casper: A real good shot, very realistic..Do you adjust your Lighting for your shots??
Bob, I only use the Trainz software to adjust the overall lighting. I don’t use any “photoshopping” after the screenshot has been taken, without saying so. I’m too lazy to introduce another stage! The game is versatile enough to allow you to get most effects without resorting to it. I think I’ve only ever posted two “enhanced” shots and have said so in the relevant posts. I use the World-Time of Day clock adjustment only.
Casper - great shot looks like there's shadows
I do use shadow objects and splines, but there are none in that shot. There are two main techniques used to get the shadow effect. The first is the use of ground textures. When you get in close, some of the ground textures look a bit blurred and speckled. That lack of detail can be used to good effect by placing objects and vegetation over the darker bits which can give a nice illusion of real shadows, i.e. put the shadows in first!
The second is using the Trainz software to exploit the highlights.
One of the great thing about the Trainz software is that the shading and highlights on some assets will change according to the time of day. You can see this in Surveyor if you move the clock hand back and forth over the daylight hours range whilst looking at a suitable asset. Not all assets will behave like this though; it depends on how the asset creator made them. It works really well on the church I used. The highlights on the buttress and dome change spectacularly as the position of the sun changes. You can make the bright side change to the other side if you want. I left it on the left side to get the better contrast between the faces of the brickwork. Lots of other assets, including some locos, exhibit similar great lighting changes as well.
Wow very nice casper, I never thought of putting the greenery shrubs on the buildings :hehe:
-Conrail45
Getting some bits of vegetation up into building does help to make them look old and dilapidated, even if the original maker didn’t intent it. It kind of gives you an extra version of the same asset.
It also keeps them well out of range of my “WeedzFree” herbicide, used to keep those SpeedTrees at bay! They seem to have improved a bit, but I still don’t like them.
I’m sure they’ll look great eventually and people will wonder why we used anything else. All power to those pioneers who are developing them, and those who like them.
Here’s another shot, same as the last, with the lighting altered purely by changing the clock time. Note that the shadowing on the buttress has been lost, and other subtleties like the change in shading under the hooped stone arch over the well. The tree on the right also now look less realistic because the sunlight is clearly illuminating the wrong side. Even if you aren’t initially aware of it, it just looks wrong and makes for a bad looking shot IMHO.
The more observant may also have noticed that the old guy responsible for dumping those beer cans on the shrine has returned. He's a well known local religious drinker (the character – not the creator)!
Cheers
Casper
Imageshack
