Steaming in through the back door

[Raven]

Hi fellow Simutrans people,

Seems things are more relaxed from my point of view (if not more relaxed, I'm getting a bit more organized, a problem that has been a nightmare for me once I started working). Last time I tried to come back I had to confront some issues all of a sudden, which crushed my efforts to return to Simutrans.

So please bear my inconsistence.

Anyway!

Let me say hi then with some little pixels composed into english engines.



Regards

[mobo]

Hi Rojo! nice to hear from you again.

Those engines look great. How is that long electric loco in the bottom left corner called? I wanted to search for a real foto of it, just out of curiosity.

[Raven]

Hi mobo,

Those are all from a set of Crocodile locomotives I prepared sooooo long time ago.

I was looking trough the net to get some of my old sprites and came with the crocodile template (see, they're close to but not in player colours). But don't seem to be able to find it

I can't tell now which is which, but I'm sure you'll find SBB Ce 6/8 (it's the one you asked for, bottom left corner).

There you go, courtesy of www.railwaymania.com



Regards

[mobo]

Ah i see. I know this one of course - it's pretty famous. I thought you had some british engine there that just looks similar. Like the E 94 which looks similar and therefore got the nickname german crocodile.

yay, really famous there even is a Lego kit

[Raven]

The E94 is in fact there, third one from the bottom, would be my guess.

http://www.museumslok.de



There's also a french one. Class 12000

www.reynaulds.com



At the moment I'm fighting with scale. Adapting sizes to all-time classic hajo's BR234.

It's no easy thing to get sufficiently accurate engines with such little sizes, as shown in BR118.

Ok, this is what I've been doing:




I took Simutrans original engines:

Column 1, first engine is Prissi's F7A. Recognizable, player coloured. As good as it gets.

Column 1, second engine is A.Brose excelent BR234. Though as you would have realised, it's way too big.

Column 1, third engine, is my humble adaptation of BR234 using what I considered standard Size 8 engine sprite, Hajo's classic Class 218 (Column 4).

Column 2, would be, in order: British rail Class 47, British rail Class 87 without and with pantograph. Player coloured and standard sizing.




Column 3 are some adaptations of the steamers seen in my first post in this thread, all S8, showing British rail locomotive Royal Scott 2Co0 in player colour livery. British rail locomotive class A4 in player colour livery, and finally the Royal Scott in pure black.





Column 5 is Sojo's 188, a nice engine with standard scale.

Column 6 would be a simple metro emu train, or without front windows, a passenger wagon. Just a doodle.

Ah, I've got to get the rust out!

Let's see if I can setup makeobj, find some of the source's graphics, keep up with news and run some tests with these graphics. (I've seen a thread by prissi requesting some engines which is at least 8 months old!).

[mobo]

Well i must admit i don't know all those trains too well so i didn't notice the scale problem among locos. I know most of the trains only from photos in the internet, this way you don't realize how much bigger one train is compared to the other except they're both on the same photo. So what i try to say is for me as a normal player these scale issues don't bother me, those train-enthusiasts who know each loco personally might think different.

BTW: The maximum length that doesn't cause errors when passing under bridges is about 11 (in dat) - the graphics has to end on te edge of the tile. In case you don't know already.

[Raven]

Ah, that max lenght 11 thing is surely useful. But as it is, 20m trains (such as those you see above) are s:8, there's no real room for S10 or even S11.

If we wanted to resize the whole set of trains to be a bit of pixels more high and width, perhaps, but I think Simutrans little scale is nice enough, though it has some problems for a standard set:

- Variations in scale and style

The ones that strike me the most are (check them out in your depot):

The adler, since it's too bright

My JNR C11, too large

All the diesel shunters, too large

Br234, too large

- Lacks engines for a continuous timeline

http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=177.0

and check out this excelent study:

http://www.akrangard.cz/simutrans/991.cgi?lang=us

Though I admit I left halfway most of the stuff I had done for the XIXth century set.

Regards

EDIT: Modified link in bold

[Ashley]

It's good to see you back Raven/Rojo And always nice to see pak64 getting some love, do you plan on posting the source images (e.g. on graphics.simutrans.com) this time around (to help prevent losing any of your wonderful creations)?

[Raven]

Hi Timothy!

Sure, I'll post the files, promised! :·)

Ah, but still nothing done. Now that I've got some of the basics back, I've worked a bit on some English engines, check them out:



Tests ongoing!

[Raven]

Been doing some sketches.



I've divided the wagon types in:

Shuttle, high capacity, low speed

Regional, mid capacity, mid speed

Express, low capacity, high speed

Of course, capacities related to size, early express coaches are larger than the shuttle ones. Ah, and those cute Mitropa restaurant coaches too... In secondary player colouring.

Regards

[VS]

Looks like a plan!

[Raven]

Might be... who knows? :·)

All based in standard set, to avoid having the double decker on 1900 and to steep wagon intro dates. Also, player colouring is always welcome (IMO).

Still wondering if I could reduce it yet keep the feeling. Perhaps Regional Vth age is a bit redundant but I want 220kph consists for powerful locs, and HST for around 500kph, thus the need.

[PlayTrans2009]

:-\

Are you still working on it? I really like it!