Scenery

[OTTODAD]

Another example of distant views scenery in a Train Simulator I have yet to see the likes of in others released so far:

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=6016&stc=1&d=1219234387

Featured in this tread: http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=273989

Will creating such views ever be possible in RS, not getting spoiled by haze in mid and distant views like in the Italian Alps ?

Will somebody start working on such US steam locos for RS or are some already W.I.P. ? ;)

O t t o

[Hack]

Agreed. Distant mountains is one of the few visual detractors that need addressing.

[NorfolkSouthern_37]

i dotn understand, that doesnt really seem any farther than what is viewable in KRS.

[nikos1]

Its more a matter of being able to clearly see the mountains or not, in MSTS you can clearly see the mountains and textures, in RS distant mountains appear white.
Take this real life shot for example (mine :) ) Even on a cloudy hazy day you can still clearly see mountains quite far in the distance. Taken in Innsbruck, Austria, just across Brenner pass from where the Alp's route is located.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3083/2764485542_91b680ae5f_o.jpg

[OTTODAD]

This is what we are talking about:

http://www.railsimulator.com/en/node/3825#comment-13735

Don't make me homesick, Nikos ! :o

Having downloaded your excellent rolling stock before, I did not notice your tracks until just now.

Your rails look better than mine and you too have taken the fish plates out, which showing every 10 metres look odd in seamless welded tracks ! ;)
Before I install them, is your RailSimulator Trackrule in the correct folder, referring to the RailSimulatorUS folder's B-SB tracks ?

O t t o

[NorfolkSouthern_37]

ive never seen the white mountains in my install.

[OTTODAD]

ive never seen the white mountains in my install.

You mean the ALPS route install and if so which version ? The original one, my downloads or the just released freeroam only MARK-2 version update ?

Can you show us a screenprint of your RS Options Graphical Details settings so that I can compare them with mine and which graphics card are you using ?

O t t o

[MikeSimpson]

ive never seen the white mountains in my install.

This is the sort of thing Otto is talking about, sometimes the mountains just look white, sometimes grey.

Mike

[MikeSimpson]

Hi Otto,

I still can not get your ALPS to work at all, any scenario, on Mk2

Mike

[OTTODAD]

I still can not get your ALPS to work at all, any scenario, on Mk2

Hi Mike !

Test-installed my 3 parts RS downloads once more into my MARK-2 Rail Simulator and with no CD/DVD drive emulator running in RAM all scenarios work, RS having been started with the MARK-2 RailSimEditor.exe ! That's in WIN-XP.

Noticed that one of my USB-2 memory sticks is using the CD drive letter. Check your CD drive in the VISTA Explorer to make sure it is available.

You could also try inserting the RS DVD and then run RS with the MARK-2 RailSim.exe ?

There has got to be a reason why something is not working on one computer but is on others !

Take care, O t t o.

[OTTODAD]

This is the sort of thing Otto is talking about, sometimes the mountains just look white, sometimes grey.

Below are more examples of that from Jim Ward's PON and the Barstow-San Bernardino route.

O t t o

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=6035&stc=1&d=1219274259

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=6036&stc=1&d=1219274259

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=6037&stc=1&d=1219274259

[Bill Hobbs]

The KRS effects clearly seem distance driven, with the program reducing saturation as distance increases until the objects simply turn white. Not being a route builder I don't have a clue how or whether this is user controlled. If it is user specifiable, it would seem that what one would need to play around with is the rate at which saturation is reduced per increase in distance.
Bill

[boleyd]

The White Mountains, no AI coupling, and no way to use 5M DEM are my major issues. I see little chance of any of them see improvement since RSDL does not comment on any of them in a way that offers hope.

[RSDLadam]

On the contrary....

Has anyone taken a look at weather patterns and all the amazing things you can do with the weather and their setup yet? If you had you'd see you can completely control the appeareance, depth, colour, density of fog and if you want, stop it appearing at all.

Instead everyone is more interested in claiming RailSim has problems instead of actually looking at what controls everything people are unsatisfied about. There is even a document specifically about weather patterns in Rail Simulator and how to author them.

Before Otto runs away with - this is the developers jobn not the users - what you are complaining about is subjective and down to preferences, its not a bug and not something only RSDL are able to do. We have setup fog, clouds, wind, rain and sky colours, how we think they should be and how best they fit with the surroundings. If you dont like these setups because you have a different preference and desires, im sorry but our choices cannot always appeal to everyone. So you will have to author your own weather if you want it differently.

All the functions to do this stuff have been around since the first release of the RSDevTools in November 2007.

[RSDLadam]

The KRS effects clearly seem distance driven, with the program reducing saturation as distance increases until the objects simply turn white. Not being a route builder I don't have a clue how or whether this is user controlled. If it is user specifiable, it would seem that what one would need to play around with is the rate at which saturation is reduced per increase in distance.
Bill
To answer this directly, the weather patterns have two distance values for fog - Start point and End point. The end point results in the fog being totally opaque. You also have options for fog colour, which for the default weather we have chosen white.

So you could set the fog to transition from clear to opaque in 10m, or you could do it over 5000m. It could be bright green or dark red. The choices are yours.

The default weather patterns are just that, default. They are not the be all and end all. Remember the RSDevTools provide the end users with as much control as the RSDL Official Developer Team has when it comes to content creation in Rail Simulator, so apart from code changes which are few and far between these days, there is practically nothing extra that RSDL can do that any user or 3rd party team could not do.

Why do we have to spend so much time repeating this point? Why do people 10/10 times claim RailSim has a limit or a problem than actually trying to do what they want to do? 9/10 times the limits people proclaim and moan about are completely untrue!

[RSderek]

So this is where I find Adam when he is suppose to be on holiday.

RSDL are writing a doc on this very subject, and just like a hazy morning becoming a sunny day all should become clear.
We will also give the source files away so that users are free to explore and use.

regards

Derek

[livercup]

Hi Derek and Adam!
So...making a new weather file, and and getting rid of the fog, will give you a clearer view of the distant mountains and their textures in your own route? Can I edit the default.bin (or whatever .bin is referenced in the route .xml) to suite my liking in existing routes?
Tom

[Hack]

Why do people 10/10 times claim RailSim has a limit or a problem than actually trying to do what they want to do?

This is not a dig, but an observation...

I have no doubt that RS has great potential in depicting a realistic and engaging experience, but I believe it comes down to documentation and clear examples. Triggering the clever bits will come in time, but only after someone figures out a new trick, or RSDL provides in depth detail on the inner workings of the sim.

I commend RSDL on the current list of examples, tutorials, and documentation. This in itself is no small feat. However, I believe some additional "whys" need to accompany the "hows". Providing the information on why things work the way they do will pay dividends on the future of RS.

[Bill Hobbs]

This morning I took a guess that the effect might be weather controlled and tried reading the developer doc. Didn't have time to fully digest (which would be hard since I do not do attempt route development) but it certainly did seem to discuss the matter. Adam confirmed that in his posting above.
As the old saying goes, "When all else fails, try reading the directions".
Bill

[t1metraveller]

I've done some work in this area, so please allow me to butt in with some info.

What RSDL is saying is entirely true. The color of distant mountains depends on what color you have set for "fog". Haze, which has not been implemented in the sim, has no bearing on what you are seeing, so there is no haze, as such. So it is all fog which is used to "simulate" distant haze, and which also colors the distant mountains.

So, fog is used to color the air from the point FogStart to FogEnd, measured in meters (I presume). Fog can also be turned off entirely by adjusting settings, though I think the air looks better with some "haze". For example, if FogStart is set to 1000 and FogEnd set to 3000, then the FogColour will exist in a gradient, darker to lighter, from 1000 - 3000 meters, with no fog at all between your viewpoint and 1000 meters.

The key to changing the distant mountain color is to get the FogStart and FogEnd ranges set correctly, and tune your FogColour correctly. One of two ways can accomplish this.

1. The "time of day" method. Specify different fog (remember we basically mean haze here) according to the hour of the day.

or

2. The "default method". Where the FogColour/FogStart/FogEnd setting remains the same for the entire day.

For my own tastes, I don't care for the white distant background. The correction for this is to darken the FogColour values and/or adjust the FogStart/FogEnd. One way is to set the FogEnd distance out farther, say from 3000 meters to 5000, 6000, or 7000 meters, so you never see a white mountain because it's too far away (past the draw distance).

Pointers to which files these and other weather values are in is found in the Routes.xml file, and they can be different for each route.

Open up the Routes.xml file and look at the Oxford-Paddington route, for example. Scan down until you see the <Skies> section for the route. In this section you will see the blueprint callout for the route's TimeOfDay file for each of the seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Right now only one TimeOfDay file exists for all seasons. It is found in the RailSimulatorCore\TimeOfDay folder (filename: Default.bin). In it you will find sky lighting and fog conditions for these times of day:

BreakOfDawn 5AM
Dawn 6AM
Morning 8AM
Noon 12PM
EarlyEvening 5PM
Dusk 7PM
Night 10PM
Midnight 12AM

Sun rise/set and Moon rise/set times are also found in this file.

Now look down to the next section in the Routes.xml file, the <Weather> section. The pointer to the weather file blueprint is found here. For Oxford-Paddington, this is the RailSimulatorCore\Weather\Default.xml file. This file defines the possible skies (Clear, Overcast, Rain, Storm) for the route. It also defines the weather events and how they progress from one to another. In this file you will also find fog values. These are the "default" fog values mentioned, and are used if you choose not to use the TimeOfDay file to specify different fog for different times of day.

So, we find fog values defined in both of the files just mentioned and you probably wonder which one is controlling the fog. The answer lies in the weather file. Look for the FogOverride value, found in each section: Clear, Overcast, Rain, and Storm. If set to TRUE, then the weather file controls the fog for the whole day under the indicated weather condition. If set to FALSE, then the TimeOfDay file controls the fog for the day, in each of the periods shown above, under the indicated weather condition.

So the bottom line is you can experiment and get the distant mountain colors to the shade you want. Remember, though, past the game's draw distance, you will not see terrain textures in detail, only a silhouette of the mountain in the color defined by the fog settings, the color being the color gradient according to the distance from your viewpoint as defined by the FogStart and FogEnd.

Hope this helps.

Bill

[t1metraveller]

Remember also, the time of day in which you are running trains makes a difference in lighting of distant mountains because the sky lighting is different. This is true whether you use TimeOfDay fog or default fog (all day).

Here's an example of high noon on the Cajon Pass. The default settings for fog color, start and end were changed. FogStart is at 400 and FogEnd is clear out at 7000 meters. The color is shifted somewhat too, though brown dominates here for some reason.

Bill

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/6056/railsimeditor2008082113xs6.th.jpg (http://img166.imageshack.us/my.php?image=railsimeditor2008082113xs6.jpg)

http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/6412/railsimeditor2008082113mu1.th.jpg (http://img372.imageshack.us/my.php?image=railsimeditor2008082113mu1.jpg)

http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/7803/railsimeditor2008082113zk8.th.jpg (http://img372.imageshack.us/my.php?image=railsimeditor2008082113zk8.jpg)

[Hack]

though brown dominates here for some reason.

This is because brown has been defined for distant hills and mountains. Like fog, this will determine the color of distant terrain. Unless you live and breath hex code, the easiest way to change the color is to create a new blueprint, and then experiment with the values for base terrain colors (clicking the color bar for any of the defined values will open the color pallet).

[t1metraveller]

This is because brown has been defined for distant hills and mountains. Like fog, this will determine the color of distant terrain. Unless you live and breath hex code, the easiest way to change the color is to create a new blueprint, and then experiment with the values for base terrain colors (clicking the color bar for any of the defined values will open the color pallet).

Good point, Marc.

Sometimes the "whiter-than-white" distant mountains are also compounded by distant terrain that has a lot of light coloring in it.

Edit:
Not the case. Distant terrain coloring is specified in the texturing.bin file for the route.

Bill

[OTTODAD]

So are you suggesting that average users of RS have to edit all sorts of files to be able to see distant mountains and their terrain textures without any instruction on what to change and where ?

All you have to do in MSTS is to set Mountains ( 00000001 ) in a route's *.trk file and the haze is gone and distant mountains and all their textures are clearly visible like shown in my opening post screenshot !

It's not just the color of the distant mountains in RS, it's also that you can not see any terrain textures nor detailed vegetation on them.

So what needs to be done to make them and all their textures and vegetation visible in the distance ? Perhaps RSDL can show us how to get rid of all that haze in the ALPS route and show it's near and far mountains the way they are meant to look like ?

There usually is no haze whatsoever in the Alps as Nikos' picture clearly shows !

We don't have to do all that in MSFS-X and can see the world the way it really looks like, well almost.

I am not interested in any Simulator which can not do better than that "Out of the Box" !

O t t o

[Hack]

Otto - RS does not have a distant mountain (DM) feature. The reason for the defined color for "near" distant terrain has to do with mipping, so the creator has an option to define a color for the far terrain (best if in shades of brown or green), rather than being determined by the smallest mip value. Pre-determined color is efficient, but not visually appealing.

MSTS used a completely different method, whereby distant terrain was both DEM'd and textured, and was viewable up to 50 +- miles. RS currently does not allow for anything outside its current terrain drawing restrictions (I believe it's somewhere near 5k).

In order for something like this to work in RS, an X/Y area would need to be defined in the route's Blueprint, and then display a low-poly version of the terrain - provided the route author had DEM'd the route within the DM area with appropriate texturing. This of course is the basic way I would set things up - RSDL may have a better way of doing this, provided of course, that they decide to add the DM feature in the first place. They have to be careful that a feature such as DM doesn't have an adverse effect on currently released content (or that which is in development).

[OTTODAD]

Hi Bill !

Having beta-tested Tom Boswell's new weather options and "Time of Day" amendments in Jim Ward's PON routes, somewhat improving their distant views, I understand that they are global settings for all routes.

How can you modify them for a particular route ?

I wonder whether you have the ALPS installed and can teach us what it takes to improve it's views without affecting all other routes in RS ?

B.t.w., all my RS Graphical Detail settings are High Detail !

O t t o

[RSDLadam]

Hiya,

Weather and time of day settings are not at all global, infact there are very few things in RS that are global. Everything being possible to be referenced from one particular develoeprs asset pool, without having to reference anything else outside.

The Isle of Wight addon is a perfect example of this. Its entire exisitance is seperate from everything else in RailSim. Every single asset and content used on the Isle of Wight addon has been created specifically and is stand alone. Including weather and time of day settings.

[tomkat41]

Hi Otto,

Make another copy of the "Default.Bin" file in the
"Rail Simulator\Assets\Kuju\RailSimulatorCore\TimeOfDay\ Default.bin"
and then rename it to something else. I guess in the "Routes.xml" file
is where you might find it and have it point to your renamed file. Here
is a couple of screen shots of what I did to the mountains.

The first screen shot is around noon I made the mountains Green I'm still working
with it and I'm try to get a forest Green color but can't quite get it.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll228/tomkat47/RailSimEditor2008-08-2115-16-41-96.jpg

that's fog painted green. As the day progresses the mountains get a darker green
and in this shot about 9-9:30 pm the mountains are a dark green almost black
you really can't tell in this shot.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll228/tomkat47/RailSimEditor2008-08-2115-24-20-57.jpg

In the next shot, around midnight I made the mountains a midnight Blue (it's close) you
can't see the outlines that good in this shot.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll228/tomkat47/RailSimEditor2008-08-2115-29-16-91.jpg

This shot is around 10am.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll228/tomkat47/RailSimEditor2008-08-2115-36-50-60.jpg

This shot is back to noon.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll228/tomkat47/RailSimEditor2008-08-2115-39-22-11.jpg

When I was working with the weather a long time ago I was also messing with the
TimeOfDay file and the weather fog does not interfere with the fog in the TimeOfDay
file.

The screen shot that Bill posted and Marc was saying about the ground being brown,
I wouldn't even know where to begin to locate that texture. Where the Brown dirt or fog
meets the scenery, take the camera up in the sky as far as it goes and look down and
you'll notice it's a square outline, that's the boundary where your camera can't go
any farther then the train, I think 2000 meters. If they can get rid of that or move
it to say 5000 meters, you might be able to see the mountains and their textures.

[RSDLadam]

The screen shot that Bill posted and Marc was saying about the ground being brown, I wouldn't even know where to begin to locate that texture.

Hiya,

This is located in the Terrain Texture Blueprint where all the terrain painting textures are referenced.

It is located in: Assets/Kuju/RailSimulator/Environment/Terrain/Texturing.bin

[OTTODAD]

Brilliant, Tom !

That's more like it and looking forward to the ALPS having views like that ! :D

Could you be so kind and attach ZIPS of the files you have modified to achieve that and attach it / them to an e-mail sent using this link:
http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/oaw_000011.htm at the bottom of the screen, which will save me having to do it and possibly make a mess of mine, which of course I have copies of in my Rail Simulator folders BACK-UPs. ;)

I find that learning from looking at examples of how others do things is much easier than following instructions.

If the ALPS route then looks as good as your screenshots, will add your amended files to my alps-route.zip download, together with copies of the originals. Luca, Pedro and Marco can then also download them for use with further updates of the ALPS they are working on.

TEAMWORK GETS RESULTS ! ;)

Thanks for doing that and take care, O t t o.

[OTTODAD]

Hi Adam !

Would it be possible to include three new weather options such as Clear-Distant, Partly Cloudy-Distant and Cloudy-Distant, which could then be applied to individual Scenarios, the Clear-Distant to be the default one for all new routes ?

If Tom does not beat you to it, that is ! ;)

O t t o

[OTTODAD]

Here is what the MSFX-X Alps look like at Innsbruck in the Austrian Tirol, I am hoping is what we shall also get to see in their MS-TS-2, the same WORLD scenery being used ! ;)

As they are including a Swiss route it should be something to look forward to, it's alpine scenery more or less looking the same, but have not yet seen any in-game screenshots of it.

O t t o

http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/rsa/innsbruck-fsx.jpg (http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk)

[djt1]

I am hoping is what we shall also get to see in their MS-TS-2, the same WORLD scenery being used ! ;)


I hope not, it looks like a blurry mess in your screen shot.

[nikos1]

Looks pretty close, the blurryness is probably from Otto running at lower detail, or JPEG compression. Keep in mind that TS2 will have higher detail scenery since its meant to be viewed at closer range
Thats taken from the top of Patcherkofel right? Looks about the same angle as my picture.
Keep in mind folks that all the scenery there is autogen.

[t1metraveller]

Looks pretty close, the blurryness is probably from Otto running at lower detail, or JPEG compression. Keep in mind that TS2 will have higher detail scenery since its meant to be viewed at closer range
Thats taken from the top of Patcherkofel right? Looks about the same angle as my picture.
Keep in mind folks that all the scenery there is autogen.

Nikos,

Looks good from a high altitude looking out or down, but what happens when you are at ground level? Is the ground out ahead of you just blurry texture like Google Earth is?

Bill

[OTTODAD]

Is the ground out ahead of you just blurry texture like Google Earth is?

It's looks even better at ground level ! ;)

O t t o

http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/rsa/innsbruck-air-port.jpg (http://www.otto-wipfel.co.uk)