[Eldorado.Railroad]

pschlik, on 16 August 2024 - 01:18 PM, said:

Folks with the ambition to build content at an incredible level of 3D detail are out there, but will be making content for sims that better support their ambition (both in terms of sim capabilities and in terms of large audiences to buy that stuff up)...so I'd have to guess that there'd be only a little interest in anyone actually building OR content to an even higher standard than what's possible now. Not to mention the decades worth of old content that would still swing the needle to 'ew Open Rails is old' whether or not there are locomotives that you can open doors and walk around.

I think "if you build it, they will come". You would be surprised how nice large textures with real detail in them and more detailed models look in Open Rails. I have enjoyed that many times. But, our "rules" forbid showing those results without bringing in a whole bunch of "arm chair" legal wannabes. It seems it is easier to pretend that you are a lawyer then to sit down and actually build models that are to 2024 "standards". Over the years I have seen a lot of "old timers" descend like a ton of bricks on anybody breaking any "rules". So I know it is your loss. The only people who really profit from stopping/enforcing any reverse engineering are those who claim that upgrading models to 2024 standards is contrary to "our" current IP "laws". From time to time I spot a screen grab from Open Rails that somebody has uploaded and suspiciously it looks like one of those reverse engineering jobs of a model/texture from another sim.

Perhaps in some future time, when the grim reaper has me in his grips, I will stop worrying about how to present a method to enjoy much higher quality models without cheating the creator out of a single dollar. But alas nobody can see what you have. All must be kept secret, so the public at large is no further ahead. I give you the true meaning of IP, which is idiotic paucity.

Barring the previous paragraph, I challenge you to look at other sims and up your game to 2024 standards. That will get rid of the shenanigans that plague our hobby. There is money to be made with content that is worth buying.

My thoughts only,
Steve

[Eldorado.Railroad]

ckawahara, on 16 August 2024 - 02:17 PM, said:

Things I've wondered about:

How does one know just how authentic/realistic the visual effects are in other sims? To me they are pretty visuals.

It's one thing to be able to code is C, but how does a coder know what variables to call out?

How does a coder know where to get the physics behind a effect?

Question are just from an idle mind and not meant to be answered.

Most of the solutions are "models" of guesses. Most of the solutions get updated and feign a certain level of realism over time. I can think of quite a few compromises in Open Rails. Yes, because of the way the c# code is documented for this project, a developer will face a steep learning curve. This is exacerbated by c# itself which is kludge that is specific to satyasoft. Many times I have looked at c# and thought, yeah, doable, with some effort, but then I look at who owns the compiler and I always come up with the same answer. This is unlike, say Python, or Rust, or even plain C....not c#. Unlike c#, these languages are not proprietary/exclusive to one and only one platform, and thus would suit me better.

I suppose if you eat and breathe satyasoft then you would set up a computer to do that kind of work. I still balk at doing this exclusively for c#. So be thankful that there are a few who have done just that, who are comfortable with the only compiler available to produce code for Open Rails. Heaven help us with Win 11!

Steve

[Genma Saotome]

Eldorado.Railroad, on 16 August 2024 - 05:46 PM, said:

I think "if you build it, they will come". You would be surprised how nice large textures with real detail in them and more detailed models look in Open Rails. I have enjoyed that many times. But, our "rules" forbid showing those results without bringing in a whole bunch of "arm chair" legal wannabes. It seems it is easier to pretend that you are a lawyer then to sit down and actually build models that are to 2024 "standards". Over the years I have seen a lot of "old timers" descend like a ton of bricks on anybody breaking any "rules". So I know it is your loss. The only people who really profit from stopping/enforcing any reverse engineering are those who claim that upgrading models to 2024 standards is contrary to "our" current IP "laws".

I do not like it when somebody uses another persons work and claims it for their own. It's a moral issue for me and it's says something about a persons character. However, with proper credit given it's not a problem w/ me.



And then there is the absurdity of our actual copyright laws, distorted by the biggest rent seeking* corporation in the US -- Disney. An example: This post is copyrighted to me for a term of the rest of my life plus 75 years. Nobody can legally quote it w/o my permission. Stupid, right? Well it is the law and the law is the reason the user agreement for this site says a member grants in perpetuity the right of other members to quote it and that's present because one former member tried to close this board by claiming his copyrights were being violated because he was quoted and I refused to delete the post that held the quote. Really, some people's kids.

As for our homegrown ip lawyers, the vast majority don't know what trademark means and that is it about as different from copyright as salt is to soap, nor do they know most of the model mesh we've produced for locomotives and rolling stock is ineligible for copyright protection, or the fact getting a lawyer to take someone to court for real copyright violations will cost them more than $30,000, so wtf, why bust a gasket about it?

* rent seeking.

Quote

People are said to seek rents when they try to obtain benefits for themselves through the political arena.

As in getting Congress to change the term of copyright from 32 years to 90 years , BACKDATED, so companies like Disney can regurgitate ancient product for decades to come instead of having them fall into the public domain where anybody could make their own movies of those characters and ideas.

[Weter]

ATSF3751, on 14 August 2024 - 04:58 PM, said:

Spoiler

When I started this thread I was not expecting it to go this far or last this long. However I am happy to see so many agree with me and have come up with some fantastic ideas. From what I have seen over the years the ORMT seems to work on what they want, when they want and I completely understand that as I do the same thing when it comes to my modeling. Lets just say I have so many projects half done I do not even know where to begin with starting to finish them all. That all being said I am grateful for the ORMT with what they have accomplished so far and hope Open Rails will continue into the future but I do feel we need some younger people like myself to get more involved with the coding, and discussion aspect of it if we want to see Open Rails go farther then it is right now.

Now I do not code but I feel we need to look at getting another group together of younger people to help the older folk who are coding so we can keep Open Rails going for the future. Same goes for modeling and other aspects as well as life is a revolving door. People leave and or pass away and there is no one to replace them. Meaning there knowledge and how to do things goes with them as well. As our community gets older I do fear that Open Rails will die along with them. This needs to be looked at and also and treated with a grain of salt. None of us are granted the next day or the day after that so its up to all of us as a community to look at the whole picture and start looking for younger people to take over.

I hate to say it but the ORMT seems to be the classic Good Old Boys Club who isn't willing to let anyone else in to learn coding or help others who are wiling to jump in and learn. Its more of a let us do our thing and you just go off and play the game type of thing. Yes I do understand it is hard to find coders to help out but the ones who want to help out and have great ideas seem to get pushed away and are not listened to like they should be.

We can keep asking for the same things over and over again until our face turns blue but unless the ORMT agrees that something needs to get done it wont. As the old saying goes if you want something done go ahead and do it yourself.

Just my thoughts and hope some people take to heart what I have to say!

Brandon

Hello, Brandon.
Have read that with a great pleasure.
But do You notice: young people's interests are being shifted now. I mean, from technic to virtual nothing to do, but get pleasures. In 19-th century, railroad was like cosmonautics-the top of progress in public opinion. In 20-th usual, but very important thing, sometimes exciting; though,many were interested, many dreamed to tie their life with... Romantism. In 21-st century?.. Little-interesting routine for many, something between sewerage and waste trucks: everyone sees, many use, but few excited about. So, You want to see coders (coding is now less popular hobby as well), dreaming to code train simulator, and for free... I doubt.
I don't mean, there's no more freaks as we are, but much-much less, then it would be desired...

I would assure You: coding is not for everyone. Sure, You should try some day, when You'd want it much more, than anything else, but, not all of us are musicians, pilots, doctors. Your models look great, many coders afraid to/don't want to touch modeling. So, give preference to what You do better.

[Weter]

Hello, Geoff and Marek. Hi, Gerry.
While I share Your point of view and would repeat, that Brandon's post paragraph about ORMT is exaggerated in some kind, we all have to admit, there are known issues, when official version's administrators not only ignore professional railroader' advices, but even reject ready code from being incorporated. Carlo's diplomatic have great success, but still far not all of his version's novations find their place in official version, and far not instantly. While central-European or Scandinavian versions are totally neglected, so go alone. Why too few people from Germany or Japan are here, discussing/developing ORTS? Aren't these great railroad countries? Why Poland develops it's own train simulator?

Hello, Jonatan.
Yes, one of the most reasons to blame ORTS from MSTS auditory's side are poor multiplayer (do I mistake here, Pedro?), breaking activity's plot, particularly via other physics behavior, particularly via different signaling logic. Anyway, without re-tweaking stock and act-files, it's impossible to play MSTS activities often. Too few authors, who willing to re-write their *.eng/*.wag/*.sms/*.act files, learning ORTS parameters, which is being changed every month in average.
So, no even program-coders - it's utterly needed to have squadron of volunteers to rewrite existing content files up to ORTS standards, but as they are being constantly improved, that's not just rewriting, but more maintenance - the constant race behind time, with no gratitude or reward. That's about 3D cabs or animated couplers addition partially.
And certainly, no way to share emotions, than posting videos or screenshots usually.
ORMT are administrators, there is conventional OR Development Project Team, which involves developers too.

[Genma Saotome]

Weter, on 17 August 2024 - 07:31 PM, said:

Why so few people from Germany or Japan are here, discussing/developing ORTS? Aren't these great railroad countries? Why Poland develops it's own train simulator?

Good question. I would have loved to see content from Japanese route builders but AFAIK it never happened. I do know that back in 2001, give or take, PC's were not as pervasive in Japan. For many years, indeed, perhaps even recently, business' continued to require fax copies of orders rather than anything over the internet. So perhaps that accounts for it.

[Weter]

Hi, Dave.
I heared, Japanese are in BVE train sim instead of anything else.

Hi, Steve.
There is afraid, that all ORTS discoveries would be some day incorporated into some payware sim...
So some people think.

Hello, Sanjay. Hello, Craig.
What can we do?
Team work. Professionals and modellers suggest to coders, being far from real railroading, coders give them results to test, they discuss, fine-tune together.
See, how USMRR project goes.

[cjakeman]

singleman74, on 14 August 2024 - 06:34 AM, said:

Hopefully the ORMT will read this and listen.

There seems to be some confusion in this thread between the Open Rails Project Team and the Open Rail Management Team (ORMT).

The project team is a collection of developers, testers, content specialists and translators who contribute to Open Rails. They have access to a private forum here on Elvas Tower to mull over anything controversial. Although the devs are free to choose from the sorted list of tasks on the Open Rails Roadmap, they usually work on what interests them most.

ORMT is not the project team, but 2 guys (James and Chris) who try to keep the automatic things running smoothly and people working collaboratively. We also try to provide some direction and we care that changes don't break old content or make it difficult to adopt new content.

[Traindude]

Genma Saotome, on 16 August 2024 - 02:18 PM, said:

If there was a library of basic trucks and animated couplers anyone building rolling stock could grab one of those, position them at the correct locations and give it a .wag file for a complete car. The rest of the model goes in as a .fa addition. It does work.

Now that you mention it -- back in the MSTS Days, Tim Muir made a set of common asset packs for use in Train Sim Modeler. I wonder if someone like ErickC of North American V Scale could make a similar set of common assets for Blender (couplers, trucks, brake equipment, etc.) for us to use on our models, so we don't have to model these "universal" components from scratch every single time!

[DimPoint]

ExRail, on 01 April 2024 - 12:18 PM, said:

Realizing that creating a single weather type that looks optimal year around and all times are impossible without lookup tables, I've started to think of possibilities. while the planet is spinning and is on a tilt of 23° creating the seasonal cycles. GTA San Andreas is located at the same place unlike Routes and was using a 8 hour timecycle table for all colors/sprites and fades between them,modders have increased that to 24 and made and interface for it that pop up when pressing Ctrl+T it looks like this. New LinkUsing time don't work since it's sunrise and sunset that matters for light/colors/shadow/haze so linking to a 24 hour one should in this case https://youtu.be/3zTR4ayDG38?t=115only take the sun rise and sunset and put them together or something.The Only games I know who uses seasons and location on Earth are in Flight Simulators sunch as FS2004 with uses 140 textures 10 different for each 8 hour period like noon, predawn, dawn and so on.Currently the Suns position is coming from the Routes I think, it should properly come from calculation like whats the Sun's angle 14:42 on next Monday at GPS location N55 E12, Astro library function should answer that question, since it's not going to change and you could precalculate for some sectors/Capitals of Earth.Searching...: https://www.nuget.org/packages/CoordinateSharp/"CoordinateSharp is a simple .NET library that is designed to assist with geographic coordinate conversions, parsing, formatting, magnetic data, and location based celestial calculations such as sunset, sunrise, moonset, moonrise and more."Console.WriteLine(c.CelestialInfo.SunSet); // 5-Jun-2018 4:02:00 AMConsole.WriteLine(c.CelestialInfo.MoonAltitude); // 14.4169966277874Look easy enough getting that information.

This is why I said the best solution that comes close to solving this issue is to use real life weather data provided by METAR, using the simulated trains coordinates on earth. The coordinate linking to a map has already been in the works according to a recent thread.

Traindude, on 10 August 2024 - 03:42 PM, said:

Yeah. For the time being, that's OK, but we eventually want to move away from "faking it" by treating the boats as trains. (Though it kinda reminds me of the song, "Train on the Water, Boat on the Track" from Family Guy!)So Dave, if we're treating the boats as trains in the interim, I'm assuming the drawbridge itself would be treated like an animated two-position semaphore, with the "bridge up" position being analogous to a semaphore displaying a red (stop) aspect, and the "bridge down" position being the equivalent of a semaphore showing a green (proceed) aspect? Does that sound about right?

The problem with that is it may require extending to more physics of derailment. Currently in the default program as long as the off the rails bug does not occur, the train is stopped like bumper blocks at the end of disconnected tracks.

Jonatan, on 13 August 2024 - 03:22 PM, said:

I think this thread have drifted quite a bit. So I will again attempt to say something. I may get flack for it but c'est la vie.The last few years have given us a couple train sims that introduced a novel concept to the genre: the character-based multiplayer simulator. Railroads Online, Railroader, a multitude of Roblox games, etc.This seems to be the direction that train simulation is going. Even TSW and Derail Valley, while not having multiplayer (yet), are in this category and the concept is successful.I'm in a pretty sizable train chat on Discord and I struggle to find someone who've even heard of Open Rails. In the train sim mainstream, it does not exist. And in the case it's been heard of, it's compared to, or even interchangably talked of as MSTS, and with very little positive feedback. The feedback I've recieved when asking people in said server is; why haven't they finished it?Open Rails prides itself on its realistic physics, which is great! But physics alone doesn't make an exciting simulator, an exciting game people want to play.My experience with multiplayer is a single session, and that was with the help of a friend. I've failed trying to set up a session on my own and even then I have not a single person aside from said friend to play with, because Open Rails is so unknown or niche in the hobby.Aside from this one guy, who is one among us, I have no one in my friend circles who are interested in playing it. What I present to them leave them underwhelmed, they rather play DV, RRO or Railroader. Getting involved is too complicated, the reward too small.If Open Rails is to have a real long-term future, it needs to start adapting to the times. A new player is expecting something like the aforementioned simulators in terms of playability, not MSTS+.Advanced multiplayer, especially the ability to have co-op on a locomotive (engineer/fireman), in a train (helper engine), etc, along with an intuitive multiplayer interface, is almost a must to explode in popularity. It's not a matter of "can it be done?", others have done it, lone programmers have done it. The clever chaps who type away with the code right now I'm sure can do it, if they want to.We're mostly all nerds here, with long history of MSTS and OR to make navigation and use of the sim easy and intuitive.But Open Rails will remain a very niche, backwater simulator that no one realy talks about unless something different happens that makes it interesting, intuitive and fun to play to the casual simmer. Do we want it to remain a "nerdy programmers only" software?I doubt I'll be listened to because why listen to a curmudgeon with an opinion on the internet, but that's what I wanted to say after quietly observing the train sim scene at large for a while.

A lot can be done with ORTS. In fact if one were to actually use the off-the-rails bug/glitch the default program has, physics would reach another level in the game. As for the non-physocs stuff, I think I made a large post earlier as to what should be done to make the sim better.

[FS.E652 091]

Hi,Even though the post hasn't been updated for months, it seems like the most appropriate section to post this link that explains how to create Water shader in Monogame/XNA..
I think will be useful to the developers in future.

https://medium.com/@...na-0a7e82092c85

Greetings

[openrails_guy]

I feel like Open Rails can thrive with enough support. People could make more content and maybe fix some older routes to work for open rails.