[railguy]

I believe that this has been discussed before, but a search I did couldn't find the discussion. What causes the signal display problem circled in the attached screen shot (note the squares behind the signals)?--this from the MLT Bala 2 route. Is there a fix out there for this? If I recall, I think Jovet answered this somewhere as an alpha issue, but, as I noted, I can't find the solution if there is one. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Jovet]

 railguy, on 14 January 2017 - 01:51 PM, said:

I believe that this has been discussed before, but a search I did couldn't find the discussion. What causes the signal display problem circled in the attached screen shot (note the squares behind the signals)?--this from the MLT Bala 2 route. Is there a fix out there for this? If I recall, I think Jovet answered this somewhere as an alpha issue, but, as I noted, I can't find the solution if there is one. Any help is greatly appreciated.

There isn't a good solution.

The box appears because that's how large the signal light actually is. The signal light texture is mostly alpha'd out up close, but as you get farther away, the opaque region gets larger and larger, which allows the signal light to be seen much father away.

The snow (and rain) disappears because of an alpha-sorting issue. When the signal light is drawn, the internal system doing it doesn't "know" about the snow so it isn't included in its transparent parts. This has to be fixed in the code of the game. I actually did not know about this issue, as I rarely run in snow, and this problem has been fixed for other things, like forest regions (which, IMO, was much more problematic).

If you are determined to get rid of this vexation, then you could... 1) swap out the signal light texture for another one that doesn't get "bigger" at a distance, 2) modify the light Radius values in the sigcfg.dat file to accommodate the new texture [the value 0.1 should be realistic], 3) turn on the Signal Glow feature of Open Rails.

[railguy]

I can try a different light texture. Do you have any suggestions for a workable texture (I have lots of different signal models, including yours, in other routes). If the problem is, as you say, in the OR code, then I think that should be treated as a bug in the program. I've noticed this issue in more than just the MLT signals. Thank you for the rapid response. When it comes to signal issues, I consider you the "resident expert."

[copperpen]

It is not a bug in the program. It is highlighting another MSTS fudge that was used to get longer view distances for signal glows. Do as Jovet suggests and enjoy a much better experience. I do that to all my routes.

PS: Use a siglight.ace from one of the default routes as they do not have that crazy alpha issue.

[Jovet]

 railguy, on 15 January 2017 - 08:07 AM, said:

Do you have any suggestions for a workable texture (I have lots of different signal models, including yours, in other routes).

Unfortunately, I don't have any good suggestions. I am not aware of any decent "regular" signal lamp textures. I guess I could make one sometime...

I do maintain this is a bug, because unlike MSTS, there is hope to get these signal lamps to display correctly. It's already an improvement over MSTS's artifacts.

[copperpen]

Why would you want these MLT style siglights when the OR signal glow is a far superior method of achieving the same effect.

[railguy]

I used the default signal light textures and the diameters that Jovet suggested and it seemed to fix the problem. Thanks to all for the help.

[Jovet]

 copperpen, on 15 January 2017 - 03:05 PM, said:

Why would you want these MLT style siglights when the OR signal glow is a far superior method of achieving the same effect.

Personally, I am not yet sold on the OR signal glow effect.

[Jovet]

 railguy, on 15 January 2017 - 04:32 PM, said:

I used the default signal light textures and the diameters that Jovet suggested and it seemed to fix the problem. Thanks to all for the help.

I am not very fond of the default signal light texture. That being said, it is very tricky to make a signal lamp texture that looks good. But it is very easy to make one that looks bad, and Kuju exceeded all expectations there.

Since I told you I had no suggestions for an alternative texture, I thought I should start working on some. I've been threatening to do it for years. (Oh, years.... and years... woe me...)

Here you can download a better replacement for the default Kuju signal lamp texture that came with MSTS.

This is about 10 minutes in Photoshop, so it is not how I'd ultimately like this to look and work, but it's a start. Note that this texture does have custom-MIPping, even though it's not a "sig view" enlarged texture. That means if you let a utility like Route Riter try and compress or otherwise alter it, the file will be damaged. It also means it's still fully compatible with the Open Rails "signal glow" feature. The filename is different but you can rename it and use it to overwrite the default texture anywhere it's used.

[roeter]

 Jovet, on 17 January 2017 - 06:31 AM, said:

Personally, I am not yet sold on the OR signal glow effect.

The intention is to make the glow variable. Two variables will be introduced in the sigcfg.dat file, which will allow to set specific glow values for day and night, per signal type. For instance, small shunt signals can be given a much lower glow value than main signal heads, as would be the case in reality. A further variable will allow lights be switched off during daytime, as was customary on some semaphore signals, e.g. in the UK.
Work on this has allready been done, but introduction is held until after the release of version 1.2.

Regards,
Rob Roeterdink