[ExRail]

Progress report: Just finish another weather type and with the two cloud layers moving at different speeds it actually create the illusion of distance between them, when looking up.


Now my Open Rail Content folder has a weather folder to house all the textures, witch are now 4 per weather type, is was a bit messy together with all the small symbols:
1. Skydome
2. static not tilted overcast layer (ctrl +/-) used to blank out the blue skydome in overcast rain/snow so the weather can be a bit dynamic
3. 4x4 tilted moving cloud layer 1:1
4. 4x4 tilted moving cloud layer 1:2 X | 1:1,5Y

Just did a City comparison shot Weather type Few vs Default Clear with enough fog to cover the buildings
but without covering the sky totally, witch is not really possible, without separating the sky-fog from scenery-fog,


Sure is great to just select a weather type that i like the look of from the start without fiddling with the debug keys.

[FS.E652 091]

ExRail, on 21 March 2024 - 11:57 AM, said:

Beautiful picture, MSTS environment or modded Skydome ? paywhere route ?

The Slideshow pc I tested on is a I7-3770 1600Mhz DDR3, GTX1060 6GB. Normally it run GTA V/Red Dem2 fine 50-70fps
I don't think this game is made to have a large viewing distance, GTA V assets has something like 5 LOD levels and
is only rendering the highest close to the player, we only got 'one' all over the landscape,
scaling up will never work or demand much more electricity, and it's properly also a huge number
of render calls using the current MSTS assets.

Did you externalize the RadiusM, I'm having troubles translating the well done part ?

Thanks for your appreciation, the route is a freeware project but distributed privately due to digital piracy ;-)

I obviously used an edited basic skydome, I have never used the MSTS Environments function!!

I tested it on a system based on Ryzen 9 5900x overclocked to 6.7 GHz, RTX 3060 and 32GB of Ram.

The settings relating to the view are determined by balancing a good and wide general view set at 7 km, and the Distant Mountains set at 45 km, in this case between Reshade, 3D Tracks and obviously the rich detailed landscape bring the FPS to 110\120 in light tiles while in heavy areas they do not lower to less than 65\60!

Obviously for high-performance PCs like mine, the wider the better, this is because by having the Distant Mountains and a route on a mountainous landscape at your disposal, you have a greater viewing distance to the horizon in addition to the fact that having photorealistic terrtext , it renders vision from afar better..
It doesn't change much in terms of quality also because the program doesn't have additional shaders that lead to a graphic improvement based on distance (furthermore the detail setting is set to Standard)

[FS.E652 091]

ExRail, on 22 March 2024 - 12:24 PM, said:

Progress report: Just finish another weather type and with the two cloud layers moving at different speeds it actually create the illusion of distance between them, when looking up.
OpenExRail_Weathertype_Few.jpg

Now my Open Rail Content folder has a weather folder to house all the textures, witch are now 4 per weather type, is was a bit messy together with all the small symbols:
1. Skydome
2. static not tilted overcast layer (ctrl +/-) used to blank out the blue skydome in overcast rain/snow so the weather can be a bit dynamic
3. 4x4 tilted moving cloud layer 1:1
4. 4x4 tilted moving cloud layer 1:2 X | 1:1,5Y

Just did a City comparison shot Weather type Few vs Default Clear with enough fog to cover the buildings
but without covering the sky totally, witch is not really possible, without separating the sky-fog from scenery-fog,
Few_vs_Default.jpg

Sure is great to just select a weather type that i like the look of from the start without fiddling with the debug keys.

Truly great work! Do you plan to include it in future releases?

Stupid question while I'm at it... also implement the various types of weather and atmospheric phenomena by distinguishing them into:

- Rain
- Rain + Thunderstorm
- Cloudy
- Cloudy with Lightning and Windy

Is it feasible or at least a factor you will pay attention to in the future?

[Genma Saotome]

Jan, I see, above, Chris' post on including your code in the unofficial version -- Congratulations!! Is there any necessary documentation to implement it or is it an easy to understand selection in the options menu?

[Weter]

Hello.
Looks great, but my doubt is:

stratus clouds are usually being higher, than cumulus.
Please, check, whether that's so, or not.

[johnnyboi1066]

Weter, on 23 March 2024 - 10:27 AM, said:

Hello.
Looks great, but my doubt is:
OpenExRail_Weathertype_Few.jpg
stratus clouds are usually being higher, than cumulus.
Please, check, whether that's so, or not.

Wow, this looks absolutely incredible! I was wondering if it is available for download anywhere, I searched on trainsim and it didn't turn up, though I do understand if it is private. Seems to be a huge improvement, especially when it comes to twilight hours in the sim.

Cheers,
John

[ExRail]

FS.E652 091, on 22 March 2024 - 05:12 PM, said:

Thanks for your appreciation, the route is a freeware project but distributed privately due to digital piracy ;-)

I obviously used an edited basic skydome, I have never used the MSTS Environments function!!

Since these kinds of skydome's are hard to come by or create in paint programs, clone brush with works great for flat cloud textures, but the projection messes thing up.
And when looking into 'how to create these(I'm sure them have a proper name) kinds of projection texture I only got a person downloading them from the internet and mapping it on a half dome in Blender,
and calling the video How To Make Skydomes. I would just like to base a weather system on it and see how clouds would fit in if it was freely downloadable.

FS.E652 091, on 22 March 2024 - 05:12 PM, said:

I tested it on a system based on Ryzen 9 5900x overclocked to 6.7 GHz, RTX 3060 and 32GB of Ram.
The settings relating to the view are determined by balancing a good and wide general view set at 7 km, and the Distant Mountains set at 45 km, in this case between Reshade,
3D Tracks and obviously the rich detailed landscape bring the FPS to 110\120 in light tiles while in heavy areas they do not lower to less than 65\60!

Side note: I was blown away when I did a comparison of the power consumption of my computer when is was lock to 60 with vsync vs running free at 140-160 fps, almost 80W difference, so running with vsync enable saves money.

FS.E652 091, on 22 March 2024 - 05:12 PM, said:

Obviously for high-performance PCs like mine, the wider the better, this is because by having the Distant Mountains and a route on a mountainous landscape at your disposal, you have a greater viewing distance to the horizon in addition to the fact that having photorealistic terrtext , it renders vision from afar better..
It doesn't change much in terms of quality also because the program doesn't have additional shaders that lead to a graphic improvement based on distance (furthermore the detail setting is set to Standard)

Yes I'm using the fogging in scenery shader as a kind of distance shading with is now possible from the separations of sky from scenery to archive that.

[ExRail]

FS.E652 091, on 22 March 2024 - 05:13 PM, said:

Truly great work! Do you plan to include it in future releases?

Stupid question while I'm at it... also implement the various types of weather and atmospheric phenomena by distinguishing them into:

- Rain
- Rain + Thunderstorm
- Cloudy
- Cloudy with Lightning and Windy

Is it feasible or at least a factor you will pay attention to in the future?

I got cloudy, SnowStorm, Desert, Few, besides the 'classic' 3 covered,
looking into rain and snow made me conclude that they are separate and a future thing since they require a lot of work,
same with thunder and lightning, witch FS2004/FSX/Vehicle Simulator does well, and these weather types also calls for the sound working sms/wave files being there.
My 2D hobby SFML gl based game(interactive screensaver) got rain drops/rain splashes/Rain bands moving sideways, and I also would like to use something like that in this,
but the jump from 2D to 3D projection in a new programming language and framework, idk. would someone like to help? :-)

I've encountered some tradeoff points until now such as: the sound is currently linked to clear.sms
if I link SnowStorm to SnowStorm there needs to bee a ENV file it in the route or Open Rails says invalid route,
it's the same with Activities, I can add my weather types all through the the stack from tokens to route ENV file but then all routes needs it.
Seams like ENV files are still used even if not using MSTS environment, it looked like the Sun's position was derived from it, and adding now tokens made the parser throw.
So larger dedication to that subject alone is needed, it's the same with save weather, right now if you save and reload you get a mix of clear and colored fog or something,
at least it did not crash, is where I'm at.

Release: I will for sure release the program here in some time, and the source code when I feel I got a better handle on the code and C#,
and can consolidate it better in maybe one class instead of 3-5 files scattered about,
and eventually hope Csantucci will consider picking it up at some point, when grown up's have had a look at it.

[johnnyboi1066]

Weter, on 23 March 2024 - 10:27 AM, said:

Hello.
Looks great, but my doubt is:
OpenExRail_Weathertype_Few.jpg
stratus clouds are usually being higher, than cumulus.
Please, check, whether that's so, or not.

And referring to your comment about stratus clouds, actually stratus clouds are the lowest form of cloud, its in the name (stratus meaning "low layer" if I am not mistaken). Stratus clouds are very similar to fog, in fact there is almost no difference other than the fact that fog directly touches the ground.

I think possibly the high altitude clouds you are referring to are cirrus clouds, which are very wispy

Cheers,
John

[Weter]

Thanks, John.
I might be mistaken: I actually have meant feather-like clouds on picture, so they can be called "cirrus" (sorry, English is not my strong size)