real life.

[skidd13]

Don't set your dogs on me. I already working on the sprites... Hangar will be fixed. And a new modern one will come. The tower will be a bit smoother and shorter. And another medium sized tower will also come. Calm down an wait. THANKS.

Don't expect results too fast. I need 2 things to get them finished: 1st free time, 2nd a muse (which is the more important thing)
I should be finished with them in the near future.

[athanasios]

Please don't lower the tower!
And I am also tempted to post these shortcuts-photos of Athens Airport ATC tower. I love the one with the "monster" and both suburban and metro trains. Airport highway also shown.

China Airlines Airbus A340-313X front of Athens ATC tower: http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=261832

Athens ATC tower, with reflections on the windows of a Qantas aircraft tail: http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=209709

Even a big ATC tower is small compared to the "monster" : http://www.flugzeugbilder.de/show.php?id=397991

[Ben_K]

Please don't lower the tower!

Im with athanasios on this, I think its fine as it is

[skidd13]

Hi Skidd,
My avatar (Standard TTD Control tower) is looking a bit tired. I was wondering if you would mind if I used your metropolitan airport tower and cropped it to use as an avatar? No worries if you'd rather not, I just thought Id ask
(I'll happily put a link or something in my signature if you wanted)

Cheers,
Ben

No problem. Spread the art. I'd be pleased over the credit.

Referring to the size reduce. It's only a few px. But the look and feel is IMO better now (a bit smaller) just a matter of fitting ratios. You'll see what I mean when it's done.

[richk67]

The progress summary can now be found in the root of this thread.

[MarkyParky]

d) Aircraft "waypoints" - use balloon graphics, or perhaps a cloud, or something as a waypoint marker. This could organise the skies better for those who like that sort of detail. <-- An idea - may not be implemented

.

Nice idea, only instead of clouds or balloons, it would look better and also more realistic to use VORs or other radiobeacons as waypoints.