Rotate Tool for Textures

Paul_Bert

Train Enthusiast
In laying down texture is there any down side to using the rotate tool in terms of screen reading speed? In other words if I have a layout using textures with no texture rotate applied and the same layout with texture rotate applied will I notice any significant difference in the performance of the route?

Thanks for any information on this.
 
I don't think performance is affected but rotating textures certainly makes most of them look better. (No rotate just sets the texture to point north)
 
ah - an oldie but a goodie....

There was a long thread in the 'old' forum the general consensus of which appeared to be that applying textures while holding down the [ or ] key resulted in a texture which was (a) somewhat blurred and washed-out looking and (b) may have had some negative effect on frame rates especially on lower spec machines.

A couple of alternative texturing techniques to avoid the 'carpet' look are to occasionally tap the [ or ] key while applying a texture or to repeatedly work through the sequence LMB - move mouse - stop - [ or ] - LMB etc etc etc

Andy :)
 
In laying down texture is there any down side to using the rotate tool in terms of screen reading speed? In other words if I have a layout using textures with no texture rotate applied and the same layout with texture rotate applied will I notice any significant difference in the performance of the route?

Thanks for any information on this.

Hi paul,
I don't remember who wrote that but whoever did it, he was very wise for having a performance map increase:

[FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']"There are however a couple of findings that may be of relevance to most route builders. Once again I point out that none of this is based on any technical analysis of the program or graphics engine, and none of it is new. It is based on my own observations on my machine and a heck of a lot of forum browsing and researching old threads. Also I use the single measurable parameter of “frame rate” as a measure of performance, a definition with which some may take issue.

OK, lets throw the cat amongst the pigeons.

Overall route size – the number of boards – is irrelevant to performance.

Overall content – the length of the kuid list– is irrelevant to performance.

Average content over any three consecutive boards is critical to performance. Trainz draws a maximum of two boards ahead of the camera – the board you are on, the entire next board, and at least a part of the next board ahead. This is the only content that matters. Either average your poly count across all three, or load one up and keep the others light, it doesn’t matter. Because I model rural landscape, I try to keep sequential boards in groups of three – lo/lo/hi – repeating. There is never more than one hi poly board loaded. How hi is hi? On my system not a lot, a small rural community, a couple of foreground farms, but even if I was building an urban setting on a dream machine, I would aim for that pattern. Trainz appears to work best that way.

Rotate textures, but DON’T ‘spin’ them. In other words, don’t hold down the [ or ] key while applying. Move, rotate, apply – move, rotate, apply…. Firstly it looks better - ‘spun’ textures have a washed-out look. Secondly I am certain that a ‘spun’ texture takes more resources to draw than an un-spun texture - the same texture gets drawn in the same place more than once.

Splines are killers. Minimise splines. Some tracks are killers – mostly the really good looking ones [/FONT][FONT='Verdana','sans-serif'][/FONT][FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']. I took out every length of telephone line and fence which are not IMMEDIATELY apparent from the near-the-train exterior view I prefer for NO visual loss and a HUGE performance gain.

Detail is a killer. I LOVE detail, but the house across the river does not need a spline driveway, a fence, a utility supply or three kids playing in the yard. Maybe a parked car, but that’s it.

Drive from the cab (I HATE the cab view – how did MSTS do it??) or a close-ish external view. But if its external DON’T rotate the camera all the time. Again, no tech knowkedge, but I am certain Trainz loads those three boards in the direction of camera view only. It doesn’t seem to load a ‘circle’ around the camera. Spin the camera, its gonna cache. Spin back, its gonna cache again."


[/FONT]
 
Hi paul,
I don't remember who wrote that...

erm... that'd be me (what have they done with the 'blushing' smiley?)

It reads a tad pedantic above - in the original context it was in reply to a request for elaboration on a couple of sweeping generalizations I made in a previous post. Glad it was of some help!

Andy :)
 
Rotate textures, but DON’T ‘spin’ them.
Well, this is where the art of it all comes in and is rather a matter of personal taste as far as appearence is concerned. Spinning textures (or using the "mad Painter") does blur the texture, but often that is exactly what you want. You can also go back to an area painted by the mad painter and hit it in a few places with the same texture but not spun to sharpen up the appearance a bit. Personally I use the mad painter technique all the time.

The performance issue is another matter. I recall reading a thread in the old forum back in the dark ages that stated that Trainz build up ground textures in layers, up to nine layers at a time. Adding a tenth layer would erase the bottom layer. Obviously if you use all nine layers everywhere all the time there would be a bit of a hit on performance as opposed to using just two or three layers. When you spin the texture you basically add nine layers of the same texture at that spot, so using the mad painter may result in some performance hit, although just how much is open to some debate. I have never personally tried to run a test on this.

Another good technique is to texture an area, perhaps with three textures, applying the texture in "dabs" and rotating a bit between each "dab". Once you get a bit of area covered to your liking, you can use the copy and paste function and it's rotate capability to cover a bigger area, and then when happy with that, copy and paste an even bigger area, and so forth. I have been doing that for pasture areas in a route I am doing now and it works quite well, and should have less than nine texture layers.
I tend to get impatient though and revert to spinning.

Edit: Well I got curious and went and did a test. I set up two, three baseboard, flat routes with one line of track down the center of each. One I painted with a grass texture unrotated in one layer by using the flood tool. The other I painted with the mad painter. I then sent the same loco down each at the same half speed. The unrotated texture got me 91 to 93 fps on average, while the mad painter got me 85 to 89 fps. Use it as you will.
 
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Thanks for all the replies.

In summary then it seems that if you are OK with the "blurred & washed out" appearance (which I am on some of the textures) and if you have a fairly high performance computer, then you will take a small hit on frame rates. But this hit on frame rates is small when compared to using lots of splines, like fences, sidewalks, and telephone poles. It sounds as if frame rates are a real issue then you are better off trying to cut out buildings and scenery with high poly-counts and all those splines that are not close to the track and will not add significant visual impact from the cab view of the train.

I actually find that the washed out look improves, at least to my eye, several of the textures which have very vivid colors, like some of the floral textures.
 
... I recall reading a thread in the old forum back in the dark ages that stated that Trainz build up ground textures in layers, up to nine layers at a time. Adding a tenth layer would erase the bottom layer. Obviously if you use all nine layers everywhere all the time there would be a bit of a hit on performance as opposed to using just two or three layers. When you spin the texture you basically add nine layers of the same texture at that spot, so using the mad painter may result in some performance hit, although just how much is open to some debate...
George, I think there is a limit of 5 textures associated with each grid point at least that's what I remember reading but otherwise it behaves as you indicate. The file format for the gnd file doesn't have a specific limit for number of textures associated with each grid point so Surveyor must set it. There is an overall limit of 250 textures for the entire map. But as you say the same texture could be used many times at any number of grid points. Each of the 5 possible instances includes its own weight factor, scale and rotation.

Bob Pearson
 
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