Bad lighting?

[jeffmorris]

I have new computer with Windows 11 and RTX 4060 GPU. There is bad lighting in TRS2022. It appears too bright. If I rotate the map in Surveyor mode, objects change between OK and too bright. Object that are supposed to be brown are tan. Reseting diurnal color data doesn't work. How can I fix the problem?

 

[JCitron]

In addition to setting the diurnal colors, you can also adjust the ambient lighting and intensity using the slider located on the right side. I also turn off the fog as well because when zooming out, the fog causes details on the ground to grey over.

 

[wreeder]

Any object including ground textures that don't have a normal map or aren't using properly made PBR textures will reflect the sun and ambient light when the view is rotated to a certain position relative to the sun's position. Normal maps have been required for assets since trainz build 3.7. Sadly, many built in assets have this problem. As John suggested you can lower the ambient light level to a darker gray and lower the overall intensity of the light to mitigate the problem but you might not like the results as it gives more of a TANE look to the route. Replacing the misbehaving assets is the other option.

 

[Paulsw2]

I recall a thread back in 2019 on this forum about whether the gamma was set too bright (to Australian conditions). It could be manually toned down in post-processing settings, but not fixed in the session.

Here's the standard gamma (2.2)

Versus the adjusted gamma (1.8)

As you can see, it makes quite a difference.

 

[jeffmorris]

Where is gamma setting?

 

[Stonegate]

I have to be completely honest, maybe its age, or eyesight problems, but the first picture at gamma = 2.2 looks far better to me than the second picture. To my eyes the first picture shows exactly what it should: a nice bright summer day. One can almost feel the temperature. By comparison, the second picture doesn't look right to me. It seems to show a summer's day but it's almost as if there is a huge black cloud behind you making the overall effect rather menacing. I've never been to Australia, so I have no idea whether there is an "Australian" kind of light, but memories of Canadian summers seem to match the first picture much better.

Mike

 

[boleyd]

I suggest that you ignore an "overall" set of objects and look for the details in the vertical sides of a shadowed buildings. I am quite satisfied with these details after years of not liking vegetation lighting. I changed to using the sides of structures to get a comfortable shadow. I would still rate tree shadows on grass as excessively black but that maybe the fault of the vegetations setting than lighting's.

When I was programming at Westinghouse we had a person with a Master's in Light Physics. That may have made me too critical.

 

[neville_hill]

As Paul indicates, this problem has been a bone of contention for some years. The lighting was found to be too bright and glaring by many and certainly UK users put it down to a simulation of Australian or USA desert sun conditions. There was lots of discussion on the thread and even participation by N3 but no changes to the game and in the end I fir one gave up pushing it. The best that could be done was that certain settings made the lighting environment palatable, as long as you never looked towards the sun ie southwards in the UK. The best settings I could achieve for the UK (and I realise it's a personal thing) are as included in my route 'Dearnbyshire' but even then it's best never to look south in order to avoid the excessive glare and its effect on many assets. Another solution which some seem to have deployed is to only run in the early morning or at dusk!

 

[JCitron]

It would be nice if we could save the post-processing settings instead of setting them up each time. You'd think that by this time, that would've been fixed by now since this was the problem when T:ANE first came out and we mentioned that back then only to be told, oh that'll be fixed at some point, and nearly a decade later it still hasn't been touched.

 

[jeffmorris]

How can I set gamma?

 

[JCitron]

How can I set gamma?

In your video card control panel such as NVidia Control Panel.

I'm not sure you want to do that. Try adjusting the ambient light as well as the time of day. I set mine to noon to avoid direct side-facing lighting and deep shadows in Surveyor and set up more realistic lighting for Driver.

 

[Paulsw2]

Post-processing settings sit under the 'Developer' tab on the launcher. Once in there you go to 'Manual' mode and then to 'HSV' - there you can see the Gamma is set at '2.2'. Far too bright - the UK is not like the Australian summer!

 

[boleyd]

I do not have the "manual mode" option. The list of functions is similar to old trs19. My system is 123794 Trainz +

 

[JCitron]

I do not have the "manual mode" option. The list of functions is similar to old trs19. My system is 123794 Trainz +

Change the pulldown from whatever is shown, such as High for example, and change that to Manual where you can change the other options to whatever you want. Keep in mind that this is only good for this run of the program. If you close the program, you have to go back in and set the options all over again because there's no way of saving anything.

 

[java23]

Thank you Paul and John for this tip I didn't know at all ...

But this seems very complicated, with a ton of incomprehensible terms, without a possibility to test in real time while tuning the entries ... and lost at the first time you end a session ...
... and I didn't try the other options of the developer menu (render, profiler, stitching) !

Cheers,

Philippe

 

[JAGG]

Change the pulldown from whatever is shown, such as High for example, and change that to Manual where you can change the other options to whatever you want. Keep in mind that this is only good for this run of the program. If you close the program, you have to go back in and set the options all over again because there's no way of saving anything.

Which is in fact absolutely stupid I must say....

 

[boleyd]

I cannot find the High/Manual mentioned. My Settings is almost identical to my copy of TRS19 except for 2 entries. The PE version seems different.

This is more of a curiosity since I would never want to mess with settings such as I see in the messages. Presenting them to the customer base is asking for trouble. I suspect that it was done to make the program more "adjustable" for the people who understand that stuff. It is those customers that N3V needs to get the quality addons they cannot afford to produce themselves.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[JCitron]

I cannot find the High/Manual mentioned. My Settings is almost identical to my copy of TRS19 except for 2 entries. The PE version seems different.

This is more of a curiosity since I would never want to mess with settings such as I see in the messages. Presenting them to the customer base is asking for trouble. I suspect that it was done to make the program more "adjustable" for the people who understand that stuff. It is those customers that N3V needs to get the quality addons they cannot afford to produce themselves.

Thanks for the replies.

Click on Developer on the menu bar on the Launcher Screen.
Click on Show Post Processing settings

By default, the Mode is set to whatever you left it.
Click on the down arrow to open up the pulldown list.
Choose Manual which is located at the bottom.

 

[JCitron]

Thank you Paul and John for this tip I didn't know at all ...

But this seems very complicated, with a ton of incomprehensible terms, without a possibility to test in real time while tuning the entries ... and lost at the first time you end a session ...
... and I didn't try the other options of the developer menu (render, profiler, stitching) !

Cheers,

Philippe

These options are written in "Programmer".

 

[boleyd]

My problem with the Trainz Settings menu is that it is not the same as yours. I have a test copy of Trainz+ 123794 and it shows the menus structure you said I should have. I am afraid that my working copy of Trainz is missing an update or two. I also fear that the update process is compromised, but that is a future issue. It may be a blessing in disguise if I can't update.
Thanks for your patience.