Steam Engine Smoke

Bill69

New member
Has N3V disabled the smoke color settings in the config file for steam engines? All steam locos now seem to have the same color smoke.
This is not very prototypical, older locos will usually have darker smoke than later ones, some because of the introduction of superheaters, some because they just don't have very good draft through the boiler.

Bill69
 
Oh boy... I hope they didn't "fix" anything (thus completely mucking up the old things unintentionally like they did on the e-specs ages ago). I haven't noticed, but I haven't had a chance to check on this as I'm on a bit of a route building kick, on top of which I tend to use bdneals locos and reskins, so there is that bias on my part.

On the other hand "smoke" color from a steam locomotive is definitely a moving target at best... puns intended.
Even one locomotive and crew can have quite a range of color and volume, then throw in atmospheric conditions and such to make it more interesting. I've never been impressed with the "smoke effects" in the game but do appreciate some of the changes that have occurred, they are getting there slowly. I'm sure we could write a script to accurately depict the stack exhaust but I'm also just as sure the game lacks important variables (also, performance issues).
 
From my point of view the colors in particle effects have changed somewhat between TANE and TRS19. My stack smoke is definitely different in the 2 versions.

Even one locomotive and crew can have quite a range of color and volume, then throw in atmospheric conditions and such to make it more interesting. I've never been impressed with the "smoke effects" in the game but do appreciate some of the changes that have occurred, they are getting there slowly. I'm sure we could write a script to accurately depict the stack exhaust but I'm also just as sure the game lacks important variables (also, performance issues).
Check out Ben Neal's 0-8-0 it uses a script that changes color, volume and velocity based on control settings, speed and also season (IIRC he also includes fire temp in there). He took some ideas and parts of a script I was working on that I talked about in an old forum post and incorporated them into that script. That was for me just a proof of concept. It worked pretty good. I modified and improved my original version and include it in most of the steam locos I run regularly.

My current version(s) of the script sets the steam exhaust and smoke (velocity, volume, color, lifetime) based on the steam chest pressure, throttle and cutoff settings. Pretty impressive when you get a couple of big steamers battling it out on a tough grade and a few 1000 tons behind them. Plumes of smoke and white exhaust blown straight skyward.

Bob Pearson
 
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Hi All
I have done a quick test in TRS19 SP1 (build 105096) here, and the various settings for colour/etc for smoke effects appear to be working correctly.

4gyui9e.jpg


You can see that the smoke from each locomotive (except the rear two, which are configured the same) is a different colour, and is active differently. Note the rear 3 locos all use a script similar to what Bob has mentioned (actually, I think it was based around what you posted on the forums now I think about it; I had been playing with various methods to calculate smoke changes around the time you posted it IIRC) to change the smoke based off of the loco's physics. My test here did show they changed appropriate to the script configuration, even in DCC mode.

Regards
 
Zec, the scripts seem to work in TRS19 but if you compare color in TANE to same settings in TRS19 imo there is a definite difference. In TRS19 colors seem washed out.

There's a couple of things I like in Ben's script that I didn't consider: the fire temp effect on colors in the smoke and change of seasons to winter, IIRC, to affect amount of condensed steam in the exhaust.

I'll probably look at adding something like that to my current version. I run my repaints of Ben's EBT 2-8-2 No 17 a lot on my own route, almost exclusively, so they get to test out most of my loco scripts. I realized I needed a way to scale the results for the ng 2-8-2 to any size steam loco instead of coming up with new coefficients to plug into the script for each new one. I decided to use the cylinder size and rated boiler pressure as metrics. It appears to give the results I was looking for and it's something the script can calc on it's own. Although I have a couple of extension tags I can change it with. But I'm still testing.

Using steam chest pressure and cutoff to calc approx pressure at release does I think makes it more realistic. The 1st scripts used just the boiler pressure which also required less frequent checking on the params I used to make the changes - progress has it costs. Next will be some consideration of differences for compound vs simple expansion engines. Right now I only consider number of HP cylinders but compounds have larger cylinder volume with lower pressure at release though for low speed many had means to add live steam to the LP cylinders. Trainz still has a way to go with the "new steam physics".

The scripts do work somewhat in DCC mode now though not as good as cab mode. Maybe the game treats steam locos a bit differently in dcc than previously. I probably need to test to see if any setting other than throttle are changed when you drive in DCC. I think they faked in fuel and water consumption for tenders long ago. In any case it should be possible to improve the dcc smoke/exhaust effects in the scripts.

Bob Pearson
 
In TRS19 colors seem washed out.
The lighting is different for sure - with new materials and changes to ambient and sun colour tuning, plus a brightness slider, you probably just need to adjust the environment settings to get the look you're after.

Check this link for more details:
https://n3vgames.typeform.com/to/y4J2Rl

It is also quite possible that you can improve on the look in TRS19 by tuning the smoke to take advantage of the new lighting.
 

The lighting is different for sure - with new materials and changes to ambient and sun colour tuning, plus a brightness slider, you probably just need to adjust the environment settings to get the look you're after.

Check this link for more details:
https://n3vgames.typeform.com/to/y4J2Rl

It is also quite possible that you can improve on the look in TRS19 by tuning the smoke to take advantage of the new lighting.


Yes it is quite possible to re-tune the smoke on each loco if you use the smoke container in the config file, time consuming but possible, but a bit more complicated if you use a TFX file for the smoke. New TFX files to be made.
While on this subject, does a TFX file use more resources than setting it in the config file?

Cheers,
Bill69
 
Yes it is quite possible to re-tune the smoke on each loco if you use the smoke container in the config file, time consuming but possible, but a bit more complicated if you use a TFX file for the smoke. New TFX files to be made.
While on this subject, does a TFX file use more resources than setting it in the config file?

Cheers,
Bill69

Hi Bill69
Basically, this is a situation where older content is made for a particular rendering method. TRS19 now uses a new rendering method, which is more accurate, but because it does work differently, older content may need upgrading. We cannot guarantee that every part of legacy assets will always look perfect in TRS19, and we have been saying this since the start with TRS19.

Unfortunately, in the cases where 'TFX' files are used, you would need access to the original source files to adjust he colours and re-export. Alternatively, a lot of TFX files can be recreated using the existing smoke tags.

Regards
 
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