The International Simutrans Forum

PakSets and Customization => Pak128.Britain => Topic started by: wlindley on December 26, 2009, 05:08:49 PM

Title: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 26, 2009, 05:08:49 PM
I'm still puzzling over Blender, but am working on cobbling together bits and pieces of existing structures (like Legos!) to relieve some of the monotony of the towns during some periods. 

Here's my first real attempt -- (1) correcting the shadowing for the alternate rotation of the 1750 warehouse and (2) extracting the warehouse from the Brewery and modifying it to a freestanding structure.

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/warehouses.png)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 26, 2009, 06:08:45 PM
Aha! Looking excellent! I like that. It'd be wonderful to see more buildings in Pak128.Britain - keep it up!
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 26, 2009, 06:49:46 PM
Some office buildings.  1870s period, perhaps?  Using details from the Brewery tower.  (They need doors yet.)

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1870-offices-example.png)

Question: In the "copyright" field, what would be the protocol?  The brewery was drawn by "James" and then a fair amount of my work into the transmogrification.  Maybe "James and wlindley" ...?
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 26, 2009, 07:31:23 PM
When I modify vehicles, I usually use both my name and that of the original author in the copyright field, so "James and WLindley" should be fine (although, spaces are not allowed, so it would have to be James&WLindley").
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 26, 2009, 09:05:54 PM
Thanks James, will do.  .dat & .pak files to follow shortly.  I just got the doors in (businessmen in bowlers no longer having to jump windowsills!)

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1870-offices-example2.png)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: prissi on December 26, 2009, 10:33:02 PM
Copyright is free text, so anything to a linebreak is added there ...
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 26, 2009, 11:21:28 PM
Looking excellent! And thank you for the clarification, Prissi, regarding the copyright text.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 27, 2009, 12:09:20 AM
Thanks.  Could add a space in the Copyright field but here are the .dat, .png, and .pak files in .zip form (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/wlbuildings.zip), including another industrial 1740s building (smithy, perhaps?) and one more commercial (derived from the hardware factory).

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1750-smithy-example.png)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 27, 2009, 12:34:33 AM
Excellent stuff! It's marvellous to see somebody else working on graphics for Pak128.Britain.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 27, 2009, 03:39:14 AM
Updated the .zip (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/wlbuildings.zip) once more with some taller buildings (being more adventurous in the graphics).

It's nice to see how the game arranges the "dense" parts of downtowns as cities grow.  Here's a game from 1900:

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/bigcity-example.png)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 27, 2009, 11:12:10 AM
Excellent work! Higher density commercial buildings were one thing that was particularly lacking in Pak128.Britain. If you're feeling adventurous, we could do with some modern era office buildings, too...
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 27, 2009, 04:15:58 PM
Three variations on Kieron's 1970s office buildings, plus two taller versions:

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1970s-example.png)

updated zip file (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/wlbuildings.zip) with source & pak files
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 27, 2009, 04:52:06 PM
Excellent! There is also a shortage of office buildings in the 1990s and onwards if you're very keen...
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 28, 2009, 04:27:50 PM
One last 1750s industrial building (zip with source and paks updated, link above).  Next perhaps some modern-era industrial and office buildings.

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1750-warehouse-example2.png)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 28, 2009, 04:32:34 PM
Very nice! I love the little details.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 29, 2009, 04:10:32 PM
Next up, the 1950s. Car park...

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/carpark-example.png)

EDIT: zip file (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/wlbuildings.zip) updated with pak.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 29, 2009, 05:32:29 PM
Lovely!
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 30, 2009, 04:55:12 PM
a suite of 1850s industrial buildings, based on James' car factory.  i intend to add some outbuildings and doodads-and-bits yet...

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1850-ind-example.png)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 30, 2009, 05:07:47 PM
Looking excellent so far! Any chance of a "supermarket" industry for the 1960s onwards?
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 30, 2009, 10:39:39 PM
Something like this?  (Manually pasted into a screenshot, I haven't sussed how to use the tile-cutter yet.)

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/supermarket-example.png)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 31, 2009, 12:19:54 AM
Looking nice! (Although, could do with toning down the red of the sign slightly...)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on December 31, 2009, 05:08:59 PM
(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/supermarket-example2.png)

(pakfile here) (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/supermarket.pak) goods as per comments in various .dat files ... removed the large sign, suggestions for a replacement?  Probably needs some .dat file tuning as well.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on December 31, 2009, 05:27:19 PM
Perhaps a sign something like this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/synx508/2674657469/sizes/l/) (with "J Sainsbury" changed to a fictional name - perhaps "K Simbury"?)

Also, do you think that you could produce a version with a clock tower like this (http://www.emeraldinsight.com/fig/0890310301005.png) for supermarkets appearing from the 1980s onwards?

This is rather excellent progress, though: new city buildings will make a great deal of difference to the pakset.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 01, 2010, 12:28:15 AM
That "modern" Tesco -- an imitation of a "classic" building, at about 200% scale -- hmm, possibly.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 01, 2010, 06:18:20 AM
(edited several times and updated)

Here's a sample of some 1950s buildings, showing a modern Pub, Department store, a small Supermarket ("Foodco" based on Tesco's first self-service grocery in 1951), part of the complete range (bakery, bookshop, chemist, clothes shop).  The pak includes Fishmonger, Hardware shop, Greengrocer, Newsagent too.

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1950s-stores-example3.png)

Here's the zip file (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1950-industry.zip) with the .dat, source and "cut" pngs, and the pak.

Preferably these buildings would replace the "old style" shops based on their introduction dates.  Also whoever puts these in the next revision, will probably want to adjust the circa-1970s and later shops to use these as well... and perhaps change the building codes and set them to have language translations.

Oh and the zip file with all other city buildings including 1850s industrial. (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/wlbuildings.zip)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on January 01, 2010, 10:59:18 AM
Excellent! It's marvellous to see such diversification. One thing to bear in mind: from the 1950s onwards (and especially the 1960s), larger shops selling a wider variety of things began to replace smaller shops selling a smaller variety of things: the age of the supermarket.

One other thing that somebody needs to do at some point (although lower priority - and much easier - than the city building graphics) is to write out a text description for all of the buildings. The Simutrans tradition is for these to be somewhat humerus; perhaps the Pak128.Britain descriptions should have a distinctly dry, British sense of humour?
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 01, 2010, 01:58:13 PM
Right, ...that series of commercial buildings could actually be from the 1920s on?  Would that be architecturally correct?  In any case the industry progression as currently defined, calls for these buildings in the mid 1940s... the first small 1x1 supermarket I have defined would be appropriate for the 50s when it would be mixed in with the small shops... and then the large 3x3 supermarket entering in the 1960s and becoming dominant in the 1970s.  It seems like a good progression.

Should there be a 3x3 tile 1970s era Garden Centre / Home Improvement shop to replace the Builders Yard?  I see Hardware currently becomes obsolete in 1971, but we could define an incoming Port for that, and have the Home Improvement Centre accept it...

To write descriptions, I would just edit en.txt ?


Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on January 01, 2010, 03:21:34 PM
If the buildings were to be from the 1920s, they'd probably need to be built of brick rather than concrete, although that might just require changing a texture in Blender. One thing that perhaps could be modified with the smaller supermarkets, though, is making the gaps between them smaller: high street shops are situated on prime land, and every square metre not taken up by sales floor is a square meter wasted.

I must confess, I cannot now recall how to edit the descriptions - if you look through Pak64 and find where the existing descriptions for that pakset are stored, however, all that you'd need to do is add them in the same place for Pak128.Britain-Ex.

As to home improvement - that is not identical to hardware in the older sense, but there might be some merit in having a DIY shop from the 1960s onwards, although with a much lower distributionweight than the supermarkets, which could indeed take imported hardware. I am not sure that it should replace the builders' yard, though: are there not still builders' yards serving professional builders, distinct from DIY shops serving the general public?
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 02, 2010, 03:43:46 PM
WOW!  This is brilliant!  Just returned from a Christmas break and found all these ;D

A couple of minor improvements to make though:
- The supermarket could do with some extra detail on the walls and the windows should be black to fit the style;
- The 1850 warehouses need a bit of junk in the yards.

I'd also suggest some brick shops/buildings for the 1950s onwards as well.

Keep up the good work!  Was this mostly in blender or mostly editing the existing images?

PS We will also need snow images for all new and existing buildings, so if you want it would be great if you could do them for your new ones, but you may want to wait for me to do some of the existing buildings first.

PPS you missed out the butcher's shop  and furniture shop in your new shops range.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 03, 2010, 12:30:26 AM
Thanks guys, great suggestions. 

- No extra details on the 1960s supermarket but I corrected the windows.
- Butcher, furniture shops added.
- Increased building sizes for the 1950s high street stores, and added a few variants as commercial buildings ("shops and offices").

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1950s-stores-example4.png)

- How about circa-1910 petrol station and auto dealership?  They're in a separate pak.

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1910-auto2.png)

These are all done the old-fashioned pixel editing way.  Here's the updated zipfile. (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1950-industry.zip)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on January 03, 2010, 10:49:38 AM
Excellent - I love the old-fashioned garage!
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 03, 2010, 09:00:26 PM
Loving it - I'm just not 100% sure about the green and blue roofs on the 1910s car dealership/petrol station - maybe they could be black/grey/brown instead?

No problems with pixel editing, just it might be harder to do snow images.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: kierongreen on January 10, 2010, 09:14:47 AM
Love most of these graphics - great to see more people working on the project :) One building I've got a bit of an issue with is the Brewery tower one (with a pitched roof). I think that pushing it over 4 stories is a bit much, it looks too high rise for Britain at that time (even now most buildings in a medium sized town won't be much over that). That said the tall 1970's monstrosities are perfect :p
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 10, 2010, 05:49:33 PM
I've added all the images I have so far to SVN, akthough the tallest 1870 tower isn't in a dat file as I agree with Kieron on the height issue.  Most are lacking snow images though, as my pixel-pushing skills are poor - any chance you could knock up snow images based on the ones I've already done wlindley?
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 10, 2010, 06:05:19 PM
OK and thanks for the double-check on the 1870 tower height.  Perhaps I'll rework that one as a 1930s era or something.

I'll see what I can do to add snow to the remaining ones in SVN.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: kierongreen on January 10, 2010, 07:17:18 PM
The issue is that in Britain we didn't have huge amounts of steel framed brick buildings. Buildings tended to be just brick, stone, or whatever so were limited to lower heights. Obviously that changed over time but that particular example just looks too tall and narrow to me anyway...
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 15, 2010, 04:07:45 PM
Per request, 1920s brick version of the shops and offices... source and pak are in a zipfile (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1920shops.zip)... I chose seemingly reasonable demand and passenger values.

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1920shops-example.png)

kieron -- agreed, that tower does look too narrow, perhaps I shall concoct a replacement. 
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on January 15, 2010, 04:11:37 PM
Looking very nice!
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 15, 2010, 05:03:06 PM
Nice - but I'm not 100% convinced they are 1920s.  Maybe 30s, but probably more 50s/60s.  Then again I'm no expert, so I'd be interested on other people's views.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: kierongreen on January 16, 2010, 10:13:49 AM
To me there's something which doesn't look quite... British?.. about them. All of the buildings I made for the pak were based on real world prototypes. These seem more derived from existing buildings within the pak, and don't quite match what you see along the high street. Just my opinion (and definitely not a criticism of the graphics, technically speaking it's fine).

I agree that 1920's (and 30's) should have a more art deco feel (see the ferry terminals for example).
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: AP on January 16, 2010, 10:50:10 AM
I'd expect 1920s british to either, as you say, be art-deco or arts-and-crafts (garden city style half-timbered) buildings, or perhaps like the works of CR MacKintosh. Multi-storied brick buildings in british cities are more likely to be victorian-edwardian, or copies thereof, more ornate (look at central Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow). Even art-deco was more into the 1930s (Broadcasting House was 1932), though it started in the 1920s of course. The first world war had an effect of making everyone conservative for a while. There was a resurgance of neoclassicism as well at that time.

Le Corbusier's "Vers une architecture", the book that popularised modernism, wasn't published until 1927 (and that was in French). Britain was architecturally more conservative than continental europe, modernism didn't really take off until after 1945. You can count the preWW2 modernist buildings on one hand (Ernő Goldfinger at Willow Road, Serge Chermayeff in Bexhill, Lubetkin at Genesta Road and Highpoint, all 1930s).

Actually, the biggest architectural trend in britain in the 1920s and 30s, was (boringly) the creation of suburbia, and urban sprawl. It started a bit before WW1 (Letchworth/Hampsted Garden Cities), but really took off with government backing after the war.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 16, 2010, 01:43:09 PM
Kieron, AP -- Yes these buildings are based on the existing pak buildings.  My idea was that would be the best way of a consistent look, plus being possible for me to create.  My knowledge of British architecture is from what I have seen on American public television and the occasional movie, plus a few weeklong vacations mostly in London and Kent. 

I do hope you'll continue to humo(u)r me as I love the look and play of the pak.  Meanwhile I'll take another stab at Blender and see what happens.  Any good tutorial recommendations?  Something like "Here's how to draw a rectangle and place it in the 3-d space"
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: Gouv on January 16, 2010, 03:57:03 PM
Well, there was a nice Video-Tutorial on youtube that helped me, but i cant find it anymore  :-[
However, there are still many Blender-Tutorials on youtube, try those.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 17, 2010, 10:37:25 AM
This is how I learnt:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 22, 2010, 09:50:29 AM
I just found this website which may be of use in finding images of British buildings: http://www.geograph.org.uk/

Having had more of a think about the shops, I think I'm going to use the concrete ones for the 1950s, and maybe mix in some of those brick ones, but I don't think any of them are good for the inter-war buildings.  Something deco-style, probably with a sloping roof as well is what is needed.  A bit like http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1291377 or for variety as AP suggested http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1211681

@wlindley - how's the blender going?  If you want any models to play with and adapt, just ask.  Also any idea if/when you could make a brown-tiled roof version of the 1900s garage and car dealer, or when you could do snow images?  Not wanting to pester, just trying to work out what might go into the next release...
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 22, 2010, 03:45:33 PM
Blender, haven't got too far.  Perhaps if you could send a sample Blender building file that would catapult me to the next level...

I did the auto industry roof update and snow versions, though (just the .png's for you, if you don't mind the trivial .dat modifications):

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1910-car-dealer.png)
(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1910-car-dealer-snow.png)
(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1910-petrol-station.png)
(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1910-petrol-station-snow.png)

here's the gimp file with layers (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1910-auto-industries.xcf)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 22, 2010, 03:53:10 PM
Awesome thanks!  Any particular building blend file you would like?
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 23, 2010, 03:47:04 PM
Perhaps the Car Factory. The current one looks 1950s (to me) and an earlier one would be all brick (and earlier model vehicles).

Meantime, how about a 1909-era electrical substation (as the days of town gas begin to wind down)

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1909-elec.png)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 23, 2010, 04:04:21 PM
Hmm, looks a little large for a substation, and I'm not convinced by the big cube of brick on the left - have you got a photo or something of what it's meant to look like?

Anyway here's the car factory blend:

http://files.[ simutrans [dot] us (site down, do not visit) ]/files/get/G6_Ov0vk1L/car-factory2.blend
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 23, 2010, 04:40:37 PM
Yes, I'll remove the 'cube' on left... and keep working on it.  I used bits from the existing Coal Power Station (for a consistent this-is-the-power-company look) and used this structure on the London Mainline (http://www.flickr.com/photos/55935853@N00/245684355/) for inspiration

(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/79/245684355_ac3747d029.jpg)


Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 23, 2010, 04:45:01 PM
OK.  I'd suggest removing the cube and having a fenced off area with some machinery in or something instead, like on the right in the photo.
Title: Re: Electrical substation
Post by: wlindley on January 24, 2010, 01:46:01 PM
Like this, perhaps?

(http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1909-elec2.png)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 24, 2010, 02:12:04 PM
Much better, like it :D
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 24, 2010, 03:22:51 PM
OK, sources and .pak here (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/ind-1909.zip)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 24, 2010, 03:55:19 PM
Cool.  Any chance of 4 rotations and some snow images? Not that I'm being a slave driver or anything :P
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on January 27, 2010, 02:45:54 PM
how about two rotations and snow?  updated (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/ind-1909.zip)
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: The Hood on January 27, 2010, 03:48:17 PM
I suppose that will do ;) You drive a hard bargain...
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on February 09, 2011, 08:27:23 AM
WLindley,

it seems that the files that you uploaded have expired; could you re-upload the supermarket?  I don't think that that made it into the SVN.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on February 09, 2011, 03:33:13 PM
grocers.zip (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/grocers.zip) contains the 1x1 Supermarket

... and also 1840s-to-1940s Grocers that handle Canned Goods.  Canned Goods have long been defined but have been unused, I have tentative Cannery chains (Meat+Flour+Steel to Canned Goods; and likewise for Fruit and Fish) but they use the Dairy graphics so far... You could safely remove the grocers.png and all but the last stanza of grocers.dat for just the Supermarket, as its graphics are already in 1950shops.png which is in.

As for the 1970s era 3x3 supermarket, I got sidetracked trying to find a way to draw things generally.  Am still trying to suss how to enter coordinates (typing x,y) into Blender, with zero luck after months.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on February 09, 2011, 04:09:25 PM
Thank you for that - I'll have a look at those files when I get a chance to look at the forum from my desktop computer as opposed to my smartphone. As to drawing graphics, I might be able to assist, as I have done a number of vehicle graphics. Did you make a start on the 3x3 supermarket? If so, do e-mail me the .blend file. Making the models in Blender is, I find, one of the easier parts of the process - what I have never worked out what to do is how to use TileCutter. If you could look into exporting it, I could see if I could finish the .blend file and send it to you. Thank you for re-uploading those.

Edit: I note that quite a number of the shop images aren't used - what were the ones that are not currently used intended for?
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on February 10, 2011, 03:46:15 AM
Let's see.  In the industry/ directory...

grep 1950shops *.dat | sort -t \. -n -k 3,4 |less

shows us that these are currently unused:


Somehow, the 1950 and 1970 newsagents wound up with 3.6 and 3.7 (which appear as, and are used as, the Furniture Store) instead of 3.1 and 3.2; that should be corrected.

As for the 4.x pairs, those would add a 2-storey and two 4-storey buildings to the 1950s onwards rosters; Here is a .dat segment if those are desired:

# 2-story Shops & Offices. not an industry, but uses common images with the shops
Obj=building
Name=WL_IND_50_01
copyright=Kieron & WLindley
type=com
chance=50
Level=10
intro_year=1950
retire_year=2030
needs_ground=1
dims=1,1,4
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.2.0
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.6
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.7
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.2.3
--
# 4-story Shops & Offices. not an industry, but uses common images with the Department store
Obj=building
Name=WL_IND_50_02
copyright=Kieron & WLindley
type=com
chance=50
Level=15
intro_year=1950
retire_year=2030
needs_ground=1
dims=1,1,4
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.1.0
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.0
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.1
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.1.3
--
# 4-story Shops & Offices. not an industry, but uses common images with the Department store
Obj=building
Name=WL_IND_50_03
copyright=Kieron & WLindley
type=com
chance=50
Level=20
intro_year=1950
retire_year=2030
needs_ground=1
dims=1,1,4
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.1.0
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.2
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.3
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.1.3
--
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on February 11, 2011, 01:16:54 PM
A Blender Aha!

I just discovered if you just hit the 'n' key, you get a "Transforms" window that actually lets you view and enter coordinates.  It's like someone flicked the lights on and now I am not in the darkness!  Sure would relieve frustration if that were in any of the Blender tutorials... OK now to work on the supermarket, finally.  I may even be able to do something about USA pak...
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on February 11, 2011, 01:52:37 PM
Excellent! While you're at it, could you also do a cannery/food packaging plant to go with the grocery chain so that graphics are no longer shared with the dairy?
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on February 12, 2011, 01:00:31 PM
Quote from: wlindley on February 10, 2011, 03:46:15 AM
As for the 4.x pairs, those would add a 2-storey and two 4-storey buildings to the 1950s onwards rosters; Here is a .dat segment if those are desired:

# 2-story Shops & Offices. not an industry, but uses common images with the shops
Obj=building
Name=WL_IND_50_01
copyright=Kieron & WLindley
type=com
chance=50
Level=10
intro_year=1950
retire_year=2030
needs_ground=1
dims=1,1,4
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.2.0
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.6
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.7
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.2.3
--
# 4-story Shops & Offices. not an industry, but uses common images with the Department store
Obj=building
Name=WL_IND_50_02
copyright=Kieron & WLindley
type=com
chance=50
Level=15
intro_year=1950
retire_year=2030
needs_ground=1
dims=1,1,4
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.1.0
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.0
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.1
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.1.3
--
# 4-story Shops & Offices. not an industry, but uses common images with the Department store
Obj=building
Name=WL_IND_50_03
copyright=Kieron & WLindley
type=com
chance=50
Level=20
intro_year=1950
retire_year=2030
needs_ground=1
dims=1,1,4
BackImage[2][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.1.0
BackImage[1][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.2
BackImage[0][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.4.3
BackImage[3][0][0][0][0]=images/1950shops.1.3
--


Ahh, extra city buildings - excellent! However - I think that there would be much value in having a "convenience shop" that sells the same things as the supermarket but in much smaller quantity. I have slightly adapted by re-colouring the images at 4.6 and 4.7 to give that effect: see the attached .png files.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on February 12, 2011, 04:25:47 PM
james -- a perfectly splendid idea!  And one I shall tackle post haste.

Do you think there would be an adverse effect upon industry chain creation, with adding a small consumer shop? 
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on February 12, 2011, 04:48:24 PM
I should hope not: if it works properly, there should just be more small shops to producers than there are large shops to producers.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on February 13, 2011, 03:28:19 PM
Updated 1950 shops image, new convenience.dat, playable convenience.pak, and also modified cattle-field to have five different views here (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/20110213industry.zip).

Looking forward to comments.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on February 13, 2011, 03:34:50 PM
Ahh, one thing that immediately strikes me about the 1950s shops graphic is that it replaces one of the existing city building graphics with the convenience shop graphic: the idea was that it was to be as well as, rather than instead of, the office at the bottom right with the blue sign outside.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on February 13, 2011, 06:46:15 PM
Ah, right; hmm.  I had put the extra offices in the 1950shops graphic because there were spaces left; ideally, the offices should be in their own graphic and dat files.  ((ponders))
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: jamespetts on February 13, 2011, 07:41:29 PM
You could just use your original image plus the image that I uploaded (using the generic back of shop/office images for the rear rotations)? That is what I had originally intended when making the additional graphic.
Title: Re: City Buildings
Post by: wlindley on February 14, 2011, 02:16:19 PM
So it's OK that we would have two rotations from one png and the other two from another?  Perhaps a little reorganization (reorganisation?) is in order.

With the shops, the pub (.0.0 - .0.3) should really be in its own png file, as it is quite different.  I have made a 1950pubs.png (http://blog.wlindley.com/images/1950pubs.png) which has a pub, a deli, and a fish-n-chips shop.  The latter two accept small quantities of meat and flour, and fish and flour, respectively.  So that would move the pub out, and then there's plenty of room for all the other 1950s buildings.

I also note that in the current dat files, the 1750-clothes-shop, bakery, bookshop, butchery, chemist, fishmongers, furniture-shop, greengrocers, hardware-shop, newsagent all have "rear view" of 1950shops.3.0 and 1950shops.3.3 although those should all be .2.0 and .2.3 ... oops.  My mistake, probably because the news-stand, which has an external stairway, should also have been its own .png file.

I know we talked about the deli and chip shop before (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=5251.0) but perhaps some adjustments are in order.  For example, there were certainly book-shops in 1750 (currently in-game they are introduced 1860); although large paper mills did not start until 1860, we could add a "cottage-size" paper mill... likewise, wool was spun directly by weavers in cottages until circa 1765 (idea: introduce Weavers Cottage); from 1765 to 1820, wool would have gone to a Spinning Mill (not a Textile Mill) and from spinning to a weavers cottage and thence to a clothes store.

Dairies and canneries also need this sort of update.

If I had access to a 'branch' in svn or git, I would move all the industry/*.png to industry/images/*.png and remix the various shop images to be more consistent.  All the moving and editing might get a little cumbersome to explain and replicate in the official repository, but I'm happy to do whatever's appropriate.