Will the grass clumps / splines ever be fixed for TRS2019 ?

QuentinJericho

New member
Hello all.

I was just wondering if there are plans to fix the grazzy grass and other grass objects from earlier versions of Trainz.

As you all probably know, basically every grass clump is transparent and has messed up shadows. It's almost impossible to find grass that is decent for TRS2019, the TurFX looks amazing but I don't see myself replacing everything for every route.
Is there a way maybe to fix the transparency of the grass or maybe disable its shadows ? I haven't found many posts discussing this issue.
 
Obviously it is down to the individual asset authors as this is a problem affecting much of the trees and foliage which dates from the UTC/2004/2006 era. The JVC assets in particular were the go to greenery in that area but much now displays transparent. Ditto the trees by David Drake.

I would not look to N3V who's ambivalent attitude towards backward compatibility has partly led to this situation. They blame the asset authors for not keeping up with code or graphic engine changes, while at the same time not wanting to alienate past users by out and out slamming the door on older content.

If you're looking for grass clumps in particular, might be worth checking those in the rmm category. Not particularly frame rate friendly but they can be built into clumps then randomly copied and pasted.
 
Yeah this issue has been brought up before when the assets turned to cardboard cutouts. We were told to use Speed Trees and Turf-FX grass and them's the breaks with older assets!

This isn't an answer we liked to hear, and it would have been nice if N3V includes a fix for this issue at some point, but I'm not waiting...
 
Thanks guys for the answers, I guess for now I'll have to do with the RMM, they look pretty great tbh. I guess I'll have to add the Turf FX myself too sadly, very time consuming...
 
Quentin take a look at this post if you haven't already seen it. Personally I might play around with turf-fx on a throw away test route but I would not use it in making routes yet.

Bob Pearson
 
There are actually quite a few JVC grass clumps splines and flowers that work perfectly well in TRS19 as do some of my CL TN bushes (TN = fixed for TANE upwards) The bushes are billboard but multi twisted planes and still low poly.

 
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If you are up for the task you can add the tag:
Code:
AlphaHint=masked

to the texture.txt. In most cases it works fine. Instead of masked, semitransparent could also be tested to see if it creates the effect you want. Here is an example with an Auran asset:

ClEi8Q5.png

TxhFx9e.png

The issue is the texture.txt does not specify how the game should read the alpha channel, and in most cases, probably defaults to opaque.

Regards,
GDennish
 
As always though, if you mod the texture for your personal use, anyone eventually downloading a released route will still see the unfixed transparent fault.

Still really needs the original author(s) if they are still around to step up to the plate and apply the fixes to the original version on the DLS.
 
Thanks a lot for all those answers ! I'm going to see how the alpha channel trick looks on some of the assets that have issues, I'll also try out your CL TN assest, they look really good. I'll post some screenshots of the results.

I know it's probably stupid, but this issue with the grass has been the main problem preventing me from enjoying TRS2019, and I wasn't able to find support since the issue wasn't really discussed and most of the time the answer was "use turf FX". Seeing what Bob Pearson said, I'm not going to use Turf FX, or if I do it's gonna be on a small area.

Thanks again.

Quentin

 
As always though, if you mod the texture for your personal use, anyone eventually downloading a released route will still see the unfixed transparent fault.

Still really needs the original author(s) if they are still around to step up to the plate and apply the fixes to the original version on the DLS.

I feel like this falls under the CRG; maybe pcas1986 could shed some light if I'm correct?

Thanks a lot for all those answers ! I'm going to see how the alpha channel trick looks on some of the assets that have issues, I'll also try out your CL TN assest, they look really good. I'll post some screenshots of the results.

I know it's probably stupid, but this issue with the grass has been the main problem preventing me from enjoying TRS2019, and I wasn't able to find support since the issue wasn't really discussed and most of the time the answer was "use turf FX". Seeing what Bob Pearson said, I'm not going to use Turf FX, or if I do it's gonna be on a small area.

Thanks again.

Quentin


I feel the same, however this issue has been around since T:ANE, but seems more apparent now with the use of the PBR rendering model.
 
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