Pak256.America-Ex

[RealAmerican1776]

Hello everyone. I have decided to further develop the new Pak256 by creating Pak256.America-Ex. So far, I have created roads from a simple unpaved road, to the Interstate Highway. I also have a town hall, one you might find in small towns across the country from New England, the Pacific Northwest, to the Deep South. In my development, I will be posting screenshots of buildings and other features of the pakset. I have also created a town for the development, the town of Lake Holcomb in no particular region of the country. However I will be showing colonial style houses later on.

[jamespetts]

Very interesting! There are a lot of people from the US, so it will be very interesting to see how this pakset develops.

[accord2]

Looks great! But I think 2 columns supporting that roof would make it look even better. How will you do railroad signals? Various types or only one per era? Because American's companies had different signals from what I understand.

[KneeOn]

That looks photorealistic without looking like a poor importation of a picture, in an way I've not seen achieved before!

I agree with accord2, pillars would really make that extended roof stand out and give the entrance more presence. I really like your colour palette too - the dark black, weathered look and the clear orange brick contrast make the different parts really draw your eye in!

How did you make it, Blender?

[RealAmerican1776]

To KneeOn. Yes I used Blender but I also used Sketchup Pro, found a model on there warehouse (the page said it is Colonial Williamsburg's Courthouse but it could pass as a town hall as well)  converted it so Blender could read it, added the trees from JamesHood's github page (and all four seasons Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and then snow for the town hall) plus all four directions. It took a lot of effort and a lot of time to make everything perfect.

To accord2. Yes, I will add columns. As for the signals, I'm going to have to do some research but I want to do signals from the early era of railroading in the US (I.E.  the 1830s or 40s to modern day) and it will probably be different signals from different railroads especially the early ones.

I forgot to do bridges so I'm working on those now. Once I finished I will fix the town hall, finish the buildings and industries, and then start on signals, tracks, and vehicles. I also want to change it from the metric system to our system but I can't find where I do it. So if anyone has suggestions, I'm all ears as they say.

[wlindley]

There was a discussion some years ago about a 128 USA / North America pakset, that might have some useful comments for this discussion.

[Ranran]

That graphics are very impressive 

I also want to change it from the metric system to our system but I can't find where I do it. So if anyone has suggestions, I'm all ears as they say.

Imperial and US customary measurement systems is very confusing to the system. Because it is neither decimal nor hexadecimal. 
Even if there is a library that simply translates, someone needs to add it everywhere. And it need to be added an option to switch to International System of Units.
In addition currently the dialog may use km or m. You'll have to manually add code to each dialog and tooltip and graphs to determine if the mile is appropriate or the yard is appropriate. There is no doubt that it requires a lot of work.
I think since simutrans is not a commercial product, it's unlikely to happen unless someone who needs it does it. 

[jamespetts]

Many years ago, there was a discussion about a patch for conversion to other measurement systems. Work was even started on such a patch, but abandoned due to the workload involved.

It is certainly possible to have a patch that converts measurements in places shown in the UI to the Imperial/US Standard system, but this would be a substantial addition to the code and take a considerable amount of work. If anyone were to make a workable version of such a patch, I should be happy to incorporate it.

[RealAmerican1776]

Thanks guys. I have a lot of free time on my hand (when I'm not working on my novel that is) so I will give it a shot. Wish me luck! I might need to self teach myself coding to get this done but as I said time is on my side.

[prissi]

There was the 32 bit OpenTTD Goldrush scenario (which was also "pak256) which unfourtunately never finished:
http://www.badbrett.se/goldrush/
There are some ONG, which you mich be able to reuse for the pioneer part, shoudl you want to include this as well ...

Especially since Simutrans now suuports buildings larger than 1x1