[Paul B]

Hi;

It's good to see there is interest in this. With regards to smoke it is interesting to note the railway I work on here in the UK have just changed coal suppliers from a soft high carbon coal to a harder high-volatile coal. While both are considered good steam coals the difference in smoke production is huge.

The new hard coal burns hot and fast with long flames and gives off a huge amount of thick smoke. It is incredibly smoky compared to the old. Just a few shovels can result in a lot of smoke while the old coal was very clean burning and produced very little smoke unless you bailed a ton in in one go, cooked it up then cut off the air supply.

We have to have the blower on much harder with the new coal to keep the fire from licking out into the cab as the higher volatile content burns with longer flames. Anyway the point is the Type of fuel makes a big difference to smoke production in the real world.

Without wanting to go off topic the characteristic of the fuel could be defined and it is this that would have an impact on smoke production. I seem to recall there was something like SmokeUnitsPerPoundofFuel back in MSTS days.

Regards;

-Paul

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

Great stuff but is there anyone on the Development Team with expertise with the particle systems we use in ORTS?

It seems we haven't had anyone with that unique skill set and interest since Robert left.

Much like the ORTS World Environment this is all kind of moot until someone rolls up their sleeves to dive into it.

Regards,
Scott

[Weter]

Thank You, Paul. It's really interesting.
There was SmokeCombustion parameter. Rudolf Richter had no idea, what it for.

[ATSF3751]

I have to agree with you Scott. We need someone with experience who knows about smoke particles and knowledge of coding. I did just download the source files to take a look at them and see if I can even find where the smoke settings are. If I knew how to code I would take a crack at it myself but do not want to mess anything up.

Brandon

[Laci1959]

 ATSF3751, on 07 March 2022 - 04:50 PM, said:

I have to agree with you Scott. We need someone with experience who knows about smoke particles and knowledge of coding. I did just download the source files to take a look at them and see if I can even find where the smoke settings are. If I knew how to code I would take a crack at it myself but do not want to mess anything up.

Brandon

I would add that someone is not only familiar with the steam locomotive from videos, but can also fire and drive. Even if you reduce the Cutoff value, it does not affect the amount and color of smoke.

Edit: Changes the color, but unfortunately not the amount.
The Cutoff is a slide-in steam regulator operated by a steering lever. By moving it to the middle position, it reduces the amount of steam entering the cylinder and, consequently, the amount leaving it. The color of the smoke depends on whether or not the exhausted exhaust steam is passed through the blower to ignite the fire.

[Weter]

That's right, Laci.
And, let me quote my colleague, who noted:
Guys, immersed into coding, need an artistic assistance for keeping in mind the visual appearance of things, they modeling.
Whether it could be internal artist, or some other person, as a consultant/assistant.

[ATSF3751]

I honestly could probably do it because I know a little about coding, been around steam locomotives my whole life and also work on the Milwaukee Road 261 and know quite a bit about how steam locomotives work and are fired. I just need to figure out where the smoke coding is located at and figure out what needs to be changed. I also have an artistic background and could also figure out how smoke should look in the game.

Brandon

[ATSF3751]

I think the first step would be to find a better particle maker! The one we have just is not cutting it for what we need. We also need 2 seperate ones. One for smoke and another for steam. What are everyone else's thoughts on this? We can keep Peter's coding just the way it is but I truely believe if we want to achieve realistic smoke we need to start over with a new particle maker.

Brandon

[copperpen]

A particle maker would be an improvement over what we have at present. If however someone could work out the algorithm that MS used when generating the ace file segments it might be easier than coding a decent particle generator.

[ATSF3751]

I feel it can be done we just need someone willing to take the time to do a little research and know how to come up with one. I have done a little research myself and believe it would not be too difficult to come up with new smoke and steam for Open Rails. To me what we currently have still mimics what MSTS had back in the day. What we truly need is something new and fresh that goes along with today's technology and not something that is 20+ years old. Steam also needs to be separate from smoke. Smoke should only be used for the stack of a steam locomotive and steam should be used for everything else like appliances, cylinders, air pumps, steam heat, and other odds and ends. As for the way Open Rails smoke reacts Vs the old MSTS version MSTS Takes the cake! Here are a couple of shots of how the smoke looks in the old MSTS game.

Yes I know Open Rails tries to keep frame rates down but in this case we are in a world of technology where we need to start breaking away from MSTS a little bit. Open Rails does have an advantage as it is still the most realistic physics wise out of all of the Train Simulator games out there but at the same time a huge disadvantage when it comes to graphics! The predecessor of Open Rails is over 20+ years old and we are on machines that are much more capable of handling higher end games now. Open Rails has come a very long ways from the MSTS days but it could go so much farther if we were to put some time and effort into its graphics because that is where Open Rails is really lacking.

Brandon

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