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Different styles and textures

Posted: 18 May 2021, 20:22
by Bernardo Brandão
I already noticed that it is possible to recognize effortless who is the plug-in creator by just seeing his plug-in textures. Even existing necessary rules like shadows and the isometry, each creator has his style. Furthermore, it is possible to notice when the texture was stolen from other games (which is very unfortunate) by just seeing the texture. I'm not saying that viewing is sufficient to say if something was "copy and pasted" because our visions can deceive us.
Knowing that I have a question: What helps us to recognize those things? What explains we being able to notice that a texture was stolen from another game without knowing that game? (I'm am referring to isometric buildings that have the same scale as Theo Town's buildings) One possible answer is the lighting of the texture (please, I'm not talking about night frames, it is about the sunlight effect on facades) however there are different creators here in Theo Town that try to represent that effect, so why other games textures are so different? As I said, it is easy to notice who is the plug-in creator just looking at his texture, but other game's textures are very different from the multiple styles seen in Theo Town's plug-in store. Is an answer also possible is that Theo Town buildings (being plug-ins or not) have similarities beyond the rules, if this is the point, what are these similarities? Add your opinion about that so we can discuss these aspects.

Re: Different styles and textures

Posted: 18 May 2021, 21:36
by yusuf8a684
Show
for better readability
I already noticed that it is possible to recognize effortless who is the plug-in creator by just seeing his plug-in textures. Even existing necessary rules like shadows and the isometry, each creator has his style. Furthermore, it is possible to notice when the texture was stolen from other games (which is very unfortunate) by just seeing the texture. I'm not saying that viewing is sufficient to say if something was "copy and pasted" because our visions can deceive us.
Knowing that I have a question: What helps us to recognize those things? What explains we being able to notice that a texture was stolen from another game without knowing that game? (I'm am referring to isometric buildings that have the same scale as Theo Town's buildings) One possible answer is the lighting of the texture (please, I'm not talking about night frames, it is about the sunlight effect on facades) however there are different creators here in Theo Town that try to represent that effect, so why other games textures are so different? As I said, it is easy to notice who is the plug-in creator just looking at his texture, but other game's textures are very different from the multiple styles seen in Theo Town's plug-in store. Is an answer also possible is that Theo Town buildings (being plug-ins or not) have similarities beyond the rules, if this is the point, what are these similarities? Add your opinion about that so we can discuss these aspects.
I dont really know pixel art stuff but I guess it might be about the scale and posibilities of adding details to it. Soo if I compare simcity4 and theotown; simcity4 has a bigger scale ratio while in theotown it is 3 pixels = 2 meters.
Also for OpenTTD it has smaller pixel scale and lacks a bit more details than theotown and for megapolis it is soo much different, there isnt really much scale... see below
d.PNG
d.PNG (45.46 KiB) Viewed 3679 times
ad.PNG
ad.PNG (38.16 KiB) Viewed 3679 times
Comparing road lane and the van, they dont seem like matching, also people and doors

About the shadows and sun shine on the buildings, those are optional in my opinion because some vanilla buildings have better shadows or sun shine on glass.

...I am really sorry if I misunderstood you

Re: Different styles and textures

Posted: 18 May 2021, 22:39
by Kamikazi
As an OpenTTD player, i could say why i could distinguish stuff from TT and OpenTTD

OpenTTD has a higher pixel density than TT, and most buildings has a more darker colour pallet in OpenTTD than in TheoTown. Also in OpenTTD, i haven't seen the buildings i have proper shadows like in TheoTown

Re: Different styles and textures

Posted: 19 May 2021, 03:53
by Bernardo Brandão
yusuf8a684 wrote:
18 May 2021, 21:36
Show
for better readability
I already noticed that it is possible to recognize effortless who is the plug-in creator by just seeing his plug-in textures. Even existing necessary rules like shadows and the isometry, each creator has his style. Furthermore, it is possible to notice when the texture was stolen from other games (which is very unfortunate) by just seeing the texture. I'm not saying that viewing is sufficient to say if something was "copy and pasted" because our visions can deceive us.
Knowing that I have a question: What helps us to recognize those things? What explains we being able to notice that a texture was stolen from another game without knowing that game? (I'm am referring to isometric buildings that have the same scale as Theo Town's buildings) One possible answer is the lighting of the texture (please, I'm not talking about night frames, it is about the sunlight effect on facades) however there are different creators here in Theo Town that try to represent that effect, so why other games textures are so different? As I said, it is easy to notice who is the plug-in creator just looking at his texture, but other game's textures are very different from the multiple styles seen in Theo Town's plug-in store. Is an answer also possible is that Theo Town buildings (being plug-ins or not) have similarities beyond the rules, if this is the point, what are these similarities? Add your opinion about that so we can discuss these aspects.
I dont really know pixel art stuff but I guess it might be about the scale and posibilities of adding details to it. Soo if I compare simcity4 and theotown; simcity4 has a bigger scale ratio while in theotown it is 3 pixels = 2 meters.
Also for OpenTTD it has smaller pixel scale and lacks a bit more details than theotown and for megapolis it is soo much different, there isnt really much scale... see below
d.PNG
ad.PNG
Comparing road lane and the van, they dont seem like matching, also people and doors

About the shadows and sun shine on the buildings, those are optional in my opinion because some vanilla buildings have better shadows or sun shine on glass.

...I am really sorry if I misunderstood you
As I said, It is about buildings in the same scale.

Re: Different styles and textures

Posted: 19 May 2021, 04:00
by Bernardo Brandão
Kamikazi wrote:
18 May 2021, 22:39
As an OpenTTD player, i could say why i could distinguish stuff from TT and OpenTTD

OpenTTD has a higher pixel density than TT, and most buildings has a more darker colour pallet in OpenTTD than in TheoTown. Also in OpenTTD, i haven't seen the buildings i have proper shadows like in TheoTown
It is interesting to note that not only do vanilla buildings have this palette of lighter colors, but most plugins also have this. It is as if there were an implicit rule about this, what can be understood by trying to make the plugins get closer to the graphics of Theo Town.

Re: Different styles and textures

Posted: 21 May 2021, 10:01
by Bearbear76
Well, most stolen textures are from sources that have way higher resolution than TheoTown. This makes them
really noisy (meaning you can't really see much defined pixels). This is probably the most suspicious as good people
don't make noisy plugins (as it's ugly at this resolution) and bad people wouldn't have the skill to do that and usually end
up just using solid colours.

Also, people who steal textures usually don't do a good job at hiding it. :lol:
Also, if something is kinda suspicious you can reverse image search it. ;)