This script allows you to create a timelapse video from your OpenTTD game. It will use your previously saved games. No need to remember to take screenshots during the game, ad since you play it safe and save before and after each big civil engineering work (ooops ?), you will have enough frames to create a nice work to put into your Company heritage cabinet.

The resulting video is zoomed into a defined location and works with large games (tested on a 512x512 map).

• Version of OpenTTD. 1.9.2 (release) Expected result. When clicking 'Load Game' or 'Save Game' one would expect the newest save to come on top if sorting by date and descending ( ˇ ) is chosen. No matter what, the game always sorts savegames by name either ascending or descending - that function works. Steps to reproduce.
• OpenTTD is an open source remake of the classic business simulation game Transport Tycoon Deluxe, with a host of improvements and extensions. The program launches with an RTS-like map, dotted with cities (click Options and choose a higher resolution if the 640x480 default doesn't work for you).
• An open source simulator based on the classic game Transport Tycoon Deluxe. It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with new features. Download stable (1.11.1). Latest stable release in openttd is 1.11.1, released on 2021-04-18 21:11 UTC. Changelog Linux Debian Bullseye (x8664, 64bit) 6.6 MiB.

After opening an old game by mistake, I realized how much civil engineering my region had undergone. Having a timelapse of all that heavy work sprung to my mind. But I never saved any screenshot of my games and opening each game one by one is not my favorite thing. Better spend more time to create an automated script.

Transport tycoon business simulation game. Online multiplayer games are available, as well as a single-player against computer. How to play: http://wiki.openttd.org.

Basics

OpenTTD has a console that allows some basic commands mainly intended for network games), and more importantly allows you to take screenshots. A second sweet feature, is the support for start up scripts, on openttd level and/or on a game level.

What we need

• OpenTTD (obviously)
• Python with PIL support
• ffmpeg or avconv
• Some saved games

Take the right screenshot

OpenTTD’s console allows you take different types of screenshots:

• screenshot: just grabs the screen with all the GUI present
• screenshot no_con: same as above but without the console window
• screenshot big: a zoomed in version
• screenshot giant: the whole map

The location and zoom level are stored within the saved game. Meaning that when you open a game your visible area is how you left it. You can go to a specific tile with the console command scrollto, but you can’t set a specific zoom level. The first three screenshot options are dependent on zoom level, you won’t get a consistent area for each saved game.

This leaves us only with the giant option, which creates really huge files: 32000x16000, 40MB for a 512x512 map.

Re-sampling the images

Re-sampling the images to 1920x1080 and using it as could be a choice, but you loose the sight of the detail and you end up with only a generic overview. Don’t you prefer to show the amazing landscaping you made to fit this airport and good’s station into the city?

We will cut out the interesting region from the main file, to simulate a zoom-in and achieve something similar to screenshot big, but without having to worry about the zoom.

The steps

I ran this script on Ubuntu 14.04, it will work on other Linux distro or OSX and should work on Windows too (still someone using Windows, seriously ?) as long as you have all the tools installed. The paths in the sample are for Ubuntu, just replace them with the ones for your installation.

Screenshot and exit

To take a screenshot and exit immediately after starting a game, simply create the file ~/.openttd/scripts/game_start.scr, with this content:

Start a game

You can start OpenTTD and directly open a game:

Crop and resize images

PIL is surprisingly handling this quite well. My first approach was to use ImageMagick, but the time and CPU taken to crop the huge source file was below expectations.

Display the right area

I was too lazy to write a tile_to_pixel method by using matrix calculation and geographic projections, so I went the easy route by using the position relative to the source image.

The final script

Help

python openttd_timelapse.py --help should give you all the information you need.

output

Movie is created in current path, with the name company_name.mp4

Openttd Saved Game Free

-z, -zoom {1,2,3,4}

Allows to cut out a smaller or bigger area from the source file which is resized to the movie size.

Zoom 1 crops out the exact size. Zoom 2 the double size. The timelapse will display a bigger regions, similar to a “zoom-out” in game.

-c, -check

Creates only the first file in current folder as timelapse_check.png. This allows you to verify that the settings are alright, before starting the generation of all images.

What is a SAV file?

The extension .SAV refers to the saved game files. The files termed as save game files are nothing but data configuration files that are stored in a secondary storage device like the memory cards on the Play stations and the hard disks on the pc.
The file structure of a SAV file is designed to record the user's progress along with all the statistics and perks on the level the the user is currently playing at in the game. This way it gives the functionality to resume the game the next time from wherever the user left it last playing.

Program(s) that can open the .SAV file

More information about SAV file

SAV file extension is used by various computer games to create gamesave files. SAV files stores game-related data, usually information on game progress, but also user configuration settings, achievements, etc.

SAV files as a convenience for the users

SAV files allow users to suspend their game and resume it at later time without losing any progress in the game or the need of starting the game from beginning.

Limitations in certain games

SAV file itself doesn’t have any limitations, but some game restricts the maximum number of save files used. Depending on the game, this limitation can vary – sometimes only a single save file can be created, sometimes multiple.

Data specific for given game

Although SAV files are used by many computer game titles, each game stores different data in SAV files it creates. Thus, SAV files created by one game are not compatible with other games.

How to open SAV files

If you cannot open the SAV file on your computer - there may be several reasons. The first and most important reason (the most common) is the lack of a suitable software that supports SAV among those that are installed on your device.

A very simple way to solve this problem is to find and download the appropriate application. The first part of the task has already been done – the software supporting the SAV file can be found in the table. Now just download and install the appropriate application.

Possible problems with the SAV format files

The inability to open and operate the SAV file does not necessarily mean that you do not have an appropriate software installed on your computer. There may be other problems that also block our ability to operate the Saved Game Format file. Below is a list of possible problems.

• Corruption of a SAV file which is being opened
• Incorrect links to the SAV file in registry entries.
• Accidental deletion of the description of the SAV from the Windows registry
• Incomplete installation of an application that supports the SAV format
• The SAV file which is being opened is infected with an undesirable malware.
• The computer does not have enough hardware resources to cope with the opening of the SAV file.
• Drivers of equipment used by the computer to open a SAV file are out of date.

If you are sure that all of these reasons do not exist in your case (or have already been eliminated), the SAV file should operate with your programs without any problem. If the problem with the SAV file has not been solved, it may be due to the fact that in this case there is also another rare problem with the SAV file. In this case, the only you can do is to ask for assistance of a professional staff.

Openttd Save Game

Similar extensions

Open Ttd File

How to associate the file with an installed software?

If you want to associate a file with a new program (e.g. my-file.SAV) you have two ways to do it. The first and the easiest one is to right-click on the selected SAV file. From the drop-down menu select 'Choose default program', then click 'Browse' and find the desired program. The whole operation must be confirmed by clicking OK. The second and more difficult to do is associate the SAV file extension to the corresponding software in the Windows Registry.

Is there one way to open unknown files?

Openttd Download

Many files contain only simple text data. It is possible that while opening unknown files (e.g. SAV) with a simple text editor like Windows Notepad will allow us to see some of the data encoded in the file. This method allows you to preview the contents of many files, but probably not in such a structure as a program dedicated to support them.