Got some 40 seconds to spare?

[michiyl]

Some of you might have already seen it on YouTube, but for those who haven't:

Here's the link to my video (40 seconds, original quality is 640x480).
A description is added to the YouTube video with more information (in both German and English), that's why I did not embed it here.

You might ask "what am I going to see now?", here's the short answer:
A short rendered animation of what (Open)TTD might look like in in three dimensions.

Pretty exciting introduction already - I know.

For all of those who are still suspicious or just want to know more before watching, I exclusively present you some rendered images in angles and places you probably won't see that good in the video ...



... and some statistics:
- made in roughly a month
- rendering time 16-17 hours
- about 1000 frames rendered (without the tests)
- 145 textures
- almost 403000 polys
- almost 12000 objects (just look at the forest ^^)


What the description of my video in YouTube doesn't say is that I planned a total different animation but this will come at the beginning of the next one


I hope my work was worth your time, and as a bonus you'll get two extra images!

The first one is just to show you what the forest and the water almost looked like before I decided to scrap these textures and take the "real" ones (which saved up to 30% of time for the rendering of the forest!)


And the last one is a teaser for what will be in the second animation that I have planned - which will be considerably longer!

[orudge]

Pretty impressive; I do like the way it does still look like TTD.

(I've moved this to the General OpenTTD forum, probably more relevant here than in Off-Topic.)

[Geo Ghost]

Oh now that was worth a few seconds of my time. Enjoyed looking at that! It's very rare I do actually say "Ohhh wow! That is cool!" out loud

Makes me wish the game was really like that in some ways.

[Drury]

Liked, favorited, subscribed.

I like how you used that simple beginner railway design.

By the way, here's what PSX 3D Transport Tycoon version you mentioned in description looks like. It is actually playable, unlike your animation, but not nearly as neat

[michiyl]

Wow, thanks to all of you

Pretty impressive; I do like the way it does still look like TTD.

(I've moved this to the General OpenTTD forum, probably more relevant here than in Off-Topic.)

Special thanks for the second line I was unsure about Off-Topic or General OpenTTD section being the appropriate place for my thread, so I decided for the less wrong choice, and seeing it being moved is quite encouraging already!

Oh now that was worth a few seconds of my time. Enjoyed looking at that! It's very rare I do actually say "Ohhh wow! That is cool!" out loud

Makes me wish the game was really like that in some ways.

From time to time I was a guest reading through the forums on certain NewGRFs being created and released and one particular avatar catched my attention: It was a small screenshot, probably from the video Drury in his comment mentioned (which I also used as a reference for my work) and it made me say "wow, somebody made TT into 3D, so there must be more to be seen!" ... and having seen the quality of the Playstation version, I decided to use my better rendering possibilites to enhance the 3D experience "a bit"

I also thought about using Voxels as a possible way to display trains, trucks, planes etc. but I don't code except for some minor Java repairing stuff, so I had to resort to building 3D models and animating them

Liked, favorited, subscribed.

I like how you used that simple beginner railway design.

By the way, here's what PSX 3D Transport Tycoon version you mentioned in description looks like. It is actually playable, unlike your animation, but not nearly as neat

I thought about creating a bigger railroad network but this would certainly have cut the fun part of progressing and rendering some kind of "capability demonstration". And small steps are easier to perform (though I did the small diagonal rail thing so that it didn't look too cheap on my part, and it DID show me some troubling issues with animating trains!)
But don't worry, the next animation plot is drafted and I'm working on the new models as you can see which will involve way more action.

As I said in the above comment of mine, I did know about this and used it to see how they managed to get it into three dimensions, which is how I got the idea of using the original tree graphics as a texture. But thanks for your effort

[lobster]

Liked the video. Somehow a voice in my head screamed "WHY HASN'T ANYONE MADE THIS YET" the entire time.

[Zuu]

Liked the video. Somehow a voice in my head screamed "WHY HASN'T ANYONE MADE THIS YET" the entire time.

Perhaps due to:

- rendering time 16-17 hours

Edit: Assuming that you refer to adding a 3D mode like this to the game.

[ChillCore]

Although short, this animation looks very very nice.Let me rephrase that to "more than imressive".
I really hope that one day OpenTTD will look like this.
Please continue ...

[Dave]

Great work bringing it all to life dude!

I must say though (and this is not your issue at all!) that some of the TTD fanboys on YewToob are absolute tossends.

[Lukenwolf]

Whoa Nelly!!

That's absolutely amazing. It would take an army to convert all OTTD objects to 3D models, but hell yeah, you've just proven that it would be absolutely worth it. Oh, and while we're at it... You owe me a jaw. Mine just disintegrated upon impact with the floor

[2457]

You have added a whole new dimension to my life.
thank you

[Ailure]

Liked the video. Somehow a voice in my head screamed "WHY HASN'T ANYONE MADE THIS YET" the entire time.

Perhaps due to:

- rendering time 16-17 hours

Edit: Assuming that you refer to adding a 3D mode like this to the game.

If someone would actually add 3D rendering mode for OpenTTD it would probably use traditional rasterisation rendering (like pretty much any 3D game today). Your average desktop computer aren't powerful enough for realtime raytracing yet sadly.

It's probably blasphemy to say it, but 3D graphics have gotten mature enough to do justice in simulation games (and has for a few years now). Imagine the beautiful angles (and the screenshots people can take). If I were familiar with OpenGL and the OpenTTD codebase (and had the free time), I would had loved to try to code it in.

I also thought about using Voxels as a possible way to display trains, trucks, planes etc. but I don't code except for some minor Java repairing stuff, so I had to resort to building 3D models and animating them

Voxels would probably be unsuitable even for a project where a 3D view is added to openTTD, as I think the shapes of vehicles look better when made out of polygons. But I do admit that I miss seeing games with voxels nowadays.

[Kevo00]

Watched this earlier without sound and it was pretty immense, even better with sound!

[michiyl]

Liked the video. Somehow a voice in my head screamed "WHY HASN'T ANYONE MADE THIS YET" the entire time.

Perhaps due to:

- rendering time 16-17 hours

[...].

What I didn't tell you is that I used a ~3.3 GHz quad core unit (four processors worked that long which means that a single core PC had to render for ... well, definately LONGER). I'm really glad I replaced my six-year-old one-core computer just in time!

And maybe even the month-long work might bump some people. It was not without its frustrating moments (especially the diagonal track animation part ... programs can be so mean)!

Although short, this animation looks very very nice.Let me rephrase that to "more than imressive".
I really hope that one day OpenTTD will look like this.
Please continue ...

They made movies out of cartoons. Perhaps in time, when OpenTTD is finished (or close to it) AND the coders can get their hands on a legal source-code of the Playstation Version AND are willing to overhaul that, your wish (as well as mine ^^) might become reality.

Whoa Nelly!!

That's absolutely amazing. It would take an army to convert all OTTD objects to 3D models, but hell yeah, you've just proven that it would be absolutely worth it. Oh, and while we're at it... You owe me a jaw. Mine just disintegrated upon impact with the floor

If you count newgrfs into the OTTD objects, then yeah, an army at least! The standard graphics can be converted with relative ease and planning ahead (or a mix of "damn, now I have to re-do it all over again" and "I'll fix that later" ).

And I won't give you a new jaw ... it'll definately break again when watching the next planned animation

You have added a whole new dimension to my life.
thank you

I'm happy to give you new perspectives, too

Voxels would probably be unsuitable even for a project where a 3D view is added to openTTD, as I think the shapes of vehicles look better when made out of polygons. But I do admit that I miss seeing games with voxels nowadays.

Yes, 3D models do look better than voxels (depending on the complexity of voxels). However, voxels don't necessarily need a texture, just their color information and position. It's easier to draw a complete voxel model than to create one out of polygons and textures (as long as the voxel model doesn't have to be made out of thousands of blocks) when you just have to do the same as the skilled graphic artists here - but for less "images".

But it's just a theory of mine

Watched this earlier without sound and it was pretty immense, even better with sound!

Thanks! I'm not that good with sounds, so I'm glad you like the audio arrangement




Edit:
"Howevery" fixed

[teccuk]

Absolutely bloody amazing!

If I win the lottery I'll pay coders to make OTTD 3D, promise.

[JamieLei]

Looking fantastic!

[Zhall]

Many have tried, but only you have captured openttd's style in 3d.