Bad lighting?

[ZecMurphy]

Hi All
The 'post processing settings', as evidenced by them requiring the 'developer tools' to be enabled, is intended for development use only, and isn't intended for actually adjusting the lighting in Trainz for general usage... If the brightness in Trainz is off, and you have checked the calibration of your screen, then the first place to start should always be the environment settings. These have a 'brightness' slider now, which allows you lighten/darken the overall lighting at each time point; in addition to the sun/ambient colour option.

Adjusting the post processing developer settings can have unexpected changes in Trainz, since it is an 'all or nothing' tool, and as such is not recommended for regular use.

Is it a 1-click-fixes-everything tool? No.

If you really really really need to force the gamma up/down, then generally the nvidia/amd control panels can provide this. But keep in mind that this can drastically change the look of Trainz without actually solving the issue (ie if the environment settings are configured for a bright sunny day, it will still look like a bright sunny day that you've made 'darker' on all parts - so still lots of contrast and now excessively dark shadows, with bright highlights).

It takes a little practice, but you can easily make alternate environment settings in a route or session in a few minutes. Personally, my method, with TRS22, is something along these lines:

1) Reset to default enviros
2) Choose the sky I want
3) Now set the sun/ambient colour at each required time for the session (ie if you are making a session where you only want to do 8am till 10am; you only need to tweak the time points either side and within that time range).
4) Now set the sky colours as required

Remember that the less contrast you have between sun and ambient, the duller your shadows will be.

As a note, a 'blank' session that only has environment settings can in some cases be cloned, and the map-asset tag changed to point to another map if you wish to apply those enviro settings to another route. As always, doing things like this is at your own risk, but can be handy to quickly copy the settings to another route in some cases. Personally though, I've found I prefer making them each time as it means that they aren't always identical, which is generally more natural

Regards

 

[Paulsw2]

Thanks for this reply Zec. There is a 'Groundhog day' element to this debate as I think we argued before - way back in 2019 - that 'brightness' is not the same as 'gamma' and if the latter is set too high in-game, the former can't really compensate for it. In TRS19 and 22 it's just basically too high leading to a 'washed out' appearance to everything. Adjusting the brightness merely makes it look more dimly washed out. I don't know if everything looks washed-out in Australia, but that's not the way we experience light in the UK!

 

[Paulsw2]

"Gamma changes the difference between dark and light areas. Increasing Gamma makes dark areas darker and light areas lighter. It's more akin to contrast than anything. Brightness decreases the range of lightness without changing the starting dark point."

 

[JAGG]

Such advanced users as bj1888 or tram_ already proved, that significant improvement is possible and that N3V is either too lazy or too cost focusing or combination of both or more factors to do whatever to improve the default look and to follow at least partially the comments of the rest of once big group of loyal players. What is indisputable on the other side is, that they took care to disable those 3rd party mods promptly and irreversibly soon after, 100% effectively, silently, unscrupulously and uncompromisingly with no hesitation.

 

[jeffmorris]

I think that the default grass is PBR causing weird problems with splines like roads and ground splines that cover holes in terrain created by tunnelholes.

 

[JCitron]

I think that the default grass is PBR causing weird problems with splines like roads and ground splines that cover holes in terrain created by tunnelholes.

PBR textures do that in general and the default grass covers over the grid making it difficult to set the height of objects and splines. I also find the default green texture bothersome because it "buzzes" on me and gives me a headache.

 

[boleyd]

Could the PBR bumps, lumps and striations have visual effects that differ from person-to-person? As graphics evolve in realism, the melded PBR appearance of what we are used to seeing as a natural composite is now presented as defined elements that our minds have to accept and assimilate into that learned composite. The contradictions between "familiar reality" and graphics presents a mental dichotomy that varies person to person.

Individual plants of real grass now shown as a composite.

If my lawn looked like PBR grass I would not care to walk on it.

 

[GelGiGue]

in general, it's a complete eyesore. literally. I'm at the point where i have to use TANE, just to mitigate the pain. not sure how they managed to do that to someone who uses light mode on every app. and as someone who lives in America and is familiar with harsh summer lighting, i certainly don't remember the side of everything which isn't directly facing the sun being pitch black as it is in TRS19 and onwards. (i have thoroughly played with ALL the settings. ALL the techniques. ALL the monitor calibration. even the developer settings - to no avail.) seriously, it's a complete flashbang. for all intensive purposes 19 is far better optimized and improved, (I'd say the same for 22 if the loading times for asset updates i.e. moving track wasn't so bad) but I'm completely prevented from using it because of this over exposed rendering which is only fixable by making it colorless and dark tane is able to provide a bright vibrant landscape without burning your retinas, modern releases should too. you can say that it's the responsibility of all asset creators to provide proper PBRs and normals, but let's be real here. Trainz is undeniably a 25 year old game built upon 25 years of assets, of which there are over half a million. when the entire selling point of the game is mod creation, compatibility and flexibility should be a priority. perhaps an experimental option for legacy light rendering would do.

 

[JCitron]

in general, it's a complete eyesore. literally. I'm at the point where i have to use TANE, just to mitigate the pain. not sure how they managed to do that to someone who uses light mode on every app. and as someone who lives in America and is familiar with harsh summer lighting, i certainly don't remember the side of everything which isn't directly facing the sun being pitch black as it is in TRS19 and onwards. (i have thoroughly played with ALL the settings. ALL the techniques. ALL the monitor calibration. even the developer settings - to no avail.) seriously, it's a complete flashbang. for all intensive purposes 19 is far better optimized and improved, (I'd say the same for 22 if the loading times for asset updates i.e. moving track wasn't so bad) but I'm completely prevented from using it because of this over exposed rendering which is only fixable by making it colorless and dark tane is able to provide a bright vibrant landscape without burning your retinas, modern releases should too. you can say that it's the responsibility of all asset creators to provide proper PBRs and normals, but let's be real here. Trainz is undeniably a 25 year old game built upon 25 years of assets, of which there are over half a million. when the entire selling point of the game is mod creation, compatibility and flexibility should be a priority. perhaps an experimental option for legacy light rendering would do.

Have you tried resetting the lighting?

Click on the clock dial and click on a green dot, or plus and add one. I usually put one at noon.

Reset the lighting and everything will look much like it does in T: ANE. You can then adjust the lighting to suit.

 

[boleyd]

Have you tried resetting the lighting?

Click on the clock dial and click on a green dot, or plus and add one. I usually put one at noon.

Reset the lighting and everything will look much like it does in T: ANE. You can then adjust the lighting to suit.

 

[boleyd]

For me (a critic of lighting) I find that the ability to adjust the Ambient Color Preview, in Environment, the best way to get proper lighting. Look at the Shadowed side of buildings when you make adjustments. Forget the ground as a basis for adjustment. It is possible to then adjust the Ambient Lighting (shift/rotate) to get buildings that have a transparent grey on their sides as you see in real works shadowed buildings. Hold down the Shift key, choose any one of the three circles and rotate it while looking at the side of a building.

On my system the each of the three arrows set very close to the top of the circles is best.