2024: MODERN BUILDING SET BY FRIDAEMON, AEGIR, LUXTRAM & MRSUNMAN (development)

[fridaemon]

Hi there

Months ago Aegir (aka Reldred) came up with an idea to expand his North American Building Set. I agreed but later I changed my mind and I came up with something else. To create new building set, which could complement other sets, like Swedish Houses or Japan Building Set. Previously I decided that the set would be focused on the sub-tropical climate, but but in the end it will be for all climates with a few differences.

I started to draw few new buildings and today I chose some buildings from my object set. You can see it in the picture below (Stadions are made by GarryG). Some of them will be edited (size, colours ...). First I'm gonna draw buildings, later I'll add snow covers and in the end construction processes will be created, what seems to me to be the most difficult phase.

frbs.png (334.07 KiB) Viewed 12413 times

I wanna draw glassed skyscrapers, old fashioned buildings from Balkan, Africa or Canarian Islands. It will take me and Aegir a long time, but I think most will be ready before the summer 2022.

I will be happy for reasonable comments on the graphics. So far I use flat roofs, with the curved ones it's a bit difficult and I may need help.

Btw you can try new buildings in your game with test file bellow.

frbs.grf

test file - buildings as objects

(1.23 MiB) Downloaded 480 times

Best regards
fridaemon

[LaChupacabra]

Hey Fridaemon

I have always liked your objects and I was very curious to see how these tropical buildings turned out. And, well, they don't look very tropical. But they're still pretty cool anyway. New buildings set has been missing for a long time (ITL is great, but uses the same basic graphics) and it really promises to be interesting.

First, I would have a few general comments

Buildings 2x1 and 2x2
As far as I know, as long as nothing has changed recently, there can be a big problem with them. Cities are happy to replace larger buildings with smaller ones, but I have yet to see a few smaller ones replaced with larger ones. Perhaps there is a way to make this work. Maybe it could be done to replace these large buildings with large ones. In many cases, it is also possible to make a large building consist of several smaller ones - if the other one is erected on both one single building, the graphic variant will be selected so that they look like one building. But before you start polishing your graphics, I would advise you to make sure this work makes sense.

High buildings
Many players are fans of them, but like many others, I am not. They look interesting, but also obscure the image of the game, so you can only play with them turned off. A way to mitigate this effect may be to code these buildings so that there are no other tall buildings in the immediate vicinity, but for example squares, monuments, low shops or parks. In any event, it is better if they are lower than higher, and the highest ones are rarely seen. (This tallest building looks cool, but needs some ground floor in my opinion)

Complementing other sets or a separate complete set?
I think it would be much better if it was a complete set. Combining different sets may not give the desired effect and some buildings will not appear at all. In my opinion, it would not be a bad thing if you would just take the most interesting buildings from other sets and combine them in your set.

Improved Town Layout
From what I talked to 2TallTyler, he wanted or made his set modifiable in such a way that you can replace the graphics of the default buildings with your own. In any case, it would be nice if this set worked in a similar way.

European Building Set
A year ago, Chataigne created a lot of great graphics while planning his own set. I don't know if he still working on it. In the last post (March 18) he wrote that creating a set by himself is a bit demotivating... I think that if you joined forces, something really great would come out.

Otto1988octavius ​​screeshots theme
He has created some very interesting screenshots that could be an inspiration as to what layouts the buildings could create. There are also a lot of interesting buildings used, I don't know what sets they come from and whether they can be used, but if so, they could be a good complement to the set.

GarryG objects
There are also many buildings among his innumerable graphics. Some of them are quite universal in style and could also be incorporated into a set.

Polish Building Set
I don't know if anyone will ever come back to this set. There were plans for its development, then some new, really nice graphics were created. It is a pity for them to be wasted.

[+] Spoiler

Unused graphics from Polish Buildings Set.png (124.96 KiB) Viewed 12413 times

The graphics on the top are by pAter, some on the bottom are by Sojita. These are just some. TadeuszD also created many unused graphics. A few examples below

Zamieszczam też link do pliku zbiorczego z większością moich budynków, może się komuś na coś przyda.
http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/8f50/8e...?size_id=d

Translate: I also post a link to a collective file with most of my buildings, maybe it will be useful to someone. (Link to original post)

And few comments about details

Shops
They are great. It is true that they are related to the problem of large buildings, but I think most of them are planned to be built on the outskirts of cities, and there should not be a problem with the construction of larger buildings there. These oversized graphics are fine in my opinion. They're industrial, but that can be very useful. As far as I am concerned, they could be coded in such a way that they would be built near factories. Currently, when the city grows and absorbs factories, small family houses are built right next to them. It looks weird. But if such and similar buildings were erected, it would be much more interesting and adequate. In this way, industrial districts would emerge around factories.

Stepped houses
I guess they were supposed to be the tropical ones, right? That's how they remind me. It would be good to create a version facing the other side, or even a corner one.

Blocks of flats
Please don't be offended, but to be honest some of them look a bit kitschy, though maybe I just lack the imagination to see the end result. In any case, I associate such buildings with the suburbs that were built mainly in the 60-80's. These buildings were often a little bit apart and the space between them was filled with parks and playgrounds. I think it would be possible to create code to reproduce this.

Small houses that make up the suburbs
They aren't there, but Chataigne has made a lot of them.

Trees next to buildings
In general, I am definitely for the yes, but I wonder if it can be done in a temperate climate in autumn, that these trees lose their leaves. Objects and industry may change graphics depending on the date.

Building stages
I think that for the first version of the set, they don't have to be detailed and strictly matched to the building. At the beginning, a few common graphics of the first stage would be enough. For small buildings, it can be a graphic with an excavator, a pile of sand and a pile of boards. Some foundations and a small crane for larger buildings. For large buildings, this could include deep foundations and a large crane.

[fridaemon]

I was sad that there were no feedback, now I'm not sure glad you have notes.

So here we go ...

Buildings 2x1 and 2x2
I think it works well with North American Building Set. But I can ask Aegir about that. If there'll be problem, it can be used as eyecandy object, so no problem.

High Buildings
I want limit population limit for skyscrapers. For example they will be built in cities with population above 100 000. I think it's in JGR version, where you can set zones, and these skyscrapers will be only in the middle of the (very big) city.
And yes, I'll add ground floor

Complementing other sets or a separate complete set?
In my game I combine three different building sets - Japan Building Set, Swedish Houses and UK Town Set. For now and for subtropical climate, I'd like to replace UK Town set with our FABS. I don't think that from the beginning the set would work as a separate, full-fledged. Over time it will be possible (I hope).
With a limit on the number of buildings in the game I'm not sure. There are 255 buildings, and in JGR maybe (?) 1024. I'm not sure. As I wrote before, three sets together in one game is OK.

Improved Town Layout
I don't know how it works, so I can't tell nothing about that.

Buildings from other Sets
European Building Set
I thought about that too, but some graphic artist wrote there, that these buildings are stolen or copied. As you sent preview, most of these buildings are from SAC, and they can't be used in our set.

Otto1988octavius ​​screeshots theme
I don't know origin of these buildings, so I can't use them too. Maybe they are from another game. But I don't want to glue unreleased buildings together.

GarryG objects
I love GarryG's graphics, but it's different style compared to my buildings, and it wouldn't fit well together. But for example, we're gonna use stadiums and maybe something else.

Polish Building Set
The same. Nice buildings, but I don't want someone else's graphic in this set. We manage to create our own. But it needs time

Shops
You're right. I want only some shops, there will be some limits too. We have in plan to release shops as industry. As separate additional industry. It will be better, I agree.

Stepped houses
Yes, these ones were inspired by balkan buildings. About different orientation, I'm not sure how it could work together. if there are two differently facing buildings next to each other, it won't be nice.

image.png (5.26 KiB) Viewed 13794 times

As you commented, buildings from preview doesn't look as tropical ones. But don't be affraid, there will be a lot of these buildings I started with these (balkan) ones, other will come later. I created few buildings for big cities and I believe they will be ok with tropical buildings. If not, buildings will be edited to have uniform style.

There will be a lot of small houses, I've just started with this set, Be patient!

Blocks of flats
how dare you! which buildings do you mean? I'm not sure about this ones. I will see at the end when they will be replaced anyway.

Nový projekt (7).png (15.13 KiB) Viewed 13794 times

Building stages
don't be worry, I'll copy (be inspired) stages from Swedish Houses. I have permission to use things from this set.

Trees next to buildings
I can play with your idea when the set is ready, but for now there will be normal and winter version.

That's all 4 now.

[Fredinho]

Very much looking forward to this, and it already looks great. I am of course eagerly awaiting more tropical buildings there is a lot of brown and grey going on at the moment, so I'm hoping for a little more colors and a few parks too - but as I said, this is a wonderful starting point! Thank you, and good luck!

[fridaemon]

Don't be worry they will come. But I want some modern buildings for bigger towns too. It's possible that few ones won't be avaliable for subtropical landscape.

[temporal8]

Great news, the Swedish and Japan sets are very good, and a Fridaemon set will be just as good as well and a very good complement to the other two, keep up the good work.

[LaChupacabra]

Buildings 2x1 and 2x2
If there'll be problem, it can be used as eyecandy object, so no problem.

Something that I think is sorely lacking is the possibility of assigning various properties to objects, such as producing passengers or accepting specified cargo...

High Buildings
I want limit population limit for skyscrapers. For example they will be built in cities with population above 100 000

Maybe it is possible to define proportions or a limit for a specific population? 100,000 is too many for many games. Scripts can prevent such large cities from growing, so maybe some setting here would do well.

FABS as a complete set?
I don't think that from the beginning the set would work as a separate, full-fledged. Over time it will be possible (I hope).
With a limit on the number of buildings in the game I'm not sure.

As far as I know, each building can have many different variants assigned to it, which would be chosen randomly or according to some logic (location relative to streets, current date). In this case, all the buildings you showed above could even take up only 16 positions.

three sets together in one game is OK.

If you only play the JGR version, then probably yes. In the standard version, the effect is not always the best, especially when I look at what can be achieved with ITL "technology"

Improved Town Layout
I don't know how it works, so I can't tell nothing about that.

Hmm... you should definitely check it, because this set really changes how cities look like. You will look differently at what can be done. In brief:
1. The suburbs are much more extensive (also in ordinary OTTD)
2. The city center is limited and doesn't always appear symmetrically in the center of the city
3. Buildings change to bigger only where passengers are transported
4. Initially, most of the buildings are small houses from the suburbs (in my opinion this may be a disadvantage and would require some refinement)
It is because of the possibility of coding a better layout, it is better that it be one set than several.

Another interesting example of an asymmetric layout is the Korean Style Buildings.

[+] Spoiler

Korean Style Buildings.png (533.66 KiB) Viewed 13531 times

European Building Set
some graphic artist wrote there, that these buildings are stolen or copied. As you sent preview, most of these buildings are from SAC, and they can't be used in our set.

It's a bit depressing... But well, the world goes on so I believe in your talent.
In any case, if any of these graphics were by Chataigne, if they fit your concept, I think it would be worth including them.

Buildings from other Sets
(...)Nice buildings, but I don't want someone else's graphic in this set. We manage to create our own.

If you want to create a full standalone set, I think that's quite limiting. There are so many interesting graphics, both never used and in existing sets. Not even that I believe, but I know that you can create really great graphics, but bearing in mind that a single set would work better in a regular game, it would be a pity not to see them.

Polish Building Set
What I liked about the newest, non-publicly released version are the unique buildings emerging along with some of the cities that made up the old part of cities that gave them a certain character. You can see one like this on the graphics of the city attached earlier.

Shops as industry
This is what I miss. But these are stores whose acceptance of goods would be limited and would depend on the city's population. Well, I'm one of those players who like some challenges, and currently in the game you can transport everything, transport the entire world to one small town and its inhabitants will buy it all! You can turn on cargodist, but it has a hundred times more disadvantages than advantages and it doesn't really change anything, because you can carry everything in one place anyway. Larger "shops" could also be created, which would be logistics centers located outside the cities. They could produce "shops suppiles" that could be delivered to regular stores.
Such enterprises could be part of a set of buildings.

[+] Spoiler

City enterprises v3.3.png (136.41 KiB) Viewed 13531 times

Shops as objects accepting goods would also be a nice solution, although I would prefer these enterprises.

Stepped houses
About different orientation, I'm not sure how it could work together. if there are two differently facing buildings next to each other, it won't be nice.

That is why I would suggest that there should be some parks, squares or even parkings between the buildings quite often. I mean the latter direction mainly because of the street orientation. The point is, the three buildings facing the NW-SE street won't look good either. The code can specify which graphics the game should use. These terraces could always face the street, but could also be inwards or to the side, provided there is some low area in front of them, a square or a swimming pool, for example.

[+] Spoiler

Holiday view from the window.png (86.11 KiB) Viewed 13531 times

Blocks of flats
which buildings do you mean? I'm not sure about this ones.

I meant the fancifully painted ones. Maybe they won't look bad. Much also depends on their arrangement in relation to other buildings. I admit that I have a certain aversion to this type of painting due to the fact that in my city many blocks in the 90's were painted in various motley colors. People after decades of the gray of communism (literally whole cities were the color of gray concrete) were hungry for vivid, warm colors and when modernizing the buildings, housing associations opted for such colors. Well, that's why there are plenty of such pink-seledenium-cream buildings in city centers these days. They are not bad in themselves, but when adjacent to modern or classic buildings, they just bite the eyes. Some, interesting option may be that these buildings will be modernized from time to time and change their colors to match the current trends - the building after the expiry of its service life could be replaced with the same, but in a different variant.

The service life of buildings
In most sets, it is very short, which means that cities are incessantly changing buildings. Often, even the largest ones don't stand still for more than 2 years. 2TallTyler in his ITL significantly extended these periods (perhaps even over 20 years), which gave a much better effect. In the Polish Buildings Set, some, especially rare buildings, even have unlimited life. This is a good solution in my opinion.

One day I may learn to write shorter posts.

[fridaemon]

Have to admit, that this set wasn't so tropical as I wanted. I saw few buildings around me and I drew them immediately. before tropical buildings. But most of my previously drawn buildings won't be part of this set. It doesn't look good.

Few days ago I started to play tropical climate game. But I stopped it after few minutes. I don't like buildings for this set. Really. And I love this climate. Much more subtropical than the desert. So I went back to the original idea.

This set will come for temperate and sub-tropical climate. Maybe later for sub-arctic climate. With some more buildings and differences. I don't like creating snow versions of my objects. I'm alpine climate lover, but this set is aimed at the tropical game. Much more tropical buildings will come later. I will draw inspiration from Sicila, Canarian Islands, Dubrovnik and new capital city of Egypt. And some modern buildings from Prague.

These big modern buildings can be only in cities. I prefer the idea that big cities and towns will be different. And I will also rely a lot on the arrangement of the zones. Skyscrappers will be only in cities.

I also don't like it when only new buildings are available in the future. I would like to keep the possibility of endless construction for most buildings, the difference will be only at the beginning of the initial construction.

Here's the very first preview:

[fridaemon]

thanks 4 reply

I think Aegir is good with coding and he will do very good job with these respones we have a lot of time for that, so we'll fine-tune it all. aegir can encode, and i will build constructions. Otherwise, I am definitely in favor of long-term construction of buildings.

Shops as industry will come this year, I hope. I have to redraw some buildings and do some new ones

[DemianWSE]

Here's the very first preview:

This looks very promising! Nice work!

[gravelpit]

but it will be as a candy set, or coded for passenger service, post office, etc.

[fridaemon]

but it will be as a candy set, or coded for passenger service, post office, etc.

2ND OPTION IS RIGHT.

[Argus]

thanks 4 reply

I think Aegir is good with coding and he will do very good job with these respones we have a lot of time for that, so we'll fine-tune it all. aegir can encode, and i will build constructions. Otherwise, I am definitely in favor of long-term construction of buildings.

Shops as industry will come this year, I hope. I have to redraw some buildings and do some new ones

That sounds interesting, urban commercial buildings accepting various goods
You can look here for inspiration viewtopic.php?t=90619
By the way, that test file doesn't work for me.

[ebla71]

I started to draw few new buildings and today I chose some buildings from my object set. You can see it in the picture below (Stadions are made by GarryG). Some of them will be edited (size, colours ...). First I'm gonna draw buildings, later I'll add snow covers and in the end construction processes will be created, what seems to me to be the most difficult phase.

I will be happy for reasonable comments on the graphics. So far I use flat roofs, with the curved ones it's a bit difficult and I may need help.

This is a very nice collection, congratulations for the large amount of work that you put into it.

For my taste, who likes to play very early games, starting with the first larger steam locomotives in the 1860 or 1870, much too modern though, clearly lacking buildings from the late 19th century to approx. 1950-1960, before glass and concrete started to dominate.

This is, however, a matter of personal taste and what you want to focus on.

What I would definitely suggest to kick out, though, it the sport stadiums - at only 2x2 tiles, they are absolutely "dwarfed" by the other buildings and look like a "miniature world" version. To me, totally disrupt the "look-and-feel" of the set since dimensions just do not match. See attached picture of a football stadium built with GarryG's Auz Sport Objects V3 set which takes 8x7 tiles (and is, btw, modelled after the real stadium of FC St. Pauli - the only real Hamburg football club )

[Aegir]

Hello everyone,

I haven't had the chance to properly read through everything but I did notice that Fridaemon uploaded an old version of the set, part way through the coding I realized I was backing myself into a corner with the approach I was taking, and by swapping everything over to NML I was able to basically springboard straight off of Fridaemons object set. This allowed me to much more rapidly iterate on things.

I've been experimenting in re_fabs2 with special logic such as parking garages that spawn near apartment blocks, special clustering rules for shops and light commercial precincts, and likewise for warehouses. Grow a city and watch it, you'll see warehouses pop up with truck parking lots clustering around them. Eventually I want more thematically appropriate sprites for these areas, and special logic for delivering cargo to preserve or boost growth for them. I would like for instance car parking lots by commercial areas, and such, but Fridaemon and I got busy with other projects for the last three months (road stops )

I do have a github repo for this project, though it isn't currently set to public until I can clean a few things up, here is however the most recent compile that I've done that is on the repo. It'll be at https://github.com/reldred/re_fabs2/ when it's ready.

"But Aegir, you idiot, you moron, you're not disabling default buildings? No. I did once upon a time make a .grf specifically for disabling default buildings, but I often run this directly alongside Hale, or ITL, or ITL with Hale loaded over the top. I also run this quite often alongside JPSet buildings, and depending on the scenario I sometimes run it alongside Swedish House set. Fridaemon and I are both really big fans of mixing house sets. If you check my Github https://github.com/reldred you'll also find other niche building sets I'm experimenting with such as Pineapple houses for the true Australian experience, and a bunch of andythenorth's mediterranean buildings. The latter looks really good with ITL in Tropic starts.

"Aegir, you absolute dullard, you haven't named any of the buildings, and the stats are all over the place" Yes. This is a test version. My primary focus for development is breadth, getting all of Fridaemons relevant objects coded as buildings, then going through and adding intelligent spawning logic. Once things settle down in that regard I'm going to sort out naming, and sort out building stats. I also have interest in special goods acceptance for special building/precinct types, for instance spawning or protecting light industrial buildings where goods or other possible cargo types are delivered. There has also been some discussion amongst us of turning special building types into industries but that gets messy with compatibility.

WARNING none of these builds until they go up on Bananas are going to be safe for long running save games! You have been warned!!!

Screenshot 2023-04-17 200202.png (1007.36 KiB) Viewed 11677 times

[Argus]

My normal game always contains at least three sets of buildings + ITL.

[SkiddLow]

FABS still under development, but i hopefully this NewGRF building set soon to be alive in BaNaNaS if 100% fully developed.

Also, i try to use this!

[SkiddLow]

FABS still under development, but i hopefully this NewGRF building set soon to be alive in BaNaNaS if 100% fully developed.

Also, i try to use this!

screenshot#56.png (169.72 KiB) Viewed 11619 times

I tried to use FABS in Scenario editor (on OpenTTD JGRPP), first time. Previously version (still under development) did not run and did not appear at the time

[fridaemon]

This is a very nice collection, congratulations for the large amount of work that you put into it.

Thank you

For my taste, who likes to play very early games, starting with the first larger steam locomotives in the 1860 or 1870, much too modern though, clearly lacking buildings from the late 19th century to approx. 1950-1960, before glass and concrete started to dominate.

I don't count with buildings for early years... I started draw buildings as building set that will complement the Japan Building Set and Swedish Houses. In the end it can be used as a single set but will bring buildings in the 1950s(1940) and up. On the contrary, I would also like to focus on futuristic buildings for the years 2050 and above. Somethin like this , this or this, etc. And I have to redraw some of my buildings for which I am very ashamed

What I would definitely suggest to kick out, though, it the sport stadiums - at only 2x2 tiles, they are absolutely "dwarfed" by the other buildings and look like a "miniature world" version.

You're right, I don't want them in game too. There's not a uniform scale, but it does not fit in with the surrounding buildings.

FABS still under development, but i hopefully this NewGRF building set soon to be alive in BaNaNaS if 100% fully developed.

I believe that before winter there will be first public version. I blocked it with works on Road Stops and Waypoints and Fridaemons Objects before.

... warehouses. Grow a city and watch it, you'll see warehouses pop up with truck parking lots clustering around them.

In meanwhile sometimes I have time to play game too What bothered me were the warehouses in small cities. It doesn't good well in towns under 10 000. There were a million pneuservises as well, but the mistake is that I didn't draw anything else We will discuss that privately

Fridaemon and I are both really big fans of mixing house sets.

Yes, we are I love diversity and lots of variation

[Argus]

The stadiums really look weird.
If you don't count with buildings from the early years, this set of buildings will always have to be supplemented with more, otherwise no city will be built during generation, as with Polish buildings. But that doesn't matter, it's just worth noting