[BB25187]

Hi all,

 nyc01, on 31 March 2013 - 08:50 PM, said:

They haven't even begun to get into any real graphics yet, we haven't even seen any content created specifically for OR?

Maybe this is because OR developers have chosen to implement things in a incremental way, as described in the roadmap?

As a developer of 3D models, I am already very pleased to get rid of the frequent crashes of the MSTS graphic engine. They usually happened when reaching undocumented hard limits (the well known 14000 vertices per sub-object is far from being the only one!), or when facing unexpected (although perfecly correct) 3D patterns. I am not even telling about improved FPS! Of course, if deveoppers do not get demotivated in the meantime and if advanced graphic features are implemented/supported in version 2.0, this will be even better!

BR

[James Ross]

 nyc01, on 31 March 2013 - 08:50 PM, said:

They haven't even begun to get into any real graphics yet, we haven't even seen any content created specifically for OR?

There is some content already that is made just for OR, which won't work in MSTS, but we're still limited by the MSTS model and texture formats right now. We're currently working towards our goal to replicate the majority of the MSTS functionality in a playable way before we push ahead with our own stuff.

If you're interested in a detailed discussion on our current graphics engine, its limitations, performance characteristics, future plans and so on, I'd be happy to answer any of your questions in a new thread.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

I think there is still a problem with this experimental feature in x1539. I have not yet come upon landslides and mud flows, but some tunnels on the WP 3rd Sub were plugged in the previous x-builds. There are quite a lot on the route, and it will take a while to drive my train through all of them.

But, what happened to the trees? A lot of the firs and spruces present their smallest profile, instead of their widest, and are therefor mostly invisible from the distance.
They still sort of turn, but when using an outside camera 2 or 3, I cannot make out where they are focussed on.

[James Ross]

 _o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha, on 05 April 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

But, what happened to the trees? A lot of the firs and spruces present their smallest profile, instead of their widest, and are therefor mostly invisible from the distance.
They still sort of turn, but when using an outside camera 2 or 3, I cannot make out where they are focussed on.

Probably bug #1164666.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Thanks, James. That is highly technical information.

Does this also affect the cruciform trees? I suppose not, since they have no proper 'profile'.

Well, that's how it goes, one man's feature is another man's bug. :wink:

It is good to have this bug tracker system. But is it worthwhile to report bugs from the daily builds? That way you and your colleagues will be flooded with bugs.
I'd rather wait for the weekly 'experimental' which is available to a wider audience. That will perhaps lessen your workload a little as I saw you were personally involved in this one.

[James Ross]

 _o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha, on 05 April 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Does this also affect the cruciform trees? I suppose not, since they have no proper 'profile'.

This only affects the forest objects (i.e. flat trees), so shouldn't be affecting anything else, including cruciform models. Do let us know if you have an issue with those though.

 _o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha, on 05 April 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

It is good to have this bug tracker system. But is it worthwhile to report bugs from the daily builds? That way you and your colleagues will be flooded with bugs.
I'd rather wait for the weekly 'experimental' which is available to a wider audience. That will perhaps lessen your workload a little as I saw you were personally involved in this one.

I'm not sure, actually. If bugs are reported on daily builds, they might get fixed before being released in the weekly experimental versions, thus reducing the bugs people are exposed to. On the other hand, waiting would give us a chance to spot and fix them ourselves without going through the bug process (though Launchpad makes it very easy to do).

That said, with graphical issues that I often deal with, I alone cannot possibly spot all, or even most, of the issues that might come up with a change - I have to rely on other people spotting and reporting many things.

It should be noted that the weekly experimental releases don't really have any extra testing - they're just a bit more convenient than following the source code repository directly. I would suggest just reporting bugs as and when you find them. :lol2:

[steamer_ctn]

Is it possible to add the "ViewingDistance" setting to the Options TAB? This will make it easier for people to adjust rather then going into the Registry Editor.

Perhaps under the experimental TAB?

Thanks

[ChrisD]

ViewingDistance.

In a previous Post I was asked to post my findings regarding different ViewingDistance settings, so here it is :)

It is safe to increase Viewing Distance to 4000. Safe means that the number of tiles loaded stays at 25. Increase to 5000 and the tile load goes up to 49. No need for that.

A viewing distance of 4000 meters loads the ground textures at 4000 meters filling most of the gap out to the horizon.

Next item is that the tree shapes do not show up until they are much closer, so I looked into that as well.

The trees I have checked so far, US2Fir1.s, US2Fir2.s US2Firs1.s and US2Firs2.s all have 2 LODS.

First LOD is set to 500 and the other is set to 2000. I have tried using Archibald to increase the second LOD value to 3500.

Hey Presto, the trees start appearing at 3500 meters. :jumpy:

Seems that OR is handling this very nicely :)

So, maybe we need a new set of trees for OpenRails. :)

Trees with increased LOD to avoid them popping up in the fields in front of Your Train.

Large solid objects like Grain Elevators, Silos and Hotels, to name a few other candidates.

Users with less powerful machines need not worry if they replace their trees with "extended LOD" ones.

If OR ViewingDistance is lowered back to 2000 the extended LOD trees disappear too.

ChrisD

[markus_GE]

 ChrisD, on 08 April 2013 - 05:33 AM, said:

ViewingDistance.

In a previous Post I was asked to post my findings regarding different ViewingDistance settings, so here it is :jumpy:

It is safe to increase Viewing Distance to 4000. Safe means that the number of tiles loaded stays at 25. Increase to 5000 and the tile load goes up to 49. No need for that.

A viewing distance of 4000 meters loads the ground textures at 4000 meters filling most of the gap out to the horizon.

[...]

It was me who asked for that - thanks a lot, I ran into a few crahses (OR and sometimes even machine) when setting it too high - the endless crahes made me forget about it, but now i´ll give it another try. Maybe at 400 even my machine can handle it at resonable FPS...

Thx again!

Markus