Here is 3 story terraced residential building for early era 1750 - 1870 or something.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/3ST1.png)
It still needs some work. any ideas for back yards are more than welcome.
Quote from: Archon on February 13, 2010, 10:47:07 AM
any ideas for back yards are more than welcome.
trees, toilet in the eraly years, shed for rabbits and so, vegetables, a bicycle garage, a english tea-house :D ;)
Vegetable patches, definitely, they can apply to most eras. Runner beans growing up canes, that sort of thing!
Formal landscape elements (fountains, steps and terraces, lawns mown in stripes) for if you make a stone/ more upper-class house version (which these are presumably not). That never went out of fashion either.
I'd also put iron railings between the front steps, as though there's a light well behind down to a basement floor. Fairly standard design - in fact that's the whole reason for the steps out front as you've shown them. Without the basement you wouldn't need the steps!
Excellent!
Perhaps also a block of flats in the same vein? Or perhaps larger 2x1 units? I am looking at Wikipedia's comments and photos of terraced housing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraced_house).
Have you noticed the cities seem to grow "better" when higher-density housing is available...
Put some more stuff on back yards and rendered snow images.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/3ST2.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_3StoryTerraced.pak.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_3StoryTerraced.pak.zip)
That was model for this building.
http://www.eriding.net/media/photos/geography/where_I_live/beverley/060901_rfoster_mp_geo_bev_044.JPG (http://www.eriding.net/media/photos/geography/where_I_live/beverley/060901_rfoster_mp_geo_bev_044.JPG)
Thanks for ideas.
I got time to do more buildings if someone has photo.
Wlindley, simutrans doesn't yet support city buildings larger than 1 tile.
Perhaps some period tenements? Images from Future Glasgow (http://www.futureglasgow.co.uk/Index_Regeneration_Areas.html)
(http://www.futureglasgow.co.uk/East_End/Tenement.jpg)
(http://www.futureglasgow.co.uk/East_End/Derelict_tens.jpg)
And in the more modern era -- from flickr: "Erno Goldfinger designed Alexander Fleming House, now known as Metro Central Heights, Elephant and Castle, London." (http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenwood100/3325430586/in/set-72157601329022676/)
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3615/3325430586_a98ac10d10.jpg)
Might I suggest some modern high density buildings, such as:
(http://www.radiowaves.org.uk/ross/docklands.jpg)
(http://gallery.hd.org/_tn/std/places-and-sights/_more2007/_more05/England-London-Docklands-Canary-Wharf-skyscrapers-towers-including-One-Canada-Square-and-Citigroup-and-HSBC-glass-and-steel-against-cloudless-blue-sky-skies-1-DHD.jpg)
(http://www.movingspace.com/newhomes/41_millharbour/front.jpg)
Or, perhaps, this:
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/1570583609_26d0e643dd_b.jpg)
for late 19th century high-density residential?
Here is preview of next building.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/4stenament.png)
As you can see there is still plenty of work.
Anyway, it's a great work! ;)
Very impressive looking so far!
It is here now!
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/4stenament1.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_4StoryTenement.pak.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_4StoryTenement.pak.zip)
Archon,
that looks good, although two things to consider: firstly, the colour of the bricks seems a tad light; and secondly, they seem to be a different (smaller) scale to those terraced houses... But excellent to see the building variety increasing so!
What about some nice tower blocks?
Specifically something like the Swedenborg Gardens estate. I think that the slenderness of the towers means they would work fine in simutrans, and also capture the typical style of the British tower blocks, which often were rather slender. It's a sad thing they don't make them like it today. ;c
(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2233/1542664613_f9e7d15f2d.jpg)
1920 looks a lot more realistic now! Archon, could you possibly do an in-block (non-corner) variant of the tenement, to give us long rows of them?
Looking impressive so far! Really great to have a steady stream of new buildings coming on - should certainly add more variety to cities with the timeline on.
Somehow though they just don't quite look like the existing pak128.Britain style buildings though (or is this just me?), and I'm not sure why either. The colours are right, the buildings are good examples of British city buildings, and the scale is right.
They just looks a little blurred to me compared to the existing ones. Are they done in blender? If so I'd love to have a look at the blends and compare the render settings and see if I can play around with it.
Sorry to be critical - I really like them, just I'm not 100% convinced about them next to the existing buildings and I'd like to see what others think and whether we can fix it.
I tested it some more and walls indeed seem too bright. Here is picture with one rotation remade.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/4stenament2.png)
blender file can be found: http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/3storyterraced.blend (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/3storyterraced.blend) It contains both buildings.
Tenement might have little too small doors but other than that scale looks good.
My priorities are currently early buildings 1750 - 1940.
Ahh, the darker one is a definite improvement! It fits with the style much better.
good work, these would certainly give more variety to the current city buildings
new version with darker walls.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_4StoryTenement.pak.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_4StoryTenement.pak.zip)
Thanks for the blend. The models are perfect, but there are differences in the camera and lighting setup which I think explain why there are some subtle differences in image style.
I would be a lot happier if these were re-rendered using Kieron's setup (which is what everything else is rendered in). An example can be found in this zip:
http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/pak128Britain-blender-examples.zip
Use 1980-warehouse.blend as a template. The way to do it is to have the model on layer one and then use the lighting in layer 3; rotate layer 1 only and take the four renders.
The attached images give an idea of what I am talking about (although I don't have the image textures Archon used). Test1.png is Archon's original setup, Test2.png is the exact same object rendered in Kieron's existing setup - hopefully you can see the difference I am talking about.
Finally I got that lighting setup working. here is result.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/1.png)
That looks better :)
I would say now that the walls need a more obvious and darker brick texture, and the roof texture is a little odd (or is that the snow texture - if so there is no snow on chimneys/doorsteps).
It might not be a bad idea to copy one of the existing textures used. Keeping the set to a limited palette of textures gives a more consistent feel.
That said the building does look good!
Quote from: kierongreen on February 15, 2010, 01:49:01 PM
It might not be a bad idea to copy one of the existing textures used. Keeping the set to a limited palette of textures gives a more consistent feel.
Not a bad idea at all. I will upload all of the texture images used so far into a new thread this evening.
Finished version with new lighting.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/4stenament3.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_4StoryTenement.pak.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_4StoryTenement.pak.zip)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_3StoryTerraced.pak.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_3StoryTerraced.pak.zip)
Excellent! Much more consistent style now :)
Is there any way to make building types cluster in simutrans? I mean, can it check what the adjacent tiles are before placing a new building? Because, having made my demo, I quickly found that, as one might expect, in British towns it looks more normal to have rows and rows of victorian terraces, or several streets of townhouses in the centre, than to have a random mixup of them all.
No it isn't - in fact the game engine tries to avoid placing identical buildings adjacent to one another. I agree though, it would be good to create rows of terraces etc, maybe someone could write a patch that enabled that?
Wasn't this an extension request about 6 months ago...?
Next building getting ready.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/s&o.png)
there are still more work but I would like to hear your opinion.
Also pub (industry one) is missing needs_ground=1.
Nice. I think the brick texture is too smooth - any chance you could make it more coarse so that it looks more obviously brick like (probably use one of the textures I uploaded the other day).
Some more work on it + texture on walls.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/s&o1.png)
Nice :)
Another thought: For your tenement and this graphic, it would be nice if you could have both corner buildings and non-corner buildings. You can then use these together to with dims=1,1,8 to get corner buildings always on corners and non-corners elsewhere. Does that make sense?
Ah! I updated the wiki (http://en.wiki.simutrans.com/index.php?title=Building_dat) to explain that you can have eight building directions. This makes me think perhaps I could redo some of the high street shops as well.
p.s., I can't remember where the explanation of what "north" is for the .dat definitions -- is 0=north? That needs to be in the wiki as well. It does bother a little that the directions increase anti-clockwise.
p.p.s., Archon: This building is in Washington State USA but perhaps a half-timbered structure like it could be a larger 1600s British city residence building, consistent with the existing house drawings?
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_b1X3QY0jHNs/R8NpdN9OGJI/AAAAAAAAAaw/TidfKFpxULs/s400/d20080225-004f.jpg)
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.
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.
Time to release this building.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/s&o2.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.A_ShopsAndOffices_1885.pak.zip (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.
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.
File updated with whiter snow on roof and without special colors.
Any chance of window frames or am I being too picky? :P
Preview of next building early stone shop.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/stoneshops.png)
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. :)
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?
Updated the 1870s offices, replacing the too-skinny tower with some better proportioned ones, and with snow for the 1970s...
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/1870-offices.png)
zipfile with .png .dat and .pak (http://www.wlindley.com/images/com-1870.zip)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/70%27s-office-snow.png)
"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
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!
Someone has been busy.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/stoneshops1.png)
I will release all my buildings in one pak after I get houses for these ready and inn rendered with correct lighting.
Those are simply awesome - your best yet!
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...
Quote from: Archon on February 18, 2010, 02:24:14 PM
Preview of next building early stone shop.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/stoneshops.png)
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
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:
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/towerblock-variations.png)
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...
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.
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
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 (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/A_Buildings.pak)
Any chance of the source files?
Headquarter produce passengers. And they can be larger than 1x1. Pak64 has 2x2 headquarters.
1850s warehouses with snow: zipfile with pak and sources (http://www.wlindley.com/images/ind-1850.zip)
Still to come, final 1870 offices with snow.
Sources are in that file (it is actually .pak.zip).
@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.
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.
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.
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.
and, at last, the 1870s commercial buildings, zip with pak and sources (http://www.wlindley.com/images/com-1870.zip). (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?
(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/218/503281191_fe68975a77.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianoak/503281191/)
Probably best as a city industrial building (of which we need more anyway). Excellent idea, though!
@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.
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?)
(http://wlindley.com/images/fortnums-example.png)
no fair peeking at the filename.
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...
Parking lot .pak and sources (http://www.wlindley.com/images/ind50.zip) with snow images, and both 1950 and 1980 eras.
(http://wlindley.com/images/parkings.png)
Awesome. I'll add all of these to SVN and we're nearly there then for the next release :)
Small point - would it be better with white on blue for "P" sign?
The problem with using photographs is that it is very difficult to get consistent lighting with the rest of the buildings in the pakset.
This is what I made today. Coaching inn 1750 - 1880 level8.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/CInn1.png)
Give your honest opinion.
Car park -- I made the red P as a neon sign. I would consider changing to white for the 1980s version, though.
James -- As to lighting, more like "impossible" ... photos are best used, I am quickly discovering, as "trace-over inspiration" for rendered or drawn images.
Archon -- Another winner! Although perhaps with no stone pavement in the rear ... What do you think of an early level-1 stone cottage, or perhaps something with a thatched roof? For the village look.
Very nice!
Two things I noticed:
.. the contrast between doorway and walls is too low in the bottom image
.. there is not door on the backside of the house (the doorway only lead in the house but not in the yard)
Very nice. I would agree with Dwachs's comments though. Also, as with all corner buildings, it would be great to do non-corner versions too as with your stone terrace houses.
@Wlindley
I find photos/drawings are best used in blender if you can get the orthographic views and "trace" over them with the objects. That's how I did most of the trains I drew, and some of the early buildings, until I got good enough to be able to do it intuitively.
I do like the coaching inn, and agree with W. Lindley's comments on it. One small suggestion: had you thought about producing different versions of it, the only difference being the markings on the sign? That might create some welcome variety with little effort. You would only have to re-do two of the four renders, as the sign is only visible from the two angles.
Archon -- if you do two different signs per james' suggestion, you might make them the "corner" and "non-corner" versions in the same .dat file. I am really loving the "corner" distinction.
problem with my buildings is that they all seem to end up corner versions.
btw. that doorway is for horses, not supposed to go trough building.
I think the doorway should go through - normally in these inns there is a stable in the yard at the back so the horse doorway goes right the way through. For non-corner versions, just lop off the bit at right angles - the sides can be boring as they will be next to other buildings.
Quote from: The Hood on February 21, 2010, 03:36:58 PM
I think the doorway should go through - normally in these inns there is a stable in the yard at the back so the horse doorway goes right the way through.
Which makes it very easy to make a later version of the same building - just replace the horses with parked cars!
Latest version of coaching inn.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/CInn2.png)
Archon: Lovely!
How about this 1600s stone church?
(http://wlindley.com/images/stonechurch.png)
Looks good, but I'd reduce the tower height by about half or maybe more. Also probably best coded as a curiosity rather than a citybuilding.
Quote from: wlindley on February 22, 2010, 02:17:25 PM
(http://wlindley.com/images/stonechurch.png)
Love the church!
Just wonder though - is reworking the parish/town/city hall on the cards any time soon? It looks so out of place amongst all the other buildings, and there are so many nice English precedents (1 (http://www.openairclassroom.org.uk/images/images%20english/market%20hall.jpg),2 (http://www.berkshirehistory.com/villages/images/abingdon_thall.jpg),3 (http://www.henleytowncouncil.gov.uk/media/townhall.jpg),4 (http://edsphotoblog.com/wp-content/photos/800px/0306_manchester_town_hall.jpg))
Finished snow images for C inn. All buildings in one zip.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/A_Buildings.pak.zip
Right, ... coding it as a curiosity, starting with the 1980s church .dat as template. Also as a larger version, which should have an accompanying walled church-yard ... work in progress. i have found some excellent shortcuts that are making pixel-editing a breeze.
(http://wlindley.com/images/stonechurch2.png)
@AP
No current plans for new townhalls. I don't think the current style is out of place anyway, just there are plenty of other styles that could be used as well.
@wlindley
Looking good. I'd make the larger one a 2x2 (with yard).
Quote from: AP on February 22, 2010, 08:29:47 PM
Love the church!
Just wonder though - is reworking the parish/town/city hall on the cards any time soon? It looks so out of place amongst all the other buildings, and there are so many nice English precedents (1 (http://www.openairclassroom.org.uk/images/images%20english/market%20hall.jpg),2 (http://www.berkshirehistory.com/villages/images/abingdon_thall.jpg),3 (http://www.henleytowncouncil.gov.uk/media/townhall.jpg),4 (http://edsphotoblog.com/wp-content/photos/800px/0306_manchester_town_hall.jpg))
The current town hall is based on St. Albans Town Hall (http://www.webbaviation.co.uk/gallery/d/10555-1/stalbans-townhall-aa11155b.jpg). I tried to work out a progression of images by which the building would be upgraded (the actual prototype is I think the 2nd last stage). Reasoning behind this is that Town Hall should be quickly recognisable, if town halls vary wildly between levels then it becomes more difficult to find it. That said I think there'd be a strong case for having a medieval style town hall and a modern style town hall in addition to the current one to cover different time periods. I'm sure the existing model could be improved as well.
Also, and I will repeat this again, Archon's buildings do not fit the rest of the pak buildings completely - that's not to say there's anything wrong with them design or detail wise (both of which are great) but something in the rendering setup makes them appear more blurry (compare the windows in the screenshot above - on wlindleys church, The Hood's farm, my town hall and pub they are all a lot sharper than on the buildings from Archon).
@Archon,
In the light of Kieron's comments, could you make the final .blends you used in your render available so I/we can do some tests? You'd also need to include all the textures you used etc. I really like the stuff you are doing so it would be great to iron out any minor style differences between your stuff and the existing stuff - especially as it is all 3D models and therefore fairly easy to adjust.
As another comment, I notice that none of the snow images have pavements - could you add a snowy pavement texture to each of the snow images?
Here it is (hopefully with all textures).
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/earlyCitybuildings.blend (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/earlyCitybuildings.blend)
I already made some modifications after last renders(disabled filtering for textures). Also I used ray shadows for C.inn and those are still enabled.
Thanks! Not sure when I'll be able to take a look (I'm busy the next few evenings), but maybe Kieron will get chance (and I he set up the render settings in the first place so he might be able to find differences quicker than me).
Is there snow version of sidewalk? I tried to find it from svn but can't find it.
My next project will likely be old brick school.
(http://www.futureglasgow.co.uk/Regeneration/GovanA.jpg)
It will be 2x2 curiosity building.
Not on SVN, as the sidewalk itself doesn't support snow images, bizarrely. If you take the pavement and add a pale grey musgrave texture that should do the trick. Nice idea for the school - looking forward to it.
Interesting how the modern addition for the air-handler follows the original design and materials. I guess that would be only in the 1960s version of it!
As for curiosities ... how about just a little city park:
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/park.png)
@wlindley,
City parks are generally a good idea, and again larger than 1x1 is probably better. I'm not sure about the one in that image though - (a) it does look a bit too small and also the telephone box is too bright I think.
@Archon,
I've looked at your blends and there are a few differences in render settings. The key one is the antialiasing filter size. Yours is set to 1.00, whereas mine are set to 1.50. If you increase to 1.50, everything looks a little less blurry and suddenly fits in the style much better. You may need to adjust some other texture settings though elsewhere to compensate. The other thing to alter is to set all interiors to pure black (RGB=0,0,0). The render below is with those two changes made.
Glad it was something simple - those models of yours are far too good to be spoilt by a small inconsistency with the existing graphics :)
Nice, very nice :)
Should someone make snow image for sidewalks just in case it will be supported later?
It seems little task and would make pak more consistent if it was used as base for buildings winter images.
Also I didn't get what you meant with setting all interiors black.
QuoteAlso I didn't get what you meant with setting all interiors black.
The surface for all windows should be set to render as pure black. This means the material should be set to V 0 and as shadeless.
preview of 2x2 church. add some gravestones in churchyard, perhaps? or...?
(http://wlindley.com/images/stonechurch3.png)
As per a comment I made earlier on, you need to show the shadow line from the roof overhang - in this case on the gable end of the ?vestry? At the moment you can't see any evidence of tiles on the surface facing away from you. Also, what material are these church roofs? They are very black, even for slate (compare Archon's slate roofs). I can't imagine it's meant to be roofing felt! You could always give the larger church a lead or copper(malachite) roof, of course.
Also with churches, if it's easy to do(?), you might want to make sure all game-churches align the same way (ie east-west).
@wlindley,
Looking better, although I'd make the churchyard fill up most of the 2x2 (doesn't quite look like it does at the minute). After that, add some gravestones, a path, and I think some more detail to the tower (like a clock and gratings for the belfry).
@AP,
It would be possible for all churches to face East by only specifying one direction, but then they would look the same when everything else rotates, so I'd prefer a full 4 rotation image. In any case, there are enough churches in the country which don't point East for me not to worry about that too much!
Render no "lost count + 8"
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/building_A_1750_inn.png)
If jury thinks it has everything right I will render rest of my buildings with these settings.
This jury member votes in favour :) sorry if we've been trying your patience, but it's good to get it right (I struggled a lot with that at first too). Hopefully you have it all set up right to never have to worry about it again now.
Quote
It would be possible for all churches to face East by only specifying one direction, but then they would look the same when everything else rotates, so I'd prefer a full 4 rotation image. In any case, there are enough churches in the country which don't point East for me not to worry about that too much!
i don't quite understand this, shouldn't this be actually the other way round? all rotations are needed to keep it oriented into the same geographical direction while turning the map.
the offtopic that really surprises and interest me however is that many english churches don't have their apsis in the east. is this through all periods, or only for some architecural styles/aeras?
oh, btw, the new city buildings all of you made look really good. this will greatly improve the pak!
@sdog,
If 4 rotations are specified, they will be used at random on generation, so approx 25% facing any direction, and it will rotate properly. If 1 rotation is used, they will all point the same way, but when you rotate, the rest of the map buildings rotate but the church wouldn't. Hope that makes more sense.
Most churches do point East, but enough don't for me not to worry about it. Examples I can think of are Liverpool Cathedral and All Souls London, both of which point more or less north.
@the hood
thanks for explaining the random rotations. in that case it's impossible to align the churches properly anyway.
do you think this is worth an extension request for standard? i was missing an indicator pointing north for quite a while, geting confused when turning the map. churches could do that job in a very natural way.
i got to be carefull if i travel to england. usually i use churches to determine directions on overcast days and during nights. (i love the japanese custom of having a compas rose in front of every subway entrance!)
Jury decides executioner gets to work.
Stone shops and houses ready. 4 more buildings to go.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/rerender1.png)
I am not getting impatient. Just starting to have fun. :)
Should I update my zip now or after they are all done?
If someone finds this useful, feel free to use it.
(http://standard-city-base-middle-open-4+snow.png)
Just update once they are all done. I'll include them all in the next release of pak128.Britain, which will be pretty soon after you finish them!
Quote from: sdog on February 24, 2010, 04:12:15 PMthe offtopic that really surprises and interest me however is that many english churches don't have their apsis in the east. is this through all periods, or only for some architecural styles/aeras?
If the church was built first, or at the same time as the surrounding estate, or in its own enclosure (large churchyard), one of which is normally the case, then it will almost always face east-west. If the church is built later than the surrounding buildings, say on a constrained urban site, it will fairly often be oriented to best fit in with surrounding buildings or features (eg align with roads etc). If the church is pre-Georgian, it's a fairly safe bet it faces east-west.
Quotei love the japanese custom of having a compas rose in front of every subway entrance
I carry a lensatic compass in my bag at all times (both for work and for hiking), it's very handy to avoid getting lost in places like London!
more on the building, (better roof texture and windows)... no progress on the surroundings yet.
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/stonechurch4.png)
That's better. Just watch out for stray white pixels around the edges...
All buildings ready. Remembered special colors while writing this message and removed those.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/A_Buildings.pak.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/A_Buildings.pak.zip)
Also made non-corner version of tenement and stone cottage.
haven't tested these much yet but should be ok.
Archon: splendid!
Excellent! Going in SVN now...
This is preview of my new school/prison.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/2.png)
it still needs lot of work.
Very much like! But "school/prison" - what are you saying about education? ;-)
Very nice. I was wondering why it had gone quiet on here. I think we'll go with school rather than prison.
well it is supposed to be school but it looks more like prison to me. And there are gates so kids have no way to escape. :)
Prisons don't generate passengers in quite the same way as schools do... :D
That one starts to remind me of Scotland Street School (CR MacKintosh), which has its own 'compound'
(http://www.firthphotography.co.uk/images/portfolio/glasgow/large/Scotland%20Street%20School.jpg)
Re prisons, if you want to do one, maybe a victorian type on the radial model plan: Link (http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/iln/11c.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/iln/11c.html&usg=__32AyLFEWNPL2brnt_EVEdfvdEIQ=&h=493&w=576&sz=92&hl=en&start=17&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=VOlKyXGjs9_dXM:&tbnh=115&tbnw=134&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvictorian%2Bprison%2Bplan%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG%26tbs%3Disch:1)
Nice building! Be it a prison or a school :P
But the roof looks a little bit too continuous. There should be some more contrast around the roof ridges.
Second take.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/3.png)
It looks maybe little more like school now but yard needs some details.
What do you think about those roof windows?
Second picture is first from that angle so there is still more work needed for it.
I like the roof windows...
Yard details could include some things like hopscotch squares or a football goal or similar marked on the floor/wall. Roof light is a good idea, but maybe better smaller.
Don't forget a sign out the front (the sort that would say "Anytown Grammar School" on it). That'll help too.
Can't get the latest tilecutter working on my linux system (python script just returns with no display, no error), perhaps someone can take this over? gimp source (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/stone-church2.xcf)
(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/stone-church2.png)
That looks beautiful - although I'd think that the graveyard would need more graves, and possibly iron railings around it, too...?
I agree with jamespetts. Also leave the grass as blank and let the game fill it in with the underlying ground. I use tilecutter under wine, and it is rather tempramental. I'll have a look at it when I get time if no-one else does before me - I don't have much time for simutrans right now...
Quote from: wlindley on March 07, 2010, 02:42:57 PM
Can't get the latest tilecutter working on my linux system (python script just returns with no display, no error), perhaps someone can take this over? gimp source (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/stone-church2.xcf)
(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/stone-church2.png)
Could you post the tilecutter.log file? Most likely reason for it exiting so quickly is not having wxPython installed.
Nice looking church :)
Quote from: Archon on March 05, 2010, 05:51:58 PM
Second take.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/3.png)
It looks maybe little more like school now but yard needs some details.
What do you think about those roof windows?
Second picture is first from that angle so there is still more work needed for it.
Wow, just wow :) I think it l looks perfect - though obviously ingame screenshot would be nice to check consistency but looks good to me!
oohhh, some nice progress here :D
Some progress still little things that need work.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/4.png)
I can almost smell the chalk and the floor-wax.
Very nice indeed. I may need to ban your contributions from the pak as they are nicer than mine :P
Regarding the latest renders - you seem to have shadows enabled in some form. While it's a nice effect rest of renders don't have it (and it doesn't work well with the simutrans engine which is why I didn't have them to begin with).
Haven't done much work on it for awhile, but for the record here's the Stone Church files (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/stonechurch.zip) (source and pak). Mostly needs ground removed (except in graveyard, where the grass is always greener) and correct fences added.
Little bug fix for previously released buildings.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/1880-office-5f.png (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/1880-office-5f.png)
Should go /citybuildings/images/com/ in svn
@wlindley - link does not appear to work...
The Hood,
I have downloaded it - the revised version can be found in my Pak128.Britain-Ex Github repository.
re-uploaded stone church (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/stonechurch.zip) file to correct server this time (oops).
1 more building. Modified version of 3 story terraced.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/1900-rowhouse-3f.png (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/1900-rowhouse-3f.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/3Sterraced.dat (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/3Sterraced.dat)
Nice. Is this a replacement or a new building?
It is new.
It is supposed to be more modern version of old 3 story brick terrace.
Following discussions here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=4867.msg48635#msg48635), it has become apparent that there is a significant lack of high density city buildings in the 1920-1950 era (especially after 1930). Does anyone feel like drawing some art deco apartments and offices? Perhaps the retirement dates of some other buildings might be extended somewhat, too?
The Hood - perhaps you could send me some .blends and textures so that I could have a go at one or two...?
Which ones do you want? As far as I'm concerned, city buildings are quite low on my priorities right now. I'm currently working through a list of graphical bugfixes etc, and then it's back to work on the ships, and I don't have a huge amount of simutrans time at the minute anyway.
Ahh, in which case, I'd better have a go myself, unless Archnon or WLindley or someone else wants a go. As to the .blends and textures: can you send me all of the textures and a good sample of .blends from which I can make various city buildings, when I get the time, perhaps including the 60s shops/flats, the tenements, if you have them, the 1960s tower blocks, and perhaps anything else that you think might help (the art deco airport buildings, perhaps...?).
QuoteFollowing discussions here, it has become apparent that there is a significant lack of high density city buildings in the 1920-1950 era (especially after 1930
I recall another discussion a long ago noting that the reason for there being no high-density buildings in a 1920-1950 style, is that very few were built in reality - this being the time period when much of suburbia was built - and only in the 1960s did high density blocks become favourable again.
Not sure how that resolved itself re simutrans, however.
Well, there are some high density buildings from that era around (I know of a number in London), so we should have a few in the game, especially since not having them causes all sorts of problems as discussed in the thread to which I linked...
Perhaps one way to model the "suburbia is wonderful" period would be to extend some of the earlier high-density buildings' lifetimes to around 1960, while increasing the probability of the period's low-density buildings? This would permit a few of the older buildings to appear in games starting in 1940-1950, would it not?
Perhaps the "high probability" versions of the low-density houses would be 1940-1960, and then reappearing in 1960 with standard probability alongside higher-density buildings...
jamespetts: perhaps we could find some Google streetviews of those London buildings?
WLindley,
yes, we could give the 1930s high density buildings a low chance. As to street view pictures, here (http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/YfKUOjTaOa0kXOde4-PklQ)'s one, for a start...
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/bakery.png)
New bakery candidate for early years. If you like it I will make something similar for butcher, fishmonger and greengrocer.
does industry shops support 8 rotations?
That looks great. AFAIK industry doesn't support 8 rotations (it doesn't even detect road edges in the way city buildings do, which can lead to these shops facing the wrong way on streets...)
First two ready. Bakery (green) and butcher (red)
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/Ebakery.png)
Sorry, should have mentioned this before, but can we stick to the same colour schemes as the existing industry graphics? Green/white = greengrocer, red/white = butcher. I think bakery is brown/white, but check the existing graphics. It will be less confusing that way.
Well
Then that green goes as greengrocer. :)
Another half of shops.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/Ebakery&fishery.png)
Excellent, thankyou.
Got bored and made 2 new tenements.
Paks and sources are here http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/tenements.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/tenements.zip)
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/tenement-2.png)
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/tenement-3.png)
Nice work, although the tops of the chimney stacks (not the pots) look a little too black. Maybe replace this with a brick texture, and snow in winter?
I hope that Archon gets bored more frequently in future...
Talking of Archon's boredom, did you ever finish the school, or did you get bored of that too? :p
School has problem with iron fence and simutrans 1 bit transparency. + I didn't get tile cutter working.
I could remake 4 story version winter images with snow on chimney stacks.
Archon: Another excellent addition, love it!
TheHood: Updated 1950s shops including Butcher and Furniture, Department Store, and the early 1950 storefront supermarket (pak, dat, and png) here (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1950shops.zip).
Thanks. Wlindley and Archon shops are in r288. Archon, if you could fix those chimneys that would be great.
Snow images for tenements have now more snowy chimney stacks.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/tenements.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/tenements.zip)
All chimney stacks for new tenements are now fixed + I have done some work on modern industry buildings.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/industry1.png)
Looking good!
Another welcome addition :-)
First versions of industry buildings ready.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/industry.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/industry.zip)
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/industry2.png)
feedback for graphics is welcome.
Very good. I'm just not sure about the white edges around the tiles in those snow images - it looks a bit odd for that small bit of pavement to have a very different snow texture to the tarmac car park area.
bump
Some progress on old project.
Has there been any progress on sidewalk snow graphics?
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/School.png)
Excellent. Sidewalk snow graphics are now do-able in game, but I haven't drawn any yet...
nice work on the new buildings.
If I may comment on the snow images. Parking lots and sidewalks will have a snow mound if they are plowed. Some lots of a parking lot may become unusable when all the snow is piled up and usually they're pushed into a spot that gets low usage during non snow days. There are often large mounds separating sidewalks and the road that only get cleared at intersections.
Snow mounds -- we're talking about england here! ;-P
Were you not here in January? ;D
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8447023.stm
i was! at heathrow, catched the last flight there from Munich on that day. Incomming flights to Heathrow were canceled for the invisible snow chaos. (it was most likely insufficient deicing capacity, i bet). :-)
Quote from: Archon on June 26, 2010, 10:51:19 AM
bump
Some progress on old project.
Has there been any progress on sidewalk snow graphics?
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/School.png)
Did you ever develop a .dat file for this?
The pictures they here be show from new pakfiles,be looking good out!
But i have a question on Archon.
One the backside from the School it that a loadingbay how be can be unload a truck?
Beside the loadingbay it that´s a parking space ?
greenling
This is just an attraction, so it won't have a working loading bay.
Boring day...
More industry for early days.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/workshop1.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/workshops.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/workshops.zip)
Excellent! May you be bored more often in future!
Looking good out!
greenling
It is supposed to be old library.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/librarycs.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/library.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/library.zip)
I always look forward to when you make something new. Just one thing though - the image in the library zip is the screenshot not the source image - could you please upload the source image so I can include into the pak?
wooops.
fixed now.
Doesn't seem like it...
works for me.
btw. I forgot special colors + my new computer wont like shades (yet?).
OK think it just took a while to update the link here. I'll deal with the special colours.
perhaps you could add a little more noise to the facade, to me it looks a bit too clean. Perhaps it's just a very strong childhood conditioning, but it very much remided me of lego. Another nitpick is the repeating pattern on the roof.
Besides those two really tiny issues, the building looks excellent! With it's different shape and colour it will help to break up large similar looking blocks in cities very well, making them more distinguishable.
ps.: now that it's in the pak and i can see it in situ, the school is my favourite pak britain building.
Updated graphics for library:
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/library.png)
Here is a cut version of the stone church ready for use:
(http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/stonechurch.png)
My next project:
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/swaninn.png)
Another inn...
With so many pubs and inns in pak128.Britain anyone might think we were a nation of alcoholics...
well. Luckily I am not british. :)
btw did you see upgraded library graphic on last page?
Archon,
looking good! Do you think that you could make that into a "coaching inn" terminal type stop, rather than a city building? Such a thing would be very useful for passenger transport in the pre-railway era.
Edit: Or alternatively, make two versions: a city building and a coaching inn stop, differentiated, perhaps, by colour?
QuoteWith so many pubs and inns in pak128.Britain anyone might think we were a nation of alcoholics...
No, i don't think so, we just think you're a nation with no living rooms :-P
We think you are a nation of alcoholics for certain other reasons. (a hint, i'm from munich region)
@james
that's quite a good idea, always wondered why one of the pubs is called coaching in.
Quote from: The Hood on March 01, 2011, 10:10:02 PM
With so many pubs and inns in pak128.Britain anyone might think we were a nation of alcoholics...
pak britain needs some more fog !!!111
@James - is there a dat for the stone church?
@Dwachs - that would save on graphics work. I'll just define a ground_obj for fog, completely grey, and make it so common you can never see anything else!
I think that I may have made one myself - attached.
Not sure if I ever posted my latest work on the little park? In pre-telephone and post-1930 red-box versions:
(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/little_park-1870.png)
(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/little_park-1930.png)
little-park.dat (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/little-park.dat) and playable pak (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/little-park.pak)
James -- there is a spurious leading '/' on the 'images/cur/stonechurch' in your stonechurch.dat
p.s., is it just me or do the latest nightlies not load attractions properly?
Excellent. Could you do a snow image?
Quote from: wlindley on March 04, 2011, 12:46:26 PM
p.s., is it just me or do the latest nightlies not load attractions properly?
.. in what sense?
Park and church added to SVN without snow images for now. I've changed the parks to curiosities rather than monuments so they get built in more than one town, and I've also changed the dims to 1,1,4 and created 2 parks for each era with the graphics.
One nitpick, attractions/old_school.dat has backslashes instead of forward-slashes -- as, images\cur\old_school.0.0 -- which break on anything but a Windows system.
The park looks good out!
and the another pictuers too!
i get happy!
greenling
Latest inn starting to look good.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/TheSwan256.png)
Still need to add fine detail.
that render could be cool for the new simutrans page TheUniqueTigre is building: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=6897.0
Latest project finished(at least I hope so :) ).
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/Swan_Inn.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/Swan_Inn.zip)
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/Swaninn2.png)
If anyone needs different size render ask.
This looks good; but is there a reason why this has a "RES" name yet type=com?
yay
Reason is that I didn't think too much.
Fixed now.
Excellent - I've renamed it systematically anyway for inclusion in the pak.
Thank´s for the new More city buildings.
greenling
Ugliest concrete block ever.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/aparment.png)
It took almost 6 months to get this far. (more like it was so ugly that I lost interest)
Might just fix those windows + roof thing and be done with it.
That is fantastically ugly :) Nice work.
I second that! Very realistically ugly; an excellent addition!
ookay. Here comes first release candidate.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/ugly.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/"ugly"_Apartments.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/"ugly"_Apartments.zip)
There should be few other same level, similar size buildings to give some variety.
My next projects however are likely some old low density houses or shops.
Splendid!
That's great! If it's not too tricky it might be worth doing several versions of those tower blocks in different heights. It's a good way to add buildings of different levels quickly...
I made shorter version with 2 less floors.
No preview, didn't test it in game yet but it should be good (famous last words).
I have 5 pictures of old buildings that I want to finish before I make more modern ones.
www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/A_short_apartments.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/A_short_apartments.zip)
Added - along with two taller versions I made by just copying and pasting extra floors on in GIMP. Looking forward to the next creations (of whatever era).
Well, here is oldish warehouse.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/oldwarehouse.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/A_Old_Warehouse.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/A_Old_Warehouse.zip)
That was quick :)
Three cheers, Archon! Amazing how much of a difference a single building can make in the 1960s cities. I will have to get back on my projects here again soon.
Hello
A big step forward! Beautiful! thanks
Giuseppe
First patch for all 3 new buildings.
I forgot special colors and towers were aligned off by 1 pixel(need to move up).
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/update-123.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/update-123.zip)
we could use the same buildings, make them grimy, put graffiti at lower parts and introduce them after 1980.
Except, we are missing the "good neighbo(u)rhood / bad neighbo(u)rhood" (Land Values) that the original SimCity had... Hm, I wonder how that would work in Simutrans. In the modern era of Pak128.Britain, for example, all those water-treatment plants would congregate in the "bad" parts of town along with those graffiti-strewn buildings... and even the citycars in that part of town would be lower-class! Would the maintenance costs of buses and trains increase when operated through "bad" areas? Hmm.
this can be achieved by setting the less nice buildings to a lower level, they should tend to aggregate at the rim of cities.
Quote from: sdog on September 07, 2011, 03:57:19 PM
this can be achieved by setting the less nice buildings to a lower level, they should tend to aggregate at the rim of cities.
Does that not mean they contribute less population and traffic, too, which would be rather inaccurate.
I hope that those Building be cam in pak128.Britain!
I Like new Building!
Thanks for the updates - now included.
My next project:
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/old_stores.png)
Some old stores.
edit:
New image
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/oldstores.png)
Looking good!
Finished I hope.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/stores_final.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.COM_A_Old_Stores_6.pak.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/building.COM_A_Old_Stores_6.pak.zip)
Fantastic - going in SVN as I type...
Good news first. Tile works first test.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/tileworks1.png)
It needs white window frames and few boxes here and there.
And bad news.
Found small bug in pavement.png from svn/ways. There was 2 pixels missing.
I used it as base for some buildings + had minor alignment issue with snow on my template file.
Total 7 images are effected. I will upload those after I have renamed them with svn names.
Here is fixed pavement.png + fixed templates.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/Brit128Stuff.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/Brit128Stuff.zip)
Haven't got the snow on, but I did correct the "half-transparent pixel snow" bugs in the Church:
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/stone-church2.png)
Perhaps that is good enough for now; at least the ground outside the church-yard will be "snow appropriate" ...?
No more Windows boxes here, so not sure how to run TileCutter anymore. Sure wish that makeobj would know how to do that itself, one of these days I will rewrite that tool too...
gimp source (http://www.wlindley.com/images/stone-church2.xcf)
@Archon - excellent, and fixing bugs is good news IMO not bad news! Thanks for the updated pavement.png
@wlindley - thanks for that update - I'll actually leave out the grass entirely so it can just take snow ground regardless. Nevertheless a version with snowed roof, tree, wall and tombs would be great eventually.
Fixed images are here: http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/fix.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/fix.zip)
And here comes tile works:
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/tileworks2.png)
Maybe not masterpiece but I still like it.
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/TileWorks.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/TileWorks.zip)
Archon's latest updates in SVN too (not had time to do anything with the church).
More brick houses.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/BrickHouses.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/brickhouses.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/brickhouses.zip)
Intro and retire years are guessed like most of time.
Excellent additions! Seeing the 2-storey version is a "corner" block - would it be possible to do a "straight" one as well and define 8-images?
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/little_park-1870-snow.png)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/little_park-1930-snow.png)
wlindley
Super.The Park in winter looks good out.
Very nice! Nobody ice-skating on the pond, though? ;-)
Wlindley, thanks for doing this. Not sure why I never noticed it! I'm adding the park to SVN now.
I hope to have a few more bits this weekend... first:
Until we get some other graphics for the staging-post, perhaps we can use this image (instead of simply duplicating the basic-bus-stop) -- at least it has the right mail-and-goods icons. Actually the StagingPost seems only to be in pak128.Britain-Experimental's bus-stops.dat... is that an oversight?
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/staging-post-stop.png)
I was never sure what the staging post was supposed to add above the existing stops, so I never included it in Standard. Surely having a triple goods stop like that makes the smaller ones (e.g. just pax) more or less redundant?
The idea of the staging post was that it pre-dated 'bus stops as we know them: it can handle all goods, but has a low capacity, and is no longer available when, in the 1820s, 'bus stops are introduced. It should look distinct from a 'bus stop (i.e., no flag shaped 'bus stop sign), and literally be just a post in the ground. It should be quite easy to draw.
Bus stops are already the lowest level I think...
Ahh, in Experimental, it is possible to set the capacity/cost precisely and independently from level.
Exactly... The staging post has a capacity of 12, versus the standard bus stop of 25.
In any case, here's my candidate graphics for the Staging Inn:
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/staging-inn-back.png)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/staging-inn-front.png)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/staging-inn-back-snow.png)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/staging-inn-front-snow.png)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/staging-inn-icon.png)
and the updated code to replace the current in bus-stops.dat:
Obj=building
Name=StagingInn
# must be 1*1
type=stop
waytype=road
intro_year=1700
intro_month=1
retire_year=1844
retire_month=4
noconstruction=1
enables_pax=1
enables_post=1
enables_ware=1
NoInfo=1
Dims=1,1,4
level=3
station_capacity=100
station_price=40000
station_maintenance=2150
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0][0]=staging-inn-back.0.3
FrontImage[3][0][0][0][0][0]=staging-inn-front.0.3
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0][0]=staging-inn-back.0.0
FrontImage[2][0][0][0][0][0]=staging-inn-front.0.0
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0][0]=staging-inn-back.0.1
FrontImage[1][0][0][0][0][0]=staging-inn-front.0.1
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0][0]=staging-inn-back.0.2
FrontImage[0][0][0][0][0][0]=staging-inn-front.0.2
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0][1]=staging-inn-back-snow.0.3
FrontImage[3][0][0][0][0][1]=staging-inn-front-snow.0.3
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0][1]=staging-inn-back-snow.0.2
FrontImage[2][0][0][0][0][1]=staging-inn-front-snow.0.2
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0][1]=staging-inn-back-snow.0.1
FrontImage[1][0][0][0][0][1]=staging-inn-front-snow.0.1
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0][1]=staging-inn-back-snow.0.0
FrontImage[0][0][0][0][0][1]=staging-inn-front-snow.0.0
icon=> staging-inn-icon.0.1
cursor=staging-inn-icon.0.0
...those graphcs are derived from the 1910 automobile dealership and petrol station. All the layers are in this file: http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/1910-auto-industries.xcf (http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/1910-auto-industries.xcf)
That looks excellent! I shall add that to the pakset when I have time - thank you very much. Do you think that you could remove the flag-pole type 'bus stop sign from the staging post graphic and re-upload that? It'd be very useful to have a dedicated staging post graphic, too, that doesn't look like a modern 'bus stop.
I suggest the staging post stays out of standard then, but I will definitely include the new staging inn, it looks very good indeed!
Very good! Here's a staging post, drawn in player colors:
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/staging-post-stop.png)
And how both the staging stops look in the game:
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/staging-stops.png)
EDIT: updated the staging inn icon, with the goods tags (you might have to refresh this in your browser):
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/staging-inn-icon.png)
WLindley,
thank you for that. Might I suggest that the staging post not be entirely player colour (as it is too bright and colourful for the paints available in the 18th century), but that it be brown and wooden, perhaps with a player colour tip? It would go better with the pakset then, I think.
Right... Refreshed the post to be wood, with a small top board in primary player color, and (what would be, if you could see that small) a ring in secondary color below.
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/staging-post-stop.png)
One of the first things I noticed when I started editing graphics for pak128.Britain was that the stone station had extra images defined. Comments in the .dat suggest that, eventually, the plan is to have Simutrans support chained extension buildings the same way that platforms automatically draw "end" and "center" graphics, giving you the ramps at the end for example.
But until such time, there's nothing stopping us from having 1x2 and 1x3 stations, which look like this:
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/stone2-n-3.png)
In my .dat file (below) I gave the 1x2 and 1x3 stations increasing levels (which are further multiplied by the tile-count) so while the 1x1 stone building has a capacity of 32 and monthly cost of 18c, the 1x3 station has capacity of 288 and monthly cost of 162c. I believe this suits both the construction and the gameplay.
The graphics have long already existed in stone-building.dat and we just have to use them.
The ctrl+click "Select orientation to build station" dialog is somewhat broken on these, but the game itself draws them fine.
Here's the applicable update for stations/stone-building.dat --
Obj=building
Name=StationStoneBuilding2
copyright=Kieron
type=extension
waytype=track
enables_pax=1
Dims=2,1,4
NoInfo=1
Level=2
intro_year=1825
retire_year=1920
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0]=stone-building.0.2
BackImage[0][0][1][0][0]=stone-building.0.4
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.5
BackImage[1][1][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.2
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0]=stone-building.0.3
BackImage[2][0][1][0][0]=stone-building.0.5
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.4
BackImage[3][1][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.3
Icon=> button-stone-building.0.0
Cursor=stone-building-cursor.0.0
---
Obj=building
Name=StationStoneBuilding3
copyright=Kieron
type=extension
waytype=track
enables_pax=1
Dims=3,1,4
NoInfo=1
Level=3
intro_year=1825
retire_year=1920
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0]=stone-building.0.2
BackImage[0][0][1][0][0]=stone-building.0.0
BackImage[0][0][2][0][0]=stone-building.0.4
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.5
BackImage[1][1][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.0
BackImage[1][2][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.2
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0]=stone-building.0.3
BackImage[2][0][1][0][0]=stone-building.0.1
BackImage[2][0][2][0][0]=stone-building.0.5
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.4
BackImage[3][1][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.1
BackImage[3][2][0][0][0]=stone-building.1.3
Icon=> button-stone-building.0.0
Cursor=stone-building-cursor.0.0
I've just added the staging inn, thanks. I'd probably rather leave the 1x2 and 1x3 stations out of the official release until such time as the code is changed to allow them to work in the same way as platforms, in order to reduce menu clutter. In the meantime, people can always download them from here.
Two castles, thinking of the Tower of London, to be coded as Monuments so only one of each will be built per map --
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/tower1.jpg)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/tower2.jpg)
And using the same new images, three variations on the stone church: small (without church-yard), regular, and Cathedral.
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/churches.jpg)
Beautiful! A much needed addition. One very small matter: would it be possible to make the yard ibm the cathedral bigger?
OK... updated Cathedral, also added University and two Colleges.
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/cathedral2.jpg)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/university.jpg)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/college2.jpg)
Not quite playable yet (some incomplete definitions, causing problems with rotations) but here it is so far:
http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/stonechurch3.pak (http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/stonechurch3.pak)
Those are awesome - endless architectural potential! Suggest the cathedral tower needs to be taller - it's always taller than the pitched roof of the nave. You made a tall one on the 'university' image, that'd do!
wlindley
The Cathedral,The University and the two Colleges Be Looking good out.
And the Photo be came in My Screen shot gallary!
Splendid!
Lots of great stuff.here (though I'm getting this.on my phone so more detailed comments later). Two things I've noticed are the cathedral nave looks a little narrow and secondly I hope there will be snow images for all of.these (and the church and shops) as I'm hoping to so a fully snowed up release in time for Christmas.
Quote from: The Hood on November 26, 2011, 08:59:00 AM
the cathedral nave looks a little narrow
That's because it hasn't got any Aisles. If you took the Trancept component (lower-roofed bit at right angles forming the cruciform plan) and halved , then attached it to the side of the nave, that would do the job. Most cathedrals have both North and South Aisles. The butresses then just move outwards.
Just found this basic church-terminology plan online: http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/parishholding/llandaff/l353-en/images/copy_of_Churchplansmall.jpg/image_preview (http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/parishholding/llandaff/l353-en/images/copy_of_Churchplansmall.jpg/image_preview)
Thanks, guys... Hood: Snow will come soon, after the stonemasons finish (grin)
Question on .pak encoding though -- makeobj turns my 270K .png file into a 2.6 MB pak! I have built this to maximize re-use of tiles, but it seems makeobj inserts all the repetitions instead of using pointers? Surely that could be improved?
All the buildings simply re-use tiles from this one image:
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/stone-church3.png)
(Note: the castle walls [upper-rightmost] extend beyond the usual base boundaries, so they will match up with the corner towers; the vestry [1.2, 1.3] likewise overlaps into the "tile behind." Instead of using TileCutter, I'm having Simutrans itself do all the hidden-line removal.)
Should I write a separate request to improve makeobj? That could make a huge difference especially in a big set like Britain.
An extension request seems sensible to me. Whether it's practical to code is another matter, but no harm in asking.
Definitely support any changes to improve makeobj and reduce paksize by removing duplicate images.
WOW. I am all excited about these graphics!!!! Finally a mood improver in these bleek autumn days!!!
A few other thoughts/ideas for using these graphics:
1) Both the town where I live and the town where I work have part-ruined castle keeps (the central square tower) in gardens but no external walls (or maybe the odd ruined bit)
2) Many English towns have ruined town walls in parts
3) We could even define some old town halls using some of these (the colleges in particular look a bit more like town halls?)
The turret with the hut on the roof - the hut looks a bit odd. Maybe a cupola or something would look better?
Yes - either further towers with crenulations for the castles or some kind of spire/dome for the church types.
For that matter, one could also do variant stone colours, if there were a way to ensure consistency for each town. Presumably a simple photoshop filter could be applied to the base image to get yellow sandstone/red granite etc.
Climates would be one way to do what you suggest using existing features
OK on the towers... a couple options in progress.
If I read this correctly, pak128.Britain respects climates, it's just that right now all buildings exist in all climates? And "climate" is determined solely by altitude?
A pakset can't disable climates, really, but can define the altitude ranges for climates to be silly (and thus mean that some or all climates don't get used). Pak128.Britain only does this with the desert climate, I think (as there aren't many deserts in the UK), so that should be fine. Climate is based on altitude ranges set in the climates dialogue (and I think that defaults are set in simuconf.tab).
progress so far
(http://wlindley.com/images/simutrans/simscr10.jpg)
PNG (http://wlindley.com/images/simutrans/stone-church.png) and DAT (http://wlindley.com/images/simutrans/stone-church.dat) files
I should take a good look at this pakset again... ;)
Now that really is looking very nice indeed. A real improvement!
The power of modular (reminds me of the time when I also used to play with modular pieces for some other game)... great work, can't wait to see it ingame.
Except for snow images, then, I believe this should be the final form (including a few minor corrections after the above).
The new ParishChurch should replace the old one.
This zip file (http://wlindley.com/images/simutrans/stone-church.zip) includes the dat, png, the Gimp source with layers, and a .pak compiled for Experimental.
I really like this stuff. A few comments however:
- rotations seem to be missing/poorly defined for various of these. As a general rule, 4 rotations should be given as players rotate the map fairly frequently and I don't think it looks great if the building appears to realign to face a different way (minor discrepancies are less of a problem)
- I'm not sure about the abbeys - abbeys tend to be churches with cloisters attached rather than the large towers as they appear at present
- I think there are possibilities for adapting the cathedral design to create at least one more, e.g. with a central tower and a cross plan. This would probably need a new facade tile though which was a little grander than the parish church!
Looking forward to the snow images.
Could these modular components be available individually in-game? To enable custom shapes e.g. a historic walled town to be created (by public player obviously). Or is the intention that it is only available in pre-designed units (cathedral, church, university etc).
AP, at present the idea is just to have preconstructed attractions (although obviously nothing to stop anyone compiling the images individually and making up themselves) - mainly because the AI would build them randomly if not preconstructed into arranged sets. One thought I had for an extension request around this was instead of defining a specific image for a certain point in the attraction, defining a "set" of images of which one would be chosen at random by the AI on construction. E.g. for a cathedral, define a basic plan as follows:
XXXTX
PNNAC
XXXTX
Where:
X = random choice of some external "grounds"
T = random choice of trancept tile
P = random choice of portico/facade tile
N = nave tile
O = random choice of central tower tile
C = random choice of chancel tile
This would then require less work defining specific objects but allow more variation city to city. Not sure if it is even slightly feasible though (probably not given my track record of getting ideas implemented by coders)
Quote from: The Hood on December 02, 2011, 06:52:09 PMmainly because the AI would build them randomly if not preconstructed into arranged sets
Ah, yes, I could see how that might be problematic!
To make this work, the coordinates need to accept a matrix rather then a single value for a position in the image file.
Now it's like
BackImage[0][0][1][1][0]=image.1.7
but it would be necessary something like
BackImage[0][0][1][1][0]=image.[1.7,2.7,3.7]
where the ai chooses one of the values.
I'm not a programmer, so I don't know if this is possible. But it would be very nice to have something like that.
(I hope you can understand my post, it's difficult for me to write this in english.)
Quote from: Sybill on December 02, 2011, 11:08:43 PM
(I hope you can understand my post, it's difficult for me to write this in english.)
You made a couple of very very minor mistakes, but I thought you were a native speaker. So have no worries on that front. Besides, we're an international forum. :-)
Snow images up next, I did want to correct the entry tile per TheHood's suggestion. (That also simplified it to 3x4 instead of 3x5.)
And now I have one empty tile left in the .png, I want to fill that with a Ruined Castle... then snow, "this time for sure" (Bullwinkle voice)
That looks better. As I was suggesting, if you also had a different portico you could stick the tower in the middle of the church where the trancepts and chancel/nave meet. A bit like hereford catherdal:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/7551530 (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/7551530)
That would allow two different cathedral designs for variety.
This perhaps, for the snowy medieval buildings?
(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/stone-church-snow.png)
Excellent! These will make a fantastic contribution to the next release.
Just a couple of things:
1) most importantly, can you post the latest non-snow version and dat too?
2) snow on trees?
3) the first four images on the second-bottom row need 4 rotations as they are not central to the tile - could you do these please so we can have full 4-rotation support?
Hello Wlindley
F A B O L O U S ! ! !
Great addition!
Giuseppe
Delightful, and very seasonal!
zip file (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/stone-church201112.zip) with updated snow on trees, and a few other small corrections, plus non-snow version, and dat file with regular and snowy versions.
The two "wall with entry" images cover the four views / edges, although not entirely symmetrically. Yes this means the complex buildings will vary slightly by viewing angle, perhaps I'll change that later, once we get an updated .pak format. As it is, the compiled pak of these buildings alone is 8.2 MB ... from two 360K png files!
@wlindley,
Thanks. I'm planning on having a good play with those images and may try a few buildings of my own with those components and then decide on what would be consistent to put in the official release. Regarding the size, this would be relatively unaffected by the number of images defined in the png and largely affected by the total number of image references in the dat file (so each rotation and snow images add a lot of size, especially for larger buildings, as does the fact you've created many different objects, each of which has its own size). Given the size of most people's hard drives though, and the fact that pak128.Britain long ago ceased to be a pakset for the filesize-constrained, I'm not too worried about that.
with pak-sets increasing and online game requiring up-to date versions of pak-sets, it might be worth to think of a rsync based updater. The changes between pak-set versions are small compared to the overall size.
I've tried out those images and created a few of my own using the same tiles - I really love the concept of modular buildings and I'll be posting an extension request surrounding this shortly. I think there is a lot of potential for this concept and it's a great way of creating lots of new buildings in a consistent style.
Concerning the original set of attractions made, I love the cathedral and the churches along with the cemetry and the single tile towers etc. I've a few reservations though:
1) Abbeys don't really look like that; see my attempt below for something a little more realistic with a courtyard.
2) I'm not utterly convinced about the large square buildings with all the windows on; I can't quite figure out why but it just doesn't seem to go with the rest of the pak and it looks too blocky when combined with other tiles. Something like that would be OK for castles, but in that case would need fewer windows and some other more castle features. I might try a version like that myself. However they just don't work in the university/colleges for my liking.
3) A few more tiles for colleges would be good, plenty of inspiration from googling Oxford and Cambridge colleges (from my Cambridge days Christ's, Trinity, Corpus ought to provide some ideas for old-style tiles). Anyway, we've got plenty of new stuff for now, and this can wait if you're not feeling up for more of this.
4) Discussing this with kierongreen we realised that 5x5 buildings are impractically large - many players use 2 tile station radii so it would be impossible to completely cover any building 5 deep. For now we'll probably stick to buildings no larger than 4xn
Here are my creations using these tiles:
Castles (2nd one shows why dedicated castle tiles would be better than the current buildings with lots of windows)
(http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9986/castlep.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/155/castlep.jpg/)
(http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/6883/castle2k.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/266/castle2k.jpg/)
Cathedrals
(http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/9130/cathedral3.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/407/cathedral3.jpg/)
(http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/1497/cathedral2.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/859/cathedral2.jpg/)
Colleges
(http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/9805/collgee2.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/163/collgee2.jpg/)
(http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/139/college3.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/607/college3.jpg/)
(http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/5672/college1.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/202/college1.jpg/)
Abbey
(http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/3546/abbey.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/abbey.jpg/)
Hello,
if you're interested in a Britain version of my Residential Blocks (see http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=8167.msg82103;topicseen#msg82103) you could provide me with appropriate textures (for walls, roofs, floors) and colors for the windows, so that I can create some...
FAbio,
Thanks for the offer - I'd certainly be interested to see what they looked like - perhaps you could do a test version if it's not too much effort. I'm keen to maintain graphical consistency so I'd only say a definite yes if it fit the pakset well.
Texture files can be located here:
https://github.com/JamesHood/pak128.Britain-blend-files/tree/master/textures
Ground: use concrete-paving-small
Walls: try concrete, flemish-bond-improved, limestone (also possibly try some other concrete looking textures, in blender I normally do this simply by adding noise to a surgace)
Roof: grey-roof-slate, or possibly some dark concrete effects.
Windows: all pak128.Britain windows are #000000
You may need to lighten / darken some of these textures to work; I use them in blender and have altered some settings to produce good results, but I do this by eye mainly to create the best results.
Hello
Fabio, thanks, thanks, and thanks again. :)
PakBritain has a shortage of city buildings.
@The hood and Fabio
If possible it would be nice if some of these buildings were already applicable to the years 1930 to 1950. In the period 1930 to 1950 the shortage of buildings of medium / high density is remarkable.
Giuseppe
My two cents on the cathedral (I understand that this would require an additional piece, but this way the facade is typical northern gothic / norman style, which I understand it's what you are aiming for; plus, a cathedral usually has a paved square on the front):
(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1122/cathedrali.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/3/cathedrali.jpg/)
And the abbey (which in reality is a church with a courtyard delimited by the nave and the transept; also, the church is usually the tallest building. For a grander effect, we can use a cathedral instead of the church):
(http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/6560/abbeytz.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/822/abbeytz.jpg/)
Of course those are just photo edits done in a couple of minutes.
Is it normal for English cathedrals to have such small entrances?
No, they should have a grand portal. In my sketch I used the tiles available in the set.
EDIT: forget about what I wrote. We can use the castle entrance:
(http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/6549/cathedralw.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/36/cathedralw.jpg/)
I really like the portal. I think that's definitely a new tile for the set. For now I'll keep the abbey as it is though - the symmetry helps reduce pak size :)
Ahh, I see what you mean. That looks like a good Revision 2 for a later after-Christmas update.
Or even before Christmas?
New Cathedral Entrance:
(http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/6011/newcathedralentrance.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/820/newcathedralentrance.jpg/)
New Castle Tile
(http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/7442/castlekeep.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/853/castlekeep.jpg/)
(http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/3789/castle3g.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/829/castle3g.jpg/)
Now all I have to do is code all of the attractions I have shown (currently they are made manually in the attraction editor by 1x1 tiles)... Hopefully a release tomorrow, but no promises!
Very nice! great work!
The pakset is coming along nicely with all the new buildings. Well done to everyone involved and thanks for making my towns look much more interesting and varied.
I've only had a quick play around with version 1.10 of the pakset so far, generating maps in different periods to see how the new buildings look, but I've noticed that larger cities can have multiple cathedrals and multiple castles, as in this example:
Exeter's 3 cathedrals and 2 castles
(http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/3961/cathedrals.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/f/576/cathedrals.jpg/)
Is there any way to limit the number to one of each per city?
Also, it seems more than a little odd when the citizens of a 20th-century city decide to build a castle! I don't know how you would get around that though, other than having castles as attractions rather than monuments. The downside then is that they could be some considerable distance from the nearest settlement, but perhaps that is more believable than the modern-day construction of castles?
The old towers and city walls pose a similar problem. I think, ideally, they should be placed in the town at the time the map is generated only, and only if the population of the town is above a certain level. That way, larger and presumably older towns would have these relics from the past whereas the smaller and newer ones wouldn't (and, more importantly, wouldn't build them later on). I don't know whether something like that is possible with the game's mechanics but, if it is, that could be a solution to the castle problem too.
I wad already aware of each of these problems. Unfortunately they are fundamental limitations within the executable. I have a few ideas for how to improve this but this would all depend on someine coding it up.
As for the timeline issues these are easy to change but as there aren't many modern attractions and cities still only build from the start date in map generation I decided to extend the life of these buildings.
Hello
Forgive me if I resurrected an old post but I would like to understand:
Quote from: wlindley on October 29, 2011, 09:33:25 PM
The ctrl+click "Select orientation to build station" dialog is somewhat broken on these, but the game itself draws them fine.
But the combination Ctrl+click how it works? I can not reproduce the operation ...
Giuseppe
Quote from: The Hood on December 29, 2011, 04:41:56 PM
As for the timeline issues these are easy to change but as there aren't many modern attractions and cities still only build from the start date in map generation I decided to extend the life of these buildings.
The newest Standard begins with the earliest start date and advances the date during the generation process, so it is probably safe now to set things like City Walls to have retire dates... yes?
Quote from: Milko on January 24, 2012, 01:38:28 PM
But the combination Ctrl+click how it works? I can not reproduce the operation ...
Ctrl+click on a construction button, brings up an orientation dialog (attached); this dialog needs to be re-coded to display stations or buildings composed of tile graphics that overlap. (The main window viewport display logic draws tiles "front" to "back" as you view them; this dialog draws in a different order. If you make the building graphic .png files with TileCutter it won't matter, but if you draw discrete and overlapping building elements, they get drawn incorrectly here.) The dialog's tile-drawing code needs to be the same as the main viewport's.
This stems from the different orientations of station tiles and city buildings.
Hello
Quote from: The Hood on October 30, 2011, 04:35:30 PM
I've just added the staging inn, thanks. I'd probably rather leave the 1x2 and 1x3 stations out of the official release until such time as the code is changed to allow them to work in the same way as platforms, in order to reduce menu clutter. In the meantime, people can always download them from here.
Code changes mentioned, are those required in this post?
http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=8883.msg82614#msg82614
Giuseppe
Sorry for the late reply. No, they are separate requests. The one about stations is to give extensions 16 rotations like platforms. The other request is about modular buildings.
After a bit of testing I've changed the stone attractions to be curiosities rather than monuments. This should help the above problem, but do continue the discussion if needs be...
Quote from: Archon on September 15, 2011, 10:12:00 PM
More brick houses.
(http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/img/BrickHouses.png)
http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/brickhouses.zip (http://www.saunalahti.fi/jusskiiv/pak/brickhouses.zip)
Intro and retire years are guessed like most of time.
I've just stumbled upon this again - not sure why I never included it (except possibly because I was wondering about having the 8-rotation variant with a straight version of the house). Sorry Archon - it's definitely worth putting in! Are you still interested in painting some more - I am going to be concentrating on increasing the variety of citybuildings and your excellent additions are always welcome.
EDIT:
Not very exciting, but here are some more light industrial buildings. Mostly reworkings of other graphics.
(http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/9903/lightindustry.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/829/lightindustry.png/)
Very nice!
cool the new Building in the Photo. :) :)
Thanks. I should perhaps add if anyone has any inspiration for other citybuildings please do post images here - I'm finding it quite hard to choose what to draw!
1930s office:
(http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/london/daily_express_building_nw030809.jpg)
Modern industrial buildings:
(http://www.airportindustrialestate.co.uk/images/gallery/thumb/airport-industrial-estate-site-thumb.jpg)
(http://www.kingston.gov.uk/st_georges_industrial_estate.jpg)
Modern offices:
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/08/article-1179317-02EE7C8600000578-480_468x463.jpg)
(http://www.businessinteriors.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/bloomberg-offices-london.jpg)
(http://www.mylondonofficespace.com/user/91/img/68686_My_London_Office_Space_Img_931853403.jpg)
Skyscrapers:
(http://www.uk-virtualoffice.com/sites/uk-virtualoffice.com/files/london-offices.jpg)
(http://londonoffices.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/londonview.jpg)
that daily express building is truly remarkable.
the last image shows some lighter facade colours as does the buildings in the background of the daily express building.
In the game the buildings are predominantly dark however. Perhaps some high level buildings should have such lightly coloured stone and concrete facades?
No building would have been so light 1870-1970. Smog (see pictures of older buildings that haven't been restored to show the damage caused!)
I'd suggest skyscrapers be used with extreme care. There are very few UK cities where they proliferate, as compared to american cities, they are subect to extreme amounts of planning restrictions in the UK. Some cities have blanket height restrictions of 3-4 storeys. Skyscrapers might be better treated as monuments (one-offs).
Actually, there's much to be said for using attractions as city buildings generally: they would be useful for public amenities such as police stations, prisons, fire stations, swimming baths, hospitals, lunatic asylums, workhouses, government offices, courts and the like.
the only problem with treating such buildings as attractions would be that they don't overwrite existing buildings at the city core.
You might get a 100 story building in the outskirts of nowhere.
I think there is plenty of scope for improving the way cities are generated in pak128.Britain/Simutrans. At present I don't understand how much is a pakset issue and how much is a exe/code issue - see also discussion here: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=9684.0
Among the things which don't quite "fit" to me are:
- preference for dense buildings everywhere or nowhere (depending on renovate %) rather than a denser core and suburbs
- general lack of industrial buildings being placed with timeline on (is this because we don't have the right levels of industry?)
- attractions are always built around the edge of cities, even those which in real life would be central (e.g. cathedrals, skyscrapers if coded that way)
However I don't think we will solve all these straight away, and we won't be able to work out a better solution until we have more buildings to play with. Graphics take time to do, but once done can be reused and the dats can be adjusted and tweaked over time. Until we have more this isn't possible. Anyone else feel like helping me draw some?
I wasn't going to share these quite yet but I liked what I saw when I tested it so I had to share it. I've done 2 semi-detatched versions of Kieron's 1930s house and another version of the detatched house (so it's not a lot of my own work). It works quite well and generates some more realistic looking suburbia...
(http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/3998/1930ssuburbia.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/213/1930ssuburbia.png/)
EDIT: and some 1930s flats. Unfortunately, now I've added these, generating the massive suburbia doesn't happen as the game much prefers building flats (levels 6-10) rather than houses (levels 1-4)
(http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6206/1930sflats.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/217/1930sflats.png/)
EDIT2: And some parade shops from the 1930s to add some commercial buildings to that era:
(http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8633/1930sparadeshops.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/138/1930sparadeshops.png/)
You could reach the suburbia growth by making the block of flats only intermittently available. Say every third year. Thus for two years of growth mostly suburbia would grow, in the third year some would be replaced by blocks of flats.
This would of course not work during world generation. Here most likely dates could be avoided, for instance not having this available in full decade years and '5 years. Those are more likely choices for players.
those shops look rather good. a pitty the game will hardly ever build them in that way.
Yes it is rather a shame that the game doesn't build things in the most aesthetic way, e.g. large suburban roads of similar buildings, and high streets with shop after shop, office districts with larger buildings etc. Maybe one day a developer will be happy to code it - it would vastly improve the look of the game. I'm working on the principal that if there is a large bank of graphics ready to do this with, it's more likely to be coded.
Anyway, here's some 1930s offices. I think my 1930s architecture bonanza day should stop here...
(http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/3339/1930soffice.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/821/1930soffice.png/)
The Hood
Your Photos from the new Buildings looks very good out.
Ooooh very nice, as I said, I want to ensure that estates get built even when there are higher level buildings available :)
Would it help to implement multi-tile city buildings? I think this would be possible.
The 'easiest' way would be to create such buildings while upgrading low-level ones. Then the city rules part does not need to be touched.
I was thinking maybe create city building groups that naturally cluster. Like current preference for res/com/ind but more detailed. Also maybe a parameter to toggle whether core or suburbs is preferred for a building.
I like the idea that the urban sprawl in the 30s is more or less decreased by these.
Something else: These 30s offices with the clock on top could also serve as an alternative post office... Maybe with a red stripe over the first windows... Think about it... In big cities usually you don't get these small post offices.
The building with a clocktower looks like it is a normal 1 tile city building, just with 8 rotations - so it is not necessarily that big in game.
no no, I don't mean that big but one tile as an station extension is definitely nice. I mean the current post offices do look so small and do not quite fit for a big station in a big city.
Great buildings, The Hood! :)
Quote from: Dwachs on April 14, 2012, 08:40:59 PM
Would it help to implement multi-tile city buildings? I think this would be possible.
The 'easiest' way would be to create such buildings while upgrading low-level ones. Then the city rules part does not need to be touched.
I like this idea a lot.
Quote from: kierongreen on April 14, 2012, 08:48:05 PM
I was thinking maybe create city building groups that naturally cluster. Like current preference for res/com/ind but more detailed. Also maybe a parameter to toggle whether core or suburbs is preferred for a building.
And this one too...
I like both The Hood's contributions and Dwachs' and Kieron's suggestions - and also Sdog's suggestion for a temporary solution has much to recommend it.
And another offering - not very inspiring I'm sure but how many office buildings are supposed to be inspiring?
(http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/3410/1930soffice2.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/718/1930soffice2.png/)
I like the idea of having one of those as post-office station extension. The one with the clock would look particularily nice, however the corner versions, i like the best would be lost that way. Station extensions don't have corner versions, is that correct?
might be interesting to just randomly stroll around with maps street view.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=52.405359,-1.51112&spn=0.043723,0.086174&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=52.405359,-1.51112&panoid=sEM23JvJSZJtgVhZ1eLjkA&cbp=12,41.95,,0,-30.3 (http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=52.405359,-1.51112&spn=0.043723,0.086174&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=52.405359,-1.51112&panoid=sEM23JvJSZJtgVhZ1eLjkA&cbp=12,41.95,,0,-30.3)
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=52.977589,-0.024719&spn=0.693762,1.378784&t=h&z=10&layer=c&cbll=52.977096,-0.024405&panoid=5M0y_My3nM59ENINh-UM9Q&cbp=12,357.64,,0,0.54
I really like those new buildings.
Quote from: The Hood on April 14, 2012, 11:39:38 PM
And another offering - not very inspiring I'm sure but how many office buildings are supposed to be inspiring?
(http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/3410/1930soffice2.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/718/1930soffice2.png/)
I wonder whether that last building would look slightly better slightly darker?
(http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/3410/1930soffice2.png)
that Deco building, with balconies across the front, and a color like the white flats, would make an excellent residential structure. Quite like Hercule Poirot's residence on the David Suchet series.
Quote from: jamespetts on April 14, 2012, 11:59:43 PM
I wonder whether that last building would look slightly better slightly darker?
I'd say that the roof can be one tone darker.
It looks like a stucco building: http://www.relkogroup.co.uk/businesses/restoration-and-masonry/case-studies/cs-stucco (http://www.relkogroup.co.uk/businesses/restoration-and-masonry/case-studies/cs-stucco)
there are quite a few interesting buildings with no interesting traits on that website.
It is supposed to be stucco. I've redone it with a darker roof but I don't have time to do a screenshot now. I was already thinking of deco flats as a variation on it too.
All of the stuff I've done so far is now in SVN - there will be more, but I wanted to upload what I've done so that kieron and whoever else could make a start on any coding work if they want to, using the additional graphics.
thanks :) i'm working on more than one coding project in simutrans at the moment so don't expect immediate progress...
Hello
The underground, narrow gauge, the new bridges ... now the new buildings!
The pak128brit will never be the same ... :)
Great work, thanks.
Giuseppe
And the aircraft. Don't forget the aircraft ;-)
Hello James
Right now I'm working on Boeing 747 .... Thanks also to the in-laws who have been with my wife at the mall ... so I can work on PC ... ;)
Giuseppe
Three cheers to Giuseppe's inlaws!
Quote from: The Hood on April 14, 2012, 11:39:38 PM
And another offering - not very inspiring I'm sure but how many office buildings are supposed to be inspiring?
So I was searching for "inspiring" british c20th buildings generally. Thought people might find these interesting.
1930sModern Housing - 2 Willow Road, by Erno Goldfinger
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/1_2_3_Willow_Road_Hampstead_London_20050924.JPG/200px-1_2_3_Willow_Road_Hampstead_London_20050924.JPG)
Modern Housing, Frognall Way (more similar stuff (http://www.e-architect.co.uk/london/frognal_road_house.htm))
(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6063/6046733714_b830521ae3.jpg)
Modern Office Building (Hoover, Perivale
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/Hoover_Building.jpg/220px-Hoover_Building.jpg)
Modern Public Building (DeLaWare Pavillion, Bexhill)
(http://www.discoverbexhill.com/images/photos_large/delawarrpavilion1.jpg)
1940s
Housing- post WW2 prefabs (more pictures (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1061037/Saved-nation-South-London-prefab-estate-built-German-Italian-PoWs.html))
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/09/24/article-1061037-02C7F4C200000578-342_468x286.jpg)
1950s
post WW2 materials shortages persisted.
Housing: Keeling House
(http://img.findaproperty.com/library/libp0251.jpg)
Public Building - Festival Hall
(http://www.hyphenpress.co.uk/images/61/large/rfh_1951.jpg)
1960s
Office - Centre Point (early london skyscraper)
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Centre_Point_London.jpg/250px-Centre_Point_London.jpg)
Housing - Park Hill, Sheffield (could work well in game if we get multi tile buildings...)
(http://i771.photobucket.com/albums/xx353/luvthecity_photos/Park%20Hill/park16.jpg)
1970s
Housing - Bledlow by Aldington & Craig
(http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1801/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1801-49935.jpg)
Offices - Lloyds Building
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Lloyd%27s_building_from_Leadenhall_Street.jpg/250px-Lloyd%27s_building_from_Leadenhall_Street.jpg)
[Edit: Forum behaving wierdly uploading images, bear with me...]
Ahh, the prefabs! We should have prefabs.
Quote from: jamespetts on April 15, 2012, 07:11:43 PM
Ahh, the prefabs! We should have prefabs.
By the dozen!! ;D
I'll see if I can come up with some more "inspirational" buildings. The office-towers are a bit too one-off for my liking, there are better precedents I'm sure.
Quote from: jamespetts on April 15, 2012, 07:11:43 PM
Ahh, the prefabs! We should have prefabs.
You shall have prefabs...
(http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/3652/prefabs.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/838/prefabs.png/)
(good idea AP)
Love the prefabs! De La Warr is good, it fits in with overall slight easter egg aspect to this pak...
Splendid!
Shifting eras a bit now, a georgian terrace:
(http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/268/georgianterrace.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/59/georgianterrace.png/)
Very classy! Almost makes me want to live in the Simutrans world...
Did they have flat roofs prototypically? Nice details!
Very nice hood, but Kierongreen is right.
Quote from: kierongreen on April 15, 2012, 09:42:04 PM
Did they have flat roofs prototypically? Nice details!
Nope, not in Bath at any rate, nor London that I know of. You want double-mansards with a hidden valley in the centre:
(http://www.weymouth-pictures.co.uk/dor/wey/rod/notmine/ioe/RodwellRd48.jpg)
(clearest picture I could find, I know it's not georgian townhouse)
Don't forget the chimneys between each house, only way they were heated. Might help provide a more seamless tile junction than the double-parapet shown, if you e.g. put chimneys on the left side of each house only.
Edit: Here they are in Bath (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=bath&hl=en&ll=51.380902,-2.366288&spn=0.012201,0.033023&safe=off&hnear=Bath,+Bath+and+North+East+Somerset,+United+Kingdom&gl=uk&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=51.380991,-2.366257&panoid=gWH77OTAIAtR-YiEGL9-Ew&cbp=12,280.74,,0,-10.06).
Gosh, you lot are hard to please :p
(http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/375/georgianterrace2.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/638/georgianterrace2.png/)
There we go, much better :p (actually I like the colour change too)
the previous one with the flat roof can be one of those buildings that received a superficial renovation somewhere down the line ;)
Some more Victorian Terrace houses:
(http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/9789/victorianterraces.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/37/victorianterraces.png/)
one suggestion: since you have different version of the houses (different colour of doors) could you also change the light/dark patterns on the houses a bit. Only a bit distortion is needed, right now they are very unnaturally regular. When i first looked at this weakly contrasted brown/light brown pattern was dominating my perception, even more than any of the higher contrast objects.
In game they likely never come in such long rows, though.
haven't had any constructive criticism yet, and didn't want to spam the thread with a post that contains praise only. I followed the recent additions though, and they look remarkably good. In the case of the prefabs remarkably ugly, which is excellent in this context :-)
Looking wonderful!
The Hood
The Victorian Terrace houses looks very nice and good out.
I be get happy. :)
Quote from: The Hood on April 15, 2012, 10:16:11 PM
Gosh, you lot are hard to please
Much beter, I agree, good job.
Quote from: ӔO on April 15, 2012, 10:50:33 PM
the previous one with the flat roof can be one of those buildings that received a superficial renovation somewhere down the line ;)
That's a good idea, make it a 1980s pastiche building instead. Maybe stick some air con generators on the roof or somesuch!
Some more 1890s town houses:
(http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/8961/1890townhouses.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/818/1890townhouses.jpg/)
Can you spot all the new ones?
I think we're quite short on industrial buildings but I'm getting a little stuck beyond drawing warehouses and storage tanks. Any bright ideas?
Smithy, Carpenter workshop, Sailmaker (or whatever that's called in English), Small weaver workshop, Saddlemaker, bike repair shop, shoemaker, Ropemaker, Copper workshop, Cooper workshop and all those other small industries (too small to actually have a factory for it) in the late nineteenth / early twentieth century. Fantasy enough, lacking painting skills...
some low density industry was open.
open storage (bricks, logs, coal, barrels, horse coaches)
scrap yard
cattle market
garbage yard
paper recycling
hammer mill
heavy construction equipment yard (with lorries and excavators)
a fenced empty field with one of those (don't know english name): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Fotothek_df_roe-neg_0006483_032_Blick_auf_eine_Baustelle_mit_einem_Bagger.jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Fotothek_df_roe-neg_0006483_032_Blick_auf_eine_Baustelle_mit_einem_Bagger.jpg)
easy to make: a field with abandoned train engines, for scrap
a lot of those could be done, introducing them shortly after a very prominent engine is obsolete, the building is available only a very short while, so only a few should spawn.
c19th heavy industry - foundaries making cranes and engines and such things that powered the world.
Also, what about a "port" to simulate the rest of the world, which could vary its demands with time (and might have near-inexhaustible demand for certain materials).
@Combuijs/Sdog: something along these lines?
(http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8607/1750lightindustry.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/268/1750lightindustry.png/)
There are a number of new tiles in that photo, which are intended to be a smithy, carpenter, two pastures (all industrial, low level) and some hovels (level 1 residential) which are intended to be 1750-1900 rural style buildings. I found some of the parts for these in a blender file I've had for ages with part-complete pak128 simutrans objects - I think it was originally by Raven but I'm not sure. I'm happy to share credits with whoever it was, but I can't find where I got the file from and I've reworked all the bits I've used anyway.
I've also done this telephone exchange (1930) which I've also coded as industrial for now.
(http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/5761/telephoneexchange.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/851/telephoneexchange.png/)
@AP: my previous comment was referring to industrial citybuildings rather than industry chains, which I think is what you are talking about?
Quote from: The Hood on April 17, 2012, 12:32:09 PM
I think we're quite short on industrial buildings but I'm getting a little stuck beyond drawing warehouses and storage tanks. Any bright ideas?
Water pumping stations through the ages. Perhaps code as attractions? Incidentally - love the new buildings!
Hello
Quote from: Milko on February 23, 2012, 10:01:04 AM
Code changes mentioned, are those required in this post?
http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=8883.msg82614#msg82614
Quote from: The Hood on March 03, 2012, 03:53:40 PM
Sorry for the late reply. No, they are separate requests. The one about stations is to give extensions 16 rotations like platforms. The other request is about modular buildings.
I asked, in the thread of modular buildings on the board "extension request", if the request will be granted.
I have not found any extension request on 16 rotations. Do you know if you have any requests made in this regard?
Giuseppe
OK, Adding some more citybuildings to SVN, including these water pumps:
(http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/4623/waterpump1.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/594/waterpump1.png/)
(http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/1654/waterpump2.png) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/818/waterpump2.png/)
I'm hitting a bit of a brick wall with drawing buildings (pardon the pun), so I might take a break for a while and maybe draw something else. Hopefully these additions fill a few holes in the buildings timeline - let me know what else is missing.
Impressive!
Nice details :) I'm going to nit pick but something about the yellow feels a bit too saturated, and the pale grey surrounding the roof slightly too light.
Cool.
Great Work.
:) :)
Well, Sorry to bring this one up again. But whilst trying to play a game loosely based on Greater London area, i missed some modern office highrises likely to be found in and around the Docklands, Canary Wharf, etc.
I thought it would be nice to have some of these in the game, especially for the 2000-2020 area:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Canary_Wharf_Wide_View%2C_London_-_July_2009.jpg/425px-Canary_Wharf_Wide_View%2C_London_-_July_2009.jpg)
Right now my Canary Wharf is looking like this:
(http://i.imgur.com/psJlt.jpg)
The problem is this type of building is very very rare in Britain. Simutrans has a habit of flooding areas with the highest level building available, which would mean them cropping up in every area :(
While these buildings are rare, we do need some. One option is to code them as attractions rather than city buildings. We will have them one day, but it's a case of when I or someone else decides to draw them.
Quote from: kierongreen on September 06, 2012, 07:01:36 PM
The problem is this type of building is very very rare in Britain. Simutrans has a habit of flooding areas with the highest level building available, which would mean them cropping up in every area :(
I think this can be exacerbated -- to a certain extent, at least -- by having several buildings at the highest level and giving a lower "chance" parameter to the ones you want to be rare. I seem to remember using this to avoid a similar problem a while ago.
The thing with 'skyscrapers' is UK planning law (and economics) encourages them to cluster. Coding them as attractions will stop the proliferating unduly, but actually to be realistic, if anything, the attraction should be e.g. a 3x3 city block containing 6 or 7 of them, with a park or plaza between, with a very low probability. Otherwise there is every chance of 2 or 3 tall towers every city, whereas in fact there are many cities which do or have effectively operate(d) blanket bans on them (e.g. many cathedral cities), some deliberately, other by means of conservation policy, whereas other cities have areas where they are tolerated (or encouraged) becaues the impact is less.
UK cities, unlike e.g. American cities, are mostly very human in scale (exceptions exist, often products of the 1950-70s). Skyscrapers are generlaly very poor contributors to the urban environment, and indeed just create transport nightmares - I read in the architectural press not too long ago one of the only reasons the Shard got permission is that it sits almost directly on top of London Bridge railway station.
QuoteSkyscrapers [...] just create transport nightmares - I read in the architectural press not too long ago one of the only reasons the Shard got permission is that it sits almost directly on top of London Bridge railway station.
Well planed they would not need to create such nightmares, the station below is a good start. Requiring every skyscraper development project to also build living quarters within walking distance another one. The trend to re-urbanization likely needs such concepts. And they are being developed, i heard Chinese cities are working hard at such things [while the central government undermines the effort to foster the automobile industry].
The attraction idea of a cluster of skyscrapers is excellent. I think this might be by far the best way to cover three aspects, first to get the actual ensemble, secondly make them unique on the map, and thirdly allows to tweak the passenger an mail numbers without too much trouble.
Quote from: sdog on September 06, 2012, 11:50:17 PM
The attraction idea of a cluster of skyscrapers ...
Thinking this through, it would also have the advantage of appearing toward the periphery of a city, away from the historic core, which is realistic (e.g. canary wharf). The exceptions would be cities that were bomb-damaged or regenerated, but simutrans doesn't do war or economic decline!
The other advantage of an attractions approach is that citybuildings are max 1x1 tiles and skyscrapers are often bigger in footprint.
I know this has been discussed before, but can I put in a request for more variety in town halls? Simutrans supports multiple size town halls. I've just tested this using the stone church / college / cathedral buildings — it seems to work fine, and will demolish nearby buildings or relocate the hall when it needs to resize it midway through a game. It would be nice to take advantage of this by having 1x1 and 1x2 village / small town halls, perhaps expanding as much as 3x4 for a large city hall. Less importantly, the neo-Palladian architecture of the current town halls is only really appropriate for the 18th or early 19th centuries. It might be nice if we also had versions that were mediæval (e.g. the London Guildhall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:London_Guildhall.jpg)), neo-Gothic (e.g. Manchester Town Hall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manchester_Town_Hall_from_Princess_Street.jpg)) and modern (e.g. London City Hall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CityHallLondon2007.JPG)).
In this message (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=4454.msg44855#msg44855) Kieron Green said that it was important that the town hall should be immediately recognizable. Is this really true? From a game play perspective, I rarely to want to access the city tab, and if I do, I find the city list is often a more convenient way of accessing it than clicking on the town hall; and I almost never care precisely where the hall is. By contrast, I frequently want to locate city industries (pubs, bakeries, and the like) and they're often very similar in style to houses. I'm not advocating changing the city industries to make them more readily identifiable, but I think the case for doing that is rather stronger than the case for readily-identifiable town halls.
ras52
The photolinks looks very nice out.
I think there's potential for a range of town halls (including the ones you mention). What I would suggest is that each town hall has a range of sizes all in the same style, preferably each the same size (like the present one). So 18th century (and earlier) might have mediaeval, first half of 19th century the current one, then other new ones for second half of 19th century, first half of 20th century (art deco?) and second half of 20th century (modern). Probably also a 21st century one. Are you volunteering to draw some? :p
Quote from: kierongreen on October 02, 2012, 06:07:40 PM
Are you volunteering to draw some? :p
No, but if it'll help, I'm happy to take a look at any bugs in the code that may come to light with multiple styles and sizes of town halls.
pak64 has multiple sizes of the townhall. As far as I know there are no problems with it, but when extending to a larger size it can relocate the townhall. As I hate those relocations I've removed the smaller ones from my personal pak64.
Combuijs
I think thats smaller townhalls must be Stay in Paksets.
Quote from: Combuijs on October 02, 2012, 06:33:33 PM
pak64 has multiple sizes of the townhall. As far as I know there are no problems with it, but when extending to a larger size it can relocate the townhall. As I hate those relocations I've removed the smaller ones from my personal pak64.
I'm curious. Is there a game play reason for disliking town hall relocations, or is your objection simply aesthetic (not that that isn't important too)?
Based on recent experiments with a modified version of pak128-Britain with town halls of sizes 1x1, 1x2, 2x2, 2x3 and 3x3, it seems more common than not for the town hall to be upgraded in situ with 1x1 -> 1x2 -> 2x2. The upgrade from 2x2 -> 2x3 usually resulted in it being moved by a short distance; but the upgrade from 2x3 -> 3x3 almost invariably involved a large move, and sometimes to a suburb site. It might be possible to reduce the scope for major relocations if we are allowed to delete city roads during the upgrade (with the obvious caveat that removing the road leaves the city's road network connected), but that's a code issue, not a pak one.
QuoteIs there a game play reason for disliking town hall relocations, or is your objection simply aesthetic (not that that isn't important too)?
I don't mind about aesthetics, so for game play reasons. As townhalls generate a lot of passengers and mail such relocation will influence local traffic and a need to rebalance the line system in town. Further, it is irritating to see the townhall somewhere in a new corner of the city, its position is changed on the minimap while the city itself remains in the same place. Also when clicking on the city list the view is centered on the townhall. It like it to be in the same place all the time, it is more or less an orientation point for the city.
QuoteIt might be possible to reduce the scope for major relocations if we are allowed to delete city roads during the upgrade (with the obvious caveat that removing the road leaves the city's road network connected)
Never do that, it might disrupt a few transportroutes without you noticing it (busses may take a long way around).
There are c20th precedents for town hall relocations though. Often the symbolic "hall" in the town centre is kept for functions, whilst the offices full of staff (and generating the "traffic") is relocated to a nice modern air conditioned building on the ring road where the parking is better.
I like the idea of evolving town halls (i may have said this before). The cotswolds have some lovely pre-twentieth-century examples on the same design (from simple Tetbury to grand county hall Abingdon).
The reason for keeping town halls the same size is to keep it in the same place. Yes simutrans tries to do this, but it's not guaranteed, and it would look a bit odd for a town hall to be extended and moved at the same time. However the different styles could be different sizes as if it's a completely new building being built then it would be expected that this might often be in a new place.
Quote from: kierongreen on October 02, 2012, 06:07:40 PM
I think there's potential for a range of town halls (including the ones you mention). What I would suggest is that each town hall has a range of sizes all in the same style, preferably each the same size (like the present one). So 18th century (and earlier) might have mediaeval, first half of 19th century the current one, then other new ones for second half of 19th century, first half of 20th century (art deco?) and second half of 20th century (modern). Probably also a 21st century one. Are you volunteering to draw some? :p
I definitely agree with this - this would be splendid. The current range of town halls is good for the earlier era, I think.
How about a porte-cochère as a through roadway station, matching the stone railway buildings...
Wlindley
Those Busstop looks very good out.
Interesting. What is the historical precedent for that?
It is a small version of something not unlike Glasgow Central Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Central_station_panoramic.JPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Central_station_panoramic.JPG)
The undercroft 'bus station I posted some time ago, while we are in Glasgow, was inspired by Glasgow Queen Street:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glasgow_Queen_Street,_station_entrance.JPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glasgow_Queen_Street,_station_entrance.JPG)
Both works in progress, looking to bring historic and modern railway stations out to the street interface.
(https://wlindley.com/simutrans/undercroft-bus-terminal.png)
Hmm. It's hard to see how the reasons for designing things this way in the first place could satisfactorily be simulated. People would be able to use these on their own, yet it makes no sense in reality to have them on their own, I think.
Quote from: jamespetts on January 31, 2013, 02:08:34 PM
Hmm. It's hard to see how the reasons for designing things this way in the first placee could satisactorily be simulated. PEople would be able to use these on their own, yet it makes no sense in reality to have them on their own, I think.
Sometimes, things just being there for the appearance is entirely acceptable and good.
Quote from: wlindley on January 31, 2013, 01:05:33 PM
How about a porte-cochère as a through roadway station, matching the stone railway buildings...
We call them carriage porches here in GB, none of that french nonsense here... ;-)
Woh.
Very cool those photo.
Playable pakset and sources including Gimp .xcf for the ... umm, carriage porch... here (http://wlindley.com/simutrans/porte.zip)
James, don't mind people using things in an unhistorical or silly way. There are endless possibilities to do so. It'd be better to consider if it fits the scope in its intended use.
@Wlindley
The original porte-cochère looks rather splendidly. Especially since it's just an example or a prototype. There was however something i couldn't put my finger on. Reading the wikipedia article gave me the clue:
"At the foot of the porte-cochère there are often a couple of guard stones to prevent the wheels of the vehicle from damaging the wall."
I think something similar to this would greatly improve it, the right angle at which the walls reach the floor looks a little strange.
Applying the modular approach to Town Halls, here are four phases, starting with a version for very small towns.
Note that these four different buildings are built from only six tiles, through the use of BackImage and FrontImage. Only in one rotation so far, but the 180-degree rotation will not require any new tiles.
If the .pak format ever supports image duplication, the variety of buildings can increase dramatically while the size of paks decreases. Here's hoping.
One of the good things that I like about Pak Britain is that it won't randomly teleport the town hall to the other side of the city (or even worse in the outskirts) outside the catchment area of my carefully planned transport hub; that's because each stage is of the same size, so the game can replace the old one in the exact same spot when needed.
It seems that at least the first fase of those town halls is smaller than the others, and that will definetly cause the game to move it when the city grows.
They are all coded as 2x2, with open spaces. ("Room for a pony!")
Very well, then! They do look good.
Wlindley
the idea from 15:36 on the second png file work not so easy.
Are these intended to be additional to, rather than instead of some of, the current full range of town halls?
The smaller two could be additional levels for villages, and when complete to replace the existing townhall levels 1 through 3. That would replace as follows:
was: 3 levels with 16 tiles x 3 levels x 2 seasons = 96 image tiles
with: 5 levels composed of 10 new tiles x 2 seasons = 20 tiles.
I like them - I'm always keen on the modular approach and I'd love to see makeobj restructured so that it only saves each tile once regardless of how many times it is used in different objects - that would be a real win in terms of pak size.
The only thing I'm not sure about is how these fit in with levels of town hall - we could simply add extra levels on the bottom but even the lowest ones aren't exactly "village" halls - they're far too grand. This is something else that would require a coding change but I would like to see a differentiation in game between cities, towns and villages (i.e. how fast they grow and what mix of industrial/commercial/residential and attraction buildings they get). We could then have a set of 1x1 halls for villages, 1x2 for towns and 2x2 for cities.
Finally, are you planning on adding 4 rotations for the above?
PS I think the octagonal block could work quite well as a standalone building, e.g. a library?
Quote from: The Hood on February 20, 2013, 04:23:01 PM
We could then have a set of 1x1 halls for villages, 1x2 for towns and 2x2 for cities.
No, please. This is exactly what I hate about other paksets. It screws up your network as it moves one of the largest passengers attractors outside the catchment area of the existing stations and creates unrealistic situations with the grand town hall in the middle of nowhere. Windley's solution, with the smaller hall building sorrounded by either empty space or other props (maybe city square tiles instead of grass, if you don't like it?), is the best.
I think that better it to Reserved a big place for a cityhall how than the cityhall long time can be stay.
Yes, there will be four rotations, and snow. In phase 3, the pool will move to between the two wings before it is replaced by the rotunda in phase 4. Phase 5 will probably have the second storey added to the wings. And yes, the octagonal rotunda building alone makes an excellent early library, and shall be coded as such.
Quote from: The Hood on February 20, 2013, 04:23:01 PMI would like to see a differentiation in game between cities, towns and villages (i.e. how fast they grow...
This is already a feature of Simutrans.
Quote from: jamespetts on February 21, 2013, 11:58:59 AM
This is already a feature of Simutrans.
How does it work? Is it purely based on population or are different settlements classified as such for the duration of the game?
Quote from: Bear789 on February 20, 2013, 04:44:44 PM
No, please. This is exactly what I hate about other paksets. It screws up your network as it moves one of the largest passengers attractors outside the catchment area of the existing stations and creates unrealistic situations with the grand town hall in the middle of nowhere. Windley's solution, with the smaller hall building sorrounded by either empty space or other props (maybe city square tiles instead of grass, if you don't like it?), is the best.
I agree with what you are saying - what I meant before was an extension request to create three classes of settlement which would have the different town hall sizes and grow at different rates. Essentially cities would dominate the local transport but have a range of towns and villages around them with commuter patterns etc. It is somewhat arbitrary however. In any case that would need a code change rather than a pak change, and unless something like that happened, I'm sticking with 2x2 for all town halls.
Quote from: wlindley on February 20, 2013, 04:52:39 PM
Yes, there will be four rotations, and snow. In phase 3, the pool will move to between the two wings before it is replaced by the rotunda in phase 4. Phase 5 will probably have the second storey added to the wings. And yes, the octagonal rotunda building alone makes an excellent early library, and shall be coded as such.
Are you planning on recreating the existing series of townhalls on your modular approach? If so I'm not quite sure of the benefit unless of course we ever get to rewriting the pakfile format to just count images once rather than for each instance. Can I also suggest having the unfilled squares on the smaller town halls as being pavement or park tiles? I'm thinking town square...
Quote from: The Hood on February 21, 2013, 12:12:41 PM
How does it work? Is it purely based on population or are different settlements classified as such for the duration of the game?
It is based on population, and affects only growth rate. In Standard, I think, the population thresholds are fixed, but they can be set in simuconf.tab in Experimental. One problem of this system is that, as all towns on the map grow over time, there become more "cities" and fewer "towns" and "villages", distorting the relative patterns.
I plan to abolish this distinction in Experimental (except for the purpose of road types on map generation), and replace it with a system of growth based on transport success rates from particular buildings, which should have the emergent property that larger towns grow faster, as they are more likely to generate passengers that want to make more local (and therefore achievable, within any given time tolerance) journeys.
Hello all
Have the cityhalls in pak128.britain a timeline?
Quote from: The Hood on February 21, 2013, 12:12:41 PM
I agree with what you are saying - what I meant before was an extension request to create three classes of settlement which would have the different town hall sizes and grow at different rates. Essentially cities would dominate the local transport but have a range of towns and villages around them with commuter patterns etc. It is somewhat arbitrary however. In any case that would need a code change rather than a pak change, and unless something like that happened, I'm sticking with 2x2 for all town halls.
Oh, now I understand, sorry. I suppose that that would require some changes in the game code, however. It would indeed be nice if the game could handle towns in a different way, so that some of them are destined to become large metropolis (and maybe have a different range of city attractions and industries too), and other to remain small countryside villages.
Quote from: jamespetts on February 21, 2013, 12:28:41 PM
It is based on population, and affects only growth rate. In Standard, I think, the population thresholds are fixed, but they can be set in simuconf.tab in Experimental. One problem of this system is that, as all towns on the map grow over time, there become more "cities" and fewer "towns" and "villages", distorting the relative patterns.
Yes, in Standard you can only affect growth. By default, villages have the largest growth factor, capitals the smallest one and cities are somewhat in the middle.
Quote from: greenling on February 21, 2013, 06:20:45 PM
Hello all
Have the cityhalls in pak128.britain a timeline?
This is an interesting observation. Cities founded in modern times could have an office building as city hall. This would however have the old problem that cities start with no historical buildings or attractions if the game start in the modern era.
I have to say, I rather favour the idea of having different town halls for different eras. The ones that we have would suit the 18th and early 19th centuries, but we could do with a new red brick edifice (think of Birmingham, Manchester or Glasgow's town hall) for the mid/late 19th and early 20th centuries, a concrete monstrosity for the mid 20th century, and a glass and steel structure for the late 20th and 21st centuries.
Forcing things a bit, modular pieces for a Manchester-like town hall can be reused for attractions and monuments such as the Westminster Palace. And maybe a couple of churches, abbeys and cathedrals older than the ones the pack courrently has.
What about the skyscrapers of London? That would be great :)
Quote from: gustl on April 13, 2013, 08:39:32 AM
What about the skyscrapers of London? That would be great :)
Yes. But of course finding the time to do them is hard. You could try yourself? It's usually quickest to draw something you want yourself rather than wait for me to get round to it ;) I'm always happy to help and encourage new contributors.
My thoughts were to not have skyscrapers in the pak. The reason is that they are so rare in real life, whereas if they were added they would pop up in every city in the game.
Quote from: kierongreen on April 13, 2013, 09:57:05 AM
My thoughts were to not have skyscrapers in the pak. The reason is that they are so rare in real life, whereas if they were added they would pop up in every city in the game.
Unless we modify the city development code...
Ugly apartments looked so lonely so made friend for them:
(http://i62.tinypic.com/2qvt5qr.png)
plan is to make 3 more taller versions to match old apartments after some feedback.
Splendid! These look as though they should be introduced a few years earlier than the others: they seem extra grim by comparison.
They do indeed seem (realistically) grim... At times I wish that buildings could graphically decay in Simutrans as surely they'd have looked nice for at least a few years after being built!
here are taller versions
(http://i58.tinypic.com/i5856h.png)
--
(http://i62.tinypic.com/2db3yj5.png)
--
(http://i58.tinypic.com/zq2xh.png)
ps. I forgot to remove special colors with shades
Those look really nice... I particularly like the balconies.
Splendid! Now all that we need is code to simulate them falling down when anybody accidentally leaves the gas on (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point).
Building might need more brown façade for that authentic British atmosphere.
(http://fields.eca.ac.uk/gis/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/nc-28.jpg)
Next tower block
This time I even remembered remove special colors !
-- removed obsolete pic --
Splendid! One can almost smell the urine in the lifts.
I changed some textures and rendered last this one again. comes with 9 story version. 11 and 13 story ones will follow.
I really like how this one turned out.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/6h5ht2.png)
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(http://i61.tinypic.com/i4gtx2.png)
Hmm, ...using Experimental's grouping codes, those flats could be accompanied by a matching car-park with a burnt Escort and Onslow's Cortina?
Those are wonderful... really nice design and the render came out really crisp. Add a bit of colour and they might look nice for pak128 as well!
Excellent!
Finished 11 story version.
(http://i62.tinypic.com/11cfh1w.png)
Very, very nice! :)
13 story version finished!
(http://i62.tinypic.com/149wa6g.png)
This was supposed to be last tower block but found cute one that I cant resist.
Impressive!
shortest version of next set. This turn out almost as good as last one.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/2zsb81e.png)
Wow - good to see you back Archon. All these tower blocks leave me thinking - perhaps we need to intersperse some gardens/parking lots of the same passenger level. After all tower blocks like these are never built immediately adjacent to one another but have some space around them. Unless we are now allowed 2X2 citybuildings?
Not yet (unfortunately).
That does look good. There are discussions about permitting multi-tiled city buildings in Experimental, but this is in the early stages and it might be quite a while before the work is done.
Yes - I think it's something that should definitely be brought to both Standard and Experimental.
As long as you give the car-parks or garages the same passenger level as their matching buildings, you could use the clustering feature (introduced May 2013) to group them:
Quote from: neroden on May 02, 2013, 12:43:15 AM
There are 32 possible clusters (numbered 1 through 32) available for a pakset. Buildings do not have to be part of any cluster, and are not part of any cluster by default. A building may be part of two or more different clusters. (It's a bitfield...)
I would suggest putting rowhouses and other buildings which fill from side-property-line to side-property-line into clusters...
yeah I really would like variable size citybuildings and alpha channel support.
having parks with same level as towers would help but not ideal solution.
City generation stuff would be high on my list of things needing overhaul.
anyway here is latest batch
(http://i57.tinypic.com/zl3s7p.png)
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(http://i58.tinypic.com/2myox82.png)
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(http://i60.tinypic.com/23hrs55.png)
Excellent!
Is there rules for building levels? some buildings seem to have inconsistent levels.
Anyway, here is next project. Was shocked about 50s office building variety so I had to do something about it.
(http://i59.tinypic.com/t0oiuw.png)
Still work in progress . Roof texture looks better after you stare it for hour or so.
Not sure if I keep corner building style for final version.
Splendid! If there is inconsistency of levels, perhaps this needs investigating more generally; if the thought that there is inconsistency is incorrect, perhaps the basis for the levels could do with explaining
There are no rules really at the minute. It needs looking at but I was postponing that until we had a larger collection of buildings. TBH I still don't properly understand how it all works with level, probability etc. I think probability is just within a level, i.e. once the city has decided to build a certain level it then chooses out of the buildings of that level according to probabiltiy. But ideally you could encourage lower levels over higher levels as we don't have too many high-rise in the UK.
Probability only affects which buildings of a particular level are chosen, not what the level is in the first place. A problem with the building code is that high level buildings are strongly preferred - resulting in large numbers of tower blocks. This cannot be fixed at a pakset level but would need to be fixed in simutrans itself.
I managed to arrange all commercial buildings by level.
most level 10 and below seem ok. fried chicken and small office block look significantly smaller other buildings their level.
level 12 and above many wlindley's buildings have quite high levels for their size.
I think we should sort at least all commercial buildings to few categories(like level 5, 8, 10, 14, 18, 24, 30 etc) and have few official reference buildings in each category. New buildings could then be easily compared against references and categoriced.
(http://i58.tinypic.com/1531n38.png)
EDIT: Got offices ready!
I think this is about as tall as this building should go. If you really think it could be taller and not fall over I might make one more version.
(http://i57.tinypic.com/34qpc76.png)
--------------------------------------
(http://i57.tinypic.com/2iizv3l.png)
Thanks for that. Your suggestions seems good - happy for you to place the existing buidlings in new level categories. Does anyone know what sort of range we should have for level? 0-20? 0-50?
I would suggest levels 5, 8, 10, 14, 18, 24, 30 and 36.
My tallest tower blocks are level 36 and I feel that they fit quite well (shorter tower blocks how ever should have little lower levels).
Those towers are practicaly tallest buildings you can have 256 pixels high.
We could have similar scale for RES and COM buildings and different one for industry.
Quote from: Archon on August 26, 2014, 10:11:09 PM
EDIT: Got offices ready!
I think this is about as tall as this building should go. If you really think it could be taller and not fall over I might make one more version.
Looks great!
But I don't think it should be any taller, but an inbetween version with 2 stories in the upper part could be nice.
I like these new office buildings and agree that they need not be taller. As to the level, it seems sensible to have an ordered system, and reference buildings are definitely a good idea, as that is an easy means of calibration.
I should note that the next version of Experimental will have a different system that largely replaces "level" for city buildings, although the level is used to set default values if the new parameters are not present.
Archon, your buildings are beautiful !!!!
Giuseppe
Next office building turned out lot more ugly.
walls may be still bit too dark but other than that it is ok.
(http://i62.tinypic.com/35c1m47.png)
I like "ugly"... those are excellent! Your level of detail is impressive, you've squeezed a lot of components in to a small area.
Made taller version of last building + something extra.
(http://i60.tinypic.com/mbtkk0.png)
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(http://i61.tinypic.com/nppd2t.png)
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(http://i61.tinypic.com/2dmd2it.png)
Wow. 1960s era is going to look very realistic...
That latter building is more late 1960s/early 1970s, I think. Incidentally, especially are more buildings are added, I should urge the developers of the Standard version of this pakset to do what I have been doing with the Experimental version for some time, and have building introduction dates that are not all rounded to the nearest decade year, but are at arbitrary (but well spread) years and months so that a whole lot of buildings are not suddenly introduced all at once and then no new buildings for 10 game years.
Yes, that later is modeled after lowry house completed in 1973.
Here is another from 71. It has quite lot window surface that doesn't look good.
(http://i62.tinypic.com/2wcpb12.png)
I like it - what's not to like (apart from the architecture of course!)
Hmm, I just wonder how would they look side by side. Shouldn't there be a small sidewalk around them to separate the towers from each other?
Buildings with lot of glass are really hard to make look good. This one turned ok but had to make blue little brighter than I would like to.
Had some trouble making this one fit. There is not enough room for sidewalks or anything else here.
(http://i59.tinypic.com/11jucfo.png)
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(http://i60.tinypic.com/dxlklx.png)
Ahh, the joys of the 1970s!
Another 70s office tower. I would like to have another 50s office tower but that has to wait. I am going to do few older offices next.
(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/office5_1.png)
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(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/office5_2.png)
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(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/office5_3.png)
Splendid progress. Here is a video that might contain some inspiration (if any were needed, which it seems possibly not): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WhhSBgd3KI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WhhSBgd3KI) (especially near the beginning).
Wow. You're a machine! These look amazing.
Well . . . it seems that tinypic ate most of my images . . .
I figured out how to use web space that comes with my internet connection.
Up side with it is that I can upload what ever I want. Downside it has only 25MB of space.
Got last project finished.
Another office building. Now I remember how sadistic buildings with 8 rotations are to make.
(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/office10.png)
Interesting!
Archon, would you like me to set up archon.simutrans.com for your use? It'd technically be a full cPanel hosting account; you'd have full control. Far more than 25mb of storage. :)
8 rotations? As i see 4 for house in a row and 4 for house on a corner. Is that documented somewhere?
pak128.Britain makes use of a lot of 8 rotation building designs. As you can see in the house design, it's SE, NE, NW, SW for rotations 4-7.
Looks good- but with that last one the colours and texture make it seem like it has painted wooden panelling which would be odd for a building like that (at least in the UK). I assume it's meant to be rendered stone - perhaps make the bottom less blue and the top more grey? Or more of a sandstone colour?
Quote from: Isaac.Eiland-Hall on September 06, 2014, 09:57:32 PM
Archon, would you like me to set up archon.simutrans.com for your use? It'd technically be a full cPanel hosting account; you'd have full control. Far more than 25mb of storage. :)
Thanks, but I think I try to survive with my 25MB for now. If I upload only pngs I need to make over 50 new buildings to fill it.
Quote from: The Hood on September 07, 2014, 04:44:48 PM
Looks good- but with that last one the colours and texture make it seem like it has painted wooden panelling which would be odd for a building like that (at least in the UK). I assume it's meant to be rendered stone - perhaps make the bottom less blue and the top more grey? Or more of a sandstone colour?
It is supposed to be some kind of stone and really doesn't look too good. I made new version with brick like texture.
(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/office10.png)
Quote from: Vladki on September 07, 2014, 09:16:52 AM
8 rotations? As i see 4 for house in a row and 4 for house on a corner. Is that documented somewhere?
On the Wiki, Dims=1,1,8 for city buildings is as being "since version 0.102.2" in the German documentation here (http://simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=de_BackImage#Der_Parameter_Dims) but not the corresponding English documentation here (http://simutrans-germany.com/wiki/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=en_BackImage#Dims), but not explained in either German or English.
I'll see if I can remember how to login there, but meanwhile, anyone else care to add a few words of wisdom on the wiki?
Quote from: Archon on September 07, 2014, 08:04:23 PM
Thanks, but I think I try to survive with my 25MB for now. If I upload only pngs I need to make over 50 new buildings to fill it.
Well, I hope you have need to change your mind soon. ;-)
But seriously, the server is used for community projects like this, so if you change your mind in future, please please send me a PM and I'll be overjoyed to set it up. :)
Brick texture looks better. Still not 100% convinced about the colours though - was this based on anything in particular? I'd have thought a stone grey/sand colour would look better. Good work though :)
Quote from: The Hood on September 14, 2014, 09:00:34 PM
Brick texture looks better. Still not 100% convinced about the colours though - was this based on anything in particular? I'd have thought a stone grey/sand colour would look better. Good work though :)
It is based on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holyoake_House (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holyoake_House)
In which case, may I suggest that the colours both be made a little darker? The building would be just right with slightly darker colours, I think.
I'd say the lower blue/green is about right but the grey above needs to be made significantly darker. Looking at that photo there's not much difference in brightness between the lower and upper sections of the building.
OK. here is thirth try.
Also made one new building. I did some experimenting with this one. It has only one rotation.
(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/office10.png)
That does look splendid.
Definitely looks better with a darker top. And the new one looks great too.
Another project completed(I hope).
5 points for anyone who guesses how many white faces taller version has.
(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/office12-1.png)
----
(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/office12-2.png)
I am not sure what you mean here by a "face", but, on the non-snow version, I count 8 if looking at all rotations. Splendid building, incidentally!
Quote from: jamespetts on September 18, 2014, 10:14:00 PM
I am not sure what you mean here by a "face", but, on the non-snow version, I count 8 if looking at all rotations.
I mean faces in blender.
Finally got round to adding these in SVN. Many thanks Archon!
Finished last office building for now. It took only 5 months!
Here is blender file for my new offices. Download now! only limited time offer.
http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/60s_ish_offices.blend (http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/60s_ish_offices.blend)
(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/office13.png)
Impressive!
I did some old warehouse for change.
(http://personal.inet.fi/cool/archon/stuff/ind1.png)
Great work!
And finally added to standard. Thanks!