Train Simulator 2014 Announcement

[pschlik]

The mountains in Marias do look very monotone from a distant, if they had more noticeable variations in color other than all grey, it would look more realistic.

[CSX2057]

Everyone please be sure to back up your Third Party assets before the upgrade. Cause with this upgrade everything your worked hard for, route, repaints, models etc etc might be deleted. Just in case.

[OldProf]

The mountains in Marias do look very monotone from a distant, if they had variations in color other than all grey, it would look more realistic.

You know, folks who submit messages such as this should be careful to write, for example, "to me", "to my eyes", "on my system", etc., rather than a blanket statement that seems to refer to the images produced by running the software on all computers. My computer system is not extremely high-end by any means, but when I look at distant mountains along the Marias Pass route, I do see various tonalities of colors that range through warm and cool greys, blues, greens, and browns. I certainly would not refer to them as monotone. Obviously and naturally and realistically, the farther my "eye" is from a particular mountain, the less variation of color appears, but as I move closer to that mountain, a variety of colors and shapes and features appear. This is the natural way that human eyes perceive objects at various distances in real life. Train Simulator does not reproduce all of the human eye's visual perception which, for that matter, is different for every individual and changes according to age, health, fatigue, and many other factors that a simulator such as this cannot possibly reproduce completely. Asking a simulator of any kind to reproduce each user's visual perception is even more ridiculous than asking it to reproduce the "physics" of a piece of equipment accurately in every circumstance and climate.

I could go on, but frankly I have better things to do with my time.

[buzz456]

I agree with Tom that the mountains are not monochrome except in the far distance. A lot of this has to do with the settings and capability of your video card. Still RSC says they are going to make it better so we shall see. Of course all the low end computer people will be bitching because their frame rates fell off.

[fecrails]

I was taking a drive up to Summit this morning playing one of Elphaba's excellent scenarios and as I was enjoying the view I thought about this post. I think the "fade-out" of detail and color in the rendering of the mountains in TS is pretty darn remarkable and photo realistic. The core game engine is capable of rendering high quality scenery. The rest is up to the quality of the individual textures used and how they are applied by the route designer. Here's a screenshot from TS compared to a real photo along the same route. To my eye on my computer the gradation of color and detail related to distance from the viewer look pretty darn accurate in TS!

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[MikeK]

To my eye on my computer the gradation of color and detail related to distance from the viewer look pretty darn accurate in TS!

When I see those 2 pictures I come to the opposite conclusion. The grey blob in the top left corner of the first picture makes it seem like it is in fog, but in the second picture all the terrain is clearly visible.



I have been to cajon pass many times, and the details on the distant mountains are usually very clear, especially at higher elevations. They look nothing like the grey blobs in the game.

[Chacal]

Ì have to say this is not a conclusive demonstration.

[Jib228]

The lighting suggest a clear day. But the fading which you say looks good make it look like it is foggy. This would be ok if the weather conditions where foggy or rainy or even cloudy. But as I stated, the lighting suggests a clear day.

While this shot here, taken on Fort Kent, shows good distant terrain on a clear day with out any fading.



Compare that to your second shot which appears to be on a clear day as well and you can see what I'm getting at.

The only time's you'd get that sort of haze or fog on a clear day is high up in the mountains, or on cold days where the clouds would condense in valleys below the mountain tops. Such as this:



I'm sorry.....I'm a rivet counter....or in this case a cloud counter...

[buzz456]

I think this is pretty realistic and they say it's going to get better.

mount.jpg

mount2.jpg

[OldProf]

When I see those 2 pictures I come to the opposite conclusion. The grey blob in the top left corner of the first picture makes it seem like it is in fog, but in the second picture all the terrain is clearly visible. ...

I'm more in agreement with "fecrails" on this issue. Please note that the two images he posted do not depict the same place from the same point of view with the same atmospheric (weather) conditions. While I'm not quite prepared to label TS "photo-realistic", I certainly will call it an extremely good visual simulation, which will probably improve once again with the release of TS 2014.

[fecrails]

Please note that the two images he posted do not depict the same place from the same point of view with the same atmospheric (weather) conditions.

Succinctly stated Tom.

[ozinoz]

Mountain draw aside, I would like to see being able to finally create a scenerio that can factor in the use of a turntable. We have wonderful routes now with turntables etc (VNHRR and it's 3 ) but you cant (to my knowledge at least) write a scenerio that starts or ends in the roundhouse as the program can not deal with the turntable effect.

No idea just what we are going to get, but I am assuming little or nothing in regards to the core programming, just shiny sparkly things to distract the masses.

Shouldn't complain I suppose...

My

[buzz456]

That isn't a complaint. It's a wish.

[buzz456]

Everyone please be sure to back up your Third Party assets before the upgrade. Cause with this upgrade everything your worked hard for, route, repaints, models etc etc might be deleted. Just in case.

As we get closer I do want to remind everyone that third party assets of one kind or another should not be affected only RSC things should be altered if that. However it is a good idea to have a backup copy of at least your asset and content folders. Then in case of a real crater all your stuff is still there. Owning RWTools and using it to make a backup copy is far and away the easiest and best way to put all your fears to rest. External drives are very inexpensive nowadays and is the best place to store things. It protects your stuff against RSC problems and problems with your own computer.

[artimrj]

I beg to differ about using RW Tools to back up. All you have to do is copy your railworks folder to somewhere else. Nothing simpler than that. And we still have another month to go before the upgrade.