[railguy]

First off, it appears that the "sound cutoff" issue has been fixed! I experimented doing a roll-by with a 70-car freight with distributed power placed on the rear. The whole train rolled by with no sound cutoff. After the rear DP rolled by, I left the camera in fixed position (using the 8 view) and let the train roll for a couple of miles--clear out of sight. The fade sounded perfect. All I had to do was change the distance parameters in the .sms files to 3000 (meters) to get a complete, smooth fade away. That revision has made the exterior sounds in OR nearly perfect, with only one exception that I can find. It is this: OR still does not handle distributed power or mid-train helpers exactly right. Compressor sounds, for example, do not operate on remote helpers. Switching cabs also disables those sounds, even in the lead unit if one switches back to it. I assume the issue is that the program doesn't completely recognize the "MU" characteristics of locomotives that are not coupled together.

Another sound feature that I discovered in OR that I like, but I don't completely understand: In MSTS, it is possible to put a volume command (it's a multiplier) either in an individual stream or for the whole .sms file. In MSTS, that volume command will only adjust the volume up to 1.0 and not beyond. I always thought that the parameter should allowed to go above 1.0. Well, I was experimenting with a DieselsWest locomotive where the entire .sms file is pretty quiet, both in MSTS and OR. So, I placed a volume command in the file to raise the volume of everything above 1.0. Well, it worked--to a point. Raising the level to 3.5 made the sound nearly perfect, but raising much above that had no further effect. Raising the volume in an individual stream to above 1.0 also had no effect. Apparently, OR has some limit to that overall multiplier, but it is above 1.0 for the overall volume command for the file.

Oddly, neither the stream volume command, nor the overall command has an effect on a cab .sms file. It appears that OR reads only the commands in the cab file that are interior sounds (radio chatter, etc.) and merely imports the exterior sounds from the engine .sms file at a reduced volume level for everything else. Is this correct? I've yet to figure all of that one out.

Overall, V1858 is a very good step ahead. I'm still hoping for a fix for the "full-throttle-smoking" loose locomotive consists. I also am anxiously awaiting the long-term goal of an OR activity editor that will take advantage of OR's advanced dispatching capabilities. As it is, making activities that I write in the MSTS Activity Editor work properly in OR is a real challenge.

All of this said, the OR developers deserve all the praise that we can offer for how far they have come with OR. Other than the AE and Route Editor, I almost never run MSTS anymore. OR just does just about everything so much better.

[captain_bazza]

Quote

In MSTS, that volume command will only adjust the volume up to 1.0 and not beyond. I always thought that the parameter should allowed to go above 1.0.

It is likely, from observing their way of doing things over the years, that Kuju's 1.0 actually represents 100% of a parameter's value. In some cases, where a parameter is above 1.0, ie superheating, then 1.2 represents superheating as 20% greater (value) than non-superheated locos. Conversely, a parameter of 0.75 represents 75%.


Cheers Bazza

PS I love this hobby. ;) But only with the right medication. :shock6:

[R H Steele]

 railguy, on 16 November 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

All of this said, the OR developers deserve all the praise that we can offer for how far they have come with OR. Other than the AE and Route Editor, I almost never run MSTS anymore. OR just does just about everything so much better.

Second the motion! Having discovered this hobby just this past January and gone from using only what was presented on the original two CD MSTS set to a setup that is now backed up on a 1T drive with a redundant backup on a second 1Tdrive, I can say this "What the heck happened to me!" It would not have gotten this out of control if the supporting platform for this madness (I believe it is the opposite of Siderodromophobia and its' closely related phobia ..fear of those who love trains .. foamophobia) had only been MSTS. Open Rails (OR or OpR? -- should a vote be taken?) has evolved quickly in the past year. Open Rails is a superb platform for all of us and the credit to its development goes to this whole wonderful community of like minded nuts and especially to the core group of very very talented people who so generously developed (and is developing) Open Rails. ;) :shock6: Cheers rhs (aka gerry)

I got a bigger clown, he's blurry because he took to much medication
[why is the fear of trains between the fear of the opposite sex - "sexophobia" and the fear of stars - "siderophobia" ... between heaven and earth .. somehow seems appropriate -- see another post by the limerick master ]

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[gpz]

 railguy, on 16 November 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

All I had to do was change the distance parameters in the .sms files to 3000 (meters) to get a complete, smooth fade away. That revision has made the exterior sounds in OR nearly perfect, with only one exception that I can find. It is this: OR still does not handle distributed power or mid-train helpers exactly right. Compressor sounds, for example, do not operate on remote helpers. Switching cabs also disables those sounds, even in the lead unit if one switches back to it. I assume the issue is that the program doesn't completely recognize the "MU" characteristics of locomotives that are not coupled together.

Currently OR cuts all sounds at 500 meter, so increasing Distance() parameter beyond this has no effect. However I will consider handling the horn sound differently in the future, but currently that one also has this same cutoff distance. The compressor sound in helper units might be a physics issue.

 railguy, on 16 November 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

Another sound feature that I discovered in OR that I like, but I don't completely understand: In MSTS, it is possible to put a volume command (it's a multiplier) either in an individual stream or for the whole .sms file. In MSTS, that volume command will only adjust the volume up to 1.0 and not beyond. I always thought that the parameter should allowed to go above 1.0. Well, I was experimenting with a DieselsWest locomotive where the entire .sms file is pretty quiet, both in MSTS and OR. So, I placed a volume command in the file to raise the volume of everything above 1.0. Well, it worked--to a point. Raising the level to 3.5 made the sound nearly perfect, but raising much above that had no further effect. Raising the volume in an individual stream to above 1.0 also had no effect. Apparently, OR has some limit to that overall multiplier, but it is above 1.0 for the overall volume command for the file.

Sound gain is clamped to 1 by OpenAL, however this is applied only for the "final" sound volume. So firstly the volume set by SalabiltyGroup is multiplied by the volume set for Stream, then by the volume of the volume curve, and finally the sound is attenuated by the distance. And when this all was calculated, only after that will the sound volume be clamped to [0, 1] range. So if you increase volume of any component to be above 1, it will have effect until the resulting volume is still below 1.

 railguy, on 16 November 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

Oddly, neither the stream volume command, nor the overall command has an effect on a cab .sms file. It appears that OR reads only the commands in the cab file that are interior sounds (radio chatter, etc.) and merely imports the exterior sounds from the engine .sms file at a reduced volume level for everything else. Is this correct? I've yet to figure all of that one out.

Cab sounds have no volume curves, and are not attenuated by distance. So the playground for this volume overshooting is much less. Practically you can set the volume of stream only as much higher as the volume of ScalabiltyGroup is below 1. The overall volume must be clamped to 1, because this is what the hardware speakers can handle, this is the maximum volume they are set up for.

[Csantucci]

 gpz, on 17 November 2013 - 02:10 AM, said:

Cab sounds have no volume curves...

Peter, maybe you wanted to say something other. VolumeCurves (e.g. Variable2 or Speed Controlled) are used within ...cab.sms files, and I also expect that they work. ;)

[gpz]

Okay, I'm sorry, I wanted to say they usually don't have that. ;) Of course they work if they are there, since cab sounds are handled by the same functions as the external sounds. :shock6:

[railguy]

 gpz, on 17 November 2013 - 02:10 AM, said:

Cab sounds have no volume curves, and are not attenuated by distance. So the playground for this volume overshooting is much less. Practically you can set the volume of stream only as much higher as the volume of ScalabiltyGroup is below 1. The overall volume must be clamped to 1, because this is what the hardware speakers can handle, this is the maximum volume they are set up for.

So, where is the sound of the trailing locomotives being picked up in the cab of the lead locomotive? Is OR picking up the cab .sms from the trailing locos or the engine .sms files? It's definitely getting the sound of those trailing locos from somewhere. In prototype current era diesel locomotives, the engine crew on the lead locomotive usually will not even hear the trailing units, unless they have the cab windows open. (And not then, really, because if the cab windows are open, they are supposed to be using earplugs.)

[gpz]

OR doesn't play trailing unit cab sounds when sitting in the leading unit cab. It plays only the external sound of other engines at reduced volume. The factor of sound insulation cannot be set, so a general value is used for both modern and older era locomotives, the same for open and closed windows.