[Frank Musick]

YIKES!!!!
https://youtu.be/mOFPerlSH7c

[VAPOR3D]

WOW! The lighting looks amazing... Will something like this be possible in OR someday?

[Aldarion]

likely so.

The question is... will we be able to do it?

For the sake of argument:
What would it take to use UE5 has OR's engine?

[cjakeman]

Aldarion, on 06 June 2023 - 12:07 PM, said:

For the sake of argument:
What would it take to use UE5 has OR's engine?

We know Unreal Engine can handle simulations that take place over a long distance, since Dovetail's TSW does this based on Unreal Engine. On the other hand, Unity might be a better bet as that supports C# and Unreal Engine only supports C++.

What would it take? You would be replacing the "Viewer" component of Open Rails and figuring out how to load our assets and terrain into the new engine. That might be as much effort as the Open Rails project has put into its graphics to date.

As I understand it, the appearance of content in Open Rails was pretty well matched to the old XNA graphics engine. So, if an overnight conversion to Unreal Engine 5.2 was possible, then the current content would not look much better as it was created for XNA. Now that we have Monogame and especially support for glTF coming along, it's worthwhile creating better looking content for Open Rails.

If we had a team of graphics developers, would you want them to port to Unreal Engine or improve Open Rails to look as good as your video clip does?

[Aldarion]

cjakeman, on 10 June 2023 - 07:07 AM, said:

If we had a team of graphics developers, would you want them to port to Unreal Engine or improve Open Rails to look as good as your video clip does?

My answer would be: whatever makes my workflow more simple, as a content developer!

some years back I gave up trying to export my meshes to Train Simulator Classic (railworks) and i downlaods UE to have a go on the workflow for TSW2... i dont go well on textures, let alone baking them...; I only used LOD's in my first two locomotive meshes... after that, never bothered...

[Genma Saotome]

IMO it is a very good start but in many ways everything looks too good, too sharp, too clean, and therefore unrealistic. Creepy actually. The correct term is the Uncanny Valley -- your reaction to false aspects of a digital animal (of any kind, but most often human) as the technology takes it closer to perfection. Your mind is recoiling at something very unnatural.

Perhaps it's presence here is due to just being a demo.

My point is not to criticize what can be done with the Unreal Engine but to explain any discomfort one might feel while watching this video. It can be improved, a lot. They just didn't spend the time yet.

[Weter]

Maybe, it's no more, than just a demo?
Without any plans, we expect to be...

[P Escue]

I’ve seen this request to use one of the big game engines on the forum several times now. It is natural for someone to see some game’s showcase and say why can we not have that in Open Rails. I believe that this is due mainly to a misunderstanding of what is being requested. It is believed that Open Rails will get great graphics by moving over to one of the game engines. They don’t realize what is involved nor that it will not help make the current routes any better, cjakeman has stated.

I think I can guess some of the answers as to why they don’t go this route. I don’t have any inside information from the developers, and it is totally a guess on my part, but the guess is based on my own experience. Also, this is not a flame or a putdown. You have the right to ask, what can this be done. I’m just trying to give an example of the problems involved.

Most likely, the reason for not picking one of the big game engines was resources. Moving Open Rails over to Unreal or Unity will take much programming time and money, and neither of the big game engines is open source. I know both have a “free” version, but that version is designed mainly for you to learn the platform. Game development projects today can cost as much as movie productions. A small game project on Unreal (which is also true for Unity) is estimated to cost 20 to 40 thousand US dollars. Open Rails is not a small project. Look at Dovetail Games. It has over 200 full-time employees. As for Open Source, both big game engines' license agreements have that you are not allowed to publish any code containing proprietor code. This means that it will not be open source. This means anyone working on the project must have an agreement with Unreal or Unity.

On converting to Unreal or another game engine like Unity, again, look at Dovetail. I believe they moved over to Unreal around 2016. From reading the forums and other sources, Dovetail’s port to Unreal was a very painful move, in both time and money. They found that Unreal was not very suited for train simulation, I believe I remember that one of the big problems was how Unreal handled their physics. Think about for a minute, what are the type of games that are most likely developed on a game engine. They usually involve shooting something, running, jumping, exploding, and so on, and that’s what your physics will be mainly for, and it’s not really good for running a locomotive. The problem was so great that Dovetail had to hire Microsoft to help to finally get it up and running on Unreal (and you can guess the cost to get that help, and it would not be cheap).

Again, I’m only guessing, but the move to Monogame was mainly to get Open Rails off the old XNA graphic engine that Microsoft stopped supporting so that Open Rails could continue to grow. So long as the old XNA code was used, you most likely could not go to 64-bit. Since Monogame used many of the same coding conventions that XNA used, moving over to it would take less time than moving to a whole new environment like the gaming engines.

Going with one of the big game engines may not be the way to go with Open Rails. Remember that Open Rails 1.5.1 is really version one for using Monogame. I believe that the goal for version 1.5.1 was to convert over to Monogame from XNA to get a 64-bit version Open Rails. I don’t think Open Rails has been optimized yet to take full advantage of Monogame. Just getting the 64-bit done was a lot of hard work. Monogame may give us the graphics needed. It does support 3D graphics. Both Open Rails and Monogame have people working on supporting glTf files structure.

On Aldarion, statement, “Whatever makes my workflow more simple, as a content developer.” Adding Open Rails to one of game engines will not solve this problem. Even Dovetail had to create their own route building, instead of using the Unreal game engine for route development. As you know, the nearest thing we have to that is Guko’s TSRE5. The Open Rails’ Trello shows that they want to add this type of function, but it will be some time in the future (2.x). First, it would be really hard to integrate TSRE into Open Rails since it was written in C++ and not C#. Now Guko has released his source code, so something could be done with it. I don’t know what Guko is using for his graphic engine, but I guess it will need to be updated to handle the new graphics formats and all. Maybe someone could do TSRE6, but it will take time to get it out.

If you are asking for something to do, assets like buildings, trees, locomotives, cars (wagons), and so on. I guess you could use the game engine’s design software, but you will need to subscribe to the service, and you will need to export to a format that the simulator could use or export it to something like Blender and then save it to Open Rails. Trainz have you use third-party software like CAD programs or 3DCrafter or Blender for that as long as you save to their file format. I don’t know what Run-8 has; I have not used it.

Before you go out and develop your content, you need to ask who you are doing your development for. To show graphics like Unreal 5, the person will need a computer with that capacity, memory, CPU power, and a good graphics card. Many Open Rails users don’t have this. How many people here have computers older than five years or a bare minimum system? My guess is a lot. I’m not saying that good graphics should not be a goal, but remember that they will not be available for everyone. My guess is that Open Rails will be able to support both worlds.

Phil

[Weter]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/TheKnightAtTheCrossroads.jpg
So, UE, MG, or Unity???

[Laci1959]

https://kephost.net/p/OTM1MTQw.png

Hello.

I don't think there is a game engine that would make up for the modeling deficiencies.
The locomotive on the left is the original MSTS locomotive from 2001. Five-angled bumpers, lights. You can clearly see that on one there is only a picture of the bolt clip (Chain) and on the other it is worked out.
The locomotive on the right was made in 2015-2016.
The difference is clearly visible.

Sincerely, Laci1959