Critique me please! Roof too light?

[xerxesdaphat]

Hi, never fiddled around with anything like this before, thought I'd have a crack at the New Zealand DE Class. Is the roof too light? It's supposed to be all one colour, as in the supplied photo. Cheers. Please tell me anything else as well you can think of as well, I've got a lot to learn.

[Purno]

Roof looks ok, but I'd add a few dark pixels representing the whole chassis with wheels and such.

[Hyronymus]

Just wondering, is this a diesel engine of French origin?

[xerxesdaphat]

Just wondering, is this a diesel engine of French origin?

No it was made by English Electric apparently. All I know I read here: http://www.trainweb.org/nzdiesels/shunter/de/ It's one of the few trains I've seen in real life -- New Zealand is pretty light on rail transport.

Cheers Purno, I'm examining some of the 2CC/DBSet/UKRS stuff close-up to see exactly how these magicians produce their effects. I struggle enough with large resolutions, let alone when you can count the pixels across the length of the object -- really tricky stuff for a numpty like me. If anybody has any resources/tutorials they would recommend -- I've studied your tutorials thoroughly, Purno, and they've been very enlightening, thanks for producing them.

EDIT: Had a play with it, any better?

[Purno]

Studying other peoples work is certainly a good way to learn some tricks. It looks better now, but I don't have the ability to zoom in at my work. Perhaps you could start the other views too.

[xerxesdaphat]

I'm getting there with the other views, I think the back side will be tough.

The problem with a lot of pixel art tutorials I've Googled for is that they assume one has a much higher resolution.

[Purno]

Yep, TT-scale is pretty small, and it's more like spriting than making actual art.

On a closer view the roof is a tad light. And are you also sure there aren't any fans or something at the top of the roof?
And you may want to add a bright yellow or white pixel as a headlight.

[xerxesdaphat]

The vents are body-colour, so not too dark then.

[Purno]

Nice!

[xerxesdaphat]

The side view is a bit chubby, I think, but I can live with it for now. Got it into the game but need to learn a bit more about NFO -- alignment is off, and TTD thinks it's longer than it really is (attach carriages and there's a big gap). Plus apparently it's a `Floss' and does 160kph

I like that the diesel smoke seems to come straight out of the roof vent!

[CommanderZ]

I think it is a great start, it is imo at par with experienced artists' works. There are never enough good pixel artists

[Hyronymus]

I think it is a great start, it is imo at par with experienced artists' works. There are never enough good pixel artists

I must agree, it has a nice level of detail and the shape is tough but xerxesdaphat captured it very well.

[AndersI]

In the side views _ you have a height of 8 px from rail to roof, in the front/back | it's 7 px and in the diagonals / \ you have only 6 px. I believe the sizes in Purno's tutorial have been discussed before without reaching consensus, but IMO the diagonals should have at least one more pixel in height.

[JacobD88]

I'm getting there with the other views, I think the back side will be tough.

The problem with a lot of pixel art tutorials I've Googled for is that they assume one has a much higher resolution.

Not sure if this any help, but if you get the proportions correct in a larger resolution you could always down-scale the resolution, for example using "resize" in Paint Shop Pro, to the correct resolution once you are happy with the image... From then it's just a case of correcting the odd pixel on the down-scaled image for coding into a GRF... I believe some sets out there already do this... I think i'm correct in saying that the AV8 plane set is one such example... Much larger plane sprites were down-scaled to TT-Sized sprites

Chris Sawyer himself also did it for several rides in RollerCoaster Tycoon (The Haunted House for example see... http://www.chrissawyer.com/feature3.htm) and Locomotion only used sprites that had been down-scaled...

[Benny]

You are right about av8, pikka creates 3d-models of his planes and down-scales them to ttd size.

[xerxesdaphat]

In the side views _ you have a height of 8 px from rail to roof, in the front/back | it's 7 px and in the diagonals / \ you have only 6 px. I believe the sizes in Purno's tutorial have been discussed before without reaching consensus, but IMO the diagonals should have at least one more pixel in height.

Yup, I think that's the problem. How about if I shortened the _ view to 7 pixels instead? Or would that put it completely out of proportion to everything else? It's not a big engine really to begin with.

Thanks for all the comments guys, you're very kind.

EDIT: I made the roof of the bonnet just 3 pixels high but kept the cab at 4 pixels -- the danger here is that it looks like it's got a raised cab, which it doesn't. I think it looks more in proportion though. At any rate I think I'll get on with learning how to code the thing correctly.

[Purno]

_ view looks a bit high, but that could just be me...

[Benny]

I agree to purno, or maybe / view looks too low.

But the detail level is impressively high for a first timer.

[xerxesdaphat]

You might be right there about being a bit short in that perspective. Thanks!

In the meantime I went ahead and coded it anyway -- it's available here: http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 41&start=0 or if you're running OTTD, you can get it from the in-game downloads menu.

DanMack almost started a NZ Set in 2005, even made up a tracking table; the DE was on there, I might see if I can fill in a couple more slots when I have a free moment at uni. Drawing pixels is quite cathartic I think a NZ Set would be very interesting from a gameplay perspective; lots of limitations.

[xerxesdaphat]

All right, doing the NZR Ab class now. Nowhere near done yet, but just wanted to ask if the proportions look OK and if it is recognisably a 4-6-2. What I'm particularly unsure about is the height of the steam/sand domes and chimney. Thanks for all your advice.