Shading

[wallyweb]

While working on a project I needed a shading reference in gray. but there were no definitive examples in the NewGrf specifications.
So I had a little "too much time" on my hands and I decided to do a graphical work up.
The best example of shading seemed to be the groundtiles where shading is consistent throughout all climates in both TTD and OTTD ...
... with one exception: snowy tiles.
It seemed that the sun was a tad lower for snow.
Was this a glaring error on the part of Mr.Sawyer?
Perhaps not. Perhaps he somewhat accurately reflected the seasonal tilting of the planet.
See for yourself. I have attached a copy of my worksheet for you to use as a reference for your future projects. Do with it as you will.
The attachment is for the DOS palette, but a Windows version is available upon request.

SpriteShadingWorksheet_D.png

DOS Pallette

(143.88 KiB) Not downloaded yet

And now a little challenge for anybody who has a lot of "too much time on their hands".
Go through your Arctic climate sprites and redraw the snowy versions to reflect the somewhat lower sun in the sky.

[wallyweb]

I uploaded a revised image.
I had to adjust some of the shades to accommodate perpendicular views which are used by buildings, trains and vehicles as well as some objects.

Note that this is very subjective and any comments would be appreciated.

[andythenorth]

I spotted the 'sun comes from the top right' comment from 2004 in the examples spritesheet

That's wrong for the majority of original TTD sprites, it's a long standing myth which won't die

[wallyweb]

I spotted the 'sun comes from the top right' comment from 2004 in the examples spritesheet

That's wrong for the majority of original TTD sprites, it's a long standing myth which won't die

Thanks Andy.
Are you able to point me to a proper reference?

[andythenorth]

Are you able to point me to a proper reference?

Not really, just what the eyes can see.

The original TTD graphics are mostly shaded from about 5pm on the clock. This gives good contrast on buildings as one face is bright and the other is more shaded.

The ground tiles are from a slightly different sun angle (north facing tiles are lit), I assume because it creates quite a nice effect.

Some original TTD building roofs often have inconsistent shading direction because it looks better, or because copy-paste-flip.

Original TTD vehicles, for certain angles the shading is just arbitrary, it's just whatever makes the sprite look good.

So the most common angle is 5pm, for buildings, but there is a pleasing lack of consistency.

[wallyweb]

... but there is a pleasing lack of consistency.

That's it!!! You have just defined the reason for the everlasting success of our favourite game.

By the way, 5pm can be anywhere on Earth depending upon when and where and how high one is standing or sitting on this planet. The sky is unlimited and horizons are infinite and every day is a sunny one.