Is The Reflection.tga For The Mirrors Or Reflection Off Of The Loco Paint?

[Railroader1970]

I'm working on reskinning some of Dave's loco assets and I keep seeing a Reflection.tga. Is that for the mirrors, or for the paint on the units in how they reflect light?

- RR70

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

I suspect it could be used for both. The strength of the reflection can be varied by adjusting the Material properties. But this can only be done in the 3D creation program the model was made in, not as a result of re-skinning.

 

[Railroader1970]

I suspect it could be used for both. The strength of the reflection can be varied by adjusting the Material properties. But this can only be done in the 3D creation program the model was made in, not as a result of re-skinning.

Ok, the reason why I ask is because the mirrors seem fine in TS12 when I'm in the cab. However, in TRS19 I was told that the driver sees the TGA file of the locomotive as it appears in the folder. I'm trying to figure out a way around it.

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Ok, the reason why I ask is because the mirrors seem fine in TS12 when I'm in the cab. However, in TRS19 I was told that the driver sees the TGA file of the locomotive as it appears in the folder. I'm trying to figure out a way around it.

You and me both brother.

I have made stuff for TANE and previous editions that relies on reflective types of texture materials. They look as they should in the versions they were created for, but TRS19 completely fails to handle most legacy reflective materials. It reads them as if they are PBR textures but they're obviously not built like that. Legacy reflective assets completely lose their shininess and look like they are made of cardboard.

.

 

[JCitron]

It reads them as if they are PBR textures but they're obviously not built like that. Legacy reflective assets completely lose their shininess and look like they are made of cardboard.

From what I've read and can't find a link to of course, is TRS19 will convert non-PBR textures to PBR.

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

From what I've read and can't find a link to of course, is TRS19 will convert non-PBR textures to PBR.

..which is exactly how and why they cannot reproduce the shine or reflection. Things like an alpha channel in the diffuse or normal map of a legacy material may do something completely different in a PBR material. And things like a reflection map in a legacy material look like they are being ignored by TRS19. No real attempt has been made to ensure that TRS19 is effectively backwards-compatible with the material types that legacy assets had available to them.

 

[JAGG]

Bad news for me since I am playing with those bumps and reflections on legacy materials in my TANE :-/

 

[JCitron]

..which is exactly how and why they cannot reproduce the shine or reflection. Things like an alpha channel in the diffuse or normal map of a legacy material may do something completely different in a PBR material. And things like a reflection map in a legacy material look like they are being ignored by TRS19. No real attempt has been made to ensure that TRS19 is effectively backwards-compatible with the material types that legacy assets had available to them.

Yup. The texturing "model" is different and from what I've read the channels can mean different things then they have in the past since channels can be reassigned for different purposes. The part that irks me is the who cares about the past part is annoying in many ways including this one. How many signals, track, splines meshed objects, have been haphazardly updated without a care to notify the users in some fashion that that their installed content will now break once working routes.

The current crop of broken textures are the old built-in TRS2009 series textures which have now become PBR'd. This broke many older routes I have installed and moved on to TRS2019 with one of them taking my hours to repair because of the number of the old TRS2019 textures used and the amount of bulk-replacements I had to do. There are many other situations as well which would bring this off topic, so I won't go there.

And people wonder why others, including myself, have walked away and don't bother using the sim sooner than later.

 

[Railroader1970]

..which is exactly how and why they cannot reproduce the shine or reflection. Things like an alpha channel in the diffuse or normal map of a legacy material may do something completely different in a PBR material. And things like a reflection map in a legacy material look like they are being ignored by TRS19. No real attempt has been made to ensure that TRS19 is effectively backwards-compatible with the material types that legacy assets had available to them.

It's like I reskinned a GP38 interior to simulate the style of interior the RR Mod locos have in a sense. The walls I reskinned have shadows and are dark grey. Well, in TRS19, a friend sent a pic of how the interior looks, which is fine - - - except the walls by the side windows were changed from dark grey to walnut which is wrong. Completely throws off the interior colors.

- RR70

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

It's like I reskinned a GP38 interior to simulate the style of interior the RR Mod locos have in a sense. The walls I reskinned have shadows and are dark grey. Well, in TRS19, a friend sent a pic of how the interior looks, which is fine - - - except the walls by the side windows were changed from dark grey to walnut which is wrong. Completely throws off the interior colors.

- RR70

That's surprising to me. I was aware of changes in brightness, lack of specular shine and the neutered reflection maps, but not aware that a change in hue was also possible. Dark grey to walnut (brown?) is quite a colour shift.

 

[Railroader1970]

That's surprising to me. I was aware of changes in brightness, lack of specular shine and the neutered reflection maps, but not aware that a change in hue was also possible. Dark grey to walnut (brown?) is quite a colour shift.

Yeah I'm not sure what happened there. Like I said, all of the interior is dark grey and not an eye sore. That's why I darkened the interior so it wasn't straining to the eyes of some users who prefer less bright interiors. Yet the interior walls by the windows must have been a TRS19 re-edit or something before it went online. I dunno. Suffice it to say, I wasn't too happy with that. Download one of my OGHS GP-38 locos under my author username keyword of Railroader1970 if you like and check for yourself. I'm just reporting what I saw, based on a photo I received from a friend who has TRS19. I still have TS12 and am waiting to get a new computer before I get TRS19.

- RR70