Trainz - 24bit Colors?
- Thread starter boleyd
- Start date
shaneturner12
Tutorial Creator
That's a common Trainzoptions entry, but does not affect the colour on Trainz. In fact, it's a recommended figure for that value as it's something to do with the StencilBits value as well.
Shane
Shane
Think I'm with you here, as in why not 32 bit?
32 bit isn't actually 32 bit, it's 24 bit with an extra 8 bit alpha channel, used for transparency and grey scale masks. Both have 16.7 million colours so you don't actually get any visible difference as you do between 16bit and 24bit.
32 bit isn't actually 32 bit, it's 24 bit with an extra 8 bit alpha channel, used for transparency and grey scale masks. Both have 16.7 million colours so you don't actually get any visible difference as you do between 16bit and 24bit.
shaneturner12
Tutorial Creator
It's a known issue - if it's not set to 24-bit in the trainzoptions.txt, problems will result.
Shane
Shane
norfolksouthern37
what's a normal map?
of course, depth bits 24 plus stencil bits 8 is 32... i think you were asking the wrong question here.
shaneturner12
Tutorial Creator
Why didn't I see that sooner? I thought there was a specific reason for that, but couldn't put my finger on it...
Shane
Shane
The 24 bit setting is the size of the color space that Trainz uses internally to calculate color. What you see depends on how much of that color space your monitor can display. See here for details.
http://compreviews.about.com/od/monitors/a/LCDColorGamut.htm
While the 16.7 million colors of 24 bit sounds like a lot, your eyes are capable of discerning close to 2 billion colors. Some games that advertise HDRI are using a 48 bit color space internally and then a process called tone mapping to produce an image more like what your eyes would see.
William
http://compreviews.about.com/od/monitors/a/LCDColorGamut.htm
While the 16.7 million colors of 24 bit sounds like a lot, your eyes are capable of discerning close to 2 billion colors. Some games that advertise HDRI are using a 48 bit color space internally and then a process called tone mapping to produce an image more like what your eyes would see.
William
AlanBradbury
New member
Where are you getting that two billion figure from William? Most studies from the CIE which I have seen place the number at 100 million tops, and often a lot lower than that, usually somewhere in the range of two and a half million. Apparently there are suggestions nowadays that women may possibly be able to see more colours than men too.
Al
Al
Thanks for the monitor link. Quite informative. According to what Windows7-64 tells me my video card is capable of 32 bit color and my monitor (nothing special LG 23") is also 32 bit capable. Therefore, would I have an improved appearance from Trainz if it was producing its displayed data in a 32 bit format?
I am not clear about the actual format of a 32bit color data word. If the Alpha stuff always occupies its own 8 bits that makes it better than 24 bit color where Alpha is probably integrated within the 24 bit format reducing the bits available for color info or Alpha itself. Is it thus true that 32 bits is really noticeably better since discrete Alpha data may provide better brightness shading which is often overlooked in evaluating a display?
Getting back to the original question - is Trainz currently producing 24 bit color for display and not 32 bit color???
I am not clear about the actual format of a 32bit color data word. If the Alpha stuff always occupies its own 8 bits that makes it better than 24 bit color where Alpha is probably integrated within the 24 bit format reducing the bits available for color info or Alpha itself. Is it thus true that 32 bits is really noticeably better since discrete Alpha data may provide better brightness shading which is often overlooked in evaluating a display?
Getting back to the original question - is Trainz currently producing 24 bit color for display and not 32 bit color???
I could be wrong but I've seen that number on numerous photography sites over the years when they are discussing HDR. I assume it is coming from counting how many shades of a color can be discerned and then multiplying by the three colors. Like 256 x 256 x256 = 16.7 million so just under 1300 shades will yield over 2 billion.
William
William
A monitor for dummies video from Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=19&name=Monitors
http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=19&name=Monitors
What we have is 3 (RGB) 8 bit color registers so each has 256 shades = 16.7 million colors. But the human eye can see 1-2 million shades witch is what HDR is for but you need a color register bigger than 8 bit to do it witch most video cards, games, OS's, and monitors do not have.
Ah, you have a programming background. The terms are the same but mean different things.
To make a color image on a TV or a monitor requires the screen to be made up of tiny groups of red, blue and green pixels. By lighting each pixel in a group to one of 256 values of brightness, you can fool the eye into seeing a new composite color. So for each group of red, green and blue pixels, an 8 bit value represents the brightness of each pixel. Someone decided to use the term 24 bit to mean the 8 bits red, 8 bits green and 8 bits blue of each pixel grouping. The proper term is that it is an 8 bit image since the data stored for each pixel is only 8 bits.
So 24 bit = 8+8+8
32 bit isn't all color, it is 8+8+8 and 8 bits transparency.
http://screencasttutorial.org/16/best-color-depth-16-bit-color-vs-32-bit-color-explained-135
So the answer to your question is Trainz is using 24 bit (8+8+8) color and internally using 8 bits to calculate transparency (but I think I recall Chris saying it is really more like 4 bits to prevent processor overload). I don't know if Trainz makes any use of a graphic cards onboard transparency features.
William
To make a color image on a TV or a monitor requires the screen to be made up of tiny groups of red, blue and green pixels. By lighting each pixel in a group to one of 256 values of brightness, you can fool the eye into seeing a new composite color. So for each group of red, green and blue pixels, an 8 bit value represents the brightness of each pixel. Someone decided to use the term 24 bit to mean the 8 bits red, 8 bits green and 8 bits blue of each pixel grouping. The proper term is that it is an 8 bit image since the data stored for each pixel is only 8 bits.
So 24 bit = 8+8+8
32 bit isn't all color, it is 8+8+8 and 8 bits transparency.
http://screencasttutorial.org/16/best-color-depth-16-bit-color-vs-32-bit-color-explained-135
So the answer to your question is Trainz is using 24 bit (8+8+8) color and internally using 8 bits to calculate transparency (but I think I recall Chris saying it is really more like 4 bits to prevent processor overload). I don't know if Trainz makes any use of a graphic cards onboard transparency features.
William