Introduction

On this page you can find the way haw the artists makes the pictures to let them work in the game. For more information how the game works, we like to redirect you to some other Simutrans sites where all this is explained very well. To visit an other site, use the Simutrans Webring, just go back to the first page and us the screen of the webring. To get back on the first page use the red switch in the navigation bar.

To start as a painter for Simutrans you need a painting program of a reasonable quality. Most painters use PaintShop Pro from Jasc Software. Curent version is 7, but a lot of painters still use PaintShop Pro 5. From the same software company there is also Animator where it is possible to animate the pictures you have made. (Take a look in the download page of this site).

And now some stuff the "would be painters" needs to know before making the first pictures. We have some standards that has to be followed to implement the images in the game.

The working area (the sheet) should be 512 x 320 pixels and the background has to be color #E7FFFF, a light bluish color like you can see it on all the example paintings.

All images are drawn in an angle of 45° top down towards you. The shadows are cast towards to upper-right edge, with the usualy 2:1 slope on flat grounds.

The standard tiles are 64x64 pixels. (The tile raster is about 64x16 pixels with an offset of 32 pixles in x-direction every second line). A factory is a 2x2 area of 4 tiles of each 64x64 pixels. The 2x2-tile-box has 128x96 pixels, but the area isn't a rectangle, that means the usable area is somewath less than the bounding box.

First of all you need to play the game for a certain time to know haw it works. You need to have an idea of the several lines of industries. Haw to build a network of railroads to transport goods and passengers. The specific way of using busses, trucks and other road vehicles. See haw the cities expands when the game goes on.

It is when you'r playing the game that the most and best ideas come up. You will miss a certain bulding in the total view of the cities. And there you go, you start to paint the building you like to see somewhere in the cities. Or you can remark that a certain industrie line is missing, and off you go with the first ideas of a new industry line.

Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/simu_gfx/files/Scenarios/Standard/  pick up the latest standard image set and extract the files in a directory. Then you give all the images a good look and don't be frightened to use the zoom tool so you can see all the details.

Now you'r ready to start is with something simple, a city building or a house. Just paint what you most like. Some people like straight lines, they best paint a building. More experianced painters will design a domestic house.

As an example we will take a city building. First you open a working area of 512 x 320 pixels with the right background color (see standards) 

Fix yourself a ground tile of 64 x 31 pixels. You can pick one out of the image set and start painting some outlines for your building.

Now go to the Tips & Trics on this site, pick up the "floor mesurements" and place it besides your building.

Paint the lines through the building so you can see the alignment of the basic floors.

Start filling up the floors with a different color and get rid of the mesurement tool.

Now its a good time to put some windows in the building, and don't forget a door on the front of the building.

And what do you think about giving the walls and the roof a nice color, don't forget some shadows keeping in mind that the sun is in the left top corner. Remove in the same time the helplines of the floors and the corners.

Once the walls have a nice color, the windows can't stay behind, so give them also a some paint and make them look a little deeper too.

Lets separate the building from the grass  with  a path around the building for general purpose and a parking for cars makes look the building more realistic.

And now I think its time to call the gardener to brighten up the area around the building with some structured grass and some trees.

At last we place some cars on the parking, it gives the whole picture a real living outlook.

Your first painting is a very simple one, but remember, its your fantasy that makes buildings look different. Adding some balconies, flowers, structures in the walls etc. can give the same building a whole other view, thats up to you.

Afther some simple paintings maybe you wont to make something bigger. You can go all ways, just be creative. I'll show you the evolution of the concrete factory.

First of all I started surfing on the internet, looking for images of a concrete plant and the vehicles involved to transport this goods. It was not easy, but afther a while I got some reasonable pictures.

Good luck with all your upcomming paintings.