Sharing Environments?

boc61

New member
I have to admit, I find the Environmental Controls bewildering and tedious. Is there a way to copy an environment from a session that mat be especially nice so it can be quickly added to another session or any tricks to make setting environments as painless as possible? For example, I really like the environment in the "Threatening Skies" session on the Lafond route, it's dark and stormy without any hint of sun and I'd like to be able to add that to sessions.

Barring that, are thee any good "For Dummies" guides on using those damned dials?
 
The dials are awkward, to put it nicely, and it would be much better if there were some numbers we could enter into small boxes. This subject was brought up ages ago, but nothing happened not only for the environment, but also for asset heights. With enterable numbers, we have consistency, which is what we want in this case.
 
Unfortunately, as good as the tutorial is, it does not answer the original question about copying environments from one session to another. At the current time you cannot easily transfer environment settings between sessions - a feature that has been requested for some time now.

The only ways I know of are:-
  1. manually recording each setting, noting the problems with assigning a value to some dial and slider settings, and re-entering those values into each new session.
  2. create a "dummy" session with the Environment Settings configured to your liking and use that session as your starting point for every new session. This will require you manipulating the kuid values in config.txt files. I have not tried this but it "sounds feasible":udrool:
 
Adding to the difficulty is the overall glare or over-brightness affecting any Environment setting in TRS19. It's difficult to obtain anything that looks realistic. The closest I can get is to make it a cloudy day, with a cloudy sky and shadows turned off to match (which must be done elsewhere than in the Environment controls). Even then, everything looks too flat and washed out.

Why does N3V have these seeming blind spots to fundamental improvements needed to their product? The Environment controls have always been inadequate despite there being many better models for controlling colour and shading to be found in all sorts of other software, from the firmware in monitors & TVs to that of photo editors such as Photoshop. And when N3V do change the lighting, with a new iteration of Trainz, they now make it worse! T:ANE lighting, despite the inadequate Environment controls. can be made to look far better than TRS19 with the very same route.

In a simulator, the light and colour are surely a fundamental aspect. Why so poorly done then?

Lataxe
 
Perhaps there needs to be a good base beyond N3V, I use television streaming. It is best to find a studio setting (Covid remotes are not good). Adjust your monitor's settings and use something like the nVidia setup software to get a good base live TV picture (local studio news is good).

THEN follow Tony's instructions. It is possible to get a good picture of TRSxxxx. A baseline is necessary. I built a 21inch color TV from a kit of parts. I had to setup the TV set with no test equipment and deal with the drift from vacuum tubes aging. I never put the back on the set and kept a set of tuning tools handy. I received a lot of flak but I always had a very good picture. Today, with digital set once and forget. That is, if N3V will give us digital settings. Should not be too difficult. Provide re-settable number boxes next to each dial.

Tony's reference to the instructions were helpful. My black shadows are now a medium grey/gray.
 
This topic has been argued endlessly in these forums and I doubt that no matter what N3V does (or does not do) it will never satisfy everyone.

Personally, I have no problems with the default lighting and other environmental levels in TRS19 and I seldom need to adjust them.

A significant factor to consider is role that differences between different monitors can play. Back in the days when I had a desktop computer and two monitors to attach to it, the lighting in a route could look good on one monitor but was noticeably "less good" on the other. I could adjust it so that it looked good on the second but that affected its appearance on the first. So if, as a route/session developer, I create a layout/session with what I think is good lighting and other environmental controls on my monitor, I cannot guarantee that it would look the same on another users monitor.

My thoughts.
 
Good points on the monitors. I am trying to get mine somewhere acceptable for Trainz. It's an ASUS VG278Q. It's overly bright out of the box in general, it has half a dozen Gaming profiles that I've been tinkering with with mixed results. I may go shopping for a new one since I can't spend money on a new GPU at the moment.

I do think the lighting in 2019 is better, I found TANE to be VERY bright and washed out, so there's that. Thanks for all the replies, my original question has been answered. I do think it would be a nice feature, if it could be done without breaking a half dozen other things.
 
A tip for Mac users:
To quickly and easily change brightness and gamma, find a "Gamma Correction" tool in the App Store and use.
(Apple long ago "dumbed down" the monitor calibration tool. It allows you to set a "white point" only)

As for environment - I'll just say that it's a shame that there are customers out there running sessions that have very very poor lighting and they are not even aware of the environment settings and that's a real shame.
 
The tutorial Tony pointed to is certainly a step in the right direction, but most of us had to figure all of that out on our own when TS2019 was first released and even then judging by some of the TS2019/TRS19 screenshots that get posted a lot of Trainz folk have never heard of that tutorial or else are still struggling to master the environmental controls.
Making statements such as, 'Personally, I have no problems with the default lighting and other environmental levels in TRS19 and I seldom need to adjust them,' - doesn't really help those who are having problems. I could just about say the same now that I've almost mastered the dark art of making the environmental lighting do anything other than the default stark harsh 30 seconds before the earth burnt up type supernova lighting, - but that would involve me denying the months of upset and depression involved in me learning how to tame the blasted thing and get it to reproduce a soft English afternoon. And even after all that careful adjusting from certain angles the harsh flash of supernova light will still sneak in.

I do agree about monitors making a difference though. I have a professional grade NEC monitor that's very good and that certainly does help with colour reproduction.
 
Our monitors are not making us to see Trainz in bad colours for sure. This subject is not about monitors calibration, not about desperate TRS19 shaders and not about HW manufacturer's display utilities, it is about us unable to duplicate environment settings precisely, about us unable to copy it and about us unable to set it more accurately, it is about us unable to not waste time with environment settings pain. I am not even mentioning the post processing settings, which can't be switched fully off and which can't be saved in expert mode. Little bonus of this discussion is link to so far very little known tut....
 
That environmental lighting tutorial link needs to be a sticky post on the TS2019 pages. It needs to have a link on the TS2019 store pages as well.

Our monitors are not making us to see Trainz in bad colours for sure.

Oh I agree. All a good monitor does is reproduce colours accurately so you don't have colour bleed and drift to contend with while trying to set up the environmental lighting.
 
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Making statements such as, 'Personally, I have no problems with the default lighting and other environmental levels in TRS19 and I seldom need to adjust them,' - doesn't really help those who are having problems.

I disagree. All too often we get posts along the lines of "because I am having a problem with XYZ therefore everyone must be having the same problem and N3V needs to fix this immediately". It is important that a contrary view or opinion be made known or these forums will become an echo chamber for those who have a mono view on everything.

I did preface my comment with the word "Personally".
 
I did preface my comment with the word "Personally".

Yes you did and I wasn't especially trying to have a dig at you. I also agree that keeping a balanced view on the forum is important and everyone should be able to express their point of view.

For those who are trying to represent certain kinds of environments the settings tools in TS2019 aren't easy to use and in fact many Trainz folk have a lot of difficulty with them. With SP3 there have been some adjustments made to the environment lighting and this is good. Tony has posted a link to a tutorial and this is also good. The problem with the default lighting in TS2019 is that the 'Blue' dial is set too high for just about everywhere on planet Earth and this is bad because it makes the lighting too harsh and stark.

With the graphics software I use the sliders and dials for adjusting colours have a number scale. If the sliders and dials in the environmental control menu also had a number scale it would mean that once the sweet spot is found for a particular route it could be written down and readily reproduced again at a future time.
 
Our monitors are not making us to see Trainz in bad colours for sure. This subject is not about monitors calibration, not about desperate TRS19 shaders and not about HW manufacturer's display utilities, it is about us unable to duplicate environment settings precisely, about us unable to copy it and about us unable to set it more accurately, it is about us unable to not waste time with environment settings pain. I am not even mentioning the post processing settings, which can't be switched fully off and which can't be saved in expert mode. Little bonus of this discussion is link to so far very little known tut....

Hi Jagg
Your monitor's calibration is exceedingly important to how things, including Trainz, will look. Although it's easy to get used to particular monitor, the amount that monitor's vary is quite extreme.

I have two screens connected at the moment. My primary screen is a calibrated Asus ProArt screen (PA247Q for anyone wanting to look it up). This has been calibrated using a SpyderPro4 Pro.

The second screen is an AOC2434, this screen is uncalibrated, but I have attempted to match it to as best I can. It's not really close, it's actually surprisingly washed out in comparison. And this is a problem.

It's not the best example, but this photo I've taken of the same 'window' on both of my screens shows how different the colours/look are: https://i.imgur.com/GKpvybr.jpg

It's a large image, so I've left it as a link.

But this difference results in Trainz being very washed out on the right hand screen, but the left hand screen looks great (IMO).

Without you properly calibrating your monitor, we cannot guarantee how Trainz will look; this has tbh always been the case, and has been a problem for some creators. It really is as simple as that; and tweaking each route/session to suit your screen isn't really a good option for us to recommend (especially when, no matter what, these controls are still going to require you to tweak them to look good for you). Unfortunately, there is a much greater amount of variation in computer screen default 'calibration'/display compared to mobile devices, which tend toward being more standard (but can still vary).

This isn't to say the recommended feature wouldn't be useful for route and session builders, it absolutely would. And it's something that could potentially be looked at in future (along with a multitude of other things). But it shouldn't be a workaround for poor screen calibration, the same as would apply for texture creation (ie you shouldn't make a bright red carriage pink to counteract a colourcast from your screen).

Regards
 
I understand Your point fully and understand that final look of the game is rather complex issue. But I also prefer to not mislead the discussion towards dead end. If I consider some other game quite satisfactory on my PC and on my monitor as for the look compared to the Trainz, running on the same mine PC and monitor, it is not the case of whatever calibration thought. The original topics here were the issues directly related to the developer of the game (who realizes them fully for sure) and it would be beneficial if sources of this issues would not be moved from the N3V labs to our PC corners...
 
Hi All
A few things I remembered whilst out walking the dog tonight :)

The first is a little example I made showcasing the affect of Sun/Direct Light, Ambient Light, and the 3 'levels' of the skybox colours:

2021-03-01_213609.jpg


2021-03-01_214020.jpg


A bit strange looking for sure! But the colours are:

Blue = Sun Colour
Green = Ambient Colour
Red = Bottom skybox colour
Purple = Middle skybox colour
Yellow = Top skybox colour

The second part is something a few might find useful, but slipped my mind as I was dealing with a few other things when writing my earlier reply.

You /can/ configure environment settings in your sessions. This is good news, as you can also clone/edit those sessions to point to a different route. We don't have in-game support for this, nor can we provide technical support for issues that may occur with this, but with some editing of the session asset you can achieve a workable solution for the time being.

Doing this does require a bit of work to do, but you can generally achieve this by:

1) Create a new session
2) Configure your environment settings as desired
3) Save the session under an appropriate name (ie 'sunny', 'cloudy', etc).
4) Exit Surveyor
5) Locate the session in Content Manager
6) Clone this session
7) Go to 'open for edit' under the filter dropdown at the top
8) Right click on the cloned session (it will likely have 'new asset' for the name), then go to 'open' and click on 'edit config file'
9) In the config.txt change the kuid number in the map-kuid tag to that of the route you want the session on (also change the same kuid in the kuid-table to match)
10) Add the route's name to the end of the name in the 'username' tag (this helps avoid multiple sessions with exactly the same name :) )
11) Save the config, and close your text editor
12) Submit the asset
13) Now try loading the session into Driver or Surveyor on the route you set it to use, and see if the environment settings work.

I have done this a couple of times, but haven't specifically worked with this recently.

But again, it is important to have your monitor configured appropriately. You may not like hearing this, but it is extremely important, and the issues mentioned by at least one person in this thread (specifically about it looking washed out at any environment setting) are going to be very much related to this. This is something I've actively encountered as a creator, and had to find a solution to (initially doing interactive calibration, and then eventually having to find better ways to actually calibrate my screen, etc), as the cheaper screens were extremely washed out, and definitely affect any game I've put on them (as well as movies, and even live streams from friends).

Another part that I had missed previously is also the colour profiles, which have been mentioned previously. This affects how the colours are displayed on your screen. I've just had a bit of fun with discord (watching a friend's live stream of Trainz); there's actually a point when it's on both screens that you can make it switch from one screen's profile to the other, causing a very obvious and dramatic colour shift on both screens.

Some games may have their own colour profiles configured in them, which can help make them look better on some types of screens, but this can cost a lot of time/money to achieve, and is still going to vary a lot depending on how accurate your screen is. Some also work with NVidia/AMD to have a colour profile made for their game, to be included in the drivers, but again this does cost to do.

Regards
 
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