[CrisGer]

I see dynamic shadows (with that box ticked) under the trains, but not under scenery objects like ladders, stairs, and water tanks.

so we need to turn on MSTS environments/ or some other way?

thanks..

i used dynamic shadows in the shadow line for the REF files.

Chris

[scottb613]

Hi Chris,

Do you have the option for "All Objects Cast Shadows" turned on ?

Regards,
Scott

[CrisGer]

wow no i didnt see that let me look for it

where is it?

chris

[CrisGer]

I looked everywhere, the only shadow entry is Dynamic Shadows and that is turned on

but no where did i see "All Objects Cast Shadows" do i have o set that in MSTS? or use the MSTS enviroment check box?

[SVRy_Steve]

OR options

[vince]

Good Morning,
Setting shadow all objects . . . . Really? Why would you do something that will bog down your system?

Casting dynamic shadows is one of the most difficult operations a video system has to do. On a dense populated scenery route it's guaranteed to tank your frame rates.

What I do is set dynamic shadows for all objects that can be seen from the train, driver or passenger.
A good rule to follow is no more than 500 meters each side of the ROW.

Now I know your thinking that's a lot of selecting objects to turn on shadows but it turns out not to be the case.
I've spent the past week turning on Dynamic Shadows for the 250 mile stretch between Harrisburg Pa. to Pittsburgh Pa. Thousands of trees, buildings, bridges . . .like I said, if I can see it from the train it gets a dynamic shadow. So . . . only a week to do all that?
Sure, if you use the TSRE context menu.
Here's how; I select an object, a tree clump used as track side vegetation . . . Right click anywhere when the object (the tree clump) is selected.
You'll see lots of selections but here are the two interesting ones.
1.) Select similar 1x1 and 2.) Select similar 3x3

When you select either of these you will see that all the tree clumps with the same shape will get selected.

Could be just a couple or hundreds anywhere on the current tile (1x1 selected) or if you select 3x3 the surrounding 9 tiles.
Here you have to be selective as sometimes the builder has dumped these tree clumps everywhere and it'd be a waste of resources to set them all on (just as shadow all objects is)

This is great for setting shadows for ROW veggies but separate shapes like houses and other structures will still need manual shadow setting.
Think about just how many shapes are on a tile that DON'T need shadows either because they're too small or don't render shadows well, grass for instance. You'll drive the video system nuts trying to render shadows for a billion blades of grass.
Also think of telegraph/signal wires on poles . . . some are constructed as alpha objects and the wires shadow appears as a solid block . . . not nice. Wires also do not render well. Too small? IDK.

So it's real work to bring out that sense of immersion in the Sim but well worth it if done carefully with the thought of trying to keep the video processing within limits.

Here's another . . . Y'all probably know I've been prepping the PRR-East-V2 for release. Lot of catenery here . . . Easy as pie setting dynamic shadows for all the catenery support structures. THIS is where the context menu Select Similar 3X3 really shines. The route is in Beta now and I'm tuning several activities.
I totally reject to notion of "shadow all shapes" unless your working on a route that does not have dense scenery. On densely populated routes like the LIRR and the PRR-East it will simply kill your frame rate display. Slide show anyone?
Bob Wirth's routes would be great to use the Shadow all Shapes option.
So it all depends on the route. Open land great. Dense urban or dense forests not so much.

The Shadow all Shapes checkbox is on the Options ==> Video Tab
If used you should test with the most crowded tile on your route. Many low scenery density routes could well use this option but if used on routes with dense scenery it will tank your frame rates.

regards,
vince

[CrisGer]

thanks Vince the problem was that i didnt have the latest version of OR so the option was not there.

our route is a single track and scenery is only near the track so i want shadows for it all, later on may reconciser but for now since we are making a historic location and the trains cannot travel more than 12 miles an hour and we will only use the route for OR on high end computers which will be a stated requirment, frame rate is not an issue. but thanks for your thoughts and it is great to hear about progress for PRR.

Chris