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Tropic Station Set [WIP]

Posted: 11 Oct 2006 21:56
by MeusH
Edit: Please voice your opinion in a poll! Here is an image with five choices. You choose up to two. Thank you :)
CopperUnloadVariations2.png
CopperUnloadVariations2.png (48.39 KiB) Viewed 7873 times
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Hello. I have a great fun with Uzurpator's Tropic Refurbishment Set, but I couldn't find stations nor waypoints of the tropical theme.
I thought I may have a nice time designing and drawing a set.

For a nice beginning, a wooden station that will come in both desert and rainforest theme. It comes with a hut, a water tower and a kind of semaphore. I know it's difficult to notice the details, because everything is brown, but I'll do my best to make some contrast.

Please voice your opinions, point me what's wrong, and what can be better.

Posted: 11 Oct 2006 21:57
by Lakie
Looks quite nice. :)
Although all being brown might give problems later, with more complex layouts?

~ Lakie

Posted: 11 Oct 2006 21:58
by Hyronymus
Very nice idea, MeusH. You know, maybe the people in the tropical climate paint their stations ;).

Posted: 11 Oct 2006 22:08
by Bad Hair Day
Ooooh, looking good there.

Posted: 11 Oct 2006 22:38
by lobster
that actually looks really well. :)

Posted: 12 Oct 2006 05:19
by MeusH
Thanks for feedback
Lakie wrote:Although all being brown might give problems later, with more complex layouts?
Yes, it may give some problems, but this station is meant to be crude, primitive and as simple as possible. A one-train-a-month station.
However, I'll try making the hut concrete (or stone) instead of wooden.

Maybye the water tower and semaphore (if any) should be on a bare land instead of a wooden platform?

Posted: 12 Oct 2006 05:53
by XeryusTC
Looks pretty good MeusH. I've been waiting for someone to start a tropical station set as the climate lacks suitable (industry) stations.

Posted: 12 Oct 2006 05:58
by MeusH
Yeah, rubber and copper ore stations will be next.

Now, the water tower is outside the wooden platform. It still needs something under it (at least a shadow)

Posted: 12 Oct 2006 06:58
by uzurpator
I, uzurpator, approve this thread with my own seal of approval ;)

Looking good :)

Posted: 12 Oct 2006 08:34
by Purno
Übernice! I love it! :D
Please make some diversity so you can design your own stations, like MB's station set. I don't like those pre-designed built-in-one-click stations.
At least, that's my two cents.

Posted: 12 Oct 2006 18:42
by MeusH
uzurpator wrote:I, uzurpator, approve this thread with my own seal of approval ;)

Looking good :)
Thanks! :bow:
Purno wrote:Übernice! I love it! :D
Please make some diversity so you can design your own stations, like MB's station set. I don't like those pre-designed built-in-one-click stations.
At least, that's my two cents.
I'm planning to let player design city stations.
The first station aviable, the wooden one, won't consist of sophisticated parts like overpass or underpass. However, more modern stations will benefit these features.
As for industrial stations, I don't know yet whether players should design them. There isn't much about them. Some stockpiles, containers or pipes...

So there is a limit of 19 station parts per group of stations, is that right?
Is there a way to check whether a station tile is on a desert/grassy area so I can save half of the slots?

I'm looking for some reference pictures, like a rubber stockpile. Could you please tell me more about transporting rubber? Is it liquid, solid, or either?
In TRS I can use either tanker or a box car, so I think it may be either liquid or solid.


And a station-drawing specific dilema:
(see attachement) - are these four sprites required only, or there is something else I forgot?
(this question is related to non-visible parts of a sprite - should they be drawn, too?)

Posted: 13 Oct 2006 08:05
by Caelan
Rubber if not treated at the spot is transported as a liquid. But since it is tapped from trees and usually put in Barrels you could do something with that perhaps?

If it is treated at the spot it consists if rubber slabs and should be transported in crates.

Good luck!

Posted: 13 Oct 2006 18:00
by MeusH
Purno, I reconsidered your idea, and I think that the basic stations may be good enough for both passenger and cargo.
Could you give me advices on graphics of the ramp please? You may notice it doesn't look nice...
Also, I changed the wood to a more uniform pattern - previous one may have been looking nice with the random wooden planks, but it also produced alginement problems.
What do you think on the new texture?

Is it possible to to change a sprite that is used depending on its position?
I'd like to change the basic platform sprite into a ramp if the sprite is at the border of a station (like Ramp-Platform-Platform-Platform-Ramp) without using extra station slot and bothering the player.

Caelan, thanks for tips.

Posted: 13 Oct 2006 18:02
by Purno
Sorry, not quite sure what you mean. Is that whole post directed to me, or just the first line? What ramp? What uniform pattern? What new texture?

Posted: 13 Oct 2006 18:12
by graphics_master
Could you make the logs bigger. It looks good, but seems abit plain.

Posted: 13 Oct 2006 18:27
by Purno
Aye, forgot to attach attachment huh? Well, these looks very fine to me, even the ramp.

Posted: 13 Oct 2006 20:47
by Lakie
Looks good so far, MeusH.
I think the logs are fine the size they are, any bigger would look out of proportion. :)

~ Lakie

Posted: 13 Oct 2006 21:47
by MeusH
A wooden waypoint.

Please tell me more about a desired final image:
Shall I include the ground sprite or not?
Shall I divide the waypoint into ground sprite and a background (building+semaphore) (3?) sprites?
Also, can it auto-detect what version (rainforest or desert) should it build?

Note, there are no parts that should be over the train.
I'll make a n*1, n>1 tile version of the waypoint (just a footpath, without the hut and maybye without a semaphore)

Posted: 14 Oct 2006 03:52
by Aegir
Those look quite neat, MeusH.

And about the ramps, yes, you can make it so that your default set of platforms always have a ramp at one end, but in my oppinion this is (And bear in mind I'm a very lazy coder when it comes to stations): a) Too hard, b) Takes freedom away from the player, 3) Station slots aren't that much of an ussue if the coder watches what he's doing anyway.

But either way, you shouldn't worry about the coding, let the coder worry about that (Or are you doing both? :P). Get the kickarse artwork done first, it's the most important bit.

Posted: 14 Oct 2006 04:01
by lifeblood
Feel free to use anything/everything from the Canadian Stations Set. Just remember to give credit where credit is due. :wink: