I know it's probably a bit early to ask, but as amazing as this looks, what kind of impact will it have on PC performance? If it lags NASA's best PC (and it looks like it could) then I'm not certain I'll be able run this.
Another reason to upgrade that old GTX1080. Can't wait to see the first in game examples of this new material being used. They did mention that even many old materials will look much better "... it's possible for us to automatically retrofit the PBR techniques to existing assets ..." so it should not be an all or nothing case.
Now about TRS2018, was the T:ANE label a one-off and we're now reverting to how they used to be called?
After a bit of digging I came across an article by one of the inventors of PBR. I found it much easier to understand than the Andrew Maximov video referred to in the linked Trainz Portal piece.
I wonder if this explains the question about GPUs in the TrainzDev forum? My GTX780Ti is starting to look very ancient although it runs TANE very nicely.
If I need to buy a couple of the latest Pascal architecture video cards to run TS18/Next/Son of TANE/whatever, then this hobby is going to get very expensive.