[ExRail]

Blender 3.6 comes with 3ds import support out of the box, and with the app Shapeconverter R4.1 and the Blender MSTS S.file exporter,
it 'easy' to upgrade existing shapes on routes, like objects that are too bright at night and ruin the hole scenery.

Two lights many Routes are using - at least on my installation:


Attached are a zip with the Blender, Shapes and textures files for the two lights.

Attached File(s)

•  Lights.zip (613.43K)
  Number of downloads: 130

[Eldorado.Railroad]

ExRail, on 24 July 2023 - 10:12 AM, said:

Blender 3.6 comes with 3ds import support out of the box, and with the app Shapeconverter R4.1 and the Blender MSTS S.file exporter,
it 'easy' to upgrade existing shapes on routes, like objects that are too bright at night and ruin the hole scenery.

It will be interesting to see what comments this generates. If we have moved on, then we have finally closed a chapter.

This certainly looks a lot better!

Steve

[railguy]

That is indeed a very significant improvement. One of the big issues that I have with a lot of the new routes--example, from TrainSimulations--is that they seem to pretty much have given up on making the routes attractive to run at night. The light poles, etc. have little or no lightcast at all, and few actual lights are placed in the route. I recently purchased the TrainSimulations Shasta Route. In what is otherwise a pretty outstanding route, the night lighting in just pretty awful. I don't blame this so much on the route creator--I think that the lighting shapes are just so unauthentic looking at night that it has become a low priority to even place them. Maybe the OP or someone else familiar with Blender could take on the task of making a lot of existing light shapes look like those in the examples shown in the screenshots. At any rate, thanks to the OP for showing what could be done in lighting improvement within the current OR light structure.

[ExRail]

railguy, on 27 July 2023 - 02:14 PM, said:

That is indeed a very significant improvement. One of the big issues that I have with a lot of the new routes--example, from TrainSimulations--is that they seem to pretty much have given up on making the routes attractive to run at night. The light poles, etc. have little or no lightcast at all, and few actual lights are placed in the route. I recently purchased the TrainSimulations Shasta Route. In what is otherwise a pretty outstanding route, the night lighting in just pretty awful. I don't blame this so much on the route creator--I think that the lighting shapes are just so unauthentic looking at night that it has become a low priority to even place them. Maybe the OP or someone else familiar with Blender could take on the task of making a lot of existing light shapes look like those in the examples shown in the screenshots. At any rate, thanks to the OP for showing what could be done in lighting improvement within the current OR light structure.

Night and darkness is half of the experience.
This post was inspired after I did some changes to a ending station in one of my favorites routes DK2000_H, the route uses two other lights but those where not part of the original msts routes.

Before my changes


After I fixed 3 lights, the platform and a waiting room. It's still far from what It could be, I was a quick-fix so I could take a proper screenshot.


Steps:
1. ID shape name in TSRE5
2. uncompress shape
3. convert into 3ds
4. import into Blender 3.6
5. Fix
6. Export shape
7. test - if not right goto 5

[NF1-800]

Hello
I absolutely like the improvements, it changes the experience very much.
If you have other ideas/other variants, please show us.

[ErickC]

It's a definite improvement, but for added realism I would delete the cones - you can't see light cones unless it's foggy in the real world. All you should really see is the light cast on the ground.

[ExRail]

The Modloader folder in my GTA San Andreas installation has a nice package of 33 HD streetlights I would like to convert, since I already got the dff importer and they are well made and would be fun to use, but tracking down the owner takes time, and who answers email a decade later so it on hold until I find the original zip I downloaded.

But within the same topic there is Freight Animation Near lights, because without looks odd.
If your don't have access to the original train model and can make them part of the train model S. file, the only other option seams to be freight animations, and that being the case the Vectron I'm driving, I made some near lights for it, and have been happy with the results. Would be great if they could be animated on/off and linked to FRONT_HLIGHT





Attached are a zip with the Blender, shape, texture and text file with the .Eng freightanimation data/location.

Attached File(s)

•  FreightAnimLights.zip (234.97K)
  Number of downloads: 79

[ExRail]

ErickC, on 30 July 2023 - 10:17 AM, said:

It's a definite improvement, but for added realism I would delete the cones - you can't see light cones unless it's foggy in the real world. All you should really see is the light cast on the ground.

Agree, if the sim had more options such as if visibility < 5 miles set texture opacity at 25% and all that, but as a quick fix if you want to use them: make the ray texture 100% transparent in Gimp maybe resize to 32x32, or harder fix, get blender, get exporter, open file, go into Edit Mode(Tab) press "3" to select faces, select them and delete Vertices, when done go back to Object Mode and export the lights.

[Weter]

Not only foggy:
Dusty, smoggy, misty, snowy, rainy...
Thanks for the Work, You've began!