[Laci1959]

Quote

I remember finding these teaser shots back when and being very excited...alas.

Hi.

That's why it was a shame to write a separate game. OR is also capable of such a thing. The elaborateness of the locomotive depends only on the determination and patience of the modeler.
And from the hardware used.
There is a thread where the makers present such elaborate models.

Sincerely, Laci1959

https://kephost.net/p/2022/47/407_e5b11d6b0147.png

https://kephost.net/p/2022/47/1836_ab87a811805d.png
The first two pictures are of an old 3D track somewhere in Hungary.

https://kephost.net/p/2022/47/5666_a9481cf82fc3.png

https://kephost.net/p/2022/47/5511_00deb1e9e579.png

https://kephost.net/p/2022/47/5084_12ecd72de4e7.png

[ErickC]

MSTS2 would have been great as it would have been the first true railroad simulator (i.e. the rails are built on a continuous 3D world with a functional weather system, not a giant model railroad layout with different sky backdrops). Unfortunately the issues at ACES combined with the community backlash from the simulator being designed differently than MSTS1 are probably what doomed it. There was nothing but negativity from the MSTS community because MS was designing a railroad simulator and not a model railroad simulator like MSTS1 or TS20xx.

To this day, you still can't point out that the spline track system developed for MSTS2 was a higher-resolution version of the tried-and-true methods used to create roads and railways in MSFS. You still get a wall of negativity from people stuck in the model railroad mindset. You can point out that the way it's implemented has always allowed for customization because people were (and are) absolutely convinced that the default autogen scenery was all that was ever going to be available in most areas - nevermind the fact that scenery developers have been flattening default MSFS scenery and building custom, even fictional, scenery for ages. People were convinced that it would be the end of custom route building. And how many route builders are there now? The autogen scenery in FSX looked better than most of the legacy MSTS routes available to us. And the most generic of autogen scenery in the current version of MSFS completely blows that content away, even at ground level. So what was the point of even complaining?

Genma Saotome, on 19 November 2022 - 09:16 PM, said:

As for the possible product, they were talking about using information in Google Maps to create the paths for the rail routes. Fine for modern stuff, very spotty at best for older things. IIRC there was never any indication that any content from MSTS would transfer into the new product.

Bear in mind that this would have just been for the default rails - one of the neat things about MSFS that I'd wager would have carried over is you can not only customize your scenery, you can confine your custom scenery to certain years. As an example, you could have the Berlin wall appear in 1961 and disappear in 1989. So you could have had the possibility of developers creating different track splines and scenery for different eras reflecting changes over time. Just set the date to another decade and be transported back in time. I don't see the non-transfer of MSTS content as a bad thing - even in 2010 most legacy MSTS content just wasn't going to look good in a contemporary game.

[Genma Saotome]

ErickC, on 26 November 2022 - 03:08 PM, said:

I don't see the non-transfer of MSTS content as a bad thing - even in 2010 most legacy MSTS content just wasn't going to look good in a contemporary game.

I disagree. It would not matter all that much if most things looked like poor 2001 models, they would have been dumped ASAP. What compatibility would have done is extend a welcoming hand to everyone using MSTS -- a large extant community -- at what would have been most likely not much cost: a couple of conversion programs for the various SIMIS files, and perhaps lending a hand to whoever wrote our modeling files to enable them to export to .fsx. MS would have their native stuff of course. The combination would have kicked Railworks' first product to the curb. As for copyright issues, you cannot copyright a list of data nor obstruct access to a file format so all of the data files are, essentially, open to conversion. Conversion of world files might have been disputable as the placement of objects does exhibit creativity. As for the models, most modelers don't like this but mesh is not protected by copyright when it is attempting to recreate a real world object so even a .s file conversion would have passed muster in court (tho it would have been less controversial if they told creators to export to .fsx). Art is automatically copyright protected, so to get .ACEs over to MSTS people would have to have the original artwork and save them to whatever MSTS 2 wanted.


*Edit: a couple of typos fixed.

[Weter]

20 years back, there where NovaLogic company - the developer of variety combat sims (aircrafr, helicopter, tank, troops) and they have declared an intention to create an "integrated battlespace" (IBS). they have already used the same set of scenery, similar editors, and made two fighter sims almost compatible (F-16 and MiG-29)
So, I've thought: Planes, fighters and trains could co-exist in virtual World by MS as well.

[Genma Saotome]

Laci1959, on 24 November 2022 - 11:53 PM, said:

Hi.

That's why it was a shame to write a separate game. OR is also capable of such a thing. The elaborateness of the locomotive depends only on the determination and patience of the modeler.
And from the hardware used.
There is a thread where the makers present such elaborate models.

Sincerely, Laci1959]

But a railsim is not a locomotive sim, no matter what the locomotive fanboys think.

The hope for OR, when it was brand new, was that a dedicated group of programmers would have a reasonable chance of keeping up with ever evolving graphics and OS evolution and use that for a realistic railroad simulator. I don't know if that was simply far too ambitious a hope to be realistic, or the necessary team didn't show up (or gel), or that a flame for that hope was kept but there were so many other things that needed to be dealt with. Whatever the reason, it hasn't happened. Monogame OR is still a fork and AFAIK it was scoped to only lay the foundation for advancing the graphics towards something modern, not actually doing it. We can all hope the other shoe does drop.

I think it is correct to say the presented appearance of OR hasn't changed much. IIRC shadows were added in late 2008, maybe 30 months after the start of the project. IIRC that was the last change to appearance until Reshade came with the Monogame fork -- and if I have forgotten something notable, I apologize in advance -- faulty memory, not intent.

We do have something considerably better than MSTS but OR is nearing an age not far off of where MSTS was when OR started. And there are far fewer users now. This may be about as advanced as we will ever get.

[jaytrain2]

Those are some nice screenshots of MSTS 2! I didn't know MSTS 2 was going to do a spline track system, that would have made route building a lot easier. Interesting that Trainz 2004 was I believe announced some time after MSTS 2, and it, of course, followed through and delivered on its promises!