News:

Simutrans Sites
Know our official sites. Find tools and resources for Simutrans.

More city buildings

Started by Archon, February 13, 2010, 10:47:07 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Archon

Different graphics for corner and non-corner buildings was new to me. It sounds good idea and should require too much work, but I think i will make next another terraced house. First one retires 1895 (should it be lower?) and after that there is big gap between low density housing and my tenement.

The Hood

For an example of the corner-graphics, take a look at the current 1880 terrace shops in pak128.Britain and the corner-shop.  These are specified by the same dat file:

http://simutrans.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/simutrans/pak128.Britain/citybuildings/com-1880.dat?revision=249&view=markup

As for what you do next, do what you feel like.  We need so many buildings of all sizes, eras and types, it doesn't matter if you focus on one rather than another at this stage.  At some point (once planes and ships are all finished) I will start to think more seriously about citybuildings and what we need, but that won't affect things too much at this stage.

@wlindley,
We do have timber-structured old buildings over here, but the original ones tend to be less block-like than that picture.  There was also a phase in the 1930s where half-timber modern construction houses was fashionable.

Archon

Time to release this building.

http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_ShopsAndOffices_1885.pak.zip

Will make something new tomorrow hopefully.

If someone has photo of some 1890 - 1940 med density residential building I would be interested.

The Hood

Excellent!  The snow on the roof of the latest building is a little too grey for my liking though - any chance it can be whiter?  I normally add two layers of "clouds" texture in two shades of pale grey in blender and that does the trick.  Maybe something similar would work for you.

Archon

File updated with whiter snow on roof and without special colors.

kierongreen

Any chance of window frames or am I being too picky? :P

Archon

Preview of next building early stone shop.


I think it would be good idea to make similar looking terraced house for early ages and make 3 story brick one later.

Kieron: It has brick window frames.  :)

The Hood

Looking great. 

I generally think it's a very good idea to make similar looking buildings in "families".  Helps for consitency.  Can we have this shop in corner and non-corner versions as well?

wlindley

#43
Updated the 1870s offices, replacing the too-skinny tower with some better proportioned ones, and with snow for the 1970s...



zipfile with .png .dat and .pak



"Families" of buildings, yes... actually the "corner" and "non-corner" versions of a particular building are more "siblings" to each other, as opposed to the four rotations of each which are the "same" ... Archon, your lovely new stone corner shop, could have its non-corner version be a matching stone row-house, for example.  Thus the corner shop never appears mid-block, and the row-house never appears on a corner.

Mod Note: double post merged

The Hood

Good work on the tower blocks and snow images wlindley.  I think we are just missing snow images for the earlier tower blocks and warehouses now, and then the industry-chain shops/pubs. 

about the corner versions - it would be best to have a non-corner shop and a corner shop rather than a non-corner house and corner shop, so as to make sure that both corner and non-corner versions are either both residential or both commercial.  But never mind about that, as long as new graphics of this quality keep coming in, I'm not going to complain too loud!

Archon

Someone has been busy.

I will release all my buildings in one pak after I get houses for these ready and inn rendered with correct lighting.

The Hood

Those are simply awesome - your best yet!

kierongreen

I really like the design of these buildings from Archon. However as The Hood already stated they look slightly more blurry than the existing buildings. There's not much in it, and maybe it's just my eyesight, but does seem like a difference to me...

AP

#48
Quote from: Archon on February 18, 2010, 02:24:14 PM
Preview of next building early stone shop.


I think it would be good idea to make similar looking terraced house for early ages and make 3 story brick one later.

Kieron: It has brick window frames.  :)

Constructive criticism - the verge detail on the gable ends needs some shadow - there would be an overhang, it looks a bit 'flat' at the moment. Same on the eaves where the gutter would be. Just an extra row of darker pixels would improve it immensely. :)

Quote from: Archon on February 17, 2010, 06:50:19 PMIf someone has photo of some 1890 - 1940 med density residential building I would be interested.

There isn't really such a thing. Everybody was building low density suburbs after Ebenezer Howard's 1890s book advocating 'garden cities', and trying to move out of the existing high-med density accomodation, which was all pre-existing from the victorian period. The move out was income dependent, with the poorest staying in urban areas longest, and consequentially suffering most in the Blitz in 1941.

High Density Urban a la modernists came post WW2 in the reconstruction - you could set the start date earlier for concrete 50s buildings (but post 1923 - Vers Une Architecture was published then), if you hypothesise WW2 not having happened, but then again it's more likely suburban sprawl would have just persisted unchecked!

Mod Note: double post merged

wlindley

Archon: Gorgeous!  But yes seems slightly "blurry" ... a few sharp edges would solve that, methinks.

I'm busy adding snow to the 1870s commercial blocks, and have re-done them one last time, replacing my least favorite of the batch, with corner and non-corner versions of this one:


jamespetts

There are some lovely buildings here. I wonder whether anyone could turn his hand to a set of headquarters? Pak128.Britain currently uses headquarters from Pak128, which don't fit very well with the style...
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

The Hood

Pak128.Britain doesn't currently use any headquarters...
Given they don't add anything to gameplay, I don't really think they are a priority, but of course anyone is welcome to have a go.  HQs should probably be 2x2.

AP

I wonder, could the HQ building be a much bigger building? Because, then, we could make it as the "locomotive works", like the GWR at Swindon / LSWR at Eastleigh, etc - then it would have a purpose. Maybe it could be a 3x6 building or something suitably large? With a turntable and suchlike.

It could start out some sheds and a lot of fields, and grow over time as expansions are paid for...

If someone is clever with code, perhaps it could confer a 'loyalty bonus' on the company with respect to inhabitants of the town it's located in? Or function as a passenger-or-material-demanding industry in its own right? Could it demand Steel say?

I suppose the trick is to make it not railway-specific... maybe big office building is best after all?

Just thinking creatively... don't mind me!  ;D

Archon

#53
It took longer than expected but now they are ready.

Packed all my buildings in one file.

http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/A_Buildings.pak.zip


The Hood

Any chance of the source files?

Dwachs

Headquarter produce passengers. And they can be larger than 1x1. Pak64 has 2x2 headquarters.
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and maggikraut.

wlindley

1850s warehouses with snow: zipfile with pak and sources

Still to come, final 1870 offices with snow.

Archon

Sources are in that file (it is actually .pak.zip).

The Hood

@Archon,

Thanks - I had to rename as .zip and it was OK.

@Dwachs,
Thanks for the clarification.  Even so, less of a priority than citybuilding variety / planes / ships for now.  If anyone does want a go, I think 2x2 office type structures are the way forward, several different levels of design.  Unfortunately AP's suggestion doesn't reflect the way the game deals with it.

wlindley

Quote from: The Hood on February 19, 2010, 08:25:59 AM
AP's suggestion doesn't reflect the way the game deals with it.

As far as the game is concerned, the headquarters is just eye-candy, and produces a few passengers, right?  So why not break with the (boring) tradition of other paks and have something fun like a big railway works?  Or do I miss something here.

mobo

#60
Yeah, you might even have a HatQuarter  ;)


edit: This hat-Issue we had gave me the idea of having a building with a hat anyway. Ok it's not so suitable in this set here, i admit.

jamespetts

The headquarters are more of a status symbol than mere eye-candy: they are expensive to buy and maintain and have little function in themselves, so only the most successful companies can afford them.
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

wlindley

and, at last, the 1870s commercial buildings, zip with pak and sources. (TheHood: Anything else you need for the release?)

mobo:  how about the Henry Heath Hat Factory from London's West End?  Could it be a proper Factory, accepting Wool producing Textiles, like a small-scale city-based Textile Mill?


jamespetts

Probably best as a city industrial building (of which we need more anyway). Excellent idea, though!
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

The Hood

@wlindley - thanks for the snow images.  We still need the 1950s parking lot (currently the only citybuilding without snow) and at some stage (not necessarily for this release) the industry-chain shops you did.

wlindley

TheHood: OK, I'm on it.

Meanwhile, a little bit of noodling about with remixing photos into paks... The angles came out all wrong, and it's photo colors not game colors, but it's a work in progress.  Homage to my favorite store in London (anyone guess?)



no fair peeking at the filename.

The Hood

Hmm, I really think blender is the way to go - it ensures everything is nice and consistent if the right settings and the same textures are used.  Feel free to keep experimenting though, but I think you might spend a very long time tidying up the image into something that fits in with pak style...

wlindley

Parking lot .pak and sources with snow images, and both 1950 and 1980 eras.


The Hood

Awesome.  I'll add all of these to SVN and we're nearly there then for the next release :)

kierongreen

Small point - would it be better with white on blue for "P" sign?