[ExRail]

I was frustrated with the lack of snow in front on the train when not parked, that got solved with setting the precipitation box to 100 height, 500 width, 2500 length, but then increasing the particle count so it looked cool made the FPS drop dramatically, so I increased the size of the snowflake.png texture to 256x256 and made many flakes in the same texture, I now got more snow without a fps drop. Next I turned the diselsmoke texture into a snow texture and played with the 4 particle emitters in the eng file, placing two in front of the train and two down with the snow plow. Then enabling Reshade's motion blur and layer function (the top gradient transition) made it work well i think.

The results: (Audio warning!)
https://vimeo.com/663744464

Would be nice to have 4 separate direction controlled environment emitters using texture from the route folder or have a blizzard weather settings, to avoid messing with the diesel smoke.

Attached File(s)

•  Blizzard.zip (118.21K)
  Number of downloads: 215

This post has been edited by ExRail: 08 January 2022 - 04:39 PM

[Borislav]

This looks very good!

[ExRail]

Weter, on 08 January 2022 - 02:58 PM, said:

Thank for sharing - true winter feeling.
Need to think! :sign_thanks: :sign_rockon: :cool3: :good2: :thumbup3:

Much appreciated, I've just uploaded the textures and emitter settings involved in this 'mod' if anyone want to try a Fimbulwinter mod themself.

Come to think of it, these settings are missing in the zip(eng) file:
DieselSmokeEffectInitialMagnitude( 5 )
DieselSmokeEffectMaxMagnitude( 20 )
DieselSmokeEffectInitialSmokeRate( 5 )
DieselSmokeEffectMaxSmokeRate( 40 )

Edit: btw: My Pc is Ryzen 7 1800X / GTX1060 3GB - capturing the video made the fps drop just below 60, it runs smooth when not capturing and no monster pc are needed for this.

[Coonskin]

Definite progress.

What does the snow effect look like without the engine smoke particles? Can that effect be lessened if desired?

Also, is there a way so that trees and objects don't cast shadows when it snows?

Thank you very much for experimenting with this. The poor precipitation effects in OR have been one of my strongest dislikes.

[Aldarion]

don't know what's more cool the new snow texture you made or the video's soundtrack :derisive:

[ExRail]

Coonskin, on 08 January 2022 - 05:48 PM, said:

Definite progress.

What does the snow effect look like without the engine smoke particles? Can that effect be lessened if desired?

Also, is there a way so that trees and objects don't cast shadows when it snows?

Thank you very much for experimenting with this. The poor precipitation effects in OR have been one of my strongest dislikes.

The first problem is that the precipitation box seams not to follow the trains axis but is locked to a compass direction, so with settings like mine above, only south/north or properly reversed travel gives snow in front of a fast moving train, going East hits the narrow edge of the rectangle. Making the box square is producing to many particles and strain the cpu/gpu to much.

Changing the snowflake.png texture only, gives a good effect when Reshade motion blur is enabled, looks too rough/sharp when not using that. See attached picture with it enabled.
The ideal solution I think would be two precipitation boxes one large with patches of snowflakes, the other a small one close to the train with only single flakes particles.

Unlinking it from the diesel smoke system and throttle settings, and getting dedicated emitters would be needed for this to be more than a demo, that only works at high speeds and special lighting/haze settings and only work on diesel trains.

Sometimes the Sun and shadow look great in snow, but Ii think the shadows intensity and sharpness should be linked to the visibility/haze/cloud cover settings so it's off in a blizzard/foggy/Heavy rain condition.

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[Csantucci]

Impressive!

[Serana]

It looks great indeed!

[FS.E652 091]

Very interesting, I would like to know if this improvement can also be extended to rain and wind (which is currently present but graphically or physically does not affect the program) ..
It would be very interesting to be able to think of implementing such an improvement, given that however subjectively, the weather in general on Open Rails, including the phenomena, are not very good considering the graphic potential of the program .. (I have spoken several times about lightning , of the real weather through coordinates that was already present on the Flight Simulator 2004 so what problem would there be to implement these graphic improvements on a simulator like Open Rails!)

[ExRail]

There is an Experimental function I would like to see added in relation to haze/fog - Oscillating visibility,
when enable it takes the current value and the users choice of +/- % and wavelength in Meters,
say +20% -5% 2000m, will make it increase to 20% at 500 meters and decrease to -5% at 1500 meters.

Yesterday I was test driving a this route White Pass & Yukon Route
With this function parked at the 'foot of the hill' knowing there is 5 km to the pass one could create a foggy pass or a foggy start and a clear pass.


Here I've placed the smoke emitters 350/450 unit out if front of the train to try to emulate a volume foggy mountain pass,
and I'm adjusting the visibility a bit up/down as I go.
https://vimeo.com/ma...ideos/664286747