Post by jimmyb5 » 27 Jan 2014 05:12

Hello all!I am a returning OpenTTD fan, and about 2 weeks ago was looking into the 32bpp progress so far. As I understand there are basically two efforts:1. This "32bpp Extra-zoom" effort: it was doing GREAT until an important development architecture change upset a lot of graphics artists here. Furthermore the licencing on the various completed graphics was unclear.2. zBase, which was started using the newer (post OTTD 1.2) architecture immediately, and also has a clearer licencing situation.Now I looked at zBase, and it is a brilliant effort because it is for all intents and purposes complete. But, when compared to this older 32bpp EZ project, I must say I find the graphics produced here more vibrant, more detailed and generally more visually appealing.Now the major stumbling block in getting these graphics working in newer versions of OTTD appears to be the fact that they need to now be "compiled into" a ".grf" file. And the .grf files are a whole lot more picky about the graphics formats, sizes and palettes that the previous .tar-based mechanism probably was.Well being a stubborn developer myself (but without prior experience in OTTD), I set out to try it anywayAnd after a week of intense working, I think I have something pretty well worth the effort now:As you can see, I am using the "zBase" base set, and my grfs with the 32bpp ez sprites compiled in. Any baseset can be used though, including OpenGFX or original_windows.What I have done, is set up a software project (with Makefiles etc...) which basically generates .NML files based on the actual graphic sprites and masks found. I used the last "nighltly dev" release from this project which I could find for the graphics files. Now the newest NML compiler is pretty fussy about what kind of graphics you feed into it, in particular mask files. So I spent most of my time actually tweaking mask files: many of those were not 100% correct (wrong size, wrong colours, wrong palettes etc...). The original "create.txt" script posted somewhere in this thread was my original inspiration, although it produces ".nfo" files, whereas I wanted to work with the higher-level and more developer-friendly ".nml" format. Also for replacing e.g. the tram vehicle sprites (The trams themselves come from a .grf named "generictrams"), .nml files are A LOT easier than .nfo files.So now that I have a basic build architecture set up, it is actually very simple to drop in new or updated .png sprites, and/or masks, and... it might even by worth considering continuing the project ???I see basically two jobs in that regard:1. Sorting out the licencing on existing sprites: according to http://jupix.info/openttd/gfxdev-repo/index.php?act=all , that is only really a problem for 17 of the entries... As I understand this is mostly a question of missing "sources" ? (A dubious concept in the case of graphics files imho, but ok)2. Filling in the missing graphics work. These are the parts I found:- temperate climate: sports stadium and statue! (I have seen images of the completed statue, but it was apparently never released??). Rail vehicles newer than the T.I.M (aka TGV), Monorail vehicles, Maglevel vehicles, and the valuables car. Maglev tracks. Ships, Canals, locks. The newer generation of aeroplanes (Airtaxi and beyond). Bank. Now I am no graphic artist, but this seems managable to me?- tropical climate: all rail engines, some cargo cars. Most industries specific to this climate (e.g. water supply, copper mine, ...). Trees.- arctic climate: all ground tiles with snow, empty, with roads, with rail tracks, level crossing. maglev tracks. a few town buildings are also missing.Now concerning all the problems around licencing, I am a little nervous about publishing the build project which I currently have. I could release purely the build infrastructure (Makefiles, shell scripts, .pnml stubs etc) and make it GPL but then you would still need the corrected graphics files (I had to fix at least half of all mask files if not more), and those I probably can't simply release given the current licencing situation right?Any suggestions are welcome on how to proceed. I would really love to see the missing graphics work completed, as this 32bpp extra-zoom set is (to me) really very graphically appealing. And just in case I didn't already say so: thank you very much to all the original artists for producing all this fantastic work!29.1.2014 small update: by trawling through this thread carefully, I was able to find the statue and temperate bank and integrate them also. Additionally I build the monorail station and level crossing by adding and combining exisiting rail sprites using nothing more than gimp. That's unfortunately just about the limit of my graphics abilities though...