Friday Facts #194 - Automated combinator pipeline

[Klonan]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-194

[Shaymes]

nice
what we Need are more sensors like
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28148

[Herddex]

Quite a bit technical, but I guess I don't mind. You've managed to get my mind blown with all the stuff you wrote about... I never knew there was so much complexity into the graphics design procces. Keep up the amazing work, as usual.

[Rhamphoryncus]

And for all those who wonder why you can't just publish the blender files for modders.. now you know. It'd look like shit without all the extra work put into them.

[BlackKnight]

Wonderful explanation, thanks very much for taking the time to write it. Impressive the effort required to finesse these sprites into position.

Over the years I frequently find myself gravitating towards writing scripts to solve repetitive tasks for efficiently sake and to insure consistency through my workflow. Funny how I've found the automation process can take precedence sometimes and even be more fun than the actual project . Point in fact, no wonder I was immediately hooked when I found out about this game!

[Factorie]

Amazing visuals. Cool to see the behind the scenes action of it all.

[Xterminator]

Really really great Friday Facts! Even I have no idea how to do any of this myself and got lost in some parts of explanations, seeing the behind the scenes stuff and all the automated processes you guys have come up with is truly fascinating.

I'm hoping this means HD combinators and power stuff in the very near future?

[Factorie]

Also saw the MIDItorio website on reddit. It's amazing what the community can do with the tools this game provides. We have the best community!

[garath]

Big fan of the FFF's that showcase the tremendous work required to make our favorite game so beautiful. Thanks, much!!

[timesinker]

well played !

[madpav3l]

I'm hoping this means HD combinators and power stuff in the very near future?

A quote from reddit Friday Facts 194.

The electric poles and substations are coming soon, it's being worked on in parallel and the combinators just happened to have finished sooner

[oLaudix]

That was a waste of a perfectly good explanation.

[Ghoulish]

I enjoy reading about how stuff works behind the scenes in the Friday Facts!

[darkfrei]

Why are you rendering shadows separately? It is possible to render only one sprite sheet with shadows. And if you have right scale, you can get coordinates of wires with blender too.

[Vinnie_NL]

Again a nice FFF. It makes me wonder if there are other game devs with similar workflow automation scripts. You would be crazy not to look into this to save a lot of work and deliver very consistent work.
And I played my first song in Factorio. Downloaded one from http://www.download-midi.com/ (probably the first google result when you search for MIDI files) and made a blueprint. Together with the Creative Mode mod it was made in 1 minute And I don't think I will ever fully understand how it works at least I can enjoy some of it now. Although I understand that creating this from scratch is much more fulfilling.

Also only ONE WEEK LEFT FOR TEH PARTY!

[V453000]

Why are you rendering shadows separately? It is possible to render only one sprite sheet with shadows. And if you have right scale, you can get coordinates of wires with blender too.

The shadows in the game are actually separate layers for most entities... Apart from that, I don't think it's feasible to do with cycles, do you have some example? With Blender Render I know it's possible for sure. Coordinates for wires, you can probably get them with some blender python scripting, I'm sure about that. But putting it to the game would still require similar scripting and being able to do it on the final sprite gives you much better control I feel like.

[MiniHerc]

Those 7x7 symbols look so good.

[rbrucemtl]

I really appreciate the technical details. It's very interesting to see how it's done. I was wondering some thing... is the closest zoom level in the game the graphics at a 1:1 pix scale?

Thanks for this amazing game!

[Factorie]

I'm hoping this means HD combinators and power stuff in the very near future?

A quote from reddit Friday Facts 194.

The electric poles and substations are coming soon, it's being worked on in parallel and the combinators just happened to have finished sooner

My GPU is ready

[darkfrei]

Why are you rendering shadows separately? It is possible to render only one sprite sheet with shadows. And if you have right scale, you can get coordinates of wires with blender too.

The shadows in the game are actually separate layers for most entities... Apart from that, I don't think it's feasible to do with cycles, do you have some example? With Blender Render I know it's possible for sure. Coordinates for wires, you can probably get them with some blender python scripting, I'm sure about that. But putting it to the game would still require similar scripting and being able to do it on the final sprite gives you much better control I feel like.

For example this file: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=40559#p240135

And and it's possible just from box from 2.78c: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiU46VHzEnY