Looking to how to fix older asset with shadows

Kilrbe3

New member
Good morning all!

I have but one question today, one that has been on my mind for now months and months on and off, but work and life have kept me away from Trainz.

Having another whirl again at 2019 after having gone back to TANE due to personal liking of colors, art, lighting, and assets that work. One problem I constantly had with 2019 and still due is the overall 'white sheet effect' the sun gives off, even with tweaked environmental settings, and the way shadows work on some older assets.

My question relates to the shadows and more so on certain locos, that happen to be Paid from JR. Gladly would/willing to fix myself, if just pointed in right direction into the config or making new mesh/lod/whatever may be given the tools and resources to do so!

The problem as seen here;

https://imgur.com/a/EnsD57L

Issue seems to be the way 2019 does LODs and shadows. Closer you get to the loco, the more the shadows 'black out' and spaz and create aliasing / jaggies. Zoom out and the LOD appears to change and the problem effect goes away. This results in only being able to view the loco at certain angle and distance. This happens on C40-9W, 80MAC and 70ACE. Mostly in its 'exhaust' type sections of loco with fan vents.

Any way about solving this? This to me is a game breaking issue and would force me back to TANE right away if not fixable in 2019.

Settings are all maxed, Ultra Shadows, 8x AA, all the jazz maxed. Messing with AA or Shadows does not seem to make matters better or worse.

i7 6700k @ 4.5Ghz, 2070 Super, on 860 EVO and plenty of RAM.

Any help is loved and appreciated,

Thanks!
 
I am having trouble seeing what you are seeing, very likely because we can not see it in motion. Received your passive aggressive message, but I can not make a fix or an update or support the work if I can not identify a problem. The general response was that it would be impractical to go back and make updates to every product being that whatever problem you are experiencing is not obvious from your screenshots. That being just one reason, the other being that the items in question are far older than TRS19 and while they are supported to function under the software, they were not exactly designed under it so might have some slight visual differences.
 
My question relates to the shadows and more so on certain locos, that happen to be Paid from JR. Gladly would/willing to fix myself, if just pointed in right direction into the config or making new mesh/lod/whatever may be given the tools and resources to do so!

The problem as seen here;

https://imgur.com/a/EnsD57L

Issue seems to be the way 2019 does LODs and shadows. Closer you get to the loco, the more the shadows 'black out' and spaz and create aliasing / jaggies. Zoom out and the LOD appears to change and the problem effect goes away. This results in only being able to view the loco at certain angle and distance. This happens on C40-9W, 80MAC and 70ACE. Mostly in its 'exhaust' type sections of loco with fan vents.

Any way about solving this? This to me is a game breaking issue and would force me back to TANE right away if not fixable in 2019.

Shadows in TANE and TRS19 are generated from the actual mesh, rather than a 'shadow mesh' as they were previously (the shadow mesh is simply ignored now).

This is a much better way of making the shadows, but for older assets if the component disappears in the LOD then it's shadow will disappear as well. This keeps the shadow consistent with the mesh. Unfortunately for some older models, there is a potential that parts that are now more obvious may disappear earlier in their LOD than might now be preferred, tbh this is something that comes with supporting older content. In some cases, this would require a complete rebuild of the LODs to resolve, as it requires a different LOD creation workflow to get a good result.

Regards
 
I am having trouble seeing what you are seeing, very likely because we can not see it in motion. Received your passive aggressive message, but I can not make a fix or an update or support the work if I can not identify a problem. The general response was that it would be impractical to go back and make updates to every product being that whatever problem you are experiencing is not obvious from your screenshots. That being just one reason, the other being that the items in question are far older than TRS19 and while they are supported to function under the software, they were not exactly designed under it so might have some slight visual differences.

I must do apologize for that, that is my fault, and was not meant to be taken out like that on yourself there. My apologizes. Kevin was helpful there in the end with some insightful info, and I thank them dearly as I did. Was able to snap a quick video of it in motion for your viewing. With maxed out settings using default environment in Test Track.

Video; https://streamable.com/j86cyf

Truly do deeply understand this is older content from your early days, and I do thank you for providing us with these. Just being the location and era I enjoy, the NS to me is a big deal and as shown by you as well. I was just looking at the best route possible to update / fix to modern day standards so I can enjoy 19. As currently this has been such game breaking and immersion killing for me that 19 just collects dust and T:ANE suits the job.


As Zac stated and my research on my own came to be, I do think has to do with the LODs, but I shall leave that final conclusion to you NS37. One can only hope it is possible to rebake them.

Also now as I type and my memory sparks... I do recall that tease of those shiny AC rebuilds be that you showed way back bout year now. That would fix all problems ;)

Cheers
 
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