[disc]

Hi

If you played TS20xx you've probably noticed, that the signal lights look better(and have distant flare effect) than the ones that are used in MSTS. While it's not an extra effect, just a simple texture, with handmade mipmaps, so it's possible in MSTS (but limited by the ACE format), but in OR it should perfect due to the dds and DXT5 support.
Yet i didn't see anyone tried it, so i did:

some screenshots viewed different distances from signals. (click for full size)

Also this trick makes the signal lights visible from greater distances.

The source of the texture with the mipmaps, in PSD format (when exporting to DDS you need to select "use existing" at mipmaps instead of "generate".)
 MAV_siglight.psd (138.51K)
Number of downloads: 258

[markus_GE]

That looks awesome.:sign_thanks:

I guess, it´s just some ALPHA channel fiddling, right?

Cheers, Markus

[EricF]

I toy around a little with Railworks/TSxxxx and I'm familiar with the effect. Sometimes it's nice, in other instances it looks overdone and breaks the realism, at least to me. It works well in night & low-light areas, but it should be reduced in full-daylight, at least the way I've seen it implemented.

If OR could make the intensity of the effect more flexible for all lighting conditions, it might be better. And perhaps it should be selectable to have the effect on or off - for personal preference and for lower-spec systems.

[disc]

See the attached source PSD :sign_thanks:
Signal lights always have alpha, as those are drawn on a rectangle, and the lights are usually circled :oldstry: what i've done is, add a very faint glow effect on mipmap 0 (the closest), then stronger to the second mipmap but only shines to towards the ground (as these signals have visors(that's how they say that cap to prevent the signals to made non visible due to sunshine). Then at third mipmap 360 degrees glow, then the same on other mipmaps.

[disc]

EricF, on 11 June 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

If OR could make the intensity of the effect more flexible for all lighting conditions, it might be better. And perhaps it should be selectable to have the effect on or off - for personal preference and for lower-spec systems.

It's and "Additive" texture (also in TS), so it's always less intense if the background is brighter (daylight), however not much less intensive. I've always liked this better than the dull signal lights, which aren't look like lights for me but colored disks.

BTW do anyone knows how can be the locomotive light glows edited in OR? that distance independent "supernova" effect doesn't looks realistic.

[roeter]

James and I are working on a program change which will handle the glow programatically without any need for special textures.
The principle already works, but we're still looking for the correct equation to get proper effects at both short and long distances.
Further extention of this would include a set of options, details have yet to be defined but control will be likely through special parameters in the sigcfg.dat file.
This options are likely to include :

• Different glow rates for day and night times.
  Many systems switch to less intensive signal lights at night time.
  
• No glow effect for appropriate signals like subsidiary lights, route indicators, speed indicators etc.
  
• Switching off of all lights at daytime.
  Most semaphore systems only showed lights at night.

Regards,
Rob Roeterdink

[disc]

And what about real light sources (of cource without shadow casting) for streelights, station lights, etc?

[James Ross]

disc, on 12 June 2014 - 07:23 AM, said:

And what about real light sources (of cource without shadow casting) for streelights, station lights, etc?

Something for the future. If nothing else, we'd need to figure out a good way to specify the light source itself. :)

[markus_GE]

James Ross, on 12 June 2014 - 07:31 AM, said:

Something for the future. If nothing else, we'd need to figure out a good way to specify the light source itself. :)

Probably something for the wishlist, along with this:

What about making objects hit by the light of light sources already available (train lights) cast shadows? Would create quite some cool effects at night, I suppose...

Cheers, Markus

[James Ross]

markus_GE, on 12 June 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

What about making objects hit by the light of light sources already available (train lights) cast shadows? Would create quite some cool effects at night, I suppose...

Also something for the future. We need to re-work the shadow mapping code a fair bit before that is likely possible, even for just the player locomotive at night.