It seems graphics progress on pak128.Britain has stalled somewhat over the last few months (as is often the nature of these things) but I just wanted to check who is still able/willing to contribute to this project. According to the to-do list a number of people are "working" on things but I suspect that is out of date and want to try and refocus efforts. I won't have that much time myself but I do want to keep doing a few things and at least make things feel like they are developing!
I'd really appreciate it if everyone who has contributed in the past could indicate what they think they are likely to contribute (no pressure to do anything - just an honest appraisal!) and which areas they would like to do. Also if there is anyone else out there who would be willing to contribute, they would be very welcome!
Here's a quick list of what I think is "in progress" (or started but not finished) and what I would like to prioritise...
Snow graphics:
# industries:
- coal merchant, gas p.s. (jamespetts? - or I can do snow if I get the blend file)
- modern shops (wlindley - I won't be very good at this as they are not blender)
- department store
- furniture factory, grain mill, hardware factory, paper mil, pharm factory (me or wlindley depending on progress of factories with fields - see below)
- colliery, oil ps, oil well, oil refinery, orchard, petrol station, pottery, printworks, pub, quarry, sheep farm, slaughterhouse, steel mill, textile mill (me)
# attractions:
- church, park x2 (wlindley)
#HQs (wlindley)
# stations:
- rail pax
- rail goods
- bus
- truck
- boat
- airport
- maglev goods
- generally more needed, especially post age of sail (anyone?)
Planes:
- lots more needed (Milko?)
Other factories (all new ones with snow please):
- factories with fields concept (wlindley)
- factories from different eras (anyone?)
Bridges (all new ones with snow please):
- lots needed (AEO?, others?)
City buildings (all new ones with snow please)
- lots needed (Archon? jamespetts? wlindley?)
Hi The Hood
I confirm my willingness to work on airplanes, these days I'm working on BAC111. Unfortunately I'm not fast for more than one reason
1) I use a slow but accurate method to create the planes
2) wife, home, work does not leave me much time
3) advancing age :) ... I forget how I quickly make models and when I stop for a while as if I start from the beginning.
Giuseppe
That's great Milko. I totally understand your three reasons (much the same with me, especially no. 2...)
As in this (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=6537.0) thread, I have recently been filling in gaps in the timeline of steam locomotives reported by some users, and I have begun to fill in various liveries for Experimental. It can be difficult juggling code work and pakset work, unfortunately, and fixing bugs always takes priority. I do intend to continue to contribute graphics/objects to the pakset, however (and see here (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=6970.0) for an updated automatic rendering script that should make producing graphics easier and quicker - I have mainly tested it so far with rail vehicles; it does not seem aligned quite correctly for road vehicles, and I have not tried it at all with buildings; but if somebody could get correct alignments for all types and automate the background colour replacement, that would speed graphics production even further), and have pipe dreams of producing different types of canals as available in different eras and different sizes of barges to go with them (making use of Experimental's way constraints). I had also toyed with the idea of producing passenger ferries and river boats (canal packet boats, island ferries, Thames Clippers, etc.), although that will have to come after a lot of other things with Experimental; however, it would help if the boat .blends could be uploaded somewhere (perhaps set up your own Github repository?) so that anyone can start work instantly.
I'm more than happy to send my industry .blends - in fact, I think that they're already online here (https://github.com/jamespetts/Pak128.Britain-blends) - for snowing. As to snowing the church, one thing that might be worthwhile with that particular object is replacing the grass texture with transparent background, as it is better that the church adopts the grass type of the land on which it is sitting, which will become snowy at the appropriate time in any event (the building will still have to be snowed).
I did try a city building, but I couldn't get the scale right, which put me off somewhat. If we could set up the auto-rendering script to work with double height buildings and align them correctly (as I have done with the rail vehicles) so that no post-export template alignment is needed, then the process of producing city buildings might be greatly enhanced.
Indeed, there's much to be said for the view that, if work is done now on better automation, as with the rail vehicles, then it will be easier to encourage people to contribute in the first place, and those who do contribute will be more productive, as each unit of output requires far less work. Perhaps we should set up a thread to discuss automation options and also more detailed tutorials? I have found it quite successful so far with rail vehicles. I am happy to contribute to this to some extent.
Some other pakset things that should in my view be considered as basics include support for broad tunnel portals and the separation of tunnels and ways, and the new industry settings, all which were introduced as features in Standard after Pak128.Britain was started, and the latter of which does not require any graphics work.
Finally, any progress on player colour stations? I think that player colour overall roofs were rejected, but player colour seats, signs and lamp-posts will look very good, I think.
I've recently touched up a few of the existing road images, because I was intent on using them for my bridges.
I'm having a hard time getting adjusted to gimp, which is slowing me down on the png file editing.
@james
increasing automation is something I would support if it works and we don't waste too much effort on making the tools. I think a big one is going to be the background colour replacement. I wonder if making a script for GIMP to load up and edit the images produced by blender is the way forward?
As to alignments, I suspect that for road vehicles it is a case of shifting the vehicle to the left or right in the blend before rendering, but it's complicated by drive_left / drive_right issues.
Finally, what do you mean by "broad tunnels", "tunnel/way separation" and "new industry settings"?
@AEO
Thanks
I am happy to get back on these again, now is a good time for me.
Suggestion for everyone doing multi-tile buildings: Where possible, create industrial complexes out of 1x1 buildings. Then in your .dat you can create several sizes of the same industry, and later versions of an industry containing both "old" and "new" buildings, without having to tile-cut. This will also reduce the number of tiles and memory footprint, as well as adding visual variety.
I sure wish I could define a frontimage / backimage to take care of snow for all the shops. Actually I'd like to define a single shop-building and just use various frontimages for the different awnings. Perhaps that would be a good extension request?
Great. Perhaps you would like to make the extension requests - you can probably explain your own ideas better than anyone else. Did you make any industries from 1x1 pieces ready for release?
TheHood: I am going to go back and clean up some remaining bits, and put together a pre-release test, probably this weekend. OK on the extension requests.
Another thing to consider for multi-tiled buildings: city attractions can be useful supplements to city buildings for things like hospitals, police stations, very large office buildings and the like.
Edit: To answer The Hood's questions:
(1) Broad tunnels (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=3483.0)
(2) Tunnel/way separation (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=1411.35)
(3) New industry settings (http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=7132.0)
Another thing that should probably be done is update all the signals for the new left-hand alignment option.
Thanks - I was thinking about the signals and wondered about this. Do signals now have front and back images? If not it doesn't do much good...
Hmm, I'm not sure. Perhaps ask on the help requests forum?
OK, all industry graphics I can are now snowed up. Wlindley, any progress on snowing either the shops, church or park? I'm planning the next release once I've done the stations, so ideally that would be all images in the whole pak with snow then.
i will see what i can get you before the end of this week.
I still have to do the gasworks and gas power station, don't I?
I've done the gas power station myself, but the gasworks isn't in standard at the minute as there are some graphical fixes to be made. I haven't bothered snowing it therefore.
Could you remind me what the necessary fixes are? I'm not sure when I shall have time to do them, but the gasworks is a useful industry to have.
See here: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=6946.msg67218#msg67218
Update: snow images now added for all rail, narrow gauge, maglev stations and airports
I also discovered HQs do not have snow graphics - wlindley, could you do the honours please?
Update 2: and bus and truck stops too...
Update 3: and canal quays...
Revised Headquarters, with player color flags, 4 levels, and different start-dates.
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/headquarters.png)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/headquarters-snow.png)
(http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/hq-icon.png)
.dat file (http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/CompanyHeadquarters.dat) and gimp source (http://www.wlindley.com/images/simutrans/headquarters.xcf).
Awesome, thanks!
EDIT: There's a bug in the dat file: each image is defined as [N][N][N][N][0/1] but should be [N][N][N][N][N][0/1] - the fifth set deals with animation and the sixth does snow so at the minute we have flashing alternations between snow and normal instead of snow in winter and normal the rest of the time! Fixed in SVN.
It's lovely to see those - excellent work! I wonder whether there would be some benefit in having 20th century style buildings, too (red brick, concrete, modern red brick, steel and glass (and Portacabins for the lower grades))?
All stations now have snow (yay!) - sorry to pester wlindley but it's just your shops and church/new attractions/new narrow gauge bridge that don't have snow yet. Hopefully I'll now have time for some other drawing projects - I think a few bridges may be next but I'll see what I feel like when I next get time.
The Hood having time for other drawing projects? Now, that'd certainly be a Christmas present!
I can't contribute graphics, but I can debug and write text. :-) I'm currently hoping to fix up the English translations in simutranslator, which are a bit of a mess.
Quote from: jamespetts on December 07, 2011, 12:29:55 AM
The Hood having time for other drawing projects? Now, that'd certainly be a Christmas present!
Don't get too excited - I don't mean having more time for simutrans in general! Only I should now have time to create new objects instead of adding snow to existing ones...
@neroden
Great - I really don't like doing translations and I never find time to upload new objects etc. If you would like to do that you would be more than welcome.
Too late, we're already excited, you have to paint new stuff now. hehehe
Quote from: neroden
I can't contribute graphics, but I can debug and write text. :-) I'm currently hoping to fix up the English translations in simutranslator, which are a bit of a mess.
Quote from: The Hood on December 07, 2011, 05:59:01 PM
@neroden
Great - I really don't like doing translations and I never find time to upload new objects etc. If you would like to do that you would be more than welcome.
does that mean neroden inadvertantly became the maintainer of pak128.britain, while the hood stays the lead designer? or am i overinterpreting those two messages?
Definitely overinterpreting. All I meant was that neroden was very welcome to do as much as he liked with translator - when I said upload new objects I meant uploading into simutranslator not the SVN/nightlies etc.