[32bpp/EZ]BRIX!!!

[R2T9]

It's been 10 days...the silence is...curious...
Any news to share?

[V453000 :)]

Slowly working on new maglev, but there are MANY issues to solve.

[V453000 :)]

Dear fellow humans,

in the last 2 weeks I have been working hardcore on new maglev tracks. I barely have any mental health left, but here is the result.

Maglev tracks, including perfectly aligning junctions, bridges, tunnels, and road crossings (though those are probably not final, they will at least get some sort of semaphore).

Bridges and their alignment to normal tracks needs a lot of work across the board, not just for maglev. Very high up on my todo list. Some terrible things might be hidden in there like wrong offsets...

Longer description:

I wanted tracks which trains could hug, like this:

concept

maglev-wip-00.png (63.98 KiB) Viewed 4405 times

Which proved to be a lot more difficult than I originally thought. However, it has one huge advantage - tracks in junctions can just "light up" / "turn on", and that way junctions can work perfectly while having nice 3D shapes with some depth.

The tracks are meant to have a very modern and electric feeling, and the ground under them is wrinkly to make it look generally better and reduce the obviousness of shading in curves.

How do you like the outcome?

[SyberSycho]

I like the look of those tracks and the road crossing are really neat.
I like the the train tunnels as well. Although there is obviously more work to be done to smooth out some of the shading.
The colour of that track that is showing the path of trains is to close in colour to that of unused junction track. If the path colour could be changed to something like an orange, yellow or maybe a green to make it stand out a bit more that would be awesome.
As a future note for train paths could you try and make them easily distinguishable on all types of tracks as in current graphics sets I find it sometimes hard to see when I'm trying to figure out what is going wrong in my train networks.

Keep up the amazing work as it is looking extremely nice so far.

[R2T9]

Nice! Interesting style, but it works quite well!
I do have two questions though: why are some tracks blue and other tracks gray?
How will the 32bpp maglevs look with it? It's hard to tell with the 8bpp train.

[V453000 :)]

Thanks

...

I like the road crossings as well but they need some red lights when closed

Train tunnel shading isn't that easy to fix, it is already post-produced some ... but I will check it for sure.

Reserved tracks are very limited in OpenTTD, it can only be greyscale version of the track overlay (which is used in junctions)... it would be great if OpenTTD allowed custom reserved track sprites, then I could do a lot of things with it.

My final solution would then probably be completely black tracks in "disabled directions" in junctions, gray/blue-ish main bodies, and very bright blue highlights as reserved tracks. That way, rails would be becoming "electrically charged" when maglev trains would be in the block / reserving the path. Which would actually make a lot of sense with maglev because that is how it works afaik.

That basically also answers what can I do with the other tracks and their reserved sprites... not much at the moment

Ultimately the current answer could be that you can simply disable the reserved tracks from showing up in your game.

How will 32bpp maglevs look with it is kind of demonstrated very basically in the attachment "concept" (yes the blue boxes actually mean trains XD) - http://www.tt-forums.net/download/file.php?id=189280

... R2T9: blue tracks are where the track really is, gray is where it isn't in junctions.

P.S. I could probably say this all the time, but PLEASE do not confuse 32bpp/8bpp with extra zoom levels / no zoom levels just saying, no big deal

[SyberSycho]

Thanks
Reserved tracks are very limited in OpenTTD, it can only be greyscale version of the track overlay (which is used in junctions)... it would be great if OpenTTD allowed custom reserved track sprites, then I could do a lot of things with it.

My final solution would then probably be completely black tracks in "disabled directions" in junctions, gray/blue-ish main bodies, and very bright blue highlights as reserved tracks. That way, rails would be becoming "electrically charged" when maglev trains would be in the block / reserving the path. Which would actually make a lot of sense with maglev because that is how it works afaik.

That basically also answers what can I do with the other tracks and their reserved sprites... not much at the moment

Ultimately the current answer could be that you can simply disable the reserved tracks from showing up in your game.

That's unfortunate about the openttd limitation but I like your idea for a solution, as I agree with it making sense for maglev.

I'm def not turning them off as my point was to make them more visible since I like seeing them in order to fix my tracks when things go horribly wrong.

[R2T9]

I like the road crossings as well but they need some red lights when closed

Train tunnel shading isn't that easy to fix, it is already post-produced some ... but I will check it for sure.

Reserved tracks are very limited in OpenTTD, it can only be greyscale version of the track overlay (which is used in junctions)... it would be great if OpenTTD allowed custom reserved track sprites, then I could do a lot of things with it.

My final solution would then probably be completely black tracks in "disabled directions" in junctions, gray/blue-ish main bodies, and very bright blue highlights as reserved tracks. That way, rails would be becoming "electrically charged" when maglev trains would be in the block / reserving the path. Which would actually make a lot of sense with maglev because that is how it works afaik.


... R2T9: blue tracks are where the track really is, gray is where it isn't in junctions.

Why 'disabled directions'? Why not just not build them?

[V453000 :)]

if you build the junction, built connections are blue, not build connections are grey. Simple as that.

[R2T9]

So basically junctions are a prebuilt tile?

[V453000 :)]

kind of, yes ... but since the junction appears once you have 2/3 of the track pieces, it makes sense more than it may sound ...

[SyberSycho]

Was woundering how the set was going. Haven't heard anything in awhile.

[V453000 :)]

Quite slowly if at all. I am working on rail signals and catenary at the moment. After that I might just polish a few more things and make a release. I am busy with other stuff lately, so it isn't progressing super quickly. I have also started work on a new train set so even when I get to do OpenTTD stuff, my attention is divided.

Regarding signals specifically:

I will be replacing both kinds of signals, one will be more brick-like, but very easy to see which is which in all directions, if it is green/red, and in general very systematic.

The second type will be more like a standard signal, but I haven't started working on that yet.

I attach a preview of x2 zoom of current state of the brick-like signals. They need a lot of postproduction and changes, but the basic idea is there.

I particularly like the way how pre-signals are described with the yellow, but it isn't visible enough, especially not at x1 zoom. But as I said, this is very early version.

Oh, and don't worry about the fact that the colours red/green are currently swapped XD just materials going haywire, I already have it fixed.

All that makes signals HELL to make work properly. But at least now I have them coded which wasn't a very nice experience either.

Thank you for asking, it makes me feel like at least somebody else than me cares about the project. Adds some motivation to address more time to it.

[SyberSycho]

Wow, those are very different from what I thought. I like them just not fully sure what I think of them.

I think the two way pbs would make more sense if it looked like the combo signal. Red from all sides doesn't seem right when the one way pbs only has the red on the side you are not aloud to drive through.

Thanks for the update and glade it helped motivate you. Can't wait to see more, especially the trains.

[V453000 :)]

The thing is, original signals are like 3-4 times taller, and I am desperately missing this space for clarity, so I will have to expand them somehow.

[TossIB]

There certainly is more interest in the project. Me, just to name one more. I just don't post that often. I'm sure there are more.

I'm the guy who wants it to be totally abstract (see my post from some time ago). From that point of view, these signals are not reduced enough. There is too much design which doesn't support functionality (in the words of bauhaus). What I initially thought "brick like signals" would be, is these light signal towers used on production lines.

Also the train bedding? I hope that will be changed still. Maybe no bedding at all and double the sleepers?

Other then that: Looks nice. Keep going.

I like the sepia tone of the ground, its easy on the eyes. Could be a little grayer and noisier, but not much. You probably already plan for that, judging from the tunnel entrances.

[V453000 :)]

That is nice to hear. On many points though I think I will disappoint you. The things will not be going as minimalistic as you might expect. The concept is to have stuff that isn't gameplay-important will be simplified, stuff that is gameplay-critical like tracks and vehicles, to some degree buildings and industries, will be detailed and interesting.

Anyway, I have put some effort in to new signals and here is v2 ... still work in progress, but I would like something along those lines better than the previous version. Especially since x1 zoom works considerably better with these.

[V453000 :)]

More updates coming, but here are a few changes

[R2T9]

The signals are...different. I think they'll just take some getting used to. But yeah, nice progress! Any chance we can get a sneak preview of the new train set?

[SyberSycho]

I really like the new design of signals. Only thing I prefer is the black instead of the grey backside. Really like how the base of them describes the type of signal it is.

As an extra request I never like how pbs signals are always red. Would it be possible to make them a yellow or orange light which then turns greens when trains go through.