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Bridge drawing volunteer

Started by killwater, March 10, 2012, 08:48:47 PM

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killwater

Is there a need for someone to draw some bridges? I can donate some free time and model and render a bridge or two. However I would need some guidance. I have a lot of experience in 3D modelling in Rhino3D.

jamespetts

Thank you very much for volunteering! There have been quite a few new bridges produced for Standard recently (see here) which should make their way into the Experimental version of this pakset for the next release. As you might have noticed, there are a number of bridges in the Experimental version of the pakset that share graphics with each other, and they are not the same as the new types. What will need to be done at some point is to work out which of the existing bridge types in Experimental can be subsumed under the new bridges from Standard (and how best to combine them), and which will need to be separate. If you are very keen, what you could do (and would be much appreciated) is to follow through that process, and produce a merged list of bridges with compat.tab entries as appropriate, and, if there are more bridge types in Experimental than in Standard, draw any in that are missing. Note that the suspension bridge and cantilever bridge cannot be made to work properly in Simutrans as it currently stands because the bridge graphics (other than supports, if any) cannot do anything other than repeat every tile.

Alternatively, if that is too much, what would be appreciated would be:

(1) more narrow gauge railway bridges;
(2) elevated ways for roads; and
(3) more variety of canal aqueducts.

These would also be very helpful for Standard.

Finally, you might want to consider broadening horizons further, and looking into redrawing some of the earlier road, rail and canal tunnels to make the entrances look less like boxes, instead setting the entrances further back, and having retaining walls, as shown here:



Edit:  Incidentally, for information on how, in general, to contribute graphics to Pak128.Britain (and this applies both to Experimental and to Standard), see here.
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killwater

Ok for road bridges these should be exchanged:

Steel spanning road bridge(cobblestone)
Plate girder road bridge

Steel spanning road bridge(tarmac)
Plate girder road bridge

Steel spanning road bridge(asphalt)
Plate girder road bridge

Concrete spanning road bridge (asphalt)
Concrete deck plate girder

Concrete spanning motorway bridge (motorway)
Concrete deck plate girder

Concrete supported road bridge
Concrete road viaduct

Concrete supported motorway bridge
Concrete road viaduct

However there are more changes needed which can be found in the following spreadsheet in Exchange tab:
http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/simuexbridges.zip

I will take care of rail bridges later.

jamespetts

Thank you - that is very much appreciated!
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killwater

For rail bridges these should be exchanged:
Short steel girder (light)
Steel beam

Short steel girder
Steel beam

Concrete supported (light)
Concrete railway viaduct

Concrete supported
Concrete railway viaduct

Concrete supported (high speed)
Concrete railway viaduct(high speed)

Supported steel lattice (light)
Steel truss

Supported steel lattice
Steel truss

Supported steel lattice (heavy)
Steel truss

New version of spreadsheet:
http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/simuexbridges.zip


The Hood

killwater,

If you are interested in drawing graphics that would be very welcome in pak128.Britain - most graphics are shared between the experimental and standard versions of the pakset. Blender is the tool of choice for pak128.Britain graphics - it helps keeping a consistent look as lighting and scale set-up is kept the same in each model. There are a few threads in the pak128.Britain board that you might be interested in, e.g. http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=2401.0 which gives a style overview. Very happy to help if you do want to get involved with drawing graphics.

killwater

And todo list:
road bridges:
(1)Masonry road bridge (unsurfaced) - Change menu icon – wrong surface type
(2)Brick road bridge (tarmac) - Change menu icon – wrong surface type
(3)Brick road bridge (tarmac) - Change surface type – city road to tarmac
(4)Concrete deck through arc - no equivalent in experimental
(5)Steel spanning road bridge(cobblestone) - Change surface type – city road to cobblestone
(6)Steel spanning road bridge(tarmac) - Change surface type – city road to tarmac
(7)Steel spanning road bridge(asphalt) - Change surface type – city road to asphalt
(8)Concrete spanning motorway bridge (motorway) - Change surface type – city road to motorway
(9)Concrete supported motorway bridge - Change surface type – city road to motorway
(10)Wooden road trestle(tarmac) - Change menu icon – wrong surface type
(11)Wooden road trestle(tarmac) - Change surface type – city road to tarmac
(12)Concrete deck steel truss bridge -  no equivalent in experimental

Rail bridges:
(1)Tubular box girder -  no equivalent in experimental

If I would have access to graphic files and all needed permissions I could try to change surfaces in GIMP. Tomorrow I hope to have enough time to check surfaces for rail bridges.

killwater

The Hood,

I would like to try to make some graphics. And if I succeed, I wouldn't mind if they were used by standard too. Modeling in Rhino is faster for me, but file can be transferred to Blender for rendering. Bridges and ships interest me most, but tunnel entrances for starters should be ok.
If I have any questions I won't hesitate to ask you :)

jamespetts

The graphics sources are available here for Experimental (.pngs and .dats only); see this thread for information on where to obtain the blender files.
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The Hood

Thanks for the interest killwater. Out of those you suggest, ships are probably easiest for starters while you get used to simutrans graphics - bridges and tunnels present a few alignment difficulties which can be a bit fiddly at first. As for ships, we are in need of a lot more of these and I never quite had the interest to blitz them in the same way I did for the other graphics!

killwater

Hello
I've finally found some time to make some graphics. In the link below is a preliminary model of tunnel entrance discussed above. Any suggestions?

http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/TUNNEL_ENTRANCE.jpg

jamespetts

That's interesting, and a good shape, although could probably do with addition of the Standard textures. But how do you plan on making graphics that can be read by Makeobj? That is the most critical step.
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killwater

Well I didn't add any textures yet. I just needed shape approval. Should I add more detail or simpler is better? Should retainer walls be changed to a curved shape?

About making graphics read by Makeobj there are two ways:
- first to copy blender settings to Rhino and prepare named views template,
- export to blender and use existing templates.
I don't know which will be better. I hope I will have more time to investigate it next week.

jamespetts

You should probably test your ability to generate Makeobj importable graphics first, since it'd be easier to start again from scratch with a known template than configure it all manually if you can't set it up to work easily. The best way of doing it is simply to use an existing Blender file and modify it. If you have done something different, then you might find it monumentally difficult to get the graphics into the game - I'd have no idea where to start.
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The Hood

Great to see someone else starting to draw stuff for pak128.Britain. I would highly recommend importing into blender and using the existing lighitng and camera setups already there. This will go a long way to ensuring a consistent look and getting your graphics included in official releases. It's probably also less work as the templates are already set up. However, if you can get a consistent look and the correct angles done easier (for you) in Rhino, that's not ultimately a problem.

killwater

#15
Hello
http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/tunnel_entrance2.png

Imported to blender and rendered without playing with textures. Blender template was used.
I don't know how to get rid off this annoying orange edges.  Next time I will play with textures.

jamespetts

I have moved this topic to the general Pak128.Britain forum, as this was not specific to Pak128.Britain-Ex.
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The Hood

Looks good - but I'm stumped about the orange edges too...

killwater

Are there any textures available to use? Or should I find my own? Bricks and grass would be most important for now.

The Hood

For grass you can normally use the transparent (#e7ffff) to use the base texture of the tile. On tunnels though there are areas where you may need to add a texture, which I normally do using a few "clouds" textures in blender with slightly different colours.

For brick, see the textures here: https://github.com/JamesHood/pak128.Britain-blend-files/tree/master/textures