Why can't Trainz draw perfectly round circles?

[EverTrainz]

Please do a little research on 3D modeling, and how integers are handled by GPU's. Word, and other text-processing applications have perfect, round 'O's because they are a large, pixelated, 2D texture. Using that logic, would you rather have single-sided, flat 2D wheels, with no 3D volume?

I too can only hope that one day a sort of 'virtual' polygon system would be implemented to the modelling world, but that seems out too far. If anything, it'd be nice to have seamless transitions between smooth-shaded faces and flat ones. I'd be happy if that's atleast discovered.

 

[pware]

Word, and other text-processing applications have perfect, round 'O's because they are a large, pixelated, 2D texture.

That point links nicely to another question (another thread) by JonMyrlennBailey on the effect of the anti-aliasing setting in T:ANE. If you look very very closely at any curved text character - "c", "e", "o", etc - you will not only see that the "curve" is in fact a series of horizontal steps (the individual pixels) but that some of the surrounding pixels are greyed - or a blend of the text and background colours. This is the anti-aliasing effect and is another example of how graphic designers "fool" your eyes into thinking that the shape is a smooth curve, not a series of horizontal steps.