What causes light flickering, and how to fix it?

[Christopher824]

What causes light flickering, and how to fix it?

When in nightmode, there are several scenery assets that 'flicker' their lights on and off radipdly (caution to epileptic viewers, do not watch)

See this video;

[JCitron]

Hi Chris,

This is coplanar faces and Z-buffer fighting.

The night-mode is a very thin mesh that's placed over the underlying building mesh. If the night-mode mesh is too close to the surface of the underlying building, the video card has trouble rendering the image as it attempts to render both objects at once.

[1611mac]

I see that on many items even at 12 noon and full sun. Drives me crazy.

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

This is an error in mesh construction, but one which is not picked up as a fault by the Trainz validation checks. It can be fixed by the original creator (or somebody with permission and relevant software to fix it). The nightmode mesh, or other overlapping surfaces, need to be separated by as little as a couple more centimetres, so it’s usually easy to do once you have access to the 3D model.

It may be worth contacting the creators to inform them of the problem and see if they are willing to fix it. They may not even be aware, since they obviously didn’t bother checking for it when they made the asset. The flickering sometimes only occurs from certain viewing angles or distances and is somewhat dependent on the quality of your graphics card, so it may not always be obvious.

.

[GoofusClam57]

I've experienced this flickering in the lit windows of several structures. I call them "poltergeist buildings." I'm not able to fix them, but have gotten some temporary relief by the simple expedient of saving and re-starting my driving session.

[sister]

I usually position the night mode some 5 cm above the parent mesh to avoid that.