BrickED - 3D Sprite Editor - b645 RELEASED!

[uzurpator]

Hello everybody.

I would like to present to you the fruits of my evening labour for the last few months—a 3D editor for easy sprites generation for games like OTTD.

bricked_editor.png (185.95 KiB) Viewed 851 times

It is currently in the alpha stage but is quite functional. I’m in the last stages of preparing it for release to the community. Transport Tycoon for now and then maybe for SimuTrans and other games - depending on reception. It is going to be, obviously, freeware.

The original trigger for making it was me learning to use Vulkan, as I foresee I’ll need to use it at work at some point.

The basic idea is that one builds a model in 3d space by stacking bricks of a variety of shapes and sizes. Once done - one can generate between 1 to 360 sprites - views of the model generated and use them in the game. Lightning is done automatically.

It is palette-based and supports any palette of 255 hues, 256 colors each - so a total of 65000 with change of colors ( from a full 16M ). OTTD palette is the base one. Sprites may be in base size, or in 2x, 3x, or vice-versa - half or even of lesser size.

bricked_showcase.png (13.7 KiB) Viewed 852 times

DOWNLOAD: BrickED b645
Release Notes:
1. Various bugfixes, which are not visible to the user, but allow further expansion of the project
2. Sprite size info is now saved to the model file


DOWNLOAD: BrickED b622
Release Notes:
1. Added a possibility to press 'Del' key to erase selection.
2. Added a possibility to press 'Esc' to stop current operation ( like paint, place brick, etc )
3. Added focused brighten / darken brush
4. You can now drag the model view when placing bricks
5. Added an arrow showing the direction of light
6. Fixed an issue with light direction being erratic at extreme camera angles
7. Updated 'paris-edited' sample
8. Sprite generation window now remembers some values on subsequent openings

DOWNLOAD: BrickED b604
Release Notes:
1. Added the ability to paint bricks by drag.
2. Added the ability to erase bricks by drag.
3. Added the ability to select multiple bricks by drag.
4. Tuned lightning a little to increase contrast.
5. Added the ability to create an 'user.txt' config file.
6. Vastly improved camera controls when working on wide/tall models

DOWNLOAD: BrickED b596
Release Notes: Initial release

It requires windows 10/11 machine and Vulkan support.

[luxtram]

Very cool! And I think it's the right place to post it.

Is it for vehicles only or it can also do houses?


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PS. I use GPL instead. For good reasons.

[uzurpator]

Anything really. Some things more than other, I guess. Land tiles might prove difficult to get right. But buildings are going to be fairly straightforward.

[luxtram]

Anything really. Some things more than other, I guess. Land tiles might prove difficult to get right. But buildings are going to be fairly straightforward.

Cool. So let us know when it's release ready.

[WolfRamXx]

Ooo, this sounds interesting. I tried different programs for making sprites but so far always found it easier to make them by hand. I hope the development goes well so i can try this one.

[uzurpator]

A little update - I worked on the weekend on bugfixes and on the lightning setup window.
I also recreated the Ginzu A4 sprite from OpenGFX in BrickED.

ginzu.PNG

(245.4 KiB) Not downloaded yet

EDIT: And the sprite rendered in TT scale, without shortening.

rendered.png (9.1 KiB) Viewed 2447 times

[Mrsunman]

A little update - I worked on the weekend on bugfixes and on the lightning setup window.
I also recreated the Ginzu A4 sprite from OpenGFX in BrickED.

ginzu.PNG

EDIT: And the sprite rendered in TT scale, without shortening.

rendered.png

I do wonder, can BrickED be used on any model, or does it require a size, a model type or such? I do see how this could be used to translate 3D models of buildings into TTD scale buildings, which interests me . Keep up the great work!

[luxtram]

Could you, as an exercise do something like this?

Paris Sample.png (2.51 KiB) Viewed 2386 times

[luxtram]

I do wonder, can BrickED be used on any model, or does it require a size, a model type or such? I do see how this could be used to translate 3D models of buildings into TTD scale buildings, which interests me . Keep up the great work!

If you already have a model then doesn't it make more sense to use a 3D renderer for this directly?

[Mrsunman]

I do wonder, can BrickED be used on any model, or does it require a size, a model type or such? I do see how this could be used to translate 3D models of buildings into TTD scale buildings, which interests me . Keep up the great work!

If you already have a model then doesn't it make more sense to use a 3D renderer for this directly?

I guess, but it'd be neat to play around with

[uzurpator]

I do wonder, can BrickED be used on any model, or does it require a size, a model type or such?

It can load *.png files and treat them as source of voxels. But can't just load any model, or even a subset of them.

Could you, as an exercise do something like this?

I'll look into it over the weekend

[uzurpator]

Update! I added a download link for a release candidate in the first post.

[WolfRamXx]

Quickly gave it try and cant seem to be able to run it, the log complains about some "Missing validation".

Nevermind, figured it out

[uzurpator]

I think I fixed it. Updated the link in the first post.

[uzurpator]

I'm almost done with the final feature, and I'll probably make a final release sometime this week. In the meantime, I attach the user guide.

[uzurpator]

Report from a besieged city.
The Paris house turned into the editor with the layering scripts looks like this:

paris_house.PNG (100.12 KiB) Viewed 1718 times

After a few edits:

paris_house_edit.PNG (127.63 KiB) Viewed 1718 times

After rendering - obviously one side is incorrectly stretched, thus a bug to squash. But the front face of the building is pixel perfect, which wasn't really obvious thing to achieve.

house_rendered.png (4.09 KiB) Viewed 1718 times

[Mrsunman]

Report from a besieged city.
The Paris house turned into the editor with the layering scripts looks like this:
paris_house.PNG
After a few edits:
paris_house_edit.PNG
After rendering - obviously one side is incorrectly stretched, thus a bug to squash. But the front face of the building is pixel perfect, which wasn't really obvious thing to achieve.
house_rendered.png

This will be excellent for rendering tough buildings, such as those who turn, or those who have a unique and complex shape.

[Mrsunman]

did I mention it's good for buildings with multiple views too?

[uzurpator]

Work for today - I fixed the scaling issues - so here is the Paris building in multiple views. Still - only one side has been edited, the rest has been adopted from the original posted above.

Also - the sprite has been magnified 3x

paris_house.PNG (15.62 KiB) Viewed 1627 times

[uzurpator]

Some extra work done today and I'll need to add an autosave feature, because I just lost plenty of work on this Paris house. But this weekend I'll post another release candidate.

paris_0.png (2.71 KiB) Viewed 1546 times

paris_270.png (2.96 KiB) Viewed 1546 times