Azimuth Angle and You

[PapaXpress]

Tori, you can change that with the fog settings. I altered mine from Blueish to Whitish.

[spec5sx]

If anyone is interested I have the azimuth angle set as such:

Spring: 5.6
Summer: 6.2
Autumn: 5.6
Winter: 5.2

[dick8299]

Dick, assuming you are looking east in your screenies, your shadow lengths look about right to me.

Tori, I was curious and went back to the scenario to check and I am indeed facing basically east. As far as the quality of the shadows, I have my options set at high, perhaps Spec5sx has his set to highest.

[dick8299]

If anyone is interested I have the azimuth angle set as such:

Spring: 5.6
Summer: 6.2
Autumn: 5.6
Winter: 5.2

I am not sure how those numbers relate with this quote from the RailSimulator Wiki concerning azimuth settings:

"Azimuth has an effect on shadow fall and general darkening of the ground. The range of values where there is a visible difference is between 0 and 1.5. The higher the value the longer the shadows and darker the ground becomes. A value between 0 and 1 is recommended."

[gwgardner]

Dick, assuming you are looking east in your screenies, your shadow lengths look about right to me. Another phenomenon of seasonal light change can be seen on the verticle building faces; southward facing walls get brighter in Winter and northward facing walls get darker. Also, watch for the color change of the shadows themselves as well as their edges; shadows are blacker and sharper-edged in Winter.

But I don't see the color and distance-view improvements that I saw in Spec5sx screenies. In his, the distant horizon colors are corrected; the haze is uncannily accurate for the Appalachian part of the country, and the closeup colors are more accurate, too (a greener tint to everything in Spring). The environment around us is tinted by the reflections off of vegetation and other objects. In Winter, things are bluer, and except for those who live in a concrete jungle in Spring they are greener, browner in fall, and as for Summer here in the Appalachians, everything has a blue haze because of a pheromone emitted by all the plants. Sky color is affected by Sun angle, too, as longer distances through the atmosphere filter out blue light and leave the reds and yellows we love so much in sunsets. And the depth of blue in the sky is most affected by moisture content; Winters provide more of those "deep blue" sky days because the moisture content of cold air is lower than warm air.

Tori, you might take a look at what I achieved for my route, at this thread (last image in the thread so far). Time of day has an impact on that distant color/fog, as well as azimuth. Weather also. What you see in that image is clear, summer, noontime. If I went to clouds, summer, it would be darker, with less visibility in the distance:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3490&start=15

[Toripony]

That's what I'm talking about! So what values did you use in your Texturing.bin fog settings?

[Paragon]

We are getting very close! Using the info here, I am able to control the distance fogging and color, and I am seeing my distant mountains for the first time!

I have one barrier remaining, a ring of reddish-black that surrounds the view seemingly independent of the fog settings. If I can knock that down, you will be able to see the white dry lake bed the lava is masking. This ring used to be bluish. My azimuth angle is -0.2. I would love to get rid of the thing.

I am focused on the Summer blueprint, at noon. From the blueprint file, the fog settings:

Code: Select all

<FogColour>
                  <cHcColour>
                     <Red d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="00000020D49AEA3F" d:precision="string">0.8314</Red>
                     <Green d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000A001BCEB3F" d:precision="string">0.8667</Green>
                     <Blue d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="00000060E7FBEB3F" d:precision="string">0.8745</Blue>
                     <Alpha d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000000F03F" d:precision="string">1.0000</Alpha>
                  </cHcColour>
               </FogColour>
               <FogStart d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="00000000004CCD40" d:precision="string">15000.0000</FogStart>
               <FogEnd d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000088D340" d:precision="string">20000.0000</FogEnd>

I did not change my distant terrain color from the texturing.bin file, which is:

Code: Select all

<DistantTerrainColour>
            <cHcColour>
               <Red d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000A08251E13F" d:precision="string">0.5412</Red>
               <Green d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="00000080F2B0E03F" d:precision="string">0.5216</Green>
               <Blue d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000204850E03F" d:precision="string">0.5098</Blue>
               <Alpha d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000000F03F" d:precision="string">1.0000</Alpha>
            </cHcColour>
         </DistantTerrainColour>

111004 TS2012.jpg

[PapaXpress]

wow Paragon that is a strange texture.

I think I am getting closer too with that new website I posted about. Clearly my initial assumption about moving the decimal over was wrong, but using some of the posts here I subtracted 120 from 150 (30), moved the decimal over by two (0.30), and made it negative (-0.30), and in game the sun is near 0 at noon.

[Paragon]

It sure is weird. In this pic, the default rock that lines embankments cuts into the red texture. The white whips are also the default embankment texture from afar on very low hills. Also, it seems to stop at a tile boundary in this shot is cut off. I wish I knew what this zone was. It starts one tile out and ends two tiles out.

111004 Texture.jpg

[PapaXpress]

what textures did you choose for your low med high terrain?

[Paragon]

what textures did you choose for your low med high terrain?

I did not change the defaults so they all still point to the light rock texture:

<BaseTextureName d:type="cDeltaString">Kuju\RailSimulatorUS\Environment\Terrain\Rock\Rock003</BaseTextureName>

In the texturing.bin file, they are referenced by index, so this texture is second in the MixTex list, after the default ground texture, which is a texture I made myself and has worked beautifully for me for months.

I am doing nothing seasonal nor diurnal at the moment. Just summer at noon.

[Paragon]

Interesting. Seems reverting to the default SBB desert ground texture, the red annulus disappears. I had to become a bardcode scanner to interpret that the red texture was a mangling of my custom ground texture. I used RW Tools to edit TgPcDx files when I copied a terrain to create my custom terrain.

Not sure what to do at this point. Why would a ground texture appear fine on the ground, but then give that strange ring effect?

111004 Default.jpg

[Toripony]

Interesting. Seems reverting to the default SBB desert ground texture, the red annulus disappears. I had to become a bardcode scanner to interpret that the red texture was a mangling of my custom ground texture. I used RW Tools to edit TgPcDx files when I copied a terrain to create my custom terrain.

Not sure what to do at this point. Why would a ground texture appear fine on the ground, but then give that strange ring effect?

111004 Default.jpg

I've had trouble editing ground textures that way; I have a couple of textures in my route that I edited and saved through DDS conversion that glow neon blue or red. I've had better luck saving ace's and exporting along with a (temp/false) texturing.bin file. I had to use the same folder structure (Environment/Terrain) in my Source folder to export working ground texture files (the method that Derek taught me) that didn't glow.

[Paragon]

I've had trouble editing ground textures that way; I have a couple of textures in my route that I edited and saved through DDS conversion that glow neon blue or red. I've had better luck saving ace's and exporting along with a (temp/false) texturing.bin file. I had to use the same folder structure (Environment/Terrain) in my Source folder to export working ground texture files (the method that Derek taught me) that didn't glow.

Toripony, what sheer genius! That technique worked. The more I work with TS, the more I see that hacking backwards is really a roll of the dice. Now it's just a matter of tweaking each time of day during each season. Luckily with only 2-3 inches of rain annually falling on my route, I will not have to worry about much seasonal variation. We paint mostly with rock.

to all here! Everyone has a piece of the puzzle it seems.

[gwgardner]

That's what I'm talking about! So what values did you use in your Texturing.bin fog settings?

In texturing.bin there are the distant terrain settings:

<DistantTerrainColour>
<cHcColour>
<Red d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000003D9BCD3F" d:precision="string">0.2313</Red>
<Green d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000003D9BCD3F" d:precision="string">0.2313</Green>
<Blue d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="00000000C58FC13F" d:precision="string">0.1372</Blue>
<Alpha d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="0000000000000000" d:precision="string">0.0000</Alpha>
</cHcColour>
</DistantTerrainColour>


Within the TimeOfDay folder are the seasonal files such as Core_Summer.bin, which have the fog settings. An example from that file, for morning at 0630:

<FogColour>
<cHcColour>
<Red d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000E0B359E93F" d:precision="string">0.7922</Red>
<Green d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="0000000044FAE93F" d:precision="string">0.8118</Green>
<Blue d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000E0361AEA3F" d:precision="string">0.8157</Blue>
<Alpha d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000000F03F" d:precision="string">1.0000</Alpha>
</cHcColour>
</FogColour>
<FogStart d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000070A740" d:precision="string">3000.0000</FogStart>
<FogEnd d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000088C340" d:precision="string">10000.0000</FogEnd>

So the fog starts at 3000 meters distant, but is very diffuse - the larger the difference between FogStart and FogEnd, the more diffuse. I didn't fiddle with the fog color much. I believe I used the Horseshoe Bend route values for that.