SilverLining, Rain, Snow and weather in Train Simulator

[DrMagnumWolf]

First and foremost I want to personally thank the brains behind Railworks America, for providing us such a great website, and then a special thank you to every addon creator out there, for giving me hours of fun! Thank you!

I don't know if this is the right section, I did a search on google, both UKTS and RWA, but I came up empty. I would like to know how many of you have experimented with SilverLining in Train Simulator, and what have you managed to achieve. I'm interested to see if anyone had positive or negative experiences with it and, what would it take to change all scenario weather to silver Lining.

Anyway, here are a couple of Screenshots what I managed to do, based on a few tweaking on the \data\SilverLining\Silverlining.override . I've managed to get more rain streaks to fall, make them follow the environment instead of the camera, which caused that weird effect when you move the camera. Decreased the size of the snowflake and increased its occurrence.

I'm sharing what I've tweaked so far, with the comments from DTG and mine with #modified, to show I modified the standard DTG numbers in that section and # === New Data for new stuff that I've added. I'm going to try and see if I can take out the camera cone, where no rain or snow can fall to see if it looks good.

Code: Select all

# we're single threaded, saves on mutex overhead
enable-thread-safety = no

# supposedly not worth the extra cost:
# Modified
use-cloud-backdrops = yes

# not using, doesn't look that good
# modified
disable-lens-flare = no
# === New Data
disable-sun-glare = no
disable-moon-glare = no

# want a blue tint in ambient
force-monochrome-ambient = no

# use hi-res tex for cirrus clouds
cirrus-hires = yes

# to avoid shadows when there are clearly no clouds
stratus-handle-broken-visibility = yes

# just in case
enable-cloud-layer-culling = yes

# precipitation
apply-fog-from-cloud-precipitation = yes

# rain
# modified
rain-streak-camera-coords = no
rain-volume-radius = 40.0
rain-streak-width-multiplier = 5.0
rain-streak-frame-time = 0.02
rain-constant-alpha = 0.1
rain-velocity-factor = 2.0
# === New Data
rain-max-particles = 320000
rain-max-rendered-particles = 7500
rain-max-intensity = 30.0

# sleet
# modified
sleet-streak-camera-coords = no
sleet-streak-frame-time = 0.03
sleet-volume-radius = 40.0
sleet-size-multiplier = 6.0
# === New Data
sleet-max-particles = 80000
sleet-max-rendered-particles = 8500
sleet-max-intensity = 30.0

# snow
# modified
snow-volume-radius = 40.0
snowflake-size-multiplier = 5.0
# === New Data
snow-max-particles = 150000
snow-max-rendered-particles = 9000
snow-max-intensity = 30.0
snow-lambda = 2.4
snow-streak-camera-coords = no

# stars
star-magnitude-adjustment = -3

This one is using the rain-constant-alpha = 0, It looks ok, but it would have helped if the streaks were more visible, as this seems to be a bit more dynamic that a constant alpha.


This one is with the rain-constant-alpha = 0.1

[DrMagnumWolf]

Since I posted the original thread, here's the updated rain particles, and what they look like. From multiple angles, which shows a neat effect from SilverLining, by obfuscating and making it nearly transparent at certain angles due to light, and pretty visible into others. I decided to increase the droplet brightness with rain-streak-brightness = 15.0 , originally 2.0. I've also decided to enable the rain-use-depth-buffer = yes to make the particles come closer to the camera. They got enabled for Snow and Sleet as well.

I took multiple screenshots at multiple angles to show the effect of light angle by disabling rain-constant-alpha = 0.1 and with a lower FOV. I'm currently checking if there's more that can be achieved by messing with the sun settings.

[DrMagnumWolf]

I'm messing around, still, and it is a bit more annoying than I expected. I did manage to make the ambiet more bright. But I still want to make the nights darker and the sky's blue a bit darker and vibrant. Although the last two on my bucket list I'm not sure if it is possible. And mess with the clouds a little bit.


Here it is, the first three are the default DTG settings, and the next three are the modifications I made

Default:







Modified:

[Bananarama]

Much improved. Has this had any effect on frame rates?

[DrMagnumWolf]

Much improved. Has this had any effect on frame rates?

I haven't noticed any difference so far, between the default and modified settings. But mileage may vary!

[hertsbob]

Excellent work, Mr Wolf! I have never seen anybody else looking into this, ever, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what you end up doing with the snow!

Cheers

Bob

By the way, literally everything to do with TS is more annoying than you expected.

[jalsina]

I like this!
I particularly like that additional ambient /terrain light.
Are the parameters for light also included in silverlining.override ?
That seems to be a tint change. What did you do to get the examples above?

[DrewG]

This is a great improvement. I may start using the 3d weather after all!

Great work.

[DrMagnumWolf]

Well, I hit a snaffu... I'm unsure how it happened, since either using:

The default settings with DTG's silverlining files, or
My changed settings with DTG Silverlining files or with the
My changed settings with SDK sundog-soft Silverlining files

I keep getting the black sky.

I had it fixed before, but I don't remember what I did. This happened with a white sky too . Until I get this fixed, I can't test anything else.

But there are quite a few new shaders,some tweaked numbers and new settings using the sundog-soft SDK. ( http://sundog-soft.com/sds/evaluate/download/ ). I also noticed that, for example, some files are black or missing in DTG's TS2016, like the sun found on the main Silverlining folder.

This is what I managed to do, and add before this happened, I've added a comment on the sections I couldn't test. When I get this fixed, I'll get back to you guys!

Code: Select all

# we're single threaded, saves on mutex overhead
enable-thread-safety = no

# supposedly not worth the extra cost:
# Modified
use-cloud-backdrops = yes

# not using, doesn't look that good
# modified
disable-lens-flare = no
# === New Data
disable-sun-glare = no
disable-moon-glare = no

# want a blue tint in ambient
force-monochrome-ambient = no

# use hi-res tex for cirrus clouds
cirrus-hires = yes

# to avoid shadows when there are clearly no clouds
stratus-handle-broken-visibility = yes

# just in case
enable-cloud-layer-culling = yes

# precipitation
apply-fog-from-cloud-precipitation = yes

# rain
# modified
rain-streak-camera-coords = no
rain-volume-radius = 40.0
rain-streak-width-multiplier = 5.0
rain-streak-frame-time = 0.02
rain-constant-alpha = 0
rain-velocity-factor = 2.0
# === New Data
rain-max-particles = 320000
rain-max-rendered-particles = 7500
rain-max-intensity = 30.0
rain-streak-brightness = 15.0
# rain-near-clip = 0.01
rain-use-depth-buffer = yes


# sleet
# modified
sleet-streak-camera-coords = no
sleet-streak-frame-time = 0.03
sleet-volume-radius = 40.0
sleet-size-multiplier = 6.0
# === New Data
sleet-max-particles = 80000
sleet-max-rendered-particles = 8500
sleet-max-intensity = 30.0
# sleet-near-clip = 0.01
sleet-use-depth-buffer = yes

# snow
# modified
snow-volume-radius = 40.0
snowflake-size-multiplier = 5.0
# === New Data
snow-max-particles = 150000
snow-max-rendered-particles = 9000
snow-max-intensity = 30.0
snow-lambda = 2.4
snow-streak-camera-coords = no
# snow-near-clip = 0.01
snow-use-depth-buffer = yes


# stars
star-magnitude-adjustment = -3


#--------------------------------------------------------
#------------------------- New Data ---------------------
#------------------ Brightness, Sun, Clouds -------------
#-------------------------- and -------------------------
#------------------ Night Illumination ------------------
#--------------------------------------------------------


# Keep this disable, it gives a white sky
# disable-tone-mapping = yes

#Increasing this to large numbers doesn't seem to change much, but going negative will give a yellow sky and color,
# with ablue tint light
sun-luminance-scale = 90000

# Causes the clouds to decrease in size or look less puffy
# metaball-color-randomness = 3.1
# metaball-color-randomness-hi-res = 3.05

# Doesn't seem to do squat, or at least anything percetible
# sky-box-gamma-preetham = 512.2
# sky-box-gamma-hosek = 512.4

# Still unsure
air-mass-multiplier = 5.0

# Maybe increasing this more it will give a redder sunset
spectrum-red-shift = 10

# Great thing, sadly, it makes the terrain get very bright during Night Time
# brightness = 902.7

# Interestingly, it increases the size of the sun
sun-glow-size = 5.0

# Doesn't seem to have changed anything
sun-glow-intensity = 102.08

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------
# ----------- ANYTHING BELOW HERE IS LARGELY UNTESTED AND UNKNOWN ------
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------

#cumulus-mediocris-ambient-scattering = -10.9
#cumulus-congestus-ambient-scattering = -10.84
#towering-cumulus-ambient-scattering = -10.8
#cumulonimbus-ambient-scattering = -10.8

#starlight-scale = -10.0
#perez-a-scale = 10.0

#twilight-scale = 10.0

# Settings found on Sun-Dog SilverLining SDK and not present on silverlining DTG's default file

daylight-moon-dimming = 0.1
sleet-streak-width-multiplier = 2.0
lightning-discharge-mode = auto-discharge
lightning-perspective-distance = 50000
cloud-never-allow-intersection = no
billboard-fog-color-boost = 1.0
curve-toward-ground-radius-scale = 1.0
cumulus-sorting-threshold-angle = 5
cumulus-spread-out-fog = no
cumulus-fog-refresh-frequency = 10
pre-init-clouds = yes
cumulus-darken-with-density = yes
cumulus-density-darkening = 0.12
stratus-grid-dimension = 768
stratus-grid-dimension-solid = 128
stratus-cloud-bulgy-exponent = 0.8
stratus-sky-color-scale-r = 0.8
stratus-sky-color-scale-g = 0.8
stratus-sky-color-scale-b = 0.8
stratus-ground-color-scale-r = 1.0
stratus-ground-color-scale-g = 1.0
stratus-ground-color-scale-b = 1.0
stratus-flat-tops = no
stratus-deck-light-scale = 1.1
stratus-deck-width = 240000
stratus-deck-height = 240000
stratus-max-optical-thickness = 700
stratus-extinction-factor = 0.5
stratus-fog-density = 0.01
cumulus-mediocris-voxel-dimension = 100.0
cumulus-mediocris-minimum-cloud-distance-scale = 0.8
cumulus-mediocris-vertical-gradient = 0.05
cumulus-congestus-minimum-cloud-distance-scale = 0.57
cumulus-congestus-vertical-gradient = 0.13
towering-cumulus-minimum-cloud-distance-scale = 0.6
towering-cumulus-vertical-gradient = 0.2
cumulonimbus-vertical-gradient = 0.2
environment-maps-have-lightning = no
environment-map-never-draw-clouds = no

# Sandstorm settings, Interesting... Enabling just in case
sandstorm-fog-red = 0
sandstorm-fog-green = 0
sandstorm-fog-blue = 0
sandstorm-fog-density = 0.001
sandstorm-dust-red = 0.91
sandstorm-dust-green = 0.72
sandstorm-dust-blue = 0.74




[jalsina]

I was thinking about that changing a few of those parameters may be could fix the green hills in Soldier Summit when the dynamic lights are on. (or white hills in other routes).

[DrMagnumWolf]

I was thinking about that changing a few of those parameters may be could fix the green hills in Soldier Summit when the dynamic lights are on. (or white hills in other routes).

I don't know which setting could change that, maybe this one will help with the color. Change it from 2.2 to 1 (add the default-turbidity = 1 to your .override file, and leave the original config untouched ) and see if it works.

Code: Select all

# The default turbidity value, which you can think of as a measurement of how
# much haze is in the atmosphere.
#
#            1 = Pure air, range 256 km
#            2 = very clear, range 50 km
#            3 = clear, range 15 km
#            7 = light haze, range 8 km
#            20 = haze, range 3 km
#            50 = thin fog, range 2 km

default-turbidity = 2.2

[hertsbob]

Black sky like that tends to happen if there's a mismatch between the month and season in the scenario. For example, if you have the season set to Spring and the month set to December it'll give you black skies.

[DrMagnumWolf]

Black sky like that tends to happen if there's a mismatch between the month and season in the scenario. For example, if you have the season set to Spring and the month set to December it'll give you black skies.

Thank you for the help. But I checked and it still happens, I even tried a quickdrive session and it shows up there too. Spent the entire day trying to fix this to continue my exploration on SilverLining and nothing
I even tried to set "application Controlled" on the Nvidia control panel as suggested by a few threads I found googling.

I will eventually crack this, just gotta know when

[DrMagnumWolf]

A bit of an update, I found out the problem. It seems that, moving back and forth files on JSGME, something got corrupted on the RailWorks\data\SilverLining\VC10\win32\SilverLiningDirectX9-MT-DLL.dll
file. Had to verify integrity cache and reinstall all the mods. But I fixed it, except some weird white fog that appeared even with the default settings, now I'm testing the sunset. In the process of trying to find out what was wrong, I found more parameters for the game.

There is one that may be useful for content creators that is quite new and I haven't seen anyone mention it yet. I'll add the new codes on the parameters sticky as soon as I go through them and take out the already known ones.

This is the new sunset.



This are the new parameters, -DebugChannels , can be acessed by pressing CTRL+D and CTRL+F8(for the numbers)

Depth Decoded


Albedo


VSN


MatID


Emissive


Aux1


Aux2


Aux3


Aux4


CTRL+F8

[JohnTrainHead]

Will these modifications ever become available? They look much better than the original 3D weather.