Railworks America

Does anyone know how to get rid of these "shadows" on the 3D ties? When in the cab operating a train it looks almost solid black until you get closer then you start to see the details and colors and snow in those cases. They look the worse in Clear Creek and the Bernina Line and Pass and with snow. I noticed ScaleRail doesn't have this effect thinking it might with its enhanced 3D textures and models.

Hi,

I think your options to change that rendering effect may be limited to swapping the route's track lofts to something you like better (like ScaleRail), or to ignore it.

The reason why ScaleRail and some other track systems aren't affected by this rendering effect is that they don't actually have any 3D ties on them. So there are no areas directly facing the camera like on the other tracks (with 3D ties) which the renderer will draw as a solid dark area at a distance. Instead, if you zoom in very closely at near ground level, you'll see that the entire road bed including the ties is just a complex loft section. And what looks to be upright part of the ties facing you is actually just a dark area painted on the lower part of the loft (typically the ballast loft), and on top of that is the part of the loft that has the upper sides of the ties painted on it.

Cheers
Michael

GreatNortherner wrote:Hi,

I think your options to change that rendering effect may be limited to swapping the route's track lofts to something you like better (like ScaleRail), or to ignore it.

The reason why ScaleRail and some other track systems aren't affected by this rendering effect is that they don't actually have any 3D ties on them. So there are no areas directly facing the camera like on the other tracks (with 3D ties) which the renderer will draw as a solid dark area at a distance. Instead, if you zoom in very closely at near ground level, you'll see that the entire road bed including the ties is just a complex loft section. And what looks to be upright part of the ties facing you is actually just a dark area painted on the lower part of the loft (typically the ballast loft), and on top of that is the part of the loft that has the upper sides of the ties painted on it.

Cheers
Michael

Oh ok that makes sense. That would explain why the ballast textures and some tie textures have those dark areas painted on them to simulate the shadow versus having a 3D model and the projected shadow. Bummer there is no way to get rid of it since the 3D track looks good minus the black blending and unfortunately I don't know anyone else who has made narrow gauge steam era track or the modern meter gauge stuff for Switzerland. I could possibly modify ScaleRail dimensions for narrow gauge but I would need to really look into the files. Now that I know why it's happening I'll just deal with it. Thank you for explaining it.