[Barry Riedl]

I've been enjoying Open Rails (thank you!), but I've been wondering if there are plans to tone down the headlight brightness?
They seem to be too bright to me compared to the in-game sunlight?
Thanks!
Barry

This post has been edited by Barry Riedl: 30 June 2013 - 06:44 AM

[Train-a-Mania]

I think part of the problem is that the ambient light in the sim is too low.

[paulytechnic]

Train-a-Mania, on 30 June 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

I think part of the problem is that the ambient light in the sim is too low.

Agreed...the ambient sunlight should be at least bright enough to overpower the headlight in the daytime.

[disc]

The ambient light is too bright already. If it would be brighter, shadows would disappear.

[CGW121]

Perhaps we have it backwards. These are all imports from mtsts. Maybe OR has it right and msts is wrong, in other words the best solution may be to adjust the overly bright headlights that are carried over from msts to levels that are appropriate for Open Rails.

[paulytechnic]

This is only my opinion, but regardless of the headlights, my thinking is that the overall brightness is too dim, especially on a clear afternoon day. It almost reminds me of model railroad lighting: it's bright, and everything is certainly well-lit and visible, but it's not piercing daylight. Of course, this is all relative, since everyone's monitors are set differently (which might be solved by a user-adjustable brightness/gamma setting in Open Rails).

I've already adjusted the headlights on most of my ENG files (which by default, definitely were WAY too bright), which does make some difference in Open Rails, but not as much as what I would have hoped. My thinking is that headlights shouldn't make any difference in the environment in the middle of the day. For example, when you're driving in your car during the daytime in the bright sun and you turn on your headlights, you shouldn't notice any difference in the way things are lit up on the outside. Just how the beam from a flashlight wouldn't show-up on the ground outside in the middle of the day. From what I've seen, most of the simulators out there are guilty of having headlights light up the ground in bright sunshine, which I've never seen in real life. At most, you'd see the headlight itself illuminated, but not illuminating anything else.

Now dusk & dawn are different, of course, and the real trick would have it transition smoothly between full darkness and daytime.

[Genma Saotome]

OR handles the cone of light differently than does MSTS (no MSTS source code to follow) and one result is seen in the cone of light, specifically in the parameters radius() and Angle(). Here's what's going on: Assume a full circle of light emanating from the headlight, which is at the center point. The radius of that circle is defined in the lights section by -- you guess it -- Radius(), using meters as the unit of measure. Now assume a line extending from the center point directly out of the locomotive terminating on the circle. The cone of light is then created on both sides of this line, with an angle at the center point measured in degrees, plus AND minus, from that line. That's what goes into Angle(). Most North American Locomotive headlight bulbs used a dispersion angle in the plus/minus 3.5 to 5 degree range.

So... if you want your headlights to look real, change the value of Radius() to some distance in meters that a headlight will cover... anything between 600 and 1500 should do and then change Angle() to 4 (just to try it out). The new data will project your headlight well above the track in front of the locomotive (remember, it's awfully hard to stop these things in a short distance and besides, that's what ditch lights are for) and it will no longer illuminate the neighborhood's bedroom windows, lined up adjacent to the ROW, much to their sleeping relief.

[BB25187]

Hi,

CGW121, on 30 June 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

Perhaps we have it backwards. These are all imports from mtsts. Maybe OR has it right and msts is wrong, in other words the best solution may be to adjust the overly bright headlights that are carried over from msts to levels that are appropriate for Open Rails.

Agreed. The sphere of light is defined with four hexadecimal numbers: the first one defines the brightness, the last three ones the color. When this brightness is set to the maximum possible value (FF) as it is the case in most existing engines, the rendering in MSTS remains relatvely dark, whereas it is very high (as it should) with OR. So, it seems to be a better idea to adapt the ENG file than arbitrarily limiting the possible brightness in OR. Indeed, the brightness obtained with this FF value could be useful for specific usages and vehicles (works especially).

Regards

[James Ross]

In the dead of night, I consider the light cone to be the right brightness (especially considering locomotives having maximum, FF, brightness set), but during the day it is too bright. This is a known issue.

[Genma Saotome]

James, could there be a simple solution here with HeadlightBrightness = FF - ( Lightcolor(brightness) - CurrentAmbientLight(brightness))? In daytime the HeadlightBrightness would be rather low and at night rather high, with variation at times between?

Just a thought.