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Multitile Bridges

Started by Mariculous, June 26, 2020, 12:38:45 PM

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Mariculous

I am quite sure I once had seen a screenshot with a multitile bridge and at this time was wonering this was possible.

Currently, I am creating a new bridge which would actually look better with this feature.
Does that feature even exist or had this been some kind of graphical hack?

Leartin

No, you only get start, repeated middle, and end. There are many more elaborate bridges in japanese addons, but those are buildt by combining many different assets and sometimes even use special boats as pillars. Looks amazing, but is awful to build.

Isaac Eiland-Hall

Quote from: Leartin on June 26, 2020, 01:38:38 PMspecial boats
On the other hand, it makes moving your bridge easier! lol

kierongreen

In principle bridges could have left/right/middle versions (as wide tunnel portals) without too much extra code, but there's a few things to consider:
a) bridges currently have two heights of ramps, two heights of start, pillars and regular images - with rotations this means 20 tiles, which would become 60 with a left/right/middle model
b) how these interact with elevated ways in creating junctions and curves which would match the bridge graphically
c) how graphics which alter along the length of the bridge (e.g. for suspension bridge) would work
d) whether given above it would be preferred for way graphics to be split from the base bridge and drawn over it

Mariculous

Oh sorry, I should have been more preciese.
What I was refering to is not multitile in width but in length. In extended, there is a difference in between pillar bridges (cannot be built above deep water) and spanning bridges (have a maximum length restriction)

What I thought about was rendering spanning bridge images specific to different lengths, always including a single tile segment.
The game would then always place the longest segment available in the middle and then continue left and right by always placing the longest possible segment until the whole bridge has been built.
That would also require multiple sprites in height, as spanning bridges do usually have very high supports that exceed a single sprite by a lot.

Multitile in width would be nice either, but I did not have this in mind originally.

About these points:
a) is indeed an issue. Strictly splitting the bridge into graphics below (minimum) way level and graphics above (minumum) way level might help here. That would as a sideffect also help to get a bridge starting with a slope when the terrain underneath is not flat.
b) The spanning bridge ends at the elevated way, so no problem.
c) As described above, the longest possible segment will always be built in the middle, expanding from there to both directions by always picking the longest poissible segment.
d) In extended, ways are already split from bridges and tunnels and Imho this feature might be a good idea for standard too. However, elevated ways and tunnel portals do not split this graphically yet, I don't know why.