Hi Bob
Even after all the years, I have learned from this, Thank you. I am busy replacing all the signals on my route with these. I love them
Thanks for the kind words and feedback! When I decided to add these new signals to Trainz I wanted to accomplish the following primary goals:
1. Enhance aspect visibility. In Trainz, if you have eyes like I do, it can sometimes be rather hard to see the aspects lights from a moving locomotive cab from many of the older signals out there. The light issues in the Trainz simulation on a small screen can make the lights seem
much dimmer and harder to see than they might be in the real world. How Trainz handles lighting is a major weakness in the simualtion IMHO. I find I can see my aspect lights a bit better, as the lights are slightly larger, than the signals I was using before.
2. Bring PBR texturing to Trainz signals. Most of the signals out there on the DLS are build 2.9 or older and have not been kept current with todays graphic standards (ie; PBR). This is not to say that these old signals are bad, and they still look reasonably good and are still quite functional as they are. Its that you can do things with PBR textures you cannot do using only the old style diffuse/albedo only textures.
3. Bring weathering to the signals. Thanks to PBR texturing you can achieve some pretty impressive rust/dirt/weathering effects with signals and you can see this in my signals when compared to others.
4. Add some novel new signal types of the
side-by-side bracket mast/post type to the Trainz world that hadn't been seen here before. There are literally
hundreds of signal types and configurations in the real world, yet we only see a few of those types in Trainz. Almost any configuration you can possibly imagine is out there, and I have seen some really bizarre types in images from Google.
Overall I think I have accomplished these results with these signals.
As a side note, as I previously posted in another reply here, there seems to be an issue with railroad bumpers in Trainz based on my test. The following
will act as signals so you don't have to use an invisible signal on a siding or spur that does not reconnect at one end back to the mainline:
<kuid2:106916:10052:1> US bumper darkrusty (build 2.4)
<kuid:30671:23002> US bumper yellowrusty (build 1.3)
<kuid2:334896:26189:1> Hayes Bumper Black (build 2.9)
Later bumpers of the ones I list below
don't function as signals so you will have to add an invisible signal, if you are using a diverging signal for the siding/spur and you want the aspect light to show for that siding/spur. I tried both mine and ones by TUME:
<kuid:439337:107796> SAP_US_Bumper_Rusty_1_PBR (build 4.7)
<kuid:439337:113835> SAP_US_Bumper_Rusty_2_PBR (build 4.7)
<kuid2:82412:23134:1> TUME-23134-Track-Bumper (build 3.6)
<kuid2:82412:23133:1> TUME-23133-Track-Bumper (build 3.6)
<kuid2:82412:23132:1> TUME-23132-Track-Bumper (build 3.6)
Why this is the case, I am not sure as the config.txt file is correct for these later items. Just another quirk in Trainz I guess.
Thanks again for your feedback!
Bob
