Would somebody please explain to me what the heck is going on? Bizarre terrain behavior that almost looks like floating ground.

[BraselC5048]

I just imported an old route I'm almost done updating into TRS2019 from TANE for the first time, and I get the likes of this showing up:

Would somebody please explain to me what the heck is going on? I've never seen anything remotely resembling this, and no, there aren't any ground surface spines being used. Terrain resolution is 10m, if that makes any difference.

Thanks.

 

[JCitron]

This is caused by the PBR textures. You will need to smoother them out to get rid of the space underneath the tracks. If you used PBR and non-PBR textures there will be "stuff floating" on the surface.

There are two ways to solve this.

1) Disable the PBR part of the textures by lowering the shade quality to "Basic".
Basic today is what Standard was a few versions ago.

- The advantages are less work for your video card.
- The ability to mix PBR and non-PBR textures without any spaces and floating stuff
- No jellyfish guts on steep slopes as the 3d part of the PBR texture curls over the surface.

2) Use 100% PBR textures.
- You will need to pick and choose your textures carefully. Most will have PBR in their name, but not always.
- You will need to be aware of the scale on some of the older ones. Some are way too big causing boulders instead of small stone chips for ballast, for instance.
- You will need to spread out the textures remove the voids underneath.

 

[BraselC5048]

This is caused by the PBR textures. You will need to smoother them out to get rid of the space underneath the tracks. If you used PBR and non-PBR textures there will be "stuff floating" on the surface.

There are two ways to solve this.

1) Disable the PBR part of the textures by lowering the shade quality to "Basic".
Basic today is what Standard was a few versions ago.

- The advantages are less work for your video card.
- The ability to mix PBR and non-PBR textures without any spaces and floating stuff
- No jellyfish guts on steep slopes as the 3d part of the PBR texture curls over the surface.

2) Use 100% PBR textures.
- You will need to pick and choose your textures carefully. Most will have PBR in their name, but not always.
- You will need to be aware of the scale on some of the older ones. Some are way too big causing boulders instead of small stone chips for ballast, for instance.
- You will need to spread out the textures remove the voids underneath.

Figures. I just came back to post on the results of some troubleshooting, and the problem only occurred when the shader quality was set to "high." (I'm actually a few versions ago, so my standard is in fact your basic.) Problem solved. Ironically all of the textures were working fine in TANE and didn't have PBR (although like you said, a vast array of ones that don't have PBR in the name), so the problem can be traced to textures that have an updated version installed.
And there's six trainz-build 4.6 textures by content creators, and something like 20 that are Auran textures that got PBR between TANE and trs2019.
Soo...
No PBR textures, still get a good shader over TANE, everything's good.

Question though - is there a reason to recommenced water effects over traditional water? It also says not to mix them, but I don't say why you can't, say, use traditional water for still lakes and water effects for streams, for example, instead of a spline for the stream. Just use the two for different water.
Also now my attempt at muddy water is reflective, might have been before, and I know how to fix that directly on an asset for water type.

 

[JCitron]

Figures. I just came back to post on the results of some troubleshooting, and the problem only occurred when the shader quality was set to "high." (I'm actually a few versions ago, so my standard is in fact your basic.) Problem solved. Ironically all of the textures were working fine in TANE and didn't have PBR (although like you said, a vast array of ones that don't have PBR in the name), so the problem can be traced to textures that have an updated version installed.
And there's six trainz-build 4.6 textures by content creators, and something like 20 that are Auran textures that got PBR between TANE and trs2019.
Soo...
No PBR textures, still get a good shader over TANE, everything's good.

Question though - is there a reason to recommenced water effects over traditional water? It also says not to mix them, but I don't say why you can't, say, use traditional water for still lakes and water effects for streams, for example, instead of a spline for the stream. Just use the two for different water.
Also now my attempt at muddy water is reflective, might have been before, and I know how to fix that directly on an asset for water type.

I got caught with that texture "update" as well. I put in a note to the helpdesk regarding the old TS209 and TS12 textures becoming PBR and I was told, "Oh thanks, we'll fix those"... That was a couple of years ago at least, and the fix has been forgotten.

I haven't done much with the new water effects layers. I have older routes that I've left well enough alone. I would think you can mix the two water types as long as they're not abutting each other. It might be worth giving it a try in a test route to find out.

The reflective textures are one disadvantage of the older textures. This has something to do with the alpha channel, I think. You need to check through them and find one that's suitable.