Monday 14 January 2013

The Graphics Guy

As the guy who draws the graphics I don't get to show off amazing videos of building paths, modifying terrain or opening shops, though all the graphics in those videos are my work. As I said before we are aiming to produce all the graphics ourselves. This may seem like a crazy huge task, but it will give us more flexibility and ease in getting the fundamentals of the game up and running - we can custom make any and all the graphics exactly as we need. "Home made" graphics certainly doesn't mean we are compromising on quality though!
Basic track tiles

It is likely that about 20,000-30,000 separate images will be needed for all the game graphics. This is a huge number but through smart use of 3D software and automation making these graphics is comparatively simple. Since starting the FreeRCT project I have been working on several projects with similar graphical requirements to FreeRCT. These projects have let me work out streamlined workflows for creating this type of image; my last major project was an extra zoom level graphics set for OpenTTD. If you are interested you can read more about that project at these blog entries: Making a Massive Graphics UpdateMoving to 3DAutomationThe Finished Product.

The very first shop

So far land, cliff/foundation, water, path and path support graphics for FreeRCT are made (although there are some technical issues that still need working out). The next big challenge will probably to make templates for track rides, in particular the track pieces which stretch over more than one tile.


Saturday 5 January 2013

We're in business!

Today, you can open a shop, and have guests buy things from them. The video demonstrates it :)
(At 3:05 and 4:17.) The recording program had some trouble around 3:38 apparently, the delay and speed-up was not at the screen.