[dforrest]

Herb, your problem and the problem I discussed in this thread about camera view 2 and 3 being easily, accidentally, moved underground appear to me to be related. For example, I am running my first switching activity in the RGS route and camera view problems are causing my immense difficulty. I run the activities mainly in camera 2 mode so that I can move the camera around to see all the information I need for the switching. Very often the view goes below the terrain (this happens on flat terrain on also on hillsides) and I therefore am interrupted in my monitoring of the switching while I correct the camera view. This in some cases causes me to overrun a switch while I could not see what was happening!

Surely this is not what the sim should be showing. How does this effect new users opinion of the sim?

To repeat, this was discussed earlier in this thread but the posts were lost. Can something please be done (as was agreed in the “lost” posts)?

[mbm_OR]

dforrest, on 08 April 2019 - 04:07 AM, said:

Can something please be done (as was agreed in the “lost” posts)?

Hi David,

The RunActivity-Camera-X131-24.zip file was agreed in the “lost” posts, but it does not pass all my tests, so I consider it's a work in progress, that is why it should not be proposed to merge into the official version.

Camera Keys:

• 2 and 3. Camera stick to terrain level.
  
• Alt + 8. Free camera.
  
• 8. Climb to terrain level.

Attached is an upgraded testing code.
 RunActivity-Camera-StickToTerrain-X131-46.zip (1.19MB)
Number of downloads: 583

Regards,
Mauricio

[dforrest]

Mauricio, thank you for the update. Can you tell me what happens with it now?

[mbm_OR]

dforrest, on 08 April 2019 - 12:20 PM, said:

Can you tell me what happens with it now?

You could check what happens if the train travels through tunnels.
This issue was detected some time ago, it requires more time to find a possible fix.

In the meanwhile, the functionality of this proposal is limited and incomplete.

Regards,
Mauricio.

[dforrest]

It is almost two years since I first raised this issue and there was initially considerable discussion on it but very little recently. It appears to be agreed that some modifications are necessary but nothing has been done. Does anyone know what the current position is with this?

[vince]

I'll make a guess David; Since it's only a minor visual issue, other more pressing fixes come first.

regards,
vince

[dforrest]

I would not categorize it as a "minor visual issue". For an inexperienced user it completely disrupts and stops the running of an activity in the sim with no obvious way to recover from it. For an experienced user, for example running a shunting (switching) activity and looking to correctly complete a difficult operation, it often makes completing it in the time frame available, impossibly. Surely this is not a new feature (it is not in MSTS!) which we should have.

[Genma Saotome]

Code to test for a collision between ground and camera was identified and suggested (IIRC) in the first 6 months of the projext. Nothing has ever been done with it, no doubt because none of the programmers were interested in doing anything about it. Disinterest is usually the reason for things not getting done on any volunteer effort and it seems to be the case here, even tho it probably would be a trivial task to do.

[YoRyan]

Well in my opinion, this is a legitimate bug, and it's worth looking into. Every other video game I can think of snaps the camera to the terrain. It's surprising and occasionally irritating that we don't do so, too.

Unfortunately, Mauricio never made the source code of his changes public. Otherwise, I would have considered cleaning them up and merging them into the official release.

Genma Saotome, on 12 November 2020 - 11:07 AM, said:

Disinterest is usually the reason for things not getting done on any volunteer effort and it seems to be the case here, even tho it probably would be a trivial task to do.

Mostly correct, except I would caution against assuming any program changes amount to a "trivial task." :whistling:

[vince]

David I sincerely apologize for my unkind words and to the community as well. No excuse for it.

sincerely,
vince