TS10-type compatibilty for trees

[hutten]

Hello dear friends,

What I am going to say, may be regarded by some as ..., well, I will say it nonetheless.
I see that old billboard trees look quite poor in TRS19 (much poorer than in TANE). It is understandable, with those strong shadows being cast on the planes. Furthermore, front and back planes come out differently. The effect can be somewhat reduced by reducing the strength of the sun in the environment.
Here it comes: *** can we have TS10-type compatibility mode back for billboard trees? ***
Why could not those trees look as good now as they did in TS09? (I do not care about individual leaves being visibly detailed, I want to see a landscape of lush greens.)
Compatibility mode was dropped in the latest TS10 (which I never installed) for reasons of performance. But, that was eight years ago. Our current PCs can handle so much more.
There are some very fine old routes out there with billboard trees. These routes are mostly very narrow in terms of baseboards and will be easily handled by our computers even with a TS10-type compatibility mode switched on. Surely some of these routes will not be upgraded or TANE'd.
And there are routes that have been upgraded with speedtrees but which, to me, looked much finer with billboard trees than with speedtrees with their harsh colors.
Pfff, I've said what I have wanted to say for so long.

Regards,
Paul

 

[JanRasmussen]

I see that old billboard trees look quite poor in TRS19...

Totally agree!


It is a disaster that hundreds of good old routes are "destroyed" in TRS19

 

[boleyd]

I just use the bulk replace and insert mainly Ultra and trees by RMM. To create a picklist of visually acceptable trees un the lights of trs19 I open the library file of RMM (or any other asset) and choose which trees look ok and add to my picklist of RMM trees. Some are terrible and other are quite acceptable. I have full and lush forests in Coal Country route with no big hit on FPS or resulting stutters. Most sliders are middle setting. By opening the Library file in the File Manager you can transfer the entire list to a Picklist. Open that list display each tree in the Surveyor and dump those that do not fit your view of reality. Do the same with other trees that use a "library". I forget who originally suggested the "open the library" but it was a first class suggestion. There may be some groups/libraries of trees you just do not like. But within that group may be one or two gems. Waiting for N3V to make a compatibility function is probably too vague. TS19 is still evolving and you need to be able to have your tree lists in a format that easily allows you to edit out anything that may become less desirable due to "advances" in TS19.

 

[hutten]

Dear Dick,

Thanks for your suggestions. I think that that is quite a lot of work, which of course will be rewarding. Still I would rather prefer that old routes look fine (very acceptable) without that investment. I could accept that 1 out of 10 trees would still look poor with compatibility mode "on", if most of them would look fine.
I also do not want to lose the variety of trees that the creator put into the route. Not do what Auran has done when going from TS10 to TS12: replacing a multitude of tree types by only one type of speedtree. That procedure is irreversible, the original information is lost, and the route looks boring. This is what we see in many routes "updated" to TS12.

Regards,
Paul

 

[boleyd]

Each use of the Bulk Replacement is for one type of tree per use. So you can replace all of onr type/specie with a specific specie of another set of trees. Specie by specie. You may find that you can improve the tree layout by including a pine tree here and there. Or a tree that has some color to it. Most trees in Tane/TR19 seem to be one color GREEN. Well in nature thee is some yellow and some red. Finding a good tree with realistic color is difficult but there are a few. Once you put some in your forest an improves reality occurs. The other thing is the very bright green trees are just weird. In the weird category are the totally white branches and trunks.

I suspect that in many cases, after laying tracks and placing buildings, that spending a lot of time placing trees of the correct variety in a large forest is a chore to far. Copy/paste is probably used a lot. Well all you have to do is insert some different trees here and there as is done in a real forest. Mono varieties only exist in tree farms. Between birds and wind forests are mixed varieties. Or, make some copies of the existing forest paste it somewhere and insert some alternate trees of height, shape and color. Then paste that into the routes forest rotating the copy to avoid repetition. The route may have some town but no gas station. Hmmm, that ain't real so chop out some forest along a road, level a plot and plant a gas/petrol station.

 

[Vern]

As we have been discussing in other threads, it is really time to let the old stuff go. If you want to run old routes, do so in TRS2010 or TS12 or, as stated above, bring them into TRS2019 and replace the tress with more modern subsitutes. I did this for my Sulitjelma route and was quite pleased with the results. We should be looking how to take Trainz forward into the next generation, not clinging to past glories (IMHO).

 

[big_b]

Is it possible for speed tree creators to offer some sort of option to the library to change the color/shade of leaves

 

[Vals_Loeder]

can we have TS10-type compatibility mode back for billboard trees?

Yes please! I dislike speedtrees with a passion. Worst decision ever implementing these horrible things into the simulator.

 

[RJArtim]

deleted

 

[KotangaGirl]

We should be looking how to take Trainz forward into the next generation, not clinging to past glories (IMHO).

I don't entirely agree. I'm still using quite a few of those 'past glories' from TS2004 days and have no plans to change. I mostly run them in TS2012 though and I've done a lot of work on tree replacements & etc to keep them looking good. I agree about the speed trees though, - some of them just look plain odd, - but better substitutes can be found with a bit of patient searching. Some of the old billboard trees did look good though and were very well done, - others were not so good and were like something cut out from the back of a cornflakes packet and coloured in with marker pens. On my old TS2009 NER layout I spent a lot of time looking for the best of the billboard trees and that was something that really paid dividends for the layout's appearance.

 

[whitepass]

Compatibility between TS10 and ether TANE or TRS19 is not possible due to deferent graphic engines.

 

[hutten]

Compatibility between TS10 and ether TANE or TRS19 is not possible due to deferent graphic engines.

Dear whitepass,

Does that matter? I am just asking for a piece of software that will make the old trees look as good as they did in TS09. Someone will have to write a routine for the current graphics engine that will do the job. If the current engine is more advanced than the outdated one, then surely it will be possible to achieve the desired result.

Paul

 

[boleyd]

The older trees simply do not have the content that is needed to reflect the more subtle lighting in TS19. I am sure that NV will not spend the money to upgrade old trees. Old routes will look better or worse depending upon the rotation of the old trees to the sun. Bulk replace the old with the new. Catalog as outlined. I can see no other way to achieve proper vegetation in TS19. I have tried all of the old stuff when I imported my old routes into TS19 and in every case I did mass update to the foliage in the old route.

 

[hutten]

The older trees simply do not have the content that is needed to reflect the more subtle lighting in TS19. I am sure that NV will not spend the money to upgrade old trees. Old routes will look better or worse depending upon the rotation of the old trees to the sun. Bulk replace the old with the new. Catalog as outlined. I can see no other way to achieve proper vegetation in TS19. I have tried all of the old stuff when I imported my old routes into TS19 and in every case I did mass update to the foliage in the old route.

Dick,
The trees look fine in the image that you show, but speedtrees change their appearance when one approaches them, and suddenly change shape when the viewing angle changes. And some do so in a very eerie way...

Paul

 

[JCitron]

Dick,
The trees look fine in the image that you show, but speedtrees change their appearance when one approaches them, and suddenly change shape when the viewing angle changes. And some do so in a very eerie way...

Paul

The jumping trees is caused by the resolution and LOD settings. You can adjust your tree details in the sliders, which affects this. There is an issue with TRS19 cutting out too soon which has been reported and this appears to be fixed in the latest build.