[Noli]

Hi,

While playing around today I noticed the terrain illumination by a locomotive headlight is quite disturbing on uneven terrain (see attachment).
Is there a way to soften this effect?

Thanks. :bigboss:

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[charland]

Not only that but you shouldn't see any headlight illumination at noon, you should only see a brighter daylight on all the terrain.



Paul :-)

[James Ross]

The headlight is done as a directional light source so its effect on terrain varies based on the angle of the terrain, which can cause some weird uneven effects.

[Noli]

Alright, so this works by design. Thanks for the prompt reply. :bigboss:

[eric from trainsim]

It would be interesting to see if it could be set as a scalar value vs. a constant. As noted, a headlight in the daytime shouldn't be noticeable on the terrain when the available ambient light is at a higher level than the candlepower/lumens of the headlights.

[Genma Saotome]

Something else that comes into play is when the OR team coded up headlights the absence of MSTS code to study meant a certain amount of free thinking would be necessary to accomplish any headlight illumination. This free thinking is most evident in how OR uses the Radius() and Angle() parameters.

No idea what KUJU does with those two but what OR does is this:

• Radius is measured from the headlight to the furthest limit of where the headlight is seen. It assumes a full sphere of illumination. The unit of measure is a valid distance unit, such as meters.
  
• Angle is how much of that sphere is actually displayed. The unit of measure is degrees and the value is applied as a limit formed by a cone centered upon an imaginary line coming straight out of the headlight with its peak at the headlight.

So Angle is what forms the cone of light and radius determines the size of the cone.

Additional research turned up the facts that many locomotive headlights would be well represented in OR with a value for Angle in the 4-5 degree range. I see many .engs with a value of 20-30. I'm sure the neighbors love that. Correct distance (as represented in Diameter() ) will vary by what's required to stop the train... long heavy freights will need a headlight cast out much further than a two car commuter unit needs.

Hope this helps.

[markus_GE]

B) for the info. Doing a quick scan through all my rolling stock to fetch such errors left me quite quite a long list, probably not to be fixed manually (looking forward to the time when I get DPU to doing that). Anyway, I now at least won´t have to do the reasearch on this anymore ;)

Cheers, Markus