[Mike B]

Fog, if you're in it, is definitely grey. Personal experience. Unless it's thin and other light (like a sunrise or sunset reddish cast) shines through it.

Haze is more of a general reduction in clarity with distance, and does have colors. The "purple mountain majesty" and "blue mountains" are good similes, because daytime natural haze often has a blue cast to it increasing with distance and opacity. There's other haze, too: haze in SoCal and the Calif. Central Valley is often brownish (more properly, smog, but often in a layer off the ground topping at 3-4K ft elevation, so coming down Cajon for instance you might start with a clear view to distant mountains over the top of the haze/smog, then a little ways down you descend into the murk (brownish grey, with a reddish cast to the ambient light) with only a mile or 3 visibility (when I experience that returning from a trip into the Sierra while driving, I call to the others in the car "going on instruments!"), then near the bottom you come out under it and have better visibility again though probably not over 10 miles. When fires are burning, the smoke & haze is a dense brownish-grey almost-fog right down to ground level.

Even in the 1950s, you normally couldn't see the Sierra from the Central Valley in the summer. Heat haze (bluish) and smog (brownish) combined to limit visibility to 5 miles or less most of the time, so all you really saw was near you. It's gotten worse, especially in the southern Valley where seeing the Sierra from, say Fresno, is now rare enough that it makes the news with pictures when it happens.

While haze would be useful to have and be controllable in OR, I don't think we will be able to do much that's realistic with it until we get active weather.

[Genma Saotome]

Mike's post (right above) is spot on.

I used the word fog because I knew that's the term used in the software. What I was thinking was haze.

A couple of thoughts:

• It's plausible the "right" colors are subjective which in turns argues the values should be outside of the OR code where they can be easily edited.
  
• It's also plausible there might be variation from route to route
  
• That fog and haze are quite different it stands to reason what both effects are handled separately... rainy fog being quite different (and gray) than summer haze (bluish). As for smog (yuck) it too is going to be different but frankly I don't wan t to think about it.
  
• Arguable the sky itself will also vary by location (desert dry != Appalachian humidity) and so it too should not be universal.

So... A request:
Will the OR team please come up with a couple of standard names to apply to .ace files, placed in a routes \texture folder to use as the sky dome, fog, haze, and if necessary, smog colors and if found, use those instead of the existing methods. Put haze intot he distance (where fog is today) and use the new fog.ace (or whatever it will be called) to do with rain When not present, continue as is done today.

[ebnertra000]

I've heard rumblings of a master set of environments for OR in the past. If those are founded in fact the ideas mentioned here would definitely be a good starting point

[ErickC]

In video games, fog refers not to atmospheric fog, but to the haze that is used to mask the edge of the visible "world." Dave's usage here is technically correct (the best kind of correct).

[Mike B]

Thanks Erick. That sets me straight. Because OR simulates the real world, I was thinking in real world terms.

Still, if we can ever develop dynamic environments, the meteorological terms might still be worth considering. In that situation, fog and haze might be different things simulated different ways.

[jkcooney]

Genma Saotome, on 22 July 2017 - 11:36 AM, said:

Is there anyway I can experiment w/ fog color?

I'm spending time w/ another game (Naval Action) and one thing I noticed is their fog has some blue in it whereas as best I can guess fog in OR is pure gray. I was hoping I could fiddle around a bit and see if adding a bit of blue was an improvement (one does "get" more blue the further out the object in your sight).
(click on image to expand to full size; blue mountains on right are textured green... horizon on left is not foggy gray).
fog.jpg
As you can see there is a slight difference in color due to distant fog. On checking the RGB values and comparing the effect of a 1% opacity pure black it seems clear there is a slight blue cast tot he fog.

Is it worth experimenting? I dunno. Maybe. But how?

Might be due to the horizon/sky effect. After all the fog simply reflects/refracts? the light sources around it.

[jkcooney]

Mike B, on 23 July 2017 - 01:44 PM, said:

Fog, if you're in it, is definitely grey. Personal experience. Unless it's thin and other light (like a sunrise or sunset reddish cast) shines through it.

Haze is more of a general reduction in clarity with distance, and does have colors. The "purple mountain majesty" and "blue mountains" are good similes, because daytime natural haze often has a blue cast to it increasing with distance and opacity. There's other haze, too: haze in SoCal and the Calif. Central Valley is often brownish (more properly, smog, but often in a layer off the ground topping at 3-4K ft elevation, so coming down Cajon for instance you might start with a clear view to distant mountains over the top of the haze/smog, then a little ways down you descend into the murk (brownish grey, with a reddish cast to the ambient light) with only a mile or 3 visibility (when I experience that returning from a trip into the Sierra while driving, I call to the others in the car "going on instruments!"), then near the bottom you come out under it and have better visibility again though probably not over 10 miles. When fires are burning, the smoke & haze is a dense brownish-grey almost-fog right down to ground level.

Even in the 1950s, you normally couldn't see the Sierra from the Central Valley in the summer. Heat haze (bluish) and smog (brownish) combined to limit visibility to 5 miles or less most of the time, so all you really saw was near you. It's gotten worse, especially in the southern Valley where seeing the Sierra from, say Fresno, is now rare enough that it makes the news with pictures when it happens.

While haze would be useful to have and be controllable in OR, I don't think we will be able to do much that's realistic with it until we get active weather.

Agreed. It might be "nice" to have all these features... but once set the ultimate objective would be the enjoyable operating sessions rather than tinkering with weather and atmospherics.... IMHO. jc

[vince]

This video give an idea of the many colors of fog.http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/pleasantry.gif
A great example of the kind of icy cold mornings I remember from the two years I spent there.

https://www.youtube....WQdhR-8&t=1389s

A two hour video which I stopped at the 37 minute point when I saw a pinkish color to the mist which reminded me of this thread . . . and so the post for your enjoyment and to begin figuring how to incorporate such weather effects into Open Rails.

regards,
vince

[Garry]

I have just looked at Michael Vone's Route Building Guide (pages 248-249). He says that fog is controlled from the .env files.

How do I change fog color?
adjust the fog's day and night color in these lines from the .env file

world_fog_day_colour (ffffffff)
world_fog_night_colour (ff000000)

There is an explanation of the hexadecimal codes in Apendix I (page 379 onwards)

Hope this helps
Garry