Custom Scenery Exchange / Custom Rides by X7123M3-256

I've been working on some changes to the renderer. It now supports texture mapping:
 


This is rendered in true color - the next step is to implement the conversion back to RCT2's palette. The previous renderer had the palette hardcoded, and only rendered the image in grayscale. It would then remap it to the intended color. This works well for models consisting of mostly solid colors (like rides), but it's inadequate for anything containing smooth gradients or textures because it assigns a single color per face.
 
The new system will not hardcode the palette. Instead, the model will be divided into regions, and each region has it's own palette. This allows closer control over the set of allowable colors for a face; for example, if remap 3 is not enabled then you want those yellows to be available for non-remappable areas, and it a particular model is supposed to represent water then you might want the water colors used - but you probably don't want the water colors used otherwise (they are animated).
 
I have also converted the renderer to use fixed-point arithmetic throughout. I'm still not sure if this was the right decision - it fixes some issues I was having with floating-point rounding error, but also means greatly reduced range, which puts hard limits on the size of the models that can be rendered (still larger than anything you're likely to actually want in game though).
 
After the renderer has been refactored I intend to do the same to the DAT parsing code. This will extend it to handle all object types except scenario text objects (because who uses those?). I am still not sure what will need to be done to the ride generator itself; there are some serious problems with it.

Can we like make a wishlist here?
I saw you planned on them but a good eurofighter would be so awesome to be honest
Maurer sohne xcar comes to mind aswell

Suggestions are appreciated but I don't guarantee that I'll do them. At the moment I'm interested in expanding the capabilities of my tool, so I've got a few ideas for implementing things like DM splashes and animal enclosures that I want to experiment with (and I want my own set of custom supports but I doubt that will interest anyone here). Right now I'm still trying to get the renderer working properly again.

 

The X-Car and Eurofighter were suggested before. I said no then because of the lack of an appropriate track style, but now I have a much better idea of what would need to be done to implement the missing elements, so I'm not opposed to doing a ride that has the correct track style available but not the right elements.

 

There are a number of low-effort rides that I might make at some point - more waterslides, a custom log flume, and an alpine slide. I probably won't be making another major train until the summer, as they can take a very long time.

If i can make a suggestion: a proper Disc-O-car would be useful. The trick with the roto-drop cars is getting a bit boring.

I've thought of doing that. It would require animation though so it can't be done with my tool as it stands, but it should be possible with the newer version that I'm working on now.

How about half pipe coaster car?

There's no reason it can't be done, though I wouldn't be very likely to do it, since it's not a particularly common ride and it only really has one layout.

I don't know if this is really the best place to ask, but I'm not sure where else to put it - does anyone know of a  a use for (what I called) mixed trains? Is this something people do often?  I could probably implement it as a cheat for OpenRCT2, but it'd likely be significantly harder than the last cheat I implemented so I was wondering if anyone would want something like that.

 

I've thought of a few potential uses; in combination with a reversed version of the DAT, it could be used to reverse specific cars in the train. It can also be used to override the normal rules for positioning cars so you could have more than 4 vehicle types per train, or have any pattern of vehicle types along the length of the train. However, I can't think of an example of a real ride that would require this sort of thing.

Im sure there are many applications for it. Would it be vanilla-friendly?

Otsdarva has told me that it does work in vanilla. I myself have not tested. This is the test file if you want to check. I am not aware of any reason why this shouldn't be backward compatible, in fact, it might be possible to use this to bypass the 16 car length limit that vanilla imposes (but this is totally untested, just a hypothesis).

It would be useful to make for example a carousel ride with multiple types of trains in it. Like if you want for example horse and carriages in the carousel, you can use the horse coaster train in combination with some other type of train.

Yeah, that's a point. I may well end up implementing some sort of interface - even if it isn't something I'd need to use often, for the times when it is needed it's very awkward to do it the way I'm doing it at the moment.

Not sure of this has been requested before, but how about a proper Mack Water Coaster? Maybe not one of the most popular rides, but one I'd like to see implemented properly. 

I've thought about it, but there's no appropriate track style. Mack water coaster track is quite distinctive, and doesn't look much like the water coaster track in game.

If custom track styles become possible at some point in the future, then I'd probably do it.

By the way, a few weeks ago I was thinking about what custom ride trains I'd like to see someone make... And I realised that RCT doesn't have normal looking water cycles. Only swans, weird tricycles, or other crap. Something like this, without the kids. I think many realistic parks could and would use them.

That's a really good idea actually, and when I finally get round to adding support for animated rides I will do it.

I've thought about it, but there's no appropriate track style. Mack water coaster track is quite distinctive, and doesn't look much like the water coaster track in game.

If custom track styles become possible at some point in the future, then I'd probably do it.

 

It could be done but it would need some hacking. Personally I'd go with wood coaster track and under it the heartline twister track with the lift toggled on whenever possible (when it's not turning). It's undoubtedly a bit of a mess though and I haven't seen what this actually looks like in game yet.

That would just look bad. Heartline twister track is sort of like water coaster track but it's too narrow and can't do turns. Wooden coaster track doesn't look at all right.

You might get close by decorating the water coaster track with appropriate custom scenery pieces, but I would be reluctant to try because I don't want a repeat of that awful RMC train that is almost impossible to make look decent because of the lack of suitable track.

I've thought about it, but there's no appropriate track style. Mack water coaster track is quite distinctive, and doesn't look much like the water coaster track in game.

If custom track styles become possible at some point in the future, then I'd probably do it.

 

I was more thinking of the trains than the track. Both would be great, but I'd take what you'd give us.  

Yeah, but without the track the trains are mostly useless, because you can't actually build a ride with them that looks half decent.