[James Ross]

 disc, on 01 July 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

Wouldn't real signal lights cause performance problem? I think the technique that is used in railworks would be enough. Bigger signal light glow planes with glow texture, that is faint in close mipmaps, but brighter ad distant mipmaps, with that signal lights are visible from 2 km
See this texture with mipmaps
http://f.cl.ly/items/0I222w0Q3a0p0H1l2N3r/glow_green_nm.png

What I mean is that instead of the content creator deciding how to display the light with a texture, they would specify only its visual properties (colour, brightness, dimensions, etc.) and the game engine can use whatever techniques it likes to make that work.

That said, I still think that if we can fix the mipmap problem we'd not have a very strong case for any further improvements.

[Lindsayts]

 James Ross, on 02 July 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

What I mean is that instead of the content creator deciding how to display the light with a texture, they would specify only its visual properties (colour, brightness, dimensions, etc.) and the game engine can use whatever techniques it likes to make that work.

That appears to be how Openbve works, one of the parameters of the lights being the main cone angle.

Quote

That said, I still think that if we can fix the mipmap problem we'd not have a very strong case for any further improvements.

What actually is the mipmap problem, I do not remember it being mentioned in detail.

Lindsay

[James Ross]

 Lindsayts, on 02 July 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

What actually is the mipmap problem, I do not remember it being mentioned in detail.

It is being tracked in bug #1114736; the problem is that, even though some routes use signal light textures specially designed to be easier to see from a distance, like the image in disc's post does, they don't seem to be easier to see from a distance in OR. I referred to it as 'the mipmap problem' since the technique used in the signal light texture is to customise the mipmap images.

[Lindsayts]

 CGW121, on 02 July 2013 - 03:19 AM, said:

And in real life signals are often obscured.

While the prevous three answers are reasonable, my info on the signalling rules comes from a member of the Victorian drivers signalling siting committee, a source I regard as impecable. Another point I may mention is that these rules vary between railways even in Victoria, A notable example of a clash of rules is between VLine, the local Victorian pass and infrastructure operator and ARTC, the Australian government owned infrastructure operater. There was an almight fight occured when ARTC upgraded the local Victorian line between Seymour and Albury, VLine won the battle as in Australia the states are responsible for the railways.

Openrails in the end is a world wide program, the locals in any area be it USA, Aus, Victoria, Britain, Europe, South America etc must be able to configure it to use the local rules.

Lindsay

[Lindsayts]

 James Ross, on 02 July 2013 - 01:23 PM, said:

It is being tracked in bug #1114736; the problem is that, even though some routes use signal light textures specially designed to be easier to see from a distance, like the image in disc's post does, they don't seem to be easier to see from a distance in OR. I referred to it as 'the mipmap problem' since the technique used in the signal light texture is to customise the mipmap images.

Much thanks for reminding me. My brain must be suffering from the cold as I do now remember it being mentioned.
Yes if this could be fixed it would likely be a good step forward.

Lindsay

[Lindsayts]

Postscript on my previous message, this "mipmapping problem" must be working to some degree as recently I noticed in one route (i can not now remeber which) the signal lights definitely got brighter and easier to see in the distance, You could see them distinctly reduce in size and/or brightness as one moved closer.

Lindsay

[roeter]

 Lindsayts, on 02 July 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

Postscript on my previous message, this "mipmapping problem" must be working to some degree as recently I noticed in one route (i can not now remeber which) the signal lights definitely got brighter and easier to see in the distance, You could see them distinctly reduce in size and/or brightness as one moved closer.

Lindsay

There are some German routes which have signals like that.
But they do not use the normal signal-light definitions, but have created 'semaphore' signals where the 'moving arms' are actually just coloured squares or circles. These lights 'grow' because of LOD settings. No mipmapping involved here.
These 'semaphores' are sort of large disks with the colours at different angles, and these disks rotate to show the required aspect. All works well unless you happen to have a tunnel underneath such signals - then you suddenly run into the other end of the disk with the colours for all the other aspects ....

Regards,

Rob Roeterdink