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Topic: More city buildings (Read 213752 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: More city buildings

Reply #351 –
Thanks for the blend.  The models are perfect, but there are differences in the camera and lighting setup which I think explain why there are some subtle differences in image style. 

I would be a lot happier if these were re-rendered using Kieron's setup (which is what everything else is rendered in).  An example can be found in this zip:
http://simutrans-germany.com/files/upload/pak128Britain-blender-examples.zip

Use 1980-warehouse.blend as a template.  The way to do it is to have the model on layer one and then use the lighting in layer 3; rotate layer 1 only and take the four renders. 

The attached images give an idea of what I am talking about (although I don't have the image textures Archon used).  Test1.png is Archon's original setup, Test2.png is the exact same object rendered in Kieron's existing setup - hopefully you can see the difference I am talking about.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #352 –
Finally I got that lighting setup working. here is result.



Re: More city buildings

Reply #353 –
That looks better :)

I would say now that the walls need a more obvious and darker brick texture, and the roof texture is a little odd (or is that the snow texture - if so there is no snow on chimneys/doorsteps).

Re: More city buildings

Reply #354 –
It might not be a bad idea to copy one of the existing textures used. Keeping the set to a limited palette of textures gives a more consistent feel.

That said the building does look good!

Re: More city buildings

Reply #355 –
Quote from: kierongreen – on
It might not be a bad idea to copy one of the existing textures used. Keeping the set to a limited palette of textures gives a more consistent feel.

Not a bad idea at all.  I will upload all of the texture images used so far into a new thread this evening.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #357 –
Excellent!  Much more consistent style now :)

Re: More city buildings

Reply #358 –
Is there any way to make building types cluster in simutrans? I mean, can it check what the adjacent tiles are before placing a new building? Because, having made my demo, I quickly found that, as one might expect, in British towns it looks more normal to have rows and rows of victorian terraces, or several streets of townhouses in the centre, than to have a random mixup of them all.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #359 –
No it isn't - in fact the game engine tries to avoid placing identical buildings adjacent to one another.  I agree though, it would be good to create rows of terraces etc, maybe someone could write a patch that enabled that?

Re: More city buildings

Reply #360 –
Wasn't this an extension request about 6 months ago...?
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Re: More city buildings

Reply #361 –
Next building getting ready.

there are still more work but I would like to hear your opinion.

Also pub (industry one) is missing needs_ground=1.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #362 –
Nice.  I think the brick texture is too smooth - any chance you could make it more co**** so that it looks more obviously brick like (probably use one of the textures I uploaded the other day).

Re: More city buildings

Reply #363 –
Some more work on it + texture on walls.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #364 –
Nice :)

Another thought:  For your tenement and this graphic, it would be nice if you could have both corner buildings and non-corner buildings.  You can then use these together to with dims=1,1,8 to get corner buildings always on corners and non-corners elsewhere. Does that make sense?

Re: More city buildings

Reply #365 –
Ah! I updated the wiki to explain that you can have eight building directions.  This makes me think perhaps I could redo some of the high street shops as well.

p.s., I can't remember where the explanation of what "north" is for the .dat definitions -- is 0=north?  That needs to be in the wiki as well.  It does bother a little that the directions increase anti-clockwise.

p.p.s., Archon: This building is in Washington State USA but perhaps a half-timbered structure like it could be a larger 1600s British city residence building, consistent with the existing house drawings? 

Re: More city buildings

Reply #366 –
Different graphics for corner and non-corner buildings was new to me. It sounds good idea and should require too much work, but I think i will make next another terraced house. First one retires 1895 (should it be lower?) and after that there is big gap between low density housing and my tenement.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #367 –
For an example of the corner-graphics, take a look at the current 1880 terrace shops in pak128.Britain and the corner-shop.  These are specified by the same dat file:

http://simutrans.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/simutrans/pak128.Britain/citybuildings/com-1880.dat?revision=249&view=markup

As for what you do next, do what you feel like.  We need so many buildings of all sizes, eras and types, it doesn't matter if you focus on one rather than another at this stage.  At some point (once planes and ships are all finished) I will start to think more seriously about citybuildings and what we need, but that won't affect things too much at this stage.

@wlindley,
We do have timber-structured old buildings over here, but the original ones tend to be less block-like than that picture.  There was also a phase in the 1930s where half-timber modern construction houses was fashionable.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #369 –
Excellent!  The snow on the roof of the latest building is a little too grey for my liking though - any chance it can be whiter?  I normally add two layers of "clouds" texture in two shades of pale grey in blender and that does the trick.  Maybe something similar would work for you.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #370 –
File updated with whiter snow on roof and without special colors.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #371 –
Any chance of window frames or am I being too picky? :P

Re: More city buildings

Reply #372 –
Preview of next building early stone shop.


I think it would be good idea to make similar looking terraced house for early ages and make 3 story brick one later.

Kieron: It has brick window frames.  :)

Re: More city buildings

Reply #373 –
Looking great. 

I generally think it's a very good idea to make similar looking buildings in "families".  Helps for consitency.  Can we have this shop in corner and non-corner versions as well?

Re: More city buildings

Reply #374 –
Updated the 1870s offices, replacing the too-skinny tower with some better proportioned ones, and with snow for the 1970s...



zipfile with .png .dat and .pak



"Families" of buildings, yes... actually the "corner" and "non-corner" versions of a particular building are more "siblings" to each other, as opposed to the four rotations of each which are the "same" ... Archon, your lovely new stone corner shop, could have its non-corner version be a matching stone row-house, for example.  Thus the corner shop never appears mid-block, and the row-house never appears on a corner.

Mod Note: double post merged

Re: More city buildings

Reply #375 –
Good work on the tower blocks and snow images wlindley.  I think we are just missing snow images for the earlier tower blocks and warehouses now, and then the industry-chain shops/pubs. 

about the corner versions - it would be best to have a non-corner shop and a corner shop rather than a non-corner house and corner shop, so as to make sure that both corner and non-corner versions are either both residential or both commercial.  But never mind about that, as long as new graphics of this quality keep coming in, I'm not going to complain too loud!

Re: More city buildings

Reply #376 –
Someone has been busy.

I will release all my buildings in one pak after I get houses for these ready and inn rendered with correct lighting.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #377 –
Those are simply awesome - your best yet!

Re: More city buildings

Reply #378 –
I really like the design of these buildings from Archon. However as The Hood already stated they look slightly more blurry than the existing buildings. There's not much in it, and maybe it's just my eyesight, but does seem like a difference to me...

Re: More city buildings

Reply #379 –
Quote from: Archon – on
Preview of next building early stone shop.


I think it would be good idea to make similar looking terraced house for early ages and make 3 story brick one later.

Kieron: It has brick window frames.  :)

Constructive criticism - the verge detail on the gable ends needs some shadow - there would be an overhang, it looks a bit 'flat' at the moment. Same on the eaves where the gutter would be. Just an extra row of darker pixels would improve it immensely. :)

Quote from: Archon – on
If someone has photo of some 1890 - 1940 med density residential building I would be interested.

There isn't really such a thing. Everybody was building low density suburbs after Ebenezer Howard's 1890s book advocating 'garden cities', and trying to move out of the existing high-med density accomodation, which was all pre-existing from the victorian period. The move out was income dependent, with the poorest staying in urban areas longest, and consequentially suffering most in the Blitz in 1941.

High Density Urban a la modernists came post WW2 in the reconstruction - you could set the start date earlier for concrete 50s buildings (but post 1923 - Vers Une Architecture was published then), if you hypothesise WW2 not having happened, but then again it's more likely suburban sprawl would have just persisted unchecked!

Mod Note: double post merged

Re: More city buildings

Reply #380 –
Archon: Gorgeous!  But yes seems slightly "blurry" ... a few sharp edges would solve that, methinks.

I'm busy adding snow to the 1870s commercial blocks, and have re-done them one last time, replacing my least favorite of the batch, with corner and non-corner versions of this one:

Re: More city buildings

Reply #381 –
There are some lovely buildings here. I wonder whether anyone could turn his hand to a set of headquarters? Pak128.Britain currently uses headquarters from Pak128, which don't fit very well with the style...
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Re: More city buildings

Reply #382 –
Pak128.Britain doesn't currently use any headquarters...
Given they don't add anything to gameplay, I don't really think they are a priority, but of course anyone is welcome to have a go.  HQs should probably be 2x2.

Re: More city buildings

Reply #383 –
I wonder, could the HQ building be a much bigger building? Because, then, we could make it as the "locomotive works", like the GWR at Swindon / LSWR at Eastleigh, etc - then it would have a purpose. Maybe it could be a 3x6 building or something suitably large? With a turntable and suchlike.

It could start out some sheds and a lot of fields, and grow over time as expansions are paid for...

If someone is clever with code, perhaps it could confer a 'loyalty bonus' on the company with respect to inhabitants of the town it's located in? Or function as a p****enger-or-material-demanding industry in its own right? Could it demand Steel say?

I suppose the trick is to make it not railway-specific... maybe big office building is best after all?

Just thinking creatively... don't mind me!  ;D