Trees broken after newest SP7 update? Look horrendous...

[pware]

Well I would not agree that "it" is an absolute failure. The main point of the discussion was the LOD transitions as the camera moves closer to a distant object, but this would also apply to the imposters as well.

It is a balancing act between the excessive rendering of high detail distant objects and getting workable frame rates and other performance metrics.

From a few sources on the subject of LODs and Imposters.

Impostors is a technique used for a background of the game environment to fake 3D objects by using its texture maps and transfer them onto [2D] images or billboards. This way, the number of polygons is much fewer which leads to spending less time to render a scene but the quality of the environment remains almost the same. The key point of this technique is to replace those 3D objects that aren’t in the main focus of the player’s view.

The LOD level approach is also one of the common techniques to simplify the object’s geometry and reduce the number of polygons. For this technique, each object will have its own [usually several] LOD levels and Mesh renderers. However, the LOD level can reduce the quality of the texture and make the environment look more simple than it was planned to be.

Imposters are much, much faster. A high-detail tree could require a thousand triangles, and an imposter is just two (because there are two triangles in a square). Similarly, a tree might draw each pixel multiple times because of its layers of leaves, but an imposter only draws each pixel once.

Interesting to note that imposters have been in use in gaming since about 1990. So for something that is an "absolute failure" it has had an unusually long life.

What would you suggest as an alternative?

 

[wreeder]

The Imposter System has worked very well for me with the exception of the beta build before this one. I mostly run KSC2 in Trainz Plus and its trees work perfectly and the transition is totally invisible. This build gives me no problems at all. Perhaps you should submit a bug report with the KUIDs of the trees you are using so that the QA guys can see if they see a problem too.

 

[JCitron]

Correct, but after this update, I've noticed them flipping way sooner than usual. The original max LOD was much higher. It seems now, I barely scroll away and the trees flip to imposter/billboard themselves

I've noticed this problem with every tree, including the st_rmm trees now, which are the most common types that I use especially at close distances.

This change effectively ruins the appeal of telephoto or long distance shots on my route which is what I most commonly like to frame my pictures or railfanning with. Close up usually is fine unless you are on a route with large elevations/mountainous terrain. Routes such as the C&O Hinton Sub are prime offenders of this from my testing.

JR's Tidewater Point Route was fine initially, until I had a long stretch of straight track where the trees beyond the LOD where the game decides to turn assets into imposters ruined the shot entirely due to the trees looking like TS 2009 era bilboard trees at that point.

So again I ask, not angrily, but just still confused and more frustrated at the game. Is there absolutely no way at all to change this? My tree settings are at ultra, my post processing is at ultra, my draw distance is at the highest it can go, everything is maxed out, but the imposter trees still ruin the look of a lot of the scenes i've spent hours crafting on my route.

As I said previously, SP8 (just in beta now) addresses this more and the trees are supposed to render better. A cursory check by me seems to concur with what we were told. I need to do further testing on my very busy and very large route with lots and lots of trees.

I have found lowering the load on my video card helps a lot as it gives the hardware a chance to do the processing quicker and easier. I lowered my draw distance to 10,000m in game along with lowering the tree rendering to normal in Trainz, and in Trainz settings I set the Shader quality to Basic, eliminating the PBR jellyfish guts and Vsync to none. I did that with the shader setting long before the imposter system was introduced because I hate the clear glaze over slopes.

If you haven't already, turn on the Relocatable-Bar (R-BAR) for your graphics card. There's a setting in your system BIOS that should be enabled, and if you are using an NVidia card, download the NVidia Profile Inspector and enable it there in the driver. NVidia keeps this off by default and only turns it on for specific games.

This doesn't decrease the imposter blinking issue but it does make the transistions a bit quicker due to less load on the video card.

 

[BajaBlasted]

As I said previously, SP8 (just in beta now) addresses this more and the trees are supposed to render better. A cursory check by me seems to concur with what we were told. I need to do further testing on my very busy and very large route with lots and lots of trees.

I have found lowering the load on my video card helps a lot as it gives the hardware a chance to do the processing quicker and easier. I lowered my draw distance to 10,000m in game along with lowering the tree rendering to normal in Trainz, and in Trainz settings I set the Shader quality to Basic, eliminating the PBR jellyfish guts and Vsync to none. I did that with the shader setting long before the imposter system was introduced because I hate the clear glaze over slopes.

If you haven't already, turn on the Relocatable-Bar (R-BAR) for your graphics card. There's a setting in your system BIOS that should be enabled, and if you are using an NVidia card, download the NVidia Profile Inspector and enable it there in the driver. NVidia keeps this off by default and only turns it on for specific games.

This doesn't decrease the imposter blinking issue but it does make the transistions a bit quicker due to less load on the video card.

I do appreciate that input, I'll try to give that a go just to prepare for the next update. My current hardware is definitely on its last legs and preparing for retirement since its been giving me slowdown and storage issues on and off of trainz (I'm a video editor as well as a trainz player and my software has been running my computer hard). I'm thinking whenever the next Trainz installment comes out I'll either build a new machine or buy something that'll last. I've had that on my mind for a while but nothing has really warranted me to do so until this point.

Without getting too far down the rabbit hole and going off topic, how Surveyor 2.0 looks and operates, and hopefully with bug fixes in the next service pack, I feel that would be enough to push me to get something that could handle Trainz and push it to its fullest capacity, should the tree problem be corrected. (Or, if Treez fully rolls itself out at that point)

I will wait patiently for SP8, in the meantime i've decided to just put my current route where this problem was glaringly obvious on Haitus and start something that doesn't use as much trees.

 

[BajaBlasted]

The Imposter System has worked very well for me with the exception of the beta build before this one. I mostly run KSC2 in Trainz Plus and its trees work perfectly and the transition is totally invisible. This build gives me no problems at all. Perhaps you should submit a bug report with the KUIDs of the trees you are using so that the QA guys can see if they see a problem too.

I did just that. Because as said at the start of the forum, this wasn't really an issue until this recent Service Pack. However, graphically, and performance wise with some small exceptions, everything else has been wonderful. I was mostly bummed as I'm making a route that is in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley and it just completely butchered a lot of the trees due to the incredibly close LOD that started to occur for some reason.

The LOD was much further prior to the update.

I submitted a bug fix with the prime offenders, including the speed trees I used (st_rmm) and Bilboard trees (tb forest) as well as any other vegetation such as JVC assets and built-in vegetation as well. My hope is that, at least on my end, its just a bug that can be fixed, rather than a permanent change. Some members who have posted here don't seem to be having the issue as much.

Due to the setting of my route where no matter which direction you look, trees are visible, that's why I have been so adamant on finding a fix.

 

[JCitron]

I did just that. Because as said at the start of the forum, this wasn't really an issue until this recent Service Pack. However, graphically, and performance wise with some small exceptions, everything else has been wonderful. I was mostly bummed as I'm making a route that is in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley and it just completely butchered a lot of the trees due to the incredibly close LOD that started to occur for some reason.

The LOD was much further prior to the update.

I submitted a bug fix with the prime offenders, including the speed trees I used (st_rmm) and Bilboard trees (tb forest) as well as any other vegetation such as JVC assets and built-in vegetation as well. My hope is that, at least on my end, its just a bug that can be fixed, rather than a permanent change. Some members who have posted here don't seem to be having the issue as much.

Due to the setting of my route where no matter which direction you look, trees are visible, that's why I have been so adamant on finding a fix.

I live in Southern New England and definitely feel your pain. We have plenty of tree tunnels and smothered slopes as well that are covered with spruce, pines, oaks, maples, and birches. Located 155 miles northwest of me are the Berkshires with their tree covered slopes. This is the beginning of the final part of the Appalachian Mountains that extend another 150 or into Vermont as the Green Mountains and 200 miles or more into New Hampshire and Maine as the Monadnocks and White Mountains.