OTTODAD
08-24-2006, 07:27 PM
From UK-Trainsim KlausM:
DISCLAIMER:
1. That software that was presented in Leipzig was definitely a special build made for the GC. This includes the route with its trackwork, signal placing etc, although it seems that elements from the Paddington - Oxford route are used.
2. The computer systems at the Microsoft booth are using Samsung flat panel displays with a screen ratio of 16:9. It seems that the video signal is fed via a normal VGA cable, very likely using a resolution of 1024x768. This causes a distortion of the images and videos taken from the screens (g0fthick's ones for example). I was at the EA booth, too, but it was so crowded that I couldn't find the computer system(s) there.
3. I have seen things and may give here an interpretation of it. It may be wrong for several reasons, including, but not limited to, misunderstanding and lack of experience on my side as well as incomplete features and bugs on Kuju's side.
That said, I can start.
Overall
1. Stability: Although I hit some bugs, the program crashed only once. It has to be noted that the computer has installed a special shell software that interrupted and restarted the game every 5 or 10 minutes. There are two possible reasons for this: It is an attempt to get the sticky people (like me) away from the system, or the current build still contains memory leaks (nothing unusual for alphas/betas), so it is better to restart it once in a while. I personally believe simply the first one, though.
2. Performance: The simulation ran rather smoothly, although sometimes it was a bit jerky -- but never to the level we know from Trainz. Due to beta level, I wouldn't care much about that.
3. General Concept: It seems that a similar game concept as MSTS was chosen. One can select a route and either choose "Free Play", "Scenario Play" or "Route Manager" (Only "Free Play" was available in the demo). Once chosen, one can select a consist and set time, season and weather (all three disabled in the demo). Once confirmed, the simulator loads the route and starts the simulation (this took terribly long, hopefully a beta issue).
4. When the simulator starts, it shows a launch window, saying it would initialize plug-ins. However, it is unclear whether these plug-ins can also be created by normal users.
The simulator
1. Controlling the trains: as g0fthick already reported, in the demo there is only one way to control the train, namely an "increase" and "decrease" button, which both controls the throttle and the break. It was hard to set the train to 0% throttle and no breaks. With another key one can change the direction. This is surely only one way to control the trains (if it even is not just a part of the demo build). The controls in the locomotive move, but cannot be moved by the mouse at the moment. I somehow managed to put the pantograph up and down, but could not reproduce it. With a key, one can either throw the switch or turn the turntable in front of the train. With two other keys, one can start the loading and unloading of the trains -- passengers or goods, see below.
2. Visual appearance: Splendid!
2.1. Ground textures: The ground textures are of much better quality that known from Trainz (and likely MSTS). The transition between adjacent textures and mixed textures is made via a pattern made out of the respective textures. Looks great! It seems that the "pixels per meter" is much higher than in Trainz. Also, I cannot remember that the texture repetition problem of Trainz exists. It seems to me that Kuju has put a lot effort into this.
2.2. Object textures: All textures, be it of locomotives, houses, signals, tracks or other objects look very detailed and natural. Diffuse static shadows (a.k.a. radiosity) seem to be applied to them. One big problem of Trainz -- blurred textures in near distance -- is by far not that present (note: the problem itself is a problem related to the way graphics cards render textures)
2.3. Illumination: The locomotive showed some (pseudo?-) reflection of the sky on the body. Cool effect. The locomotives/carriages do cast a shadow, although they are hard to see in g0fthick's pictures. Other objects, like bridges, do cast shadows also, but not all. However, it is not restricted to "typical" objects (as in Trainz for example). I believe that it is property of the object whether it casts a shadow or not. The shadows are perfect. If the locomotive drives under a bridge, one can clearly see how the shadow edge adapts to the shape of the locomotive. In the in-cab-views, there are also dynamic shadows, depending from the environment and sun position. (And I can confirm at this point, the cabs look exactly like the screenshot posted by Kuju.). For one effect I encountered I was unsure whether it was a bug or whether it was desired: It was raining, and a part of the loading floor of a wagon seemed to reflect the sky as it would contain rain water. But I assume rather the first.
2.4. With a number of keys, one can change the point of view. They seem to be quite similar to those views MSTS provides. One can select in-cab view (both sides, that seems to be something special for MSTS users), outside view (one can jump between carriages), a track view, a coupler view and a bird's eye view. What I really miss is the free roaming view of Trainz. Hopefully Kuju will add this!
2.5. Misc. bugs: A curved bridge has cracks on the outer side. Kuju will probably solve this problem.
3. Turntable: Yes, it works. For my taste a bit too fast. There is a small angle offset between the rotating platform and the locomotive, but that is not a big matter to me.
4. Loading & unloading: On one station of the demo layout, people are waiting. The boarding and deboarding of the passengers is quite similar to Trainz. The people fade in and out. The big difference to Trainz is that the people are not static, but moving around (some quite nervous ). I don't know whether this is the final solution. There was also a crane and a train with the appropriate wagons on the route, but I did not manage to get a container loaded by the crane.
5. Junctions: There are two appearances of junctions. One is the way Trainz handles them, i.e. the two tracks simply merge with no special optical enhancement. The other contains a nice frog and guard rails. At the moment, both blades merge with the outer rails and one cannot see the direction of the junction. I consider this as a still unimplemented/disabled function, as I think that Kuju would not provide a solution in the final product that is optically inferior to MSTS. It seems that the demo route does not contain any crossings or single/double slips, neither basic nor optically enhanced. Maybe they are still disabled.
6. Plants: While the number of plants is comparable to Trainz (and much higher than in MSTS), the quality is better by magnitudes. If one zooms in, one can see photo quality leaves. Don't know how they do this, but it looks great. There are also forest like cardboard splines which saves rendering time for distant plants.
7. Roads: Also roads exist that are marked with "no", "light", "medium", "heavy" traffic, although I could not see any traffic (probably disabled).
8. "Train jumping": This is done by clicking on the appropriate train (like in Trainz). Whether there are alternative ways to achieve this is unknown to me.
9. Water: state-of-the-art, looking great.
The editor
Although not mentioned on the sheet of paper which was laying around and contained some necessary keys to play the simulator, one could invoke the editor from within the simulation, as promised by Kuju. The editor has quite a few similarities to Trainz, whether intended or not. You will see.
1. General concept: The editor contains (at the moment) five panes. One on the top, three on the left and one on the right. They slide into view if one moves the mouse into the vicinity. A pin can be turned so that they stay on the screen. At the bottom, there is a status line.
1.1. Top pane: the top pane is a compass along with the geographical coordinates.
1.2. Top left pane: This is the toolbox. It contains three major buttons, which control the major mode of the editor: The house symbol is for editing all non-stretchable objects like houses, plants, signals, people, sounds and smaller items. The rail symbol is for editing tracks as well as other strechable objects, like streets or fences (platforms probably also). The third icon, a brush, is used for editing the landscape. Below the major buttons, a set of buttons appear, depending on the major mode. They either select a submode or invoke some actions (like copy & paste, undo, redo).
1.3. Middle left pane: This is a selection list. There are subgroups, like buildings, signals or plants. Unlike Trainz, there is no preview (but there is a "display" button in the toolbox, which did not seem to invoke anything; maybe it is reserved for the preview).
1.4. Bottom left pane: Here some additional settings can be changed. This is especially important for track laying.
1.5. Right pane: the right pane appears in the context of track editing. I don't know exactly how I invoked it. It seems that you can edit properties of existing tracks here (like speed limits, catenary, third and fourth rail).
2. Viewpoint: I did not really understand the way how one can move around. With the mouse and cursor keys, I was able to turn around, zoom in and out, pan left, right, up and down. But no forward or backward! This was likely my fault.
3. Object editing: One can select single objects or multiple objects (with a special tool, all objects within a given radius). Selected objects turn red. Once selected, axis arrows and a round arrow appears, which can be used to move, including up and down, and rotate them around (normal objects: all axes). For the placement of new objects, one first selects the object from the list and click into the scene. One can immediately move/rotate it. Some objects need more interaction. It was a bit unclear to me how to complete an action. One can show a grid on the ground with a user selectable grid spacing (warning: read the landscape editing section!!!)
3.1. Normal objects: Most things already said. A special note regarding signals: They can be placed anywhere (contrary to Trainz, don't know MSTS). After that, they are linked to the tracks via special arrows. Depending on the signal, multiple such arrows/anchors appear (exact meaning unknown). Various British and German light and semaphore signals have been sighted.
3.2. Stretchable objects:
3.2.1. Basic track laying: Before one lays a new piece of track, one can select various options, like the number of parallel tracks, the use of transition spirals, grade, superelevation, certain snap operations. I was unable to fully understand the whole functionality without a single line of documentation, but the system behaves similar to the video Kuju once published. The difference is whether you have enabled transition spirals or not, If not, you can add an arbitrary stretch of tracks, either curved or straight. There is a minimum radius of 150m, which makes sense, but is hopefully configurable somewhere. With selected transition spirals, the edit mode behaves a bit different. It seems that one can select different alternatives, e.g. the start or end of a curve, the curve itself or an S-curve. Similar alternatives are presented when one tries to attach to an existing track (i.e. creating a junction). I have to admit that in the given time, I was unable to fully understand the system.
3.2.2. Junctions: There are two sets of tracks. One set is specially marked. When using these, visually enhanced junctions seem to be created. It takes noticeable time when the actual junction is created. Maybe the textures and/or the geometry are created during that time. The junction also shows up in multiple phases. But this might be a beta issue. With the other rails, "Trainz"-style junctions are created. On my tests, I was unable to create any (optically enhanced) crossings or slips (of any kind). Either this was disabled
or I simply did not find the required keys or buttons to tell the editor what I would like to see.
3.2.3. More editing: There are some more buttons to perform operations. One can join or split tracks, select subsections of the tracks (for whatever purpose) and so on.
3.3. Landscape editing: While, as noted above, one can set an arbitrary grid, it seems that the ground level model is based on a 10m grid, like Trainz, unfortunately. Maybe there is a possibility to use smaller grids also (e.g. for a subarea), but I did not find any way to change that. There are similar tools as in Trainz to raise and sink the ground level as well as some new. I have not tried out them to the full extend. The application of textures is also similar. One takes a certain ground texture and applies it via a brush. I am unsure whether the texturing system uses the same tile size or smaller ones. At least I did not notice the "sawtooth" effect Trainz has.
DISCLAIMER:
1. That software that was presented in Leipzig was definitely a special build made for the GC. This includes the route with its trackwork, signal placing etc, although it seems that elements from the Paddington - Oxford route are used.
2. The computer systems at the Microsoft booth are using Samsung flat panel displays with a screen ratio of 16:9. It seems that the video signal is fed via a normal VGA cable, very likely using a resolution of 1024x768. This causes a distortion of the images and videos taken from the screens (g0fthick's ones for example). I was at the EA booth, too, but it was so crowded that I couldn't find the computer system(s) there.
3. I have seen things and may give here an interpretation of it. It may be wrong for several reasons, including, but not limited to, misunderstanding and lack of experience on my side as well as incomplete features and bugs on Kuju's side.
That said, I can start.
Overall
1. Stability: Although I hit some bugs, the program crashed only once. It has to be noted that the computer has installed a special shell software that interrupted and restarted the game every 5 or 10 minutes. There are two possible reasons for this: It is an attempt to get the sticky people (like me) away from the system, or the current build still contains memory leaks (nothing unusual for alphas/betas), so it is better to restart it once in a while. I personally believe simply the first one, though.
2. Performance: The simulation ran rather smoothly, although sometimes it was a bit jerky -- but never to the level we know from Trainz. Due to beta level, I wouldn't care much about that.
3. General Concept: It seems that a similar game concept as MSTS was chosen. One can select a route and either choose "Free Play", "Scenario Play" or "Route Manager" (Only "Free Play" was available in the demo). Once chosen, one can select a consist and set time, season and weather (all three disabled in the demo). Once confirmed, the simulator loads the route and starts the simulation (this took terribly long, hopefully a beta issue).
4. When the simulator starts, it shows a launch window, saying it would initialize plug-ins. However, it is unclear whether these plug-ins can also be created by normal users.
The simulator
1. Controlling the trains: as g0fthick already reported, in the demo there is only one way to control the train, namely an "increase" and "decrease" button, which both controls the throttle and the break. It was hard to set the train to 0% throttle and no breaks. With another key one can change the direction. This is surely only one way to control the trains (if it even is not just a part of the demo build). The controls in the locomotive move, but cannot be moved by the mouse at the moment. I somehow managed to put the pantograph up and down, but could not reproduce it. With a key, one can either throw the switch or turn the turntable in front of the train. With two other keys, one can start the loading and unloading of the trains -- passengers or goods, see below.
2. Visual appearance: Splendid!
2.1. Ground textures: The ground textures are of much better quality that known from Trainz (and likely MSTS). The transition between adjacent textures and mixed textures is made via a pattern made out of the respective textures. Looks great! It seems that the "pixels per meter" is much higher than in Trainz. Also, I cannot remember that the texture repetition problem of Trainz exists. It seems to me that Kuju has put a lot effort into this.
2.2. Object textures: All textures, be it of locomotives, houses, signals, tracks or other objects look very detailed and natural. Diffuse static shadows (a.k.a. radiosity) seem to be applied to them. One big problem of Trainz -- blurred textures in near distance -- is by far not that present (note: the problem itself is a problem related to the way graphics cards render textures)
2.3. Illumination: The locomotive showed some (pseudo?-) reflection of the sky on the body. Cool effect. The locomotives/carriages do cast a shadow, although they are hard to see in g0fthick's pictures. Other objects, like bridges, do cast shadows also, but not all. However, it is not restricted to "typical" objects (as in Trainz for example). I believe that it is property of the object whether it casts a shadow or not. The shadows are perfect. If the locomotive drives under a bridge, one can clearly see how the shadow edge adapts to the shape of the locomotive. In the in-cab-views, there are also dynamic shadows, depending from the environment and sun position. (And I can confirm at this point, the cabs look exactly like the screenshot posted by Kuju.). For one effect I encountered I was unsure whether it was a bug or whether it was desired: It was raining, and a part of the loading floor of a wagon seemed to reflect the sky as it would contain rain water. But I assume rather the first.
2.4. With a number of keys, one can change the point of view. They seem to be quite similar to those views MSTS provides. One can select in-cab view (both sides, that seems to be something special for MSTS users), outside view (one can jump between carriages), a track view, a coupler view and a bird's eye view. What I really miss is the free roaming view of Trainz. Hopefully Kuju will add this!
2.5. Misc. bugs: A curved bridge has cracks on the outer side. Kuju will probably solve this problem.
3. Turntable: Yes, it works. For my taste a bit too fast. There is a small angle offset between the rotating platform and the locomotive, but that is not a big matter to me.
4. Loading & unloading: On one station of the demo layout, people are waiting. The boarding and deboarding of the passengers is quite similar to Trainz. The people fade in and out. The big difference to Trainz is that the people are not static, but moving around (some quite nervous ). I don't know whether this is the final solution. There was also a crane and a train with the appropriate wagons on the route, but I did not manage to get a container loaded by the crane.
5. Junctions: There are two appearances of junctions. One is the way Trainz handles them, i.e. the two tracks simply merge with no special optical enhancement. The other contains a nice frog and guard rails. At the moment, both blades merge with the outer rails and one cannot see the direction of the junction. I consider this as a still unimplemented/disabled function, as I think that Kuju would not provide a solution in the final product that is optically inferior to MSTS. It seems that the demo route does not contain any crossings or single/double slips, neither basic nor optically enhanced. Maybe they are still disabled.
6. Plants: While the number of plants is comparable to Trainz (and much higher than in MSTS), the quality is better by magnitudes. If one zooms in, one can see photo quality leaves. Don't know how they do this, but it looks great. There are also forest like cardboard splines which saves rendering time for distant plants.
7. Roads: Also roads exist that are marked with "no", "light", "medium", "heavy" traffic, although I could not see any traffic (probably disabled).
8. "Train jumping": This is done by clicking on the appropriate train (like in Trainz). Whether there are alternative ways to achieve this is unknown to me.
9. Water: state-of-the-art, looking great.
The editor
Although not mentioned on the sheet of paper which was laying around and contained some necessary keys to play the simulator, one could invoke the editor from within the simulation, as promised by Kuju. The editor has quite a few similarities to Trainz, whether intended or not. You will see.
1. General concept: The editor contains (at the moment) five panes. One on the top, three on the left and one on the right. They slide into view if one moves the mouse into the vicinity. A pin can be turned so that they stay on the screen. At the bottom, there is a status line.
1.1. Top pane: the top pane is a compass along with the geographical coordinates.
1.2. Top left pane: This is the toolbox. It contains three major buttons, which control the major mode of the editor: The house symbol is for editing all non-stretchable objects like houses, plants, signals, people, sounds and smaller items. The rail symbol is for editing tracks as well as other strechable objects, like streets or fences (platforms probably also). The third icon, a brush, is used for editing the landscape. Below the major buttons, a set of buttons appear, depending on the major mode. They either select a submode or invoke some actions (like copy & paste, undo, redo).
1.3. Middle left pane: This is a selection list. There are subgroups, like buildings, signals or plants. Unlike Trainz, there is no preview (but there is a "display" button in the toolbox, which did not seem to invoke anything; maybe it is reserved for the preview).
1.4. Bottom left pane: Here some additional settings can be changed. This is especially important for track laying.
1.5. Right pane: the right pane appears in the context of track editing. I don't know exactly how I invoked it. It seems that you can edit properties of existing tracks here (like speed limits, catenary, third and fourth rail).
2. Viewpoint: I did not really understand the way how one can move around. With the mouse and cursor keys, I was able to turn around, zoom in and out, pan left, right, up and down. But no forward or backward! This was likely my fault.
3. Object editing: One can select single objects or multiple objects (with a special tool, all objects within a given radius). Selected objects turn red. Once selected, axis arrows and a round arrow appears, which can be used to move, including up and down, and rotate them around (normal objects: all axes). For the placement of new objects, one first selects the object from the list and click into the scene. One can immediately move/rotate it. Some objects need more interaction. It was a bit unclear to me how to complete an action. One can show a grid on the ground with a user selectable grid spacing (warning: read the landscape editing section!!!)
3.1. Normal objects: Most things already said. A special note regarding signals: They can be placed anywhere (contrary to Trainz, don't know MSTS). After that, they are linked to the tracks via special arrows. Depending on the signal, multiple such arrows/anchors appear (exact meaning unknown). Various British and German light and semaphore signals have been sighted.
3.2. Stretchable objects:
3.2.1. Basic track laying: Before one lays a new piece of track, one can select various options, like the number of parallel tracks, the use of transition spirals, grade, superelevation, certain snap operations. I was unable to fully understand the whole functionality without a single line of documentation, but the system behaves similar to the video Kuju once published. The difference is whether you have enabled transition spirals or not, If not, you can add an arbitrary stretch of tracks, either curved or straight. There is a minimum radius of 150m, which makes sense, but is hopefully configurable somewhere. With selected transition spirals, the edit mode behaves a bit different. It seems that one can select different alternatives, e.g. the start or end of a curve, the curve itself or an S-curve. Similar alternatives are presented when one tries to attach to an existing track (i.e. creating a junction). I have to admit that in the given time, I was unable to fully understand the system.
3.2.2. Junctions: There are two sets of tracks. One set is specially marked. When using these, visually enhanced junctions seem to be created. It takes noticeable time when the actual junction is created. Maybe the textures and/or the geometry are created during that time. The junction also shows up in multiple phases. But this might be a beta issue. With the other rails, "Trainz"-style junctions are created. On my tests, I was unable to create any (optically enhanced) crossings or slips (of any kind). Either this was disabled
or I simply did not find the required keys or buttons to tell the editor what I would like to see.
3.2.3. More editing: There are some more buttons to perform operations. One can join or split tracks, select subsections of the tracks (for whatever purpose) and so on.
3.3. Landscape editing: While, as noted above, one can set an arbitrary grid, it seems that the ground level model is based on a 10m grid, like Trainz, unfortunately. Maybe there is a possibility to use smaller grids also (e.g. for a subarea), but I did not find any way to change that. There are similar tools as in Trainz to raise and sink the ground level as well as some new. I have not tried out them to the full extend. The application of textures is also similar. One takes a certain ground texture and applies it via a brush. I am unsure whether the texturing system uses the same tile size or smaller ones. At least I did not notice the "sawtooth" effect Trainz has.