[timmuir]

Greetings esteemed OR team,

I have been experimenting with making lighted number boards for a steam locomotive model I am working on. I "stumbled upon" this possibility when creating the glass number side plates on an NP switcher style headlight, the polygons making up the "glass" plates are alphNorm+ while the frames and everything else are SolidNorm materials:

(this particular engine had a broken-out plate on the left side in the one photo I have of it taken during WW2 and I modeled it that way, the construction of which leading to this whole chapter)


It works OK, not perfect, for this instance. I decided to try it on a regular locomotive headlight with lighted number boards. I rebuilt the current headlight model with light boxes inside the headlight case that have their polys facing outwards so that the alpha'ed numerals on the ace would have a background, instead of seeing the background scenery through the headlight case. I put a small light code inside the top number board and had limited success.

The problem is the light ace disappears at close range, and appears at about 20 or 30 feet out, where this shot was taken (note the lighted number "53" above the headlight):



Then as the camera is moved away, say about 50 or so feet, the light ace bleeds through the headlight case:



This happens at all angles forward of the plane of the light ace, so that from the sides, it appears through the side of the number board case, after that certain distance away from the engine.

On a related note, I've also had a similar effect with the firebox glow light effect, appearing through numerous polys on a tender, viewed from the outside of the caboose cupola back in the train:



So, my quest here is to find out if there's a problem with my models or is this an OR code thing? In the case of the former, I don't know what else I can do. I've fiddled with the light code in the eng file trying different positions and radii sizes, all with no change in the unfortunate effect. I might add here that the ace that has the alpha numerals also has the textures for the headlight, if that has anything to do with it.

So there you have it. Thanks for your time and patience.

Tim

[captain_bazza]

BTW, nicely composed screenies, Tim. The 'light glow' is also an 'alpha', so you are in effect stacking alphas in close proximity, which has always been a problem. There area couple of prospective fixes.

1] Try renaming your alphnorm+ to alphnorm3 or alphnorm4, depending on the number of 'alphnorm's you're using. (NB, make sure you don't instinctively spell-check it - alphnorn or AlphNorm is correct, there's no 2nd 'a' - an old trap ;-) )

2] Make the actual (2) numberplate polys fullbright objects (I haven't done this technique for a while, so I'm rusty at recalling how it's done) but it involves
some relatively simple editing of the unicode text, uncompressed of course, version of the shape file. This technique, or trick, enables you to place a dirty, or clean, or damaged, alpha glass in front of an apparently back lit numberplate. This means the number light is always lit because its state is 'always on', independent of the ENG file's light statements section.

I'm not using my computer, so I can't access an old shape to refresh my recollection of the shape editing required in 2].

Also, I apologise, Tim, if I'm restating the darned obvious, but some other modelers http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/furiousPC.gif might also find this useful info.

It is sad when you start forgetting hard won tricks of the hobby - mainly through time elapased since last used, rather than lost marbles.....he said hopefully. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/whistling.gif

Cheers Bazza.

PS I put an alpha sorting tutorial, courtesy of Doug Kightly of UKTS, in the ET library.

[captain_bazza]

Quote

I might add here that the ace that has the alpha numerals also has the textures for the headlight,

I just noticed this bit of your post, Tim. I believe this might be the nub of your alpha sorting problem.

Cheers Bazza

[timmuir]

Thanks, Barry. I made an ace expressly for the alpha numbers and remapped them to it, leaving the headlight with it's own ace back to it's original opaque format. The light code behind the numbers now shows up at close range, but still bleeds through the sides of the case at a distance over 30 feet or so. The case is solid norm material and the alpha number plates are last in the sorting hierarchy (using Polymaster2), so they are being drawn after the headlight case. I may just shelve this idea until later.

Thanks again.

Tim

Oh, by the way, in regards to the use of full or half bright materials for number boards, that does work, having used it before on a few previous models. The use of a dirty alpha plate over these is new to me..

[Eldorado.Railroad]

You have PM.

[timmuir]

Thanks, Steve. I got your PM and even though I have scrapped the lit numeral boards on the headlight, the problem remained of the flickering firebox glow showing through the tenders of my steam engines when viewed from the back. Using your suggestion of entering at least 5000 into the Options/Video/Viewing Distance(m) drop down form, this problem has been fixed. I had been setting it at 3000m since I started using OR continuously back at x1500-something. This is what the display looks like at a 3000m setting, note the 2 locos in the roundhouse:



At 6000m, no bleed-through of the firebox glow( a setting of 5000m cuts the background mountains down to about half size):



I also noticed that the shadows of rolling stock gets fainter at the higher viewing distance numbers, just for the record.

The screen shots from the first post are from a Radeon card, I have since then replaced it with an nVidia. My system specs from Speccy:



I'm hoping Steve (Eldorado.Railroad) will fill in the pertinent tech stuff in a followup. I suspect that this will fix the bleed-through on the lit numeral boards also.

[Eldorado.Railroad]

Tim,

Please look at this post "http://www.elvastower.com/forums/index.php?/topic/24217-glow-light-issue/". It is the same issue. I hope that James can find a moment to look at it, it affects both runactivity and one of the .fx files.

This appears to be GPU agnostic, both Nvidia and ATI suffer from the same problem.

Are you sure that the fireboxes are maybe running/stoked too hot and burning through the steel? (A joke...!!)

Thanks.

[edwardk]

Tim,

Do you happen to know what models show this issue and this is especially with the fx fix that I tried? I would like to experiment with one of the effected models. Thanks

Edward K.

[timmuir]

Edward,

It's happening with my 1890's NP F-1 2-8-0's and the NP L-9 0-6-0's (seen in the roundhouse in post #6), all available here in the library.

Tim

Edit: I forgot that the F-1's in the library are not OR compatible, in that their pony trucks wobble violently. But the L-9's will work OK, just don't look out the cabview windows :sweatingbullets:...