Train headlight illumination of the ground.

After playing with Trainz for about 6 years now, I've just discovered something I've never noticed before.

Train headlights don't illuminate the ground if it is flat and level that is. I just noticed this while playing TS12 at night. While my trucks drive on a level road: ground painted with gravel texture, no light is cast upon the earth. Train lights do, however, reflect off sloping ground as a hillside, narrow canyon walls, a rock face or a cliff. Train lights will reflect off other level surfaces as YARN road, track, ground splines and ballast.

I am not sure if the lights reflect off Topo water.

Does level bare (textured) ground get illuminated by vehicles at night in T:ANE or newer?

In the newest edition of Trainz, does light and shadow still bleed through objects as bridge decks over a river?


Sometime later:

Well, this is odd, I'm driving my trucks in a convoy at night through farm country where the ground is all flat. It appears that some of the trucks are illuminating the ground to the side of the YARN road while others are not. They are all the same model truck (engine). I guess this ground lighting thing might be a hit or miss.

I'm not sure, but I think there's a limitation having to do with the vehicle having the focus. As you'd expect, real (virtual) llumination is very expensive in machine cycles, so it's a resource issue.

PWeiser said:

As you'd expect, real (virtual) llumination is very expensive in machine cycles, so it's a resource issue.

Click to expand...

I am not entirely sure if this really addresses the topic but it irks me that it is 2019 and there are countless examples of lighting that we should also have in Trainz yet here it sits nearly 25 years behind.

norfolksouthern37 said:

I am not entirely sure if this really addresses the topic but it irks me that it is 2019 and there are countless examples of lighting that we should also have in Trainz yet here it sits nearly 25 years behind.

Click to expand...

The illumination issue is not a deal-breaker for my continual play with an older Trainz like TS12. I have T:ANE too but have

put playing it on hold because my current PC is not strong enough for it. I lack the hardware horsepower under the hood.

The bad thing is whenever we get a new edition of Trainz we aren't allowed a one month or one week trial period before we buy.

The best "new feature" N3V Games could offer the customer with any new release is a "try-before-you-buy" period. Would you buy

a new car without a test-drive first?

Shouldn't this thread be in the suggestion forum. Oh right, that forum is moderated to stop multiple threads on the same subject.

William