limits of realism

What are you limits of realism in our sim?
Is it at the point where you can't see the difference? I'm sure creators could add polys to objects so that the smallest details are models at the cost of probably bringing the most powerful computer to its knees. And then unless you approach really close, you wouldn't even see it.
Do buildings and other structures need fully modeled interiors?
Does every object have to be 3D or can 2D planes with some fancy textures be acceptable?
Do people and commodities have to be seen to move smoothly from one location to another or is the start and ending enough with your imagination filling-in the gap?
How far from the track do scenery objects have to be fully 3D?
Does every switch, lever and dial, anywhere, have to be fully functional?

Look at some games, World of Tanks, FarCry, etc, now there is some realism.

Do buildings and other structures need fully modeled interiors? No
Does every object have to be 3D or can 2D planes with some fancy textures be acceptable? Yes
Do people and commodities have to be seen to move smoothly from one location to another or is the start and ending enough with your imagination filling-in the gap? Yes
How far from the track do scenery objects have to be fully 3D? trackside
Does every switch, lever and dial, anywhere, have to be fully functional? No​

What are you limits of realism in our sim?

Mine is when the objects close to the tracks reflect and cast shadows, don't float above the ground, and have bad textures up close. I can live without grass clumps, well maybe the newer grass is better, but in the old days good textures did the job, besides the compromise between good performance and a super realistic scene. There is no need for fire hydrants on every city block and manhole covers on every street.

Is it at the point where you can't see the difference? I'm sure creators could add polys to objects so that the smallest details are models at the cost of probably bringing the most powerful computer to its knees. And then unless you approach really close, you wouldn't even see it.

This is fully understandable and there are definitely points where the perception between an actual 3d object versus a high-resolution texture is nil. Using effective normal mapping, working parallax and PBR texture technologies that use the GPU efficiently, is the way to go.

Do buildings and other structures need fully modeled interiors?

No. There is no reason to create all the objects inside buildings. If it can't be seen, why go through the effort.


Does every object have to be 3D or can 2D planes with some fancy textures be acceptable?

Not every object has to be 100% 3d. There are places and situations where, as I said above, that good texturing can be convincing if the parallax and PBR technologies, bump mapping, and normal mapping are done well. It maybe a bit more difficult working the textures, but let the GPU do the work rather than the slower CPU.

Do people and commodities have to be seen to move smoothly from one location to another or is the start and ending enough with your imagination filling-in the gap?

No.
I was never interested 100% in the interactive industries because they're a pain to setup. If it was a matter of opening up a single panel screen, it would be nice, but needing to click on each and every traincar, industry, etc., it gets pretty tiring so the only time I worry about commodities is when I can see them such as open loads found on flatcars, open gondolas, and in hoppers. For boxcars and tankcars, they move "stuff" and I use the instant load to load whatever they carry by default to add weight.

The passenger stations are there and the interactive nature still isn't quite worked out like it should. Heck, we're still using 2003 TRS2004 SP2 technology here. If the passengers walked off the platforms, it would be a bit nicer. More recently I've gotten away from the interactive stations and have gone back to the old-fashioned track marks. It's not much more difficult to setup, and it looks better overall as I've been substituting my interactive platforms with splines and a few static people along with some animated ones. The only exception to this is my smaller transit-oriented Gloucester route where there's a consistent stream of tram cars making their route.

How far from the track do scenery objects have to be fully 3D?

Far enough into the background to fill in the details, perhaps a baseboard at the most. After that it can be a combination of high resolution textured low resolution objects and some 3D. It's all about what can be seen versus what we need. Do we really need a fully populated farm complete with an animated tractor 6 baseboards from the tracks around the corner on the other side of a hill?

Does every switch, lever and dial, anywhere, have to be fully functional?

No. If they're not needed, why go through the trouble of animating them or making them functional. This is not only more work, but also more overhead for the simulator to track and operate for us.

A thing I am guilty of is looking at the developed landscape from above and at an angle as well. The "flaws" of 2D assets will be seen and disappoint the person making the scene. So the reaction is to add quality assets and lower FPS. If the program forced everyone to view all scenes from ground level 5ft to 15ft above ground (height of an engine cab), low poly stuff would be more widely used. But a glorious fly-over in the virtual drone can't be resisted and thus the need for unused (not see from cab or car) assets. We see some of this resistance to "quality overkill" with the application of LOD. However, we also see assets that change color dramatically as lod levels engulf them. I wish for a more multi-level LOD and fix the stuff that changes color as distances vary. It looks terrible.

Perhaps some routes need a no fly zone!
If only the over achieving designers confined themselves to rolling stock and other directly related items but some times it seems that people forget its a real-time train simulator. Beautifully rendered landscapes with lovingly placed details and not a track in sight. A feather in the caps of the brew crew for delivering such capability but at the cost of single digit frame rates unless you've got some serious computing power. Now if LOD was better understood and used as well as the new texture techniques some of those with lesser machines could keep up.

When I look back at some of my earlier creations, mea culpa. Efficient they were not. At the time, each one was rationalized by, it's only a few more polys but they do add up.

Since I have the rendering horsepower, I like to keep the detail levels high, especially close-up and out to reasonable intermediate distances.
Better application of LODs - and particularly judicious LOD transition and culling distances - are essential for balancing visual splendour with acceptable framerate performance.
It is then up to the route designer to make sensible asset selection choices, including decent procedural track (and other splines like roads and fences) that don't have horribly obvious LOD transitions and still look like railway track or roads, etc. in the distance (just as in the real world).
Trackside objects should be rendered sharply IMO and high levels of detail and clutter perfectly acceptable on buildings, gardens, fences and landscape nearby.
Distant objects should retain their basic outlines and (averaged) colours, but can be low poly, simplified objects to reduce rendering loads.

For most things I think we are at the right level except for landscape
As mentioned earlier World Of Tanks ( which I play more than Trainz at the moment )
In my opinion the landscape used in that game leaves our trainz in the dust as far as detail goes.
Pity we don't have the tools they use in Surveyor

I noted on the WoT wiki page that there is a limit, 564m, to how far you can see other vehicles even if you set the draw distance to the max. Makes our multi-km distances look look positively distant. Also their maps are pretty small, 1km x 1km seems typical. Not to make comparisons with Wot or other games but I don't think it is fair to use them as an example when their purpose and mechanics are quite dissimilar. If our Trainz gaming engine only had to render such a limited amount of territory, we would probably also be able to have super detailing and gorgeous landscapes. But since we want vast areas with endless tracks, some compromise has to be made.

I have produced just one route so far, and it has been given some acclaim. However, over time, reading and taking notice, of the many comments on the forum, the over-riding thread amongst most is a well detailed route. Especially trackside. Now almost completing my second route for the DLS I have engulfed myself in making track side route detail a must, so that others can enjoy what is laid down. The further from the track the less detailed assets. Considering the PC I use is custom built which provides an appreciable experience even so frame rates drop as detailed assets increase. This kind of frustrates me and can see no other option to increase frame rate than to drop off detail. Bit of a paradox. So the q I ask myself is do I want to produce a detailed route at the expense of FR? I am fairly sure not everyone who enjoys this SIM has ultra powerful PC's.

I have resisted upgrading to TRS19 and currently stick with TANE SP3 thinking that upgrading may well have a negative impact on FR for future builds.

Maybe I am recurring, but for me such as War of Thunder or Spintires show sufficient amount of realism even not for any high performance HW cost. Besides, these games are well debugged.

First off I have to say that I use my imagination a lot when I 'play Trainz'. For this reason I still use the old Auran interactive industries, though sometime I camouflage buildings and other details, by placing better models over the top of them. I won't use any interactive industry or 'magic' interactive track that needs anything more than the most basic tick box setting up because life is just too short to mess about with that kind of nonsense. I also use the old interactive station platforms and invisible platforms. My imagination fills in the deficiencies with the fact the the wee people are actually teleporting on and off the train.

Do buildings and other structures need fully modeled interiors? No they don't. Buildings such as goods sheds and engine sheds always look a little better with some interior detailing, but otherwise I don't think it's necessary.

Does every object have to be 3D or can 2D planes with some fancy textures be acceptable? Clever 'smoke and mirrors' 2D graphics with good shadowing and shading as well as decent normal mapping can be made to look very acceptable. This is exactly what I do with the models I create since I can't do 3D modelling for toffee.

Do people and commodities have to be seen to move smoothly from one location to another or is the start and ending enough with your imagination filling-in the gap? Possession of a good imagination is essential equipment, - or for me at least it is. My first trainset had an engine that wound up with a key and back then it was my imagination that filled in the gaps. As far as I'm concerned nothing has changed.

How far from the track do scenery objects have to be fully 3D? In general as far as the trackside boundary fence, but really it depends on the particular situation. Some scenic areas such as a station with a village close to the railway might need more, other areas such as open countryside might need a lot less.

Does every switch, lever and dial, anywhere, have to be fully functional? In a word 'No'. However as someone who loves to do a lot of shunting (switching to our American friends) and enjoys shunting puzzles I do like properly animated point levers.

martinvk said:

What are you limits of realism in our sim?
Is it at the point where you can't see the difference? I'm sure creators could add polys to objects so that the smallest details are models at the cost of probably bringing the most powerful computer to its knees. And then unless you approach really close, you wouldn't even see it.

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We can do that now. Cab interiors don't have LOD because the interior takes up all of the screen except what you can see out of a window/door. See also my last point.

martinvk said:

Do buildings and other structures need fully modeled interiors?

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I don't think so but there are buildings that could be interactive such as industries and signal boxes.

martinvk said:

Does every object have to be 3D or can 2D planes with some fancy textures be acceptable?

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I don't like 2D assets as they look odd.

martinvk said:

Do people and commodities have to be seen to move smoothly from one location to another or is the start and ending enough with your imagination filling-in the gap?

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Ben Dorsey and I spent some time trying to figure out how to make a traincar interactive with an industry. He wanted to model a U.S. ore facility where the traincar was picked up and inverted to empty - coal I think. We couldn't figure out a way to make it work without it looking weird.
I'd like to see way more interaction with industries. After all, they are a key part of a real railway.

martinvk said:

How far from the track do scenery objects have to be fully 3D?

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Unless I'm misunderstanding the question doesn't LOD already do this?

martinvk said:

Does every switch, lever and dial, anywhere, have to be fully functional?

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No. There are lots of locos that have functional switches and levers that don't actually implement anything but you can play with them.

Then there was the young Trainzer that built a carriage/car and I was asked to script opening doors, movable passenger air vents, light switches, lean back seats, fold out stairs and a couple of things I've forgotten. It was around 3000 lines of code and I don't think he ever released it.

1. I think there is a law of diminishing returns which needs to be considered when detailing a route. You can spend a lot of time on detail that no one notices. And not enough time on detail you can be sure a number of fastidious critics will pick up on.

2. As Trainz has evolved the standard of detailing has also evolved. We now have wavy grass and track side litter. Just speaking for myself, I'm not I am not sure I enjoyed Trainz any less before these graphics marvels became available.

The thing is, that most Route Creators, unless they are creating DLC are creating routes primarilly for themselves, not the masses, so you will always get varying views of what should or should not be high detail, low detail, included or not, acurate to prototype or not if creating a protypical route, make copies of actual buildings etc or just use whatever is available. You are never going to get everyone to think the same way.

The thing is, that most Route Creators, unless they are creating DLC are creating routes primarilly for themselves​

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Very true, and there will always be an enormous variation in what is acceptable to different people. A good old model railway principle was, "if you can't see it, don't model it!"

The other model railway axiom was "the willing suspension of disbelief".

But if someone wants to model the full interior of a house, say, with furniture, pictures, cups and saucers on the table - well, it's their hobby and everyone can do what he or she pleases without being dictated to.

Ray

I agree 100% with JCtron.

I would like one thing to be more realistic though and that is the exhaust beat , timing and sound .

To me realism is when huge glowing red and green arrows don't flash in the sky over junctions at night every time AI accesses them.

--Lamont

Having just completed Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, I know it’s possible to have a huge map with exquisite detail in all scenery wherever you go, frame rates of >50fps at all times, no stuttering, PBR textures on everything, TurfFx grass everywhere, no tiled patterns in the ground textures and almost imperceptible LOD transitions.

The fact that Trainz still struggles on all of these fronts says something about the content, but also a lot about the limitations of the program itself. Given the disparity between major game producers like Ubisoft and a small company like N3V, I can’t see Trainz ever catching up.

says something about the content

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That probably explains almost all of the issues we have. With little to no control over the content used in a route except for the few they produce or sponsor and by doing a limited set of validations, we are entering the sim with a huge handicap. Remember all those objects that came from Google based on SketchUp with their thousands of useless polys. and the multitude of objects without any LOD that have been created over the years that are still used. Mea-culpa, been there, done that. With a much tighter control over their content, I doubt Odyssey's game engine has to struggle to display their world like N3V's does, no matter how good it is. The reality is that a FPS games is more popular than train sims. We're a niche in a niche market.

ldowns said:

To me realism is when huge glowing red and green arrows don't flash in the sky over junctions at night every time AI accesses them.

--Lamont

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The whole idea of the Red/Green arrows needs to be totally eradicated from Trainz, and left to abandon