Aus Fence Colorbond - Invisible!

[Alikiwi]

<kuid:357175:100018> Aus fence Colorbond_Classic Cream is just one of these, and although too modern for the era I'm working in (1940s) I thought I could sneek a few in for variety. However, as soon as I laid one, it was invisible! What I found was you need to be within a mere 20 metres (60ft) before they showed. Hard to believe the creator hasn't noticed this, or had reports of problems. These are build 4.6, so I'm wondering if anyone else has used them and if they had any problems? I haven't looked at the config file yet, I'm guessing there is a setting there that may fix this issue?

[pware]

Probably the LOD values need adjusting. But it is good to see that creators are now using LODs (even if forced to by the build requirements) but it is obviously a learning curve for them.

In the meantime have a look at the Corrugated Iron Fence series by Dinorius_Redundicus
<kuid:68213:37256> Corrugated iron fence 04
<kuid2:68213:37032:3> Corrugated iron fence 01
<kuid:68213:37254> Corrugated iron fence 02
<kuid:68213:37255> Corrugated iron fence 03
<kuid:68213:37265> Corrugated iron fence 08
<kuid:68213:37257> Corrugated iron fence 05
<kuid:68213:37258> Corrugated iron fence 06
<kuid:68213:37259> Corrugated iron fence 07

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

<kuid:357175:100018> Aus fence Colorbond_Classic Cream is just one of these, and although too modern for the era I'm working in (1940s) I thought I could sneek a few in for variety. However, as soon as I laid one, it was invisible! What I found was you need to be within a mere 20 metres (60ft) before they showed. Hard to believe the creator hasn't noticed this, or had reports of problems. These are build 4.6, so I'm wondering if anyone else has used them and if they had any problems? I haven't looked at the config file yet, I'm guessing there is a setting there that may fix this issue?

Since I seem to be obsessed with fences lately, I just downloaded <kuid:357175:100018> to see what it looks and behaves like in TRS19.

I did not see any of those problems. It showed up correctly in Asset Preview and in the game itself. Remained visible for at least 720 metres on my 1-board test route.



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[clam1952]

To confirm, it's working perfectly here, even with the draw distance reduced to lowest setting, it did not disappear.

Sounds like a case for delete, run a DBR so it's actually removed then download it again.

[Alikiwi]

Well the lod distance was set at 170 and 80, way too low and probably someone meant to add an extra zero, which I did and fixed the problem. Would be interesting to see if yours have the same short distance? I'll delete them and re-download but me suspects it won't change, but I'll let you know. Edit, lod distances unchanged, but re-downloading it seems to have fixed it. We had seriously poor reception at times, with zero bars this morning, now back up to the normal 1 bar. Yep, never gets better than that!

On a totally unrelated matter, and pardon the dumb question, but how do I download/install updated sessions for payware? I can see in CM that the broken sessions in Cornish Mainline have newer version but it won't let me download them, not via CM. Thanks as always for your help.

[clam1952]

Should be able to update the Cornish from the Content Store, under updates, the whole route and sessions were updated in February, I had to do it twice as the first attempt stopped halfway through.

Yes those lod distances are way to short IMO, to be honest as it's only 212 triangles I probably wouldn't have bothered with lod, I tend to use 500 for the first lod when required.

[Alikiwi]

Thanks Malc. Oddly I downloaded Dinorius_Redundicus fences which are very useful and some of them were invisible too! The internet causes more problems than I realised, and deleted the affected ones and redownloaded. What a waste of time and internet, but then our biggest mobile service provider -Telstra, is rather pathetic to say the least.

[Alikiwi]

Well this is embarrassing, but I can only find Trainz Store (not content store - probably same) but no mention of "Updates" anywhere. Even search doesn't know about updates except for TS12...

[Forester1]

On your Launch Window, in T:ANE it is the "Purchase Content" button, on TRS2019 it is the "Content Store" button.

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Well the lod distance was set at 170 and 80, way too low and probably someone meant to add an extra zero

Yes those lod distances are way to short IMO, to be honest as it's only 212 triangles I probably wouldn't have bothered with lod, I tend to use 500 for the first lod when required.

Not sure where the 212 triangles came into it because I measured the triangle counts of the repeating unit in Maglevsx's Colorbond fence as 46, 26, 11 and 4 with transitions at 10, 80 and 170 metres respectively. I used the FBX Review untility to get those poly-count numbers.

Having seen the fence spline in TRS19, I don't think the transition distances are too short at all.

They hit all the important performance targets; drop poly-count by well over 20% each time, appear quite "seamless" in the game even though they are occuring quite close to the asset, and they end up at the lowest value possible for a 2-sided plane. Even Windwalkr would applaud this one. Maglevsx did not make any mistakes, he knew exactly what he was doing and has done a great job on it.


.

[clam1952]

Not sure where the 212 triangles came into it because I measured the triangle counts of the repeating unit in Maglevsx's Colorbond fence as 46, 26, 11 and 4 with transitions at 10, 80 and 170 metres respectively. I used the FBX Review untility to get those poly-count numbers.

Having seen the fence spline in TRS19, I don't think the transition distances are too short at all.

They hit all the important performance targets; drop poly-count by well over 20% each time, appear quite "seamless" in the game even though they are occuring quite close to the asset, and they end up at the lowest value possible for a 2-sided plane. Even Windwalkr would applaud this one. Maglevsx did not make any mistakes, he knew exactly what he was doing and has done a great job on it.


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It's not seamless here Deane as I can see the first change, probably as I'm obsessive about making my lod transitions not visible and am looking at it too hard!
Poly count from asset preview is 212, that's for the assembled spline and is more than 1 repeat unit in preview for splines, at 10000m it's reading 26 and is definitely not showing as planes as there is still one post visible, not sure how that is happening? The asset preview shows more than one repeat unit for splines depending on the repeat length, at 3000m in TRS19 there is an obvious ripple as you view the fence and change position, 6000m upwards is not noticeable, however not every one is running high end PCs.
The asset preview is at maximum draw distance so won't be indicative of how lod works at lower draw distance.

Other than I would have put the first transition a bit further away there is nothing wrong with it and it's fully compliant with the lod requirements.

[Alikiwi]

On your Launch Window, in T:ANE it is the "Purchase Content" button, on TRS2019 it is the "Content Store" button.

Hm, TRS19 SP1, no such thing as Content Store button. I could be blind though but I do have my glasses on?

[Forester1]

You should have the following buttons on your Launch Window:

Start Trainz
Manage Content
Trainz Settings
Content Store

[pware]

If you cannot see the above on TRS19 Launcher (PE and Plain Vanilla) then I would suspect a faulty or corrupt install.

[grazlash]

Content store is an SP2 thing. Won't show on SP1 launcher.
Cheers
Graeme