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PakSets and Customization => Pak128 => Pak128 Add-ons and Graphics => Topic started by: Djohaal on April 09, 2011, 01:35:32 AM

Title: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on April 09, 2011, 01:35:32 AM



So I decided to recycle my development thread for the monorail cleanup so I can put all my works in a single place.


Without further ado:



QuoteSchwebebahn Adjustments


This little update cleans up the Schwebebhan sprites a little. They have transparent spots in the source, alongside some excessive diagonal struts, which while realistic, cause unecessary clutter in the renderer when making downsampled images for zoomed out views. This edit seeks to remedy that issue by keeping only the orthogonal struts and fixing the transparent spots.


I also adjusted all the ways max speed to be = 120km/h so no longer your elevated urban suspended monorails are limited to 70km/h
[size=78%]


Final version. As you see I didn't tackle the glitched depot yet because that's still somewhat beyond my skills (I have no idea how the front-back layers work or how to arrange the sprites in a sheet) but hopefully I'll get there someday.

(http://i.imgur.com/sVoVsmC.jpg)



(http://i.imgur.com/C8n50qV.png)


Download Links:


Compiled Version  (https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27511862/schwebebahn.PAK.rar)


Sources (https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27511862/schwebebahn_all.rar)


[/size]


Quote
Station Retirement Adjustments

(http://i.imgur.com/ElZqmHv.png)


This modification fixes the following stations which have retirement dates but have no analogous replacement:



Coaltrainstop.dat - No "modern" bulk loading station
Container1TrainStop.dat - Gets replaced by a more crowded version, while essentially the same thing, I kept it for sandbox purposes,
Almuthof_StationBlg.dat - Preserved for architectural style.
airport1990_big_postofffice.dat - Retires at 2040 god knows why
airport1990_small_postoffice - Same

Download Link (source only) (https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27511862/station_adjustments_base.rar)




If there's interest in making those changes official please do tell me what needs to be done to incorporate them into the official pak128 build.
My building projects are currently on hold until i can figure out a better workflow.
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Zeno on April 09, 2011, 09:35:21 AM
Wow, that's amazing man! It looks really cute :)
In order to match ST size... open the gimp, measure, if too big then make it smaller, go to the gimp, meaure... not very scientific, but works :P
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: DirrrtyDirk on April 09, 2011, 10:53:03 AM
Very nice indeed. The problem is, in Simutrans scale, there won't be much left of all the amazing little details, I'm afraid.
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: vilvoh on April 09, 2011, 11:39:09 AM
Really impressive. What software do you use, Djohaal?
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: IgorEliezer on April 09, 2011, 11:59:39 AM
Really it's a nice start for pak512.  ;D
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Djohaal on April 09, 2011, 01:51:08 PM
Quote from: Zeno on April 09, 2011, 09:35:21 AM
Wow, that's amazing man! It looks really cute :)
In order to match ST size... open the gimp, measure, if too big then make it smaller, go to the gimp, meaure... not very scientific, but works :P

The question is, I don't know in which axis to measure.  ;D It can also be downsampled to proper size, it might blur some details but smart filtering can fix it.  Chopping it up for the game to read is the main mystery for me.

Quote from: DirrrtyDirk on April 09, 2011, 10:53:03 AM
Very nice indeed. The problem is, in Simutrans scale, there won't be much left of all the amazing little details, I'm afraid.

Actually those little details do matter. At very small scale they get turned into very subtle noise, shades and patterns, which help to ease the look of the buildings and gives them a bigger sense of texture and shape. The final result while not as detailed still keeps a certain pleasantness to the eye which is different from flat-drawed objects.

Quote from: vilvoh on April 09, 2011, 11:39:09 AM
Really impressive. What software do you use, Djohaal?

I used 3dsmax and vray for this one.

Quote from: IgorEliezer on April 09, 2011, 11:59:39 AM
Really it's a nice start for pak512.  ;D

Does the simutrans engine support that?  ;D

(http://i.imgur.com/qKnYQ.jpg)

http://i.imgur.com/qKnYQ.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/qKnYQ.jpg) Full size image

All four views, this one is pretty much finished. Just gotta resize and dice, help would be appreciated.
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Zeno on April 09, 2011, 05:13:02 PM
Djohaal, you can pick one of those views and put it over an existing tile template, which you can pick from this gallery (http://graphics.simutrans.com/thumbnails.php?album=9). If needed, you can use the gimp to put some of these tile templates together to get (example) a 2x3 tile template, then put your building on top. The result will be self-explanatory :)
Btw, at first sight I would say it's a bit too tall, but I might be wrong (it's just a first sight impression).
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Djohaal on April 09, 2011, 05:53:08 PM
Quote from: Zeno on April 09, 2011, 05:13:02 PM
Djohaal, you can pick one of those views and put it over an existing tile template, which you can pick from this gallery (http://graphics.simutrans.com/thumbnails.php?album=9). If needed, you can use the gimp to put some of these tile templates together to get (example) a 2x3 tile template, then put your building on top. The result will be self-explanatory :)
Btw, at first sight I would say it's a bit too tall, but I might be wrong (it's just a first sight impression).

The result is all but self explanatory for me. I'm trying to use tilecutter atm, but not with much sucess.
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Zeno on April 09, 2011, 05:57:41 PM
I would not use tilecutter until you have the right thing done. I think you should try to fit it into a 2x1 tile space, which looks to me the more convenient size for this building. 2x1 is near half size than now.
Also you can take a capture of another building inside the game then use gimp to put your building next to it and compare. That will help with sizing.
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Djohaal on April 09, 2011, 06:02:38 PM
Quote from: Zeno on April 09, 2011, 05:57:41 PM
I would not use tilecutter until you have the right thing done. I think you should try to fit it into a 2x1 tile space, which looks to me the more convenient size for this building. 2x1 is near half size than now.
Also you can take a capture of another building inside the game then use gimp to put your building next to it and compare. That will help with sizing.

I managed to get it on the proper size. How to dice it up on the tiles and assemble the source image/dat reference is still a mystery for me.

I managed to get it in-game. And yes it is a bit oversized. Time to retrofit this into a 2x1.  ;D

(http://i.imgur.com/MXWlF.jpg)

Retroffited, now with adorable red shingles roof.
(http://i.imgur.com/9Lrmc.jpg)

Final version, pending resizing, cutting and game implementation.  :)

update: It seems either tilecutter didn't like the building or I'm too dumb, because it's not cutting it properly at the moment.

Implementaiton sucessful. It needs some more work though, I'll shrink it some 5% of the base size and add paving around it. This will take a while though and my schedule is busy this week :(

(http://i.imgur.com/VN0dd.jpg)
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Ashley on April 11, 2011, 07:56:17 AM
Looks great :)

If you're having problems with TileCutter please do let me know which bits you found difficult and I'll try and improve the interface to make it easier :)
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Fabio on April 11, 2011, 09:29:49 AM
Awesome!!!

And nice to have attracted new painters, too!!!

Welcome, Djohaal!!!
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Zeno on April 11, 2011, 02:57:15 PM
Hey Djohaal, that fits in size much better now!
Anyway, I'd use not-so-redish shingles (IMHO they're too shiny) and maybe lower only a bit the roof's angle would also help, but overall is outstanding :)
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: VS on April 11, 2011, 06:32:04 PM
I'd second the redness feeling, and perhaps think about the roof window. Something tells me that it might not reflect so much sky blue...? The final rendition is jarring.

Otherwise, a masterpiece :)
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Djohaal on April 11, 2011, 06:43:41 PM
Yes the redness needs a touch of desaturation and the window needs some touch-ups too, although I think I'll do away with it, I'm not happy with the result. However I'm a bit overtasked this week, but I'll resume work as soon as possible.
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Djohaal on April 17, 2011, 03:09:34 PM
Just because I feel like bumping my own thread  :D

(http://i.imgur.com/ExxNH.jpg)

A quick job on the water tower, still gonna detail the building under it. This will be one of the water towers buildings for the water chain. I plan on making a brick reservoir and another modern tower, alongside with a bigger water supply for bigger cities. The water source building design still is pending.
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Zeno on April 17, 2011, 03:32:34 PM
Looks promising :) Gonna be very big? Maybe 2x2??
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Djohaal on April 17, 2011, 03:59:22 PM
Quote from: Zeno on April 17, 2011, 03:32:34 PM
Looks promising :) Gonna be very big? Maybe 2x2??

Probably 1x1, low consumption like the gas stations. A 2x2 one with higher consumption will be made, and will probably require trains to supply it.
Title: Re: Djohaal's building paintery
Post by: Markohs on October 25, 2011, 11:57:07 AM
it whould be great to leave the blender source archive of these models and all future ones archived somewere for the time I have the time to come back to Simutrans3D and use those models. :)
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on March 25, 2013, 11:33:27 PM
Bump for justice as I decided to center all my stuff on this thread.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: greenling on March 26, 2013, 04:21:36 PM
That it a very good idea Djohaal.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on March 27, 2013, 01:56:52 AM
Updated with the retirement fix for stations. I'd like to know what is the procedure for changes to commit to the official pak128 build. Also forgive my ignorance, but why hasn't the maglev pack from SNFOS been incorporated as part pak128?
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: VS on March 27, 2013, 02:27:27 PM
The procedure to commit is to be a team member ;) SNFOS is not included, because, well, the big boxy bright-coloured strong-outlined things fit better into a comic pack...

Buildings in last generation should not really retire. That's for the airports (fixed in svn). As to the other things, I am not sure if "never retire anything" is the way to go. The menus should not be full of stuff. Almuthof retires on purpose, for example, because... why build it all the time? Same for coal station. Adding a tipple as timeline successor would be way better than keeping some item alive just because one might want to build it later.

Regarding container stations, I think it would be better to merge the two (lower capacity gfx as ends), as there is little point in having both, differing only in level. Players either have to carefully optimize their money, and will go with some even more low-cost solution, or they can spend big bucks and do not choose. So the only difference is looks, and there is not that much difference...
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on March 27, 2013, 08:32:53 PM
I really like the maglevs, but I can understand where you want to get. For the container stations, if you want to play purely by the numbers it is pointless, but I like to use both of them to give my stations some variety on their looks.

Menu clutter could be avoided if we could have the game randomly pick the variants of a same station block for different tiles, for instance.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on November 03, 2014, 12:11:39 AM
So.. the dead still live!


I present the great bronze teapot.


(http://i.imgur.com/fVV2VTm.png?1)


(http://i.imgur.com/XgJLHKk.png)


This monumental monument ( 8) ) is a tribute to all the brave explorers of the 3d-to-pixelart workflow. I've managed to adapt Sarlock's guide to 3dsmax which improved my workflow by a 100%. This teapot monument is a 2x2 monstrosity which I made to test out some different approaches to rendering trees and specially the 3d-shadow-to-sprite and edge darkening reduction workflow. You can see it worked superbly well, I'll share the secret once I sort some mysterious weirdness that happened with this thing (also after I finish the other views. I accidentally saved the merged layers PSD and lost all my work on this). It also has a silvery line of misalignment which needs solving too. I wonder if I could add a smoke sprite coming out of the spout.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Sarlock on November 03, 2014, 01:48:17 AM
Well done!  Your render came out very nicely.

The trees look nice... it's hard to do a rendered tree without an alpha channel.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on November 03, 2014, 04:46:40 PM
Another idea I'm tossing around. I think it's past time pak128 reached the atomic age!




(http://i.imgur.com/KdWfJi8.jpg)


Currently planned to be a 3x3 but I'm not too sure, might be a little underwhelming. I picture a chain like this:


Uranium/Thorium? mine -> enrichment plant (bulk goods)
enrichment plant -> Nuke plant (Fuel rods, maybe a specific car, or peice goods. Will be weird if it hauls wool on the route back. Glow in the dark sweaters anyone?)
Nuke plant -> Nuclear waste disposal. -> Again nuclear load, can't be hauled in conventional stuff.


Also this would be a very low-troughtput system as nuclear plants need to refill their fuel every 5 or 10 years in real life. Goods would be sent on small scale.

Another idea would be fusion power plant after 2030's. It could be linked to the water chain I was working such as:


Water plant -> Deuterium Production -> Fusion plant -> Nuclear waste disposal (fusion also produces lots of fertilized nuclear waste due to neutron escape, however it's all short-lived nuclear material that becomes safe in 50-100 years)

Can we render custom smoke sprites? We might need a better/bigger sprite for the cooling towers.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Vladki on November 03, 2014, 06:51:18 PM
Hi, nice graphics.

Simutrans power plants cannot produce any waste or other byproducts. Only electricity and smoke... I tried to code such thing and it produced waste but no electricity.

Sent using recycled electrons.

Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on November 04, 2014, 01:53:58 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/JcGNRe6.png)


(http://i.imgur.com/mSkC7Xp.png)


Two more renders. Switched it to 4x4. The overall modelling is done, now I just gotta add the details.


So power plants can't produce waste, what a pity. Maybe uranium ore + chemicals -> fuel rods -> nuclear plant. Would be a good use for the extra chemicals I always have lying around.

Also can we make "inverse" production chains? A single resource producer for several (small) consumers? I was thinking about adding grocery stores or something of the kind.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Vladki on November 04, 2014, 07:54:57 AM
Wow really nice. I just feel that there are too few cooling towers. Czech and slovak nuclear plants have two per reactor. And also a small regular chimney, but I don't know why...

There should be no problem having one factory/farm supplying many small shops. Have a look on pak128.britain or search for my addon 'samoska'

Sent using recycled electrons.

Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: gauthier on November 04, 2014, 06:20:35 PM
First time I see this thread ... all your work is really amazing !
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on November 04, 2014, 11:52:56 PM
(http://i.imgur.com/ymJLQrn.jpg)


(http://i.imgur.com/Fy5vh1g.jpg)


Ptchoo! Still not too happy with the aslphalt texture at the parking. Might just make a mask and blend with pixel art asphalt. The area without floor will be transparent to blend with the terrain. I also adjusted the texture of the cooling towers in the second render.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Sarlock on November 05, 2014, 05:53:36 AM
Really nice texturing, well done!

Nitpicking... the shadows on the two cooling towers is not consistent.  I assume this is due to the angle of the sun lamp - perhaps the sun is too close.

Sun in pak128 is 60 degrees, due south.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on November 06, 2014, 03:39:10 AM
EDIT: GAH forum mauled my post. Here we go again.

Sarlock: Well spotted! I fixed the sun's distance already.


I've been trying out adding a outline effect to make the render a little more similar to pak128's hand-painted assets.

(http://i.imgur.com/GOjeXQ8.png)


(http://i.imgur.com/XEyibYn.png)


Toned down outlines, seem better:




(http://i.imgur.com/TXTpHEn.png)
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: gwalch on November 07, 2014, 01:22:19 PM
Second version is better, because first one seems to be for comic paks !
Good job anyway :)
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: gauthier on November 07, 2014, 05:57:36 PM
Indeed, this is beautiful, it should go straight into pak128  ;D
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Sarlock on November 07, 2014, 06:50:46 PM
Very nice... the second version is certainly better, the first one has a strong outline that is more comic pakset-ish.

Once imported to the game, I wonder if have base ground texture around the cooling towers will not quite look right... it may need some cement/asphalt around the bases so that it doesn't contrast with the greenish/yellowish ground base.  Once imported to Simutrans you'll know :)
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: vorlon on November 07, 2014, 08:15:49 PM
It does look really nice - the level of detail is very impressive.

Quote from: gauthier on November 07, 2014, 05:57:36 PM
Indeed, this is beautiful, it should go straight into pak128  ;D

I definetely agree, but wasn't there once a policy of not having military/nuclear related stuff in official pakset releases? Personally I don't really see any sense in sensoring nuclear power and I think it would be a nice addition.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: gauthier on November 07, 2014, 09:14:15 PM
QuoteI definetely agree, but wasn't there once a policy of not having military/nuclear related stuff in official pakset releases?
Indeed but I don't see the point of such policies. If someone complains, we will see, until there I'm okay with adding a nuclear power plant to the pak, especially that it is an important piece for realism. For instance, in France, barely 85% of energy comes from nuclear power plants.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on November 08, 2014, 04:44:31 PM
Well not only that but even though nuclear power's history is stained by several catastrophes (three mile island, chernobyl and now fukushima) it is more and more seen as one of the few feasible alternatives mankind has if we to manage global warming. What to do with the waste still is a problem though, but new methods are showing up such as trapping it in glass for instance. Many environmentalists such as James Lovelock are endorsing nuclear power. 
- if only power plants could produce waste. I'd include that nuclear waste-glass manufacturing as part of the chain.

Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Sarlock on November 08, 2014, 06:16:47 PM
The amount of waste it would produce in the game would be very small... and many power plants just store it on site for lack of a good place to put it.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: vorlon on November 08, 2014, 07:26:28 PM
Quote from: Sarlock on November 08, 2014, 06:16:47 PM
The amount of waste it would produce in the game would be very small... and many power plants just store it on site for lack of a good place to put it.

That's true, and a single recycling plant or repository site could potentially serve dozens of power plants. But it would give a very nice touch. One option would be to make only the enrichment plants produce waste - not as realistic but doable.

To speculate further, something I would personally like (but not viable for the main pak) is making modular designs with the player manually placing units next to each other. This way we could have multi-reactor facilities and perhaps a no cooling towers option for sea water cooled coastal plants. Then different units could make power and waste. A bit dodgy but lots of aesthetic appeal and customizing options.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: gauthier on November 08, 2014, 08:02:09 PM
Maybe a power plant having a reactor coded as a field ?
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: vorlon on November 08, 2014, 08:40:09 PM
Quote from: gauthier on November 08, 2014, 08:02:09 PM
Maybe a power plant having a reactor coded as a field ?

I thougt about that too but it wouldn't solve the waste issue, fields are still a part of the main factory.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on November 08, 2014, 08:54:44 PM
That reminds me of OTTD. In it the factories and the such are made of modular sub-units which are randomized following a couple of permutation rules:


(http://wiki.openttd.org/images/9/96/PowerStationOriginal.PNG)


I wonder if we could have that for simutrans someday.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: gauthier on November 09, 2014, 11:45:24 AM
Quoteit wouldn't solve the waste issue
Of course, it has nothing to do with that issue. That issue requires some coding to enable an industry to produce both electricity and goods.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Vladki on November 09, 2014, 01:55:27 PM
There is a solar power plant using the fields feature.

Enrichment plant has a lot of waste - depleted uranium.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: vorlon on November 09, 2014, 05:05:51 PM
Quote from: Vladki on November 09, 2014, 01:55:27 PM
Enrichment plant has a lot of waste - depleted uranium.

That is of course the case but it would be strange if only a part of the chain produced waste - especially because the used fuel rods are the biggest problem in the waste issue. It wouldn't make much sense to maintain a deep geological repository just for depleted uranium, as DU is not only relatively harmless but has also practical uses.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Sarlock on November 09, 2014, 06:04:39 PM
I would personally skip the waste aspect entirely... just as there isn't a waste product for coal power plants (fly ash that goes to a special landfill), which would produce far more by volume/weight than a nuclear power plant would.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Vladki on November 09, 2014, 08:57:37 PM
Even though handling radioactive waste is a big challenge, in terms of safe storage, it is not a big challenge in terms of transportation. The amount of fuel needed by nuclear power plants is very low, and so is the amount of waste. The biggest challenge in such transport is the construction of special cars, and safety mesures to keep terrorists and greenpeace out of the way. Neither of those fit in the scope of simutrans. And simutrans is about transportation - so from the game point of view we can assume that the waste is stored in (or very close to) the power plant and no transport of the waste is needed. Adding some industry chains to use depleted uranium would be nice but not necessary.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: vorlon on November 09, 2014, 09:21:36 PM
I agree that nuclear waste could very well be left out without the transportation finances changing dramatically. However a geological repository or a recycling facility is a bigger deal than a conventional dump and would be very rare. So radioactive waste could be implemented as something similar to printing ink, or medicines/chemicals in the old pak64 which spawned only one chemical factory and pharmacy for dozens of consumers. I think it could be an interesting challenge for the player to manage very long-distance transits which would have to be integrated into the existing roads and tracks. But I agree it isn't central to making nuclear plants in the game.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: gauthier on November 10, 2014, 09:28:07 AM
Quoteso from the game point of view we can assume that the waste is stored in (or very close to) the power plant and no transport of the waste is needed.
That would be the best thing to do regarding the very low amounts of waste considered. But this is a game, players want to transport stuff, so implementing waste would have been ... funnier :D
QuoteAdding some industry chains to use depleted uranium would be nice but not necessary.
As long as these are not military industries ? :p
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on November 11, 2014, 10:34:45 PM
Depleted uranium is used (although just a little) on airplane industry as it's good trimming ballast. Very heavy so means small volume. But we don't have an airplane production chain in pak128 (for now :p ). If I work on a aluminum chain later it might be feasible


(http://i.imgur.com/G9Uluv0.png)


Nuclear plant is progressing slowly. Added more roof junk, a tree and a trefoil slab.
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: gauthier on November 12, 2014, 07:51:06 PM
Amazing ! I'm looking forward to seeing the uranium enrichment plant and the uranium mine  :D
Title: Re: Djohaal's assorted Stuff
Post by: Djohaal on November 13, 2014, 10:13:37 PM





(http://i.imgur.com/kZENs5P.png?1)


Ta-da! I'm not terribly happy with the fence (WAY too dark, thinking about removing it completely) and it has some dark outlining problem (also one of the rotations I forgot to un-mask. Oops)  Otherwise it is pretty much done. I'm moving to a new computer so there might be a downtime before I get 3dsmax running again, however I have all the rendered assets I need.