[dforrest]

 James Ross, on 21 April 2017 - 10:08 AM, said:

Oh, right. The orange is probably slightly less intense than the yellow but not by much. I've made a couple of tweaks in X3832:

• The labels are now visible up to 1km (was 500m).
  
• The labels now change intensity (from 50% yellow to 100% yellow) instead of changing colour.

Much better James but I still would like to see the more distant labels more transparent.

[James Ross]

 Bart, on 22 April 2017 - 06:36 AM, said:

This mod is welcome but frankly I feel the revised viewing distance of labels at 1km is too far and I preferred the previous distance of 500m. As it is the screen becomes messy if stations are close together,as it was before the original modification.

 dforrest, on 22 April 2017 - 07:37 AM, said:

Much better James but I still would like to see the more distant labels more transparent.

In X3847 I've changed it to properly fade the text out (which was what I meant to do in X3832 all along, but I missed something out and the result seemed okay at the time), and instead of fading from 100% -> 50% over the 1km, it now fades from 100% -> 0% which I hope will help somewhat with Bart's issue (if not, we can still reduce the distance).

[timothyskinner]

 James Ross, on 08 May 2017 - 12:10 PM, said:

In X3847 I've changed it to properly fade the text out (which was what I meant to do in X3832 all along, but I missed something out and the result seemed okay at the time), and instead of fading from 100% -> 50% over the 1km, it now fades from 100% -> 0% which I hope will help somewhat with Bart's issue (if not, we can still reduce the distance).

Is the "truth" here that Station names need to be 1km and Siding names 500m?

I re-collect activities run against a tight schedule that involved heavy braking from high speed at some distance (2km+) from a station so as to stop, stop for 10 seconds then get back to maximum allowed speed in minimal elapsed time.
On the other hand, switching activities in the Virtuals rely on siding names to stay on the correct path in the time allowed. Tight schedule activities at night in heavy rain can disorientate without siding names varying in brightness for distance. MSTS has 3 steps.

[mbm_OR]

 James Ross, on 08 May 2017 - 12:10 PM, said:

In X3847 I've changed it to properly fade the text out (which was what I meant to do in X3832 all along, but I missed something out and the result seemed okay at the time), and instead of fading from 100% -> 50% over the 1km, it now fades from 100% -> 0% which I hope will help somewhat with Bart's issue (if not, we can still reduce the distance).

James, thank you for your contribution in the code optimization and implementing this new functionality.

When I've been reading other comments, I’ve found some suggestions for using different settings.

There are people with different opinions, some of them prefer a distance range of 1000 meters, others want a distance range of 500 meters and there are another group of people that would like to change the label’s colour or the label’s intensity.

For all this, I attach a patch with your new code, to test different configuration, to display the labels.

In the Menu / Options / Video, there are three new checkbuttons, to make the choice.
- Distance range 1000 meters or 500 meters.
- Labels change intensity or color (Yellow to Orange).
- Labels solid or transparent color.

All of which is a proposal to test the different configurations and find the most suitable.

I attached the patch file for test-bench purpose.

Thanks for your work.

Regards,
Mauricio

[James Ross]

 timothyskinner, on 08 May 2017 - 01:25 PM, said:

Is the "truth" here that Station names need to be 1km and Siding names 500m?

You might be right... anyone else have any thoughts on this? I'd like a user option to be a last resort if we simply cannot agree. :)

[James Ross]

 mbm_OR, on 08 May 2017 - 02:17 PM, said:

James, thank you for your contribution in the code optimization and implementing this new functionality.

When I've been reading other comments, I’ve found some suggestions for using different settings.

There are people with different opinions, some of them prefer a distance range of 1000 meters, others want a distance range of 500 meters and there are another group of people that would like to change the label’s colour or the label’s intensity.

For all this, I attach a patch with your new code, to test different configuration, to display the labels.

Thanks for this patch; I'll keep this on hold for a few days before we decide whether we need these options or not.

[dforrest]

The modified display is a great improvement but could fade better when the finite distance is being reached.

[mbm_OR]

 dforrest, on 09 May 2017 - 12:27 PM, said:

The modified display is a great improvement but could fade better when the finite distance is being reached.

After running a lot of routes to test label transparency, I could see that, when we had a very low value for the alpha channel, in certain scenarios it had an incorrect visual effect.

By testing the code (Material.cs), I could see that by modifying the SpriteSortMode value from Immediate to Deferred, it makes label transparency fading correctly, but it's not the solution. The labels are sometimes truncated by route objects.

I think that an expert into OR graphical engine would be welcome.

For the moment, the only contribution I can do, it's a code to auto-switch distance range value between 1000 m or 500 m, at run-time. We will not need anymore a check-button for it.
I hope it will be useful.

Attached is patch file.
15/05/2017. Deleted for a new patch update.

[James Ross]

 mbm_OR, on 12 May 2017 - 07:08 AM, said:

After running a lot of routes to test label transparency, I could see that, when we had a very low value for the alpha channel, in certain scenarios it had an incorrect visual effect.

Do you have a screenshot? Alpha blending is terribly hard to get right and if we're not drawing things in the right order, it will look wrong.

 mbm_OR, on 12 May 2017 - 07:08 AM, said:

By testing the code (Material.cs), I could see that by modifying the SpriteSortMode value from Immediate to Deferred, it makes label transparency fading correctly, but it's not the solution. The labels are sometimes truncated by route objects.

As above, I'd be interested in some examples of how this is looking better, but also how it is "not the solution".

 mbm_OR, on 12 May 2017 - 07:08 AM, said:

I think that an expert into OR graphical engine would be welcome.

Hello. :)

[mbm_OR]

Some screenshots:

SpriteSortMode.Immediate.
Removed by fix.

SpriteSortMode.Deferred.
Removed by fix.

Regards,
Mauricio.