I can remember playing patched TTD for the first time in 2004. Man, what a mess. I had no idea what I was doing. Couldn't build stations right. Signals were all messed up. Losing tons of money. I just couldn't get the damn game working right! So, I went to Joseph Drexler's site for help, and I linked over to TT-Forums. Good lord! There was all kinds of stuff going on. Oskar, DaleStan, and Csaboka were diligently adding new features to alpha and beta versions of the Patch. Zimmlock was working on his Total Town Replacement set. Michael Blunk was doing what he was doing...pretty much everything. And the U.S. train set was still being updated. Man, I had to get involved in this, so I did...

One of the first collaborations I worked on was the Industrial Stations Renewal set with Sanchimaru. I drew the original grain elevators:

As well as the steel magnetic cranes:

I was hooked. I loved pixel drawing, and I loved seeing my own creations in a game that I was playing.

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are. -Dr. Car Sagan, Cosmos

A small consortium of us (lifeblood, Aegir, and current coding extraordinaire OzTrans) set out to give TT a North American feel. This was the birth of the North American City set. My contributions included the Chicago School architectural buildings:

As well as the Art Deco skyscrapers:

This set is still ongoing, and I hope to add additional buildings in the future.

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are. -Dr. Car Sagan, Cosmos

One of the most fruitful collaborations I had was working with George on his ECS vector sets. For the tropical tourist vector, I drew a Caribbean resort, and the Mayan ruins of Palenque:

Also, I contributed Goodrich Castle for the temperate tourist vector:

Another contribution to the ECS industrial vector was a mid-20th century steel mill, that is a bit more true-to-life than the TT orginal graphics:

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are. -Dr. Car Sagan, Cosmos

A final, ongoing project of mine are the large, mid-20th century Beaux Arts / Art Deco terminals and stations. These are still works in progress, for the most part, except the Toronto Union station,which is part of the Canadian Stations set:

So, that's it for now, gang. Thanks for going through my small gallery of graphics contributions. From here on, I plan on showcasing my works-in-progress, and always welcome suggestions and feedback. Once again, welcome to the Grill, and as usual...

Cheers!

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are. -Dr. Car Sagan, Cosmos

... and we are ever so thankful for these great artworks ...

Toronto Union Station is part of Canadian Stations v2.0, which has not yet been publicly released; but it is coming as soon as I have some time to finish it.

Then, there is also that great 'Ore Unloading Facility' station, also part of CanStn v2.0 and unfortunately still work in progress ...

Great artwork. That tourist resort made the difference in ECS vectors. Looking forward for those Canadian stations.

Tourist vector is only reason to use ECS for me. Nice to know we have one of the contributors here.

Oh, holy cow! I forgot about those ore cranes. Maybe once we finish up the NA Roads revamp we can switch over to the stations. I have a few ideas and preliminary stuff in the works already.


Thanks, guys! I'm pretty partial to the resort as well. I'm not particularly thrilled with George's take on the use of company colors in all of the tourist industries, but, hey, they're coded, and people seem to enjoy using them.

Cheers!

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are. -Dr. Car Sagan, Cosmos

Once upon a time company colors were vital for variety in game. When newgrfs became a reality cc's play a minor role. Not that the concept is bad, but the palette is very limited. added that now in 32bpp, while there are added more capabilities, the poor implementation with the mess it creates in hue makes it even worse.

Wasn't that fixed? See: http://vcs.openttd.org/svn/changeset/24610
and
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 0#p1040469

Company colors are an integral part of play, especially with multi-player or AI, and ultimately it's up to the artist to use CC tastefully and realistically. I was stating that I wasn't particularly thrilled with George's implementation of CC in my drawings. For example: if you look at the Goodrich Castle image posted above, you'll see that there is a small banner at the entrance and a flag at the top of the Keep done in CC. That was my implementation of CC to denote "ownership" of that industry. Instead, George opted to re-color the ENTIRE castle in CC:

That was not my implementation, and every time I see it in-game I cringe. I drew Goodrich in two colors: brown and gray. Not purple, pink or yellow.

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are. -Dr. Car Sagan, Cosmos

George is from St.Petersburg (The Russian one). Turn about is fair play. At the risk of being accused of heresy, I wonder how the Hermitage would look in CC ...

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Umm...it is already in the same yellow company color as the Goodrich posted above.

_________________
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are. -Dr. Car Sagan, Cosmos

Can I have mine in 2CC? Orange and purple?

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Haven't seen that original version of the Goodrich Castle before, but it looks a bit more tourist-like with those flags indeed... And I personally do hate to go through all those ridiculous colors everytime I want to place one of those - not to mention that stupid requirement of having to consider a certain number of tiles in between one or more tourist attractions...

As for the Resort-and-Palenque I'm only using one color as I have re-used part of that hotel for an eyecandy tile, making it larger along with some other things I've added...

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No it wasn't. At best that was a partial fix-a hack (artwise).

At least someone tried to do something the correct way but as usual with most patches everything ends going down the drain...

Lets get some proof:

I see your point...

Maybe I should consider re-releasing them as new objects. You wouldn't be able to transport tourists to and from them, but they could be used as eye candy.

And your little resort area in the screenie is beautiful!

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are. -Dr. Car Sagan, Cosmos

Best would of course be if we could find a way to change the current ECS-file to get rid of company colors and some of the "tiles-in-between" requirements for a more suitable ECS-file to use...

With permission from George that is... But I'll certainly update my own ECS-file to at least fit my own needs as far as company colors concerns...

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Yes please!