[thegrindre]

I don't use Distance Mountains and my viewing distance is set for 2,000 meters.
The horizon on MSTS looks just fine but the horizon on ORTS looks pretty badly.

The terrain shadows are also missing.

What's up? Can we fix it?
This is version 2252.

MSTS' horizon;


ORTS' horizon;


:unsure:

[nicober]

Hi!

This black horizon between the ground and the sky was introduced with the experimental version X-2215. Before, this horizon was grey and less apparent than today. OK, if you just run your train with few elevetation level, you can't see this ugly black line. But in a route along the sea this ugly black bar appear rapidly with just a little elevetion of your point of view. You can't drive an airplane or a dirigeable whithout to see it. If you add more fog whith a highest point of view, you see the ground and the sky in grey and this black bar between us.

Sorry but it's very uggly and so unrealistic. :unsure:

[nicober]

Ho!

This change of color from grey to black for the horizon conicide with the change of the backgroung color of the screen loading.

2215 Updated loading screen: no text, black background and less prominent progress bad.

I don't know if there is a link with this change but it appeared at the same time. But, before the screen loading backgroung was grey and now it is black. Just a simple coincidence?

[Genma Saotome]

The location of the bottom edge of the sky has been a problem from the very beginning of the OR Project. It simply does not extend far enough down to cover all situations. IMO if it is possible to do it needs to extend well below the horizon... at least 30d. Aside from fixing this problem doing so might actually make enabling twilight possible.

I've no idea why its never been fixed.

[Csantucci]

That's worth a bug report.

[captain_bazza]

...and a limerick, too.....;-]

...The Devil is in the details...


"My sky has a crack in it!", cried Rick,
"So please could you repair it quick?"
Said Dave, with a shrug,
"It sounds like a bug,''
"Or another joke by the hand of Old Nick."

Algernon. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/whistling.gif

[disc]

Of course the terrain shadows are missing if you disable the dynamic shadows :oldstry: i have terrain shadows.

[James Ross]

Genma Saotome, on 24 May 2014 - 09:50 PM, said:

The location of the bottom edge of the sky has been a problem from the very beginning of the OR Project. It simply does not extend far enough down to cover all situations. IMO if it is possible to do it needs to extend well below the horizon... at least 30d. Aside from fixing this problem doing so might actually make enabling twilight possible.

I've no idea why its never been fixed.

Nobody seems to want to touch the sky code, unfortunately. But this is the correct fix: the black is the "nothing was rendered here" colour (which used to be gray but I made it black so people could more clearly see how much the sky fails as well as improving the loading screen - it would've been hard to change only one of the two IIRC) so we should make the sky go further down - perhaps even all the way around.

[Csantucci]

I've created a solution proposal, for test and discussion. I added to the domes below horizon level a further belt of 24X2 triangles, leaving unaltered the existing part of the dome and his 0 level. It's not completely perfect, but I think it is a good improvement.
Here a runactivity file to test with:
 RunActivity.zip (540.11K)
Number of downloads: 209
and here the patch:
 Sky.cs.patch.zip (1.69K)
Number of downloads: 207

To test I removed the distant mountains from the Bernina freeware route, looking down towards Italy from about 2100 meters.
Here the original picture at midnight:

and here the picture with the patched OR:

To get a better result the starmap .png file should be extended with a portion of the southern sky emisphere (notice that the lower part of the sky is darker, I assume because there is a wrapping of the texture).

Here by day:
Original:


Patched:


Maybe it's not completely perfect...

[Csantucci]

Hi Walter,
Sky.cs is within Source/Runactivity/Viewer3D.