Night lighting

emcnally

Member
Any possible way of getting proper working night lights? I mean yard lights that project light on objects like the headlights do? Now that TRS19 is working so great I have found myself running at night but the flood lighting is terrible.
 
Point lighting has been on the wishlist for years, maybe TRS2023 along with a new skybox and environmental fog. I'm very much looking forward to the next ice age in Hell.

Graeme
 
Yup - ray tracing in Trainz is a much-yearned-for rendering technique, that will probably arrive in the next-generation iteration of our beloved railroad simulator.
Tony_Hilliam has suggested in previous posts a year or so ago that it is possibly on the cards/ being considered.
Hopefully, by then, we will have access to affordable RTX cards from all major video graphics cards producers.
It is certainly the way many games are heading these days.
Meanwhile, I rejoice in the fact that we now enjoy fairly credible locomotive headlamp illumination effects. It took many years for that to come to fruition, so I guess patience does have its rewards! ;)
 
my-drive
my-drive
I have stumbled into a strange Lighting issue!
I placed a Drivable Police Car on the Track and the Circling Red and Blue Lights along with the White Strobe effects look very poorly as they animated reflecting off the ground in Surveyor, I can see the jagged Alpha Channels as they were not semi Transparent as designed to be. Typical of all Night Lights, Street Light, Flood Lights etc.

The Strange thing that I found was when I went into the Driver Mode, then cab View, and was looking out the police Car Windows the Strobes, Red, and Blue flashing Lights looked Beautiful with the correct Semi Transparencies. I was amazed on how great the Lights looked as they were reflected off the Ground. So I got out of the Police car with the arrow Buttons and moved to the side of the Car and they still had the Beautiful Soft Transparent look. Then I exit the cab View and returned to the outside World and they returned to the poor look again.

Something to do with Surveyor not functioning correctly with the Primary & Alpha Textures. Although all the outside Street Lamps did not improve when I was in the Driver Cab View.
I sincerely Hope that the Developers will pick up on this and maybe a easy Patch for the next Update for the Surveyor 2 that is scheduled.
 
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I have stumbled into a strange Lighting issue!
I placed a Drivable Police Car on the Track and the Circling Red and Blue Lights along with the White Strobe effects look very poorly as they animated reflecting off the ground in Surveyor, I can see the jagged Alpha Channels as they were not semi Transparent as designed to be. Typical of all Night Lights, Street Light, Flood Lights etc.

The Strange thing that I found was when I went into the Driver Mode, then cab View, and was looking out the police Car Windows the Strobes, Red, and Blue flashing Lights looked Beautiful with the correct Semi Transparencies. I was amazed on how great the Lights looked as they were reflected off the Ground. So I got out of the Police car with the arrow Buttons and moved to the side of the Car and they still had the Beautiful Soft Transparent look. Then I exit the cab View and returned to the outside World and they returned to the poor look again.

Something to do with Surveyor not functioning correctly with the Primary & Alpha Textures. Although all the outside Street Lamps did not improve when I was in the Driver Cab View.
I sincerely Hope that the Developers will pick up on this and maybe a easy Patch for the next Update for the Surveyor 2 that is scheduled.

I recommend you write this up in a bug report and submit it to QA.

Trainz Bug Report (typeform.com)
 
This is one topic where Trainz falls flat. When I made railyard lights in Railworks an seen how they realistically lit up the yard, I was stunned. Those same railyard lights in Trainz don't come close to the same great lighting effects as the counterparts have in Railworks. Personally, this should be one of N3V top priorities when it comes to graphical improvements. Night lighting in Trainz is just sad looking at this point and is well overdue for a fix.
 
I think it is going to have to bubble to the top of the user surveys. There are so many things wanted by so many people that this doesn't end up getting high enough on the priority list. I do agree with you though. Surely with ray-tracing supported in the new graphics cards N3V doesn't want to fall so far behind the times they can't even do night lighting.
 
I have written to Tony several times and never had the answer I wanted to see.

I pointed out that comparing Trainz with other real worls simulators shows just how feeble the lighting is on Trainz.

I think that they should put a hold on developing the purely cosmetic effects (Who really gives a rat's behind about the insides of coaches have leather or fabric seats or flushing toilets.

Don't get me wrong, now that e have got them they are nice to use.

I THINK THEY SHOULD PRIORITISE BASICS.

jUST TO KEEP IT SIMPLE, MY TOP 3 WOULD Be lighting effects as per every other simulator.

Secondly would be to upgrade wther effects`. It may never be possible but how good would it be to see falling snow laying.

Fibnlly, some concerted work on people to make them more real would be good.

Very aware that what sounds simple to me is almost cerainly highly complex and time confusing for the programmers.

Just give it some thought.

Graham Shefford, Beds, UK
 
Graham, cosmetic effects in coaches and people are the things content creators are good at. Environmental effects like accumulative snow, point lighting and skybox are handled by N3V's programmers. N3V will most likely prioritise on a "bang for buck" basis, due to the economics of being a business and all. We live in hope...and take the crumbs we are given.
cheers
Graeme
 
Graham, cosmetic effects in coaches and people are the things content creators are good at. Environmental effects like accumulative snow, point lighting and skybox are handled by N3V's programmers. N3V will most likely prioritise on a "bang for buck" basis, due to the economics of being a business and all. We live in hope...and take the crumbs we are given.
cheers
Graeme

Sadly this is the honest truth, however this was not the plan for Trainz in the very beginning...for those who remember. Yes I know, N3V is forced to do it this way to survive.
 
The best lighting that I have seen and used is by Arraial. Check out kuids :524343:6246:1, 6247 and 6249:1
 
The best lighting that I have seen and used is by Arraial. Check out kuids :524343:6246:1, 6247 and 6249:1

That is because he uses coronal effects on his lights. That is not really the problem. The problem is how the light shines, or in Trainz case... does not shine on other objects. A street lamp lights up at night, however there is no light coming from the light itself unless a light pool on the ground is used. If a car is park on the spot of that light pool. The car will only see the light to the height that the light pool is set at, there is no real lighting in the game.
 
That is because he uses coronal effects on his lights. That is not really the problem. The problem is how the light shines, or in Trainz case... does not shine on other objects. A street lamp lights up at night, however there is no light coming from the light itself unless a light pool on the ground is used. If a car is park on the spot of that light pool. The car will only see the light to the height that the light pool is set at, there is no real lighting in the game.

A simple explanation is a lit cone. The cone is lit up and shines, with a material on the sides to block the sides from shining at the same degree as the light spot. I used the same technique to light up the interior of a factory back in 1995 when I was using 3D Studio R4 for DOS.
 
A simple explanation is a lit cone. The cone is lit up and shines, with a material on the sides to block the sides from shining at the same degree as the light spot. I used the same technique to light up the interior of a factory back in 1995 when I was using 3D Studio R4 for DOS.

That could work for a single light point light a street light if done correctly and the alpha channel is blended properly, but what if you have a building with 50 or so windows who's light is shining on the ground. It's not very practical. I don't see any 3D modeler taking the time to do that.
 
That could work for a single light point light a street light if done correctly and the alpha channel is blended properly, but what if you have a building with 50 or so windows who's light is shining on the ground. It's not very practical. I don't see any 3D modeler taking the time to do that.

I agree it works well for streetlights and other single-point lights. With some of the incorrectly alpha-channel blended lights out there, we can see the cones pointing upwards to the light from the ground as if aliens ships were landing. As I said, this technique was used in the mid-1990s. With that said, we're a bit behind the times, ya think!
 
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I agree it works well for streetlights and other single-point lights. With some of the incorrectly alpha-channel blended lights out there, we can see the cones pointing upwards to the light from the ground as if aliens ships were landing. As I said, this technique was used in the mid-1990s. With that said, we're a bit behind the times, ya think!

Yes, that was the point of all my statements. Trainz may be the best that is out there but in some respects it is falling behind the times. Night lighting is one of those. Another issue I see is pushing the casual content creators aside. This has been a slow process since the beginning. Some bigger examples I can give are speed trees. They went to speed trees, now nobody is making them because the program to make them is too expensive for the casual creator. I complained when they started with speed trees and was attacked for it. I'll give them credit for thinking outside the box on this one, but it backfired in a big way.

With the start of FBX and PBR material it has now gotten to the point where you have to be a professional 3d model builder just to make content at TRS2019 levels. There are very few doing that. Why? Because it's not worth the time and effort to go through all that work just to hand over your work to N3V. I believe most of the casual content makers have left. The ones creators that are still around are still making older stander content...like me. Just look at the current uploads on the Download Station, very little content is at TRS2019 standards. The majority is still TRS2012 and TANE standards. What was once Trainz strength is now being pushed aside and this is something the folks at N3V really needs to pay attention too. Trainz will end up being like Railworks...Some future younger person will find it interesting, mess with the game for a while and maybe even start his own project. Then only to find making his own content is too difficult so he looses interest and moves on to another train game. No more dedicated users, no more casual content creators.
 
This i made end 2004, it has point lights

I was told a parking lot full of those would slow a computer down to a crawl. Don't know if that is true or not. I suppose it is, that's why it's never been implemented into the game. Well, at least not on scenery items.
 
Yes, that was the point of all my statements. Trainz may be the best that is out there but in some respects it is falling behind the times. Night lighting is one of those. Another issue I see is pushing the casual content creators aside. This has been a slow process since the beginning. Some bigger examples I can give are speed trees. They went to speed trees, now nobody is making them because the program to make them is too expensive for the casual creator. I complained when they started with speed trees and was attacked for it. I'll give them credit for thinking outside the box on this one, but it backfired in a big way.

With the start of FBX and PBR material it has now gotten to the point where you have to be a professional 3d model builder just to make content at TRS2019 levels. There are very few doing that. Why? Because it's not worth the time and effort to go through all that work just to hand over your work to N3V. I believe most of the casual content makers have left. The ones creators that are still around are still making older stander content...like me. Just look at the current uploads on the Download Station, very little content is at TRS2019 standards. The majority is still TRS2012 and TANE standards. What was once Trainz strength is now being pushed aside and this is something the folks at N3V really needs to pay attention too. Trainz will end up being like Railworks...Some future younger person will find it interesting, mess with the game for a while and maybe even start his own project. Then only to find making his own content is too difficult so he looses interest and moves on to another train game. No more dedicated users, no more casual content creators.

This is true of a lot of things not only with this program. There are so many other programs that have become overly complex these days that it makes me tired thinking about them. One in particular is Sibelius which is used for music. Talk about complex and definitely over done and not even user friendly. Every time I fire up the program to work on a project, I spend hours looking for lacking documentation. (Sound familiar).


The tree thing is a dual-edge sword. The old MSTS-type flipboards and billboards are not usable today due to their really inferior methods due to being very CPU intensive. Speed Trees utilize libraries and polygon calls on the GPU instead making them work better at the expense of more complexity. There are other companies, I think that also make Speed-Tree-like assets, but I don't know the details.

IDV now offers a subscription for the Speed Tree program. This is well and good, but these new trees aren't useful for us because their ST engine is not backwardly compatible. I looked into it recently but when I saw that it only supported the current version, I backed away.

PBR and content is unfortunately the new thing in many programs. They have it now in Arma3 and even Cities: Skylines, both of which I play. Arma3 suffers from the same crawling jellyfish guts on the terrain as we see so that's inherent in the texturing. What they do have going for them is the weather environment and lighting. The rest is still the same as MSTS-type graphics. Seriously.

But, as you say, N3V at the same time needs to upgrade the lighting, and sadly that will make things difficult for current modelers if they do because we'll be facing a whole new set of things to work out and figure out and us older folks are not all up to doing that. This is where we are. They need to keep up with the times, but at the same time keep things simple, but sadly I don't see that happening either.

As you can see, I don't do much in the way of modeling any more. The last time I did something was back in the ca. TRS2004-TRS2006 days. I just lost interest in it because I never had the time to focus on any particular project.
 
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