pak128 Half Height Tiles

[prissi]

I just would mention this since all your other program are available on unix too. As long as the result is in the SVN a windows on tool is fine.

[Fabio]

All roads (and elevated) now converted in r1223.

Bridges will follow after Kieron's patch is in trunk.

There might be small glitches to be fixed in a later stage.

Roads up to 90 km/h have dual slopes, faster roads are restricted to the shallow slope.

[Sarlock]

Wow, nice work!  I have been far too busy to be able to do anything on this lately, I didn't realize you were quietly finishing the roads

[kierongreen]

Good work

[VS]

Wow, I missed this completely... :O That's great news!

[Fabio]

New canals (20km/h and 30km/h) in r1233.

Also artificial slopes have been improved to work better with the new system.
Rivers improved as well to fix some glitches. Bonus: non-navigable streams have waterfalls for double height slope.



I'm still thinking about rail tracks. In a way, I would like to get rid of the raised ballast (like other paksets did) replacing it with a flat one.
PROs:
- look better when double tracks
- more clearance in tunnels/under bridges
- better interoperability with trams, having the same tracks
CONs:
- rail vehicles need repositioning (easily done with a script to add vertical offset ~4px)
- catenaries need adjusting (anyway they would need a revamp sooner than later)

I would like to hear your opinions on the matter...

[sdog]

I'm still thinking about rail tracks. In a way, I would like to get rid of the raised ballast (like other paksets did) replacing it with a flat one.
PROs:
- look better when double tracks
- more clearance in tunnels/under bridges
- better interoperability with trams, having the same tracks
CONs:
- rail vehicles need repositioning (easily done with a script to add vertical offset ~4px)
- catenaries need adjusting (anyway they would need a revamp sooner than later)

I would like to hear your opinions on the matter...

It would break compatibility with third party addons to pak128. But there is so much more that does the same, and a re-alignment of vehicles seems to be required for the pak, when i remember other threads correctly. The second largest SNFOS is doing a major overhaul of their addons and could do that on the go. Japan addons for pak128 are active and likely also able to adjust their addons?

There was a thread about seperating ways and structure below, i think that project idea is dead?
http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=11925
If not it would be a good idea to wait what is decided in that thread.

Raised balast looks good in a model-railway kind of way. Otoh in real aerial photos, one would only see it through shades, not as a structure. A flat balast look better i think.

[kierongreen]

Another (extremely hypothetical) musing. Having flat tracks would make it a lot easier to convert ways to being texture based in the future which might have... advantages.

[VS]

Raised ballast looks nice, but I agree that there are way too many reasons not to have it. If you decide to redo the tracks like this, I am not going to complain

Realigning all the vehicles should be relatively easy. Personally, I would prefer to have the first step as realigning by modifying offsets, then the second as "applying" the offsets back to images. There is already a number of items realigned using offsets, that's why...

[Fabio]

great! I was really waiting for Vs's blessing.

you mean actually realligning vehicles in pngs? this could be easily done by Imagemagick scripts if it's what you prefer.

[VS]

Actually, all I need is offset change, the rest is easy

[prissi]

But breaking compatibility with all addons is probably not very nice. Maybe paset dependent offsets in simuconf.tab could be a better choice.

[VS]

How do you distinguish addon from official object, then?

[Fabio]

is there a way to add -say- a 0,4 (x,y) offset to all rail vehicles via simuconf.tab?

[kierongreen]

I think that's what prissi is suggesting...

[Fabio]

so far I thought so, just didn't know whether already an existing feature or an extension idea.

[kierongreen]

Extension idea.

[Fabio]

Maybe paset dependent offsets in simuconf.tab could be a better choice.

a way to add -say- a 0,4 (x,y) offset to all rail vehicles via simuconf.tab

This would be a great idea indeed!



Two new commits:

r1235: new tunnel inside ground (missing before, standard pak128 uses sidewalk); it's a sort of rocky soil

r1236: new powerlines (taller pylons, double slopes)



progress update:

grounds: done, but with a few glitches
menus: done, but should be improved at a certain point
ways:
roads: done
rail tracks: to do (with realigning)
tram tracks: to do
suspended rail: to do (with some new cool ideas )
canals: done
rivers: done
power lines: done
airport: no change needed
fences: none official so far (some could be added, though)
narrow gauge: none official so far, it would be important to add though for mountainous regions unfit for normal railways
crossings: planned complete rework (though not strictly related with new landscape)
bridges: will need rework, but only after Kieron's improvements are committed
other i can't think of ??

[greenling]

Hello All
what´s it be planed to do with the old addons they the another simutrans have be make?

[kierongreen]

Building addons will not require any changes. Rail vehicle addons might need realigning if Fabio decides rail tracks need to be realigned - otherwise vehicle addons will also not require any changes. It's only way, bridge and tunnel addons which might need changes.

[Fabio]

Rail vehicle addons might need realigning if Fabio decides rail tracks need to be realigned.

It's very likely I'll decide they need
The change won't be too radical (about 4px lower) but also unchanged vehicles won't look too bad (pretty much as they look now on tram tracks).

[VS]

Since pakset items and new addons will be aligned according to new templates, the global offset will have to distinguish these somehow. I don't think there is a field in the besch that could help this - so "automagically"...

[Fabio]

well if global offset per vehicle type were implemented we could keep existing alignment for all, including pakset trains, and none would be the wiser.

[Tazze]

It has nothing to do with these tiles at all, but I'm dying for more things which connect with diagonal roads and diagonal crossings now. Do you think?

[kierongreen]

More things - what do you mean? Diagonal crossings can be achieved with tram tracks.

[Fabio]

Diagonal crossings can be achieved with tram tracks.

Especially after realigning

[Tazze]

I think there's been some misunderstanding. I should have explained more thoroughly.
strictly speaking, what I wanted to say is the crossing which is able to connect diagonal road with straight rail or with diagonal rail and so on. Is it difficult ?

[Fabio]

Yes, it isn't supported by the code and it's unlikely to ever be.
But as Kieron pointed out, there's an excellent workaround with tram tracks, especially after railway tracks will be realigned to match them seamlessly.

[Tazze]

It sounds great!!
Thank you Fabio. I understand why he mention tram tracks.
I didn't know that crossings made from tram tracks but I do enough.

[Fabio]

Long time, no update (well, except for thost who check time and again the svn )

Landscape conversion is done.
Ways conversion is in progress. As of r1295 we have:
- Roads, power lines, tram tracks, canals done;
- Railways in progress;
- Schwebebahn and all catenaries not done yet.

Here's a quick preview of a 120 km/h viaduct

[Sarlock]

You've done an amazing job, Fabio!  That viaduct looks incredible - like it was rendered.  I've been checking your progress on SVN and was going to help a couple of months ago and realized that you were already well on your way to finishing the ways.  I continue to be impressed by your pace of work and dedication to it   After working on those roads several months ago I realized that you were far better suited to editing and upgrading your own work than I was.

I suspect you could probably just shift the normal slope images for the catenaries up/down every few pixels to achieve the right angle - they have simple and consistent graphics.  If this method works you could probably do them all quickly with a script.

If there is anything I can help with, please ask

[Fabio]

Thanks for the appreciation, Sarlock!

What I would need the most is some testing, as I have really little time for it. The branch compiles swiftly now, and there might be several glitches I overlooked.

[Sarlock]

Absolutely.  I'll get to work on that.  I tried a couple of weeks ago but I wasn't able to compile due to the makeobj problems.  I'll give it a shot shortly. 

[kierongreen]

Very nice

[HDomos]

Really nice for sure. I have checked the svn sometimes, and the work you do is great