Simutrans Fried Chicken (SFC)

[Sarlock]

After days and days of working with trees, I wanted to do something else for a few hours, so I tried my hand at a building tonight.  So here is SFC, Simutrans Fried Chicken, a fast food restaurant coming to a city block near you.



I'd love some feedback and tips/pointers.  I've learned a lot of things working with the trees and I've applied much of what I've learned to this building.  I think I might model this same building in 3D in blender and see what it comes out with in comparison.  So far my blender trees haven't impressed me.  You can see my "best" attempt in the picture below.

I was thinking that a big sign on the roof with SFC on it might work.  I might also make it less of a box and break up the back roof line by making the building an "L" shape instead.  I'd like to create a set of one-story commercial outlets, fast food joints, etc.

[Fabio]

It's lovely.

A big sign on the roof would be great, maybe inspired to the Colonel (I'm picturing Isaac as the Colonel, hahahahaha)

The pavement in front of the corner entrance should be pavement-style, IMO.

Being a new building, I expect it to have 4 rotations.

[mEGa]

Excellent !
Could not we add in food chain ?
For example we already have a farm of chickens which supplies with some meat...

[Roads]

Sarlock the chicken place looks good!  You might try making it rectangular with a drive way around it but it is real good the way it is.

mEGa, I think the chicken idea is great!  I almost always have a chicken farm because of the fertilizer (bulk, you know), and it would be good to have somewhere to carry the chicken instead of a food factory or the little plant that requires steel.

[Markohs]

Looks pretty good!

[Sarlock]

mEGa, Roads: Great idea, I think I'll do that.  Having another urban end user for goods would be nice.  I enjoy hauling in to the middle of cities, it adds to the challenge, fun and realism.  VS's new road freight station will be useful.
If I make it for that, I might increase it to a 2x1 size and add a bit of parking and a drive-thru.

Fabio: I'll change the pavement in front of the door, good suggestion.  And I will definitely give it 4 rotations and a snow version once I finalize the front shot.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!  Next step is to put it in to blender and render it there and compare.  blender will make rotations much easier to do.

[greenling]

Sarlock
Nice building.
We Need more smaller factorys.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

Obviously not an American place - no drive through!

But seriously - looks great

[VS]

Isaac as the colonel... now that would be an insider joke

The pavement is a small detail, but very important. It's what makes the city look seamless. If the reasoning is that it's a step from other material, you should try making the height a bit more noticeable

Being a new building, I expect it to have 4 rotations.

Someone's picky But yes, this would be nice. It's possible to cheat that requirement a bit, if you make the building symmetrical (thus needing only 2 rotations). 3D helps a lot in this aspect, as you can just render all 4 views and be done with it.

Re drive-through: In America, put a cow catcher on Hummer and it's instantly drive-through for low level buildings. I've seen that in American movies, must be true (Also - in Soviet Russia, restaurant drives through you?)

[Sarlock]

This one's for you, Colonel, king of the Simutrans Fried Chicken empire:



It's not done yet, but I had such a good chuckle that I had to share it at this halfway stage.  If you don't like your portrait, let me know... but it's so blurry you can barely make it out on the sign anyhow

Putting the words on the bucket on the roof was interesting as I had to learn UV mapping.  It's one of the many blender adventures that has made me lose some of my brain cells...

[IgorEliezer]

*giggles*

Isaac was promoted from Benevolent Dictator to SFC Colonel.

[Sarlock]

Mostly finished SFC outlet.  I need to do a bit of post-blender editing in GIMP to clean up the edges a bit, it's a bit "fuzzy" but I will only do that once I am happy with the final design.  I want to see if I can get the letters "SFC" to be clear on the bucket on the roof.

Some final editing and I'll work on a parking lot beside it and make it into a factory for end-user chicken consumption.  VS's road freight depot will be useful for this type of urban delivery.

[Markohs]

aaahahahahahaah nice job!!! XD

What's with the X-theater on the west?

[mEGa]

Very good joke and nice work.
I improved colonel's face in the file (been enhanced contrast and sharpness with Gimp).
What do you mean about it ?

Note :
don't forget the night light. What part of SFC logo you wish enlighten ?
We can also create a light line along walls.

[Roads]

It is extraordinary!  Sarlock if you and mEGa worked together on this, y'all make a helluva team!

My little Simus are already lining up to buy chicken!

[Sarlock]

Thank you, mEGa, that looks great!  I'll cut that out and keep that so that I can paste it back when I re-render the image.

I hadn't thought about the night lights much yet until I had finished the building, but I was going to do the windows and the logo, depending on whether the available color selections work (our choices are limited!).  A light line along the walls would look nice as well!

I am just working on the back side of the building right now, adding a couple of doors, garbage bin, etc, and then will create the parking lot and complete the 1x2 factory.

The vents and AC units on the roof need a bit more definition, they came out a bit blurry in the render.  I might just use the ones I made from the original SFC building that I hand-drew.

[Fabio]

The SFC logo can use red light

[greenling]

Those Building are very cool.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

ROFL

Oh, man... that's... that's great. That is HILARIOUS.

[Sarlock]

I've done a bunch of work on the back of the building.  I discovered that I get a crisper image (but less anti-aliased) in blender if I do a 1280x1280 image and then zoom it out and then take a screenshot of the result rather than render at 128x128.  Take a look:

Image using zoom and screenshot:

Image using 128x128 render:

What do you think?

[Lmallet]

The arrow by the window, that would be for a British drive-"through"?

PS:  I like the colonel!

[Sarlock]

Haha, yes, you saw that... I was going to put the drive-thru on the other side but I liked it more on that side... so right handed drivers are going to have to lean way over to get their bucket of fried chicken from the colonel...

[greenling]

Woh!
that it very cool.

[sdog]

mentioned on simutrans g+ site:
https://plus.google.com/115377746519459832106/posts/hUY3bRLYJye

[Sarlock]

Thanks for the mention, sdog

Alright, I think I'm pretty close to the final version for the first SFC building (1x2 factory, actually).  I'm pretty happy with the 3D render, so I did some post-render pixel work to come up with a near finished product.

I wasn't sure which way to go with the pavement, I went with a dark asphalt and also the res/com sidewalk texture.





Is it preferable to use the standard texture?

Also, I chose to use the more "pixelated" version of the render rather than the smoothed anti-aliased version.  I think it fits a bit better into pak128 when the lines are a bit more defined rather than everything all smoothed (or even washed) out.

Input wanted!  Then I can make the final few changes, make the 4 rotations and snow versions and make this a final release.

[VS]

For the parking area, I would choose asphalt similar to that of city roads - not so BLACK IN YOUR FACE That's all...

BTW, this is nice, I hoped for some simpler chains that the existing 4-level monsters! There is no way to guarantee that it will require only chicken, though. The goods type is meat, so sheep and cows might get accidentally into the kitchen, too

[Sarlock]

Done!



Thank goodness for layers.

That's the asphalt texture from the city roads.

And now I'm going to bed.

[mEGa]

The result is really promising ! Fine. 

[sdog]

BTW, this is nice, I hoped for some simpler chains that the existing 4-level monsters! There is no way to guarantee that it will require only chicken, though. The goods type is meat, so sheep and cows might get accidentally into the kitchen, too

To simplify it the chicken are brought there directly from the farm :-P

[greenling]

Sarlock
It Those Building for Leftdrived Cars?

[Sarlock]

Haha, yes, I figured I'd make the Brits in the room happy.  It just looked nicer doing the drive thru on that side.  I tried on the opposide side but I liked it more over there.  I'm sure everyone can overlook that very minor technicality 

I could remove the arrow on the wall to make it a bit more ambiguous.

[Fabio]

The arrow could be simply inverted, i.e. entering from east, with the delivery window conveniently on the left side of the car.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

Or two arrows pointing at each other, ensuring lots of crashes and money for local repair shops.

[Sarlock]

I removed the arrow completely and put a sign at the entrance on the right... now you can enter driving on the left or the right and the drive thru works   Both sides can be happy!



Any further thoughts or comments?  I'll produce the 4 rotations and snow versions if we're happy with this.

[mEGa]

For me it's okay. Don't change anything. Excellent.

[Markohs]

You didnt include Isaac's face at the end?

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

Markohs: four rotations

[Sarlock]

Yes, he's on the front of the building
I'm showing the back rotation because it's the best view to see the entire parking lot and other things I've added to the back of the building.

I think I'll use a smaller version of car for the props so that they are to scale with the building.  I might even try and render some in 3D and see how they look (it'll make the rotations easier).  Then 4 rotations, do the post-render editing, add 4 snow rotations and our end-user chicken factory is ready to go.  If some of the franchise owners try and cut costs and include other meat, well... the patrons probably won't notice the difference

[Sarlock]

It's back... more chicken... more fried yumminess... it's time for Simutrans Fried Chicken!

I've made some changes here and there and produced the 4 rotations.  It took a bit of post-blender processing time, so I'm hoping that these are the final versions.  (then I'll add snow, which should be fairly easy for this building)

Have a good look and see if you can see anything strange that I may have missed.  I've done a lot of blender today and I've gone a little cross-eyed.   






[Edit]

And I will add night lighting

[Fabio]

Awesome!

Note: Could you just anti-alias the yellow parking stripes?

[Sarlock]

You bet, easy to do... they didn't come out of blender very nice so I had to fix them and I think I "fixed" them a little too much... easy to do

[greenling]

The Simutrans Fried Chicken building looks very great out.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

My wife and I were tired after working an event at her school, so we happened to stop at KFC. Very timely.

[Sarlock]

How timely indeed!

Put this in your game and "wow" her...

http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons-wip/simutrans_fried_chicken.pak


This is a test model.  Single rotation, no snow, no night lights yet.  I added a special feature.

Here is the .dat file:

http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons-wip/simutrans_fried_chicken.dat

.png:

http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons-wip/simutrans_fried_chicken.png

As I am unfamiliar with balancing and play testing factories, could someone be kind enough to see if I've set my numbers anywhere near what they should be?  Also, map color... do we have a convention/system that we follow for that?

I figured being an urban "factory" that having an electricity boost wasn't necessary.  We can assume it would already be plugged in to the grid and its base numbers would already include the electrical bonus.

[mEGa]

Here is the .dat file:

I'll test it soon

As I am unfamiliar with balancing and play testing factories, could someone be kind enough to see if I've set my numbers anywhere near what they should be?  Also, map color... do we have a convention/system that we follow for that?

an example to begin :

Code Select Expand

Location=City
intro_year=1980
intro_month=1
retire_year=2050
retire_month=12
DistributionWeight=1
Productivity=300
Range=200
pax_level=5
InputGood[0]=chicken
InputFactor[0]=30
InputCapacity[0]=200
InputSupplier[0]=0

I really don't know when real enterprise is created in USA. I wrote 1970... 
With "300" for productivity and "200" for InputCapacity, the flow of good will be rather important as reality (many chickens are consumed ?)

I figured being an urban "factory" that having an electricity boost wasn't necessary.  We can assume it would already be plugged in to the grid and its base numbers would already include the electrical bonus.

I agree.

EDIT :
Oups I forgot :
Congrats Sarlock (Last SMSC result)

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

A little informal research (so no links) and I suggest 1960-1970 as a start time. 1960s saw drive-through restaurants taking off; 1970 saw *branded* ones taking off, i.e. McDonald's and others started to get big around the latter time; a lot of no-name and big-names-that-weren't-bit-yet closer to 1960... so depends on which way you want to do it.

[Sarlock]

I've put 1978 in the .dat and .pak that I provided... it's a somewhat "modern" store design I used, so I figured 1978 would work fine.  Easily changed, of course.

This is what I've used to start:

Code Select Expand

Obj=factory
name=SimutransFriedChicken
Location=City
copyright=Sarlock

DistributionWeight=4
Productivity=200
Range=140

Electricity_amount=0
Electricity_boost=0
Mail_demand=10
Mail_boost=0
Passenger_demand=40
Passenger_boost=0

InputGood[0]=meat
InputCapacity[0]=400
InputSupplier[0]=0

MapColor=140

Passengers=25
intro_year=1978
chance=100
dims=1,2,1

Not sure about color, range and whether capacity and passenger/mail counts are appropriate.

[Vladki]

Nice fast food Thanks.

Not sure about color, range and whether capacity and passenger/mail counts are appropriate.

Meat consumption - just decide, how many SFCs should be supplied by one chicken farm? Or vice versa? How many farms are needed to supply one SFC? I have no idea of the amount of meat eaten there, but I think one big farm should feed a few SFCs so just look at chickenfarm.dat and divide the production by 2-5.

Capacity - should be big enough to allow for smooth delivery of goods. It should provide supply for the same time as the train/truck makes the round trip to the supplier. Start with the same number as consumption and play a while. Try to oversupply the SFC. When it is over its capacity, chicken farm will stop supplying meat. All trucks/trains will be waiting at chicken farm until the input capacity goes below limit. If the SFC storage gets empty before the first convoy delivers meat, then increase the input capacity accordingly.
However, this sort of industry should have as small input storage as possible. No one wants to eat old meat. JIT delivery is important.

[Sarlock]

Lots of playing with the SFC today to try and balance out the settings.  Here's what I have now:

Code Select Expand

Obj=factory
name=SimutransFriedChicken
Location=City
copyright=Sarlock

DistributionWeight=4
Productivity=30
Range=20

Electricity_amount=0
Electricity_boost=0
Mail_demand=10
Mail_boost=0
Passenger_demand=50
Passenger_boost=1500

InputGood[0]=meat
InputCapacity[0]=40
InputSupplier[0]=0

MapColor=140

Passengers=25
intro_year=1978
chance=100
dims=1,2,1

It balances out around 2-4 SFC's per chicken farm, depending on the variability of production rates.  I've put in a 150% passenger boost for the SFC.  No passengers, not much chicken eaten...

New .pak file:

http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons-wip/simutrans_fried_chicken.pak

I'll get to work on other rotations, snow and lights.

Question about animations: Does it store a complete image for every step of the animation or only the sections of the image that change?  It'll help me decide whether to do animations for the other 3 rotations or not.

[Fabio]

It should store a complete image. But you could put the animation in the front image, so only that one would change.

[greenling]

Sarlock
in the pngfiles that you on
http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons-wip/simutrans_fried_chicken.png
uploaded have give a bug!
It give only on Building on it.

[Isaac_Clarke]

This addon is excellent because  my citizens were tired of eating only canned food :/ It will change their gastronomic culture Congratulations Sarlock! Hope to see more addons in the future

[Sarlock]

Sarlock
in the pngfiles that you on
http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons-wip/simutrans_fried_chicken.png
uploaded have give a bug!
It give only on Building on it.

Greenling, it only has one rotation in it.  That has 9 images for the animation sequence (the chicken bucket rotates).
I'll include the other rotations and snow soon, just wanted to test the factory settings to strike a decent balance.
I'll put the bucket rotation on FrontImage.  Still deciding whether to animate the other 3 rotations or just the front one.  4 rotations+snow=8 x 9=72 images if I do animations for all.  (yike!)

And Isaac... many more addons to come... I'm just getting warmed up 

[Fabio]

Sarlock, the rotating bucket is the one on top of the building, right? isn't it identical in the 4 variations?
You don't need more rotations if it's in front image. Just reuse the same animation frames applying an XY offset for the other views in the dat file.

[greenling]

Ah.
why have you that not said early.

[Sarlock]

Fabio, the shadow moves behind the bucket, so I don't think I can borrow the same animation sequence for each rotation, I'd have to make new sequences each time.  If I remove the shadow, I could probably do it with using the same images.  I'll test to see if it looks okay with the shadow missing.

Greenling, I said above that it was just a test model, single rotation, no snow, no night lights.  You probably just missed it

[Sarlock]

After much trial and error, I finally got it to work with a FrontImage using the same 8 tile animation sequence for all 4 rotations.  I made the shadow static and the small amount of swivel of the bucket wasn't enough to make it noticeable on the lack of shadow movement.  It took a LONG time to get all 8 animations to line up properly!  Not only did the bucket rotate around a centre point at the bottom but it is also tilted on its axis of rotation so it swivels around in an arc at the top (it wobbles).  Very tricky!  But I think I've mostly got it now, I can't see any big errors with the animation sequence.

PAK FILE

http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons-wip/simutrans_fried_chicken.pak

DAT and PNG FILE:

http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons-wip/simutrans_fried_chicken.png
http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons-wip/simutrans_fried_chicken.dat

Let me know if you find any errors that I've overlooked.  I'm going to work on night colours and snow.

[greenling]

Sarlock
That it a very good work.

[grampybear]

This is a wonderful urban addition, but, Simu's do not live on meat alone. Perhaps for you next release you could add milk ( for the young ) and beer for us older folks.

[Sarlock]

Winter version of SFC finished, version 1.0:



This took quite a while to do (4 rotations x 2 tiles each = 8 tiles).  I am going to work on adding the snow to my renders in future and see if I can make it work (it would save a ton of time!).

Thoughts/comments?  Anything look really odd or doesn't make sense?  Oh, and ignore the roof part, that's where the bucket rotates, so it's just half a shadow needed on the right side.

I used a better 3D render for these images based on the feedback from some other render test subjects.  The lines are more "crisper" and less blurred than previous renders.  I think it fits better with the pak128 style using this render method.

I didn't put any snow on the red awnings because it just didn't look right.

[VS]

Beautiful!

[The Hood]

This building is so funny I'd love to adapt it for inclusion in pak128.Britain. Would you mind sending me the blender file so I can render it using pak128.Britain settings?

[Sarlock]

You bet, once I think this building is in its final incarnation (which I think it is) I'll link the .blend file here and you can go to work adapting it for pak128.Britain

[mEGa]

I definitively vote for it. Excellent !

[Fabio]

Very, very nice! 

[Sarlock]

And one final step... night lights!

Windows, easy... but I was having some trouble doing anything meaningful with the sign on the front... there isn't enough night light colours available to be able to do much with it without ruining the image.

I put a red light on the SFC bucket on the roof, seems to look good at night and still fine during the day.

I also experimented with red lights running under the windows, but I'm not sure if I like it.

Let me know what you think.



Compare red lights under window and on sign vs. winter picture:


With the final decision on the night lights, that will complete the SFC project for full release.

[EDIT]
Changed daytime pictures to have sharper resolution rendering like the snow ones had.  I like that style of 3D render better for Simutrans, it's a bit "crisper" of an image (less blurry).

[mEGa]

I like idea of colonel's sign neon... But in fact, at present, it is not very fine than enlightened version. May be 2 suggestions :
1. apply  twinkling effect (you can easily because neon is only in one picture)
or
2. Mark outline of the colonel's face with night color (grey values) : outline of glasses,   outline of beard.

Well, rest is really good IMHO. Oner more time : gorgeous !

EDIT :
I tested first suggestion... Finally, it is rather difficult as you can see on joined file

[Fabio]

My God! THe colonel's face in the last pics just looks diabolic! The concept is good, but it's definitely scary!

It's probably just the eyes: maybe the glasses in night color but the lenses (and hence the eyes) in normal color would make him more benevolent...

[mEGa]

My God! THe colonel's face in the last pics just looks diabolic! The concept is good, but it's definitely scary!

Colonel lives near nuclear plant ! :-)
I admit it was just a fast test. I ask me first suggestion will be better. Just make twinkling red light...

EDIT : I tested with mixed suggestions (neon sign with animation).


See joined file for source with grey colors values.

[Fabio]

This Colonel is much more benevolent!
I like it!

[sdog]

Don't forget, it's not the colonel, it's the benevolent dictator.

i think the large flashing image would annoy me when playing.

[Sarlock]

Beware!  Big Brother is watching!  Haha!

Not sure, I think sdog might be right, the blinking might be a bit much.  Then again, how often do people play at night?

My available animation sequence is 8 tiles long since I already have the bucket as FrontImage, so I could do an 8 sequence light show with the colonel for no extra image requirements... what to do, though... hmm!

Do the red lights under the window sill look okay or should I not put them there?

[greenling]

The Flashing neon do i not like.

[VS]

Guys... guys...

This is GREAT

[Sarlock]

Hmmm... major challenges.  I've decided I don't like the red lights under the windows, they are too bright on the dark side of the building during the daylight.

Realized that I can't do an 8-stage animation for the front colonel because the bucket is used for all 4 rotations, not just the front one... unless I want to add 8 more images just to add the colonel animation which I don't think I want to do (I don't want to make this building have 32 images, it already has 24 which is enough).

The problem with the blinking sequence is that it will also be visible during the day which is not my ideal situation.

Maybe it's best kept dark until if/when the day ever arises that we have customizable night colours available, then something customized can be done with those specific colours.  Maybe I'll just add some LED-like lights around the edge of the colonel and leave it at that.  I'll play with it some more and see what happens. 

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

I don't know how I feel about the animation... but I can say with certainty that people don't want me flashing them! (For non-native English speakers, "flashing" can refer to exposing one's parts that shouldn't be exposed for the shock value).

That aside... I dunno- the animation was neat, but it didn't flicker like neon does... don't think it's possible to get it "right".

Maybe the restaurant doesn't stay open late for dinner.

But I'll be interested to see the results of the LED experiment, too.

[mEGa]

Well... thanks for your feedbacks.
What we can say this test makes a lot react ! 
Experiment remains... an experimentation !. I agree with most of the "negative" reactions. The neon sign is slightly too screamy.
Note : timeline period was 500 ms per picture.

but I can say with certainty that people don't want me flashing them! (For non-native English speakers, "flashing" can refer to exposing one's parts that shouldn't be exposed for the shock value)

Don't worry, I admit you that it was very (too) ambitious. My apologizes for this nightmare 

Maybe the restaurant doesn't stay open late for dinner.

Good notice. it's solution to explain no neon sign at night.

Sarlock you are going well. LEDs only outline can show better results.

[VS]

Hmm... what should I do with this, now? There's nothing to commit yet, it seems... Or is this not finished?

* VS wanders away mindlessly again

[Sarlock]

Sorry, not quite done yet, just want to work on the animation.

I'll be back in a few days and will be making that my first task

[Sarlock]

I've been working with the lighting for hours and I just can't find something I'm happy with.  The other challenge is that I already have a 8 stage animation for this building for the bucket, so any light animation has to align with that and then requires me to write an additional 8 animations for the front of the building where the sign is.  Besides the fact that I couldn't find a design that looked nice it also wasn't worth adding another 8 images to the .pak.  So, in the end, I've forgone the sign lighting and other lights and have just gone with windows and menu drive-in signs for lights.

Therefore, without further ado, I present to you the final version of the Simutrans Fried Chicken outlet:



URLs:

http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons/simutrans_fried_chicken.png
http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons/simutrans_fried_chicken.dat
http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons/simutrans_fried_chicken.pak

Barring any errors found, it's ready to be committed to the pak. 

[Vladki]

There is a small bug in rotations - rotation 1 and 3 should be swapped.

[VS]

In r1044, fixing the rotation bug as well.

[Sarlock]

Excellent, thanks for doing that VS... I was just logging in to make that change myself.  You beat me to it
Off to work on trees instead then...

[The Hood]

Any chance of a blend file for modification to pak128.Britain?

[Sarlock]

Absolutely:

http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons/sfc.blend

If you have any questions, let me know

[The Hood]

Just trying to edit this blend file and rather oddly the mesh doesn't have any faces so it doesn't render. Have you got an up to date version?

[Zeno]

Works for me with 2.64. Faces and render are ok.
Which blender version are you running, The Hood?

[Sarlock]

It's made with version 2.63... works fine for me.

[The Hood]

Aha - 2.56. Just downloading 2.64...

OK - got the file working, but there are a number of texture files missing - could you post those please?

[Zeno]

You can pack those textures "inside" the blender file. Just click the "present" icon in the image (UV) screen

[Sarlock]

Re-uploaded with textures attached... hopefully it works now

http://www.elvenorder.com/simutrans/addons/sfc.blend

[wlindley]

Looking at your dat file, I realized the x-offset and y-offset parameters to BackImage / FrontImage were not documented.  I updated that.

[Sarlock]

Thanks for adding that information to the wiki, that was on my "to do" list