June 1st, the official start of Winter "Down-under". Outside the sun is shining brightly on a clear blue sky but there is a chilly wind that seems to be coming straight off the South Pole to confirm the arrival of winter. Not a snow flake in sight (it has has never snowed where I live).
I fired up my Trainz Plus (recently upgraded to build 117669) and loaded my current project into Surveyor.
I was greeted by a shock.
My PBR embankment texture was now as white as my hair. My first thought was that something had happened in the recent update but after checking it was only that texture that was affected. Further investigation revealed that the cause of the problem was that the texture had a seasonal (snow) component (but it did not have the word "Seasonal" in its name). I was under the impression that seasonal affects depended on the Environmental Tools Snowline altitude as well as your season of the year. The maximum terrain height of my route never comes anywhere near that altitude. But, apparently?, this does not seem to apply to PBR textures.
The original texture was <kuid:328583:100117> JVC-PBR Sand/Rock 04
It has now been replaced by <kuid:661281:85150> PBR Donner P12 cliff river5 as shown below
This does not show a seasonal snow effect. Interestingly it does have a seasonal (snow) texture but is also missing the word "Seasonal" in its name. This prompted further investigation.
The new texture has a config.txt file tag in its season-selector container.
above-snow-line 1
The original texture has the same container but does not have the "above-snow-line" tag.
Winter can bring many surprises. I will need to check over my route in case other winter shocks are waiting.
I fired up my Trainz Plus (recently upgraded to build 117669) and loaded my current project into Surveyor.
I was greeted by a shock.
My PBR embankment texture was now as white as my hair. My first thought was that something had happened in the recent update but after checking it was only that texture that was affected. Further investigation revealed that the cause of the problem was that the texture had a seasonal (snow) component (but it did not have the word "Seasonal" in its name). I was under the impression that seasonal affects depended on the Environmental Tools Snowline altitude as well as your season of the year. The maximum terrain height of my route never comes anywhere near that altitude. But, apparently?, this does not seem to apply to PBR textures.
The original texture was <kuid:328583:100117> JVC-PBR Sand/Rock 04
It has now been replaced by <kuid:661281:85150> PBR Donner P12 cliff river5 as shown below
This does not show a seasonal snow effect. Interestingly it does have a seasonal (snow) texture but is also missing the word "Seasonal" in its name. This prompted further investigation.
The new texture has a config.txt file tag in its season-selector container.
above-snow-line 1
The original texture has the same container but does not have the "above-snow-line" tag.
Winter can bring many surprises. I will need to check over my route in case other winter shocks are waiting.