Some questions

[lateagain]

I'm not sure what that is but sounds impressive

Well I didn't want you all to think I was a Panda full time. FWIW, what I do is help companies sort out the mess they've built into their business data. You'd be surprised how utterly convoluted the data can be can be in a big corporation for concepts like customer and product.

That definitely sounds dodgy! Joking apart I'm constantly amazed that we achieve anything considering how reliant organisations are on their computers nowadays and what rubbish most of their data is. Hardly a week goes by when you don't have to question something thrown up by someones data. "I cancelled that", "I paid that", "You haven't paid me...."etc. "Well it doesn't show on our system?"

Back on topic, excellent well thought through points and clearly explained. Even I followed them... . I hope Kuju have taken up any they might have missed. Every project I ever got involved in, personal or work, always had an element of "if only we'd allowed for that...."

I hope that much can be achieved between good planning, programming and the advances in hardware over that kuju had to work with first time around.

Geoff

[GenmaSaotome]

But how much detail will we realistically need to put in to places to the left and right of our railway line??

An excellent question. To some degree there has to be limits based on what the hardware can do as well as what the designer has patience (and material) to do. I think the hardware limitations have changed a great deal since MSTS was released. The newest chips are many times more "productive". We should expect our software vendors to take advantage of that -- maybe not push far beyond the limits but certainly go well beyond what older games did.

On the designer side, well, you run out of both material and time. You simply cannot put bushes, fences, trees, and letterboxes along every street for, say, 10km. in every direction along the track path. Well, maybe the possessed can but normal people won't do it.

And so there is a need for balance. Perhaps as an aid, something that calculates how far an object could be seen (based on it's size) so the developer knows up front this or that object is good for 1km, that one for 3, etc.

At any rate, when the decision is made that sets that limit, let us hope that some lengthy consideration be given to making the limit greater than 2km so large structures like bridges -- often major features in a route -- things which are seen at much greater distances are indeed seen at much greater distances in our routes.

[GenmaSaotome]

Let me return to (11) Snow if I may.

What I was getting at is this: If you take the DEM data, make a duplicate, call the dup the snow layer, and ask the user how far above the ground he'd like it set, you have created subsitute terrain that would be displayed only when precipitation is set to "Snow". Such terrain is skinned and vertex edited differently from non-snow terrain. No extra Ram is consumed as the snow polys have replaced the original terrain.

In some ways it's akin to the water layer in MSTS, but different in that it is editable.

This would make drifts and cuts along the ROW and roads entirely feasible.

Interesting, huh?

[GenmaSaotome]

...will there be normal cad functions like snap-to, place-parallel, place-perpendicular, etc?

An example as found in most any 2d cad program:

Place an object.
Select that object.
Envoke command "Snap to perpendicular" (right mouse or keystoke)
Select second object.
Software then rotates QDirection of Object 1 to be perpendicular to that of object 2.

Snap to Parallel works the same way.

Snap to offset asks user to key in a distance and direction. Software then moves object 1 that distance and direction away from object 2.

Snap to midpoint and snap to end are self explanitory.

That math is very simple. Just a question of wanting to include the features.

[WoodheadRail]

I get the impression that people are more concerned about what the game looks like rather than functionality. A game wouldn't be much use without signalling and AI traffic control.

[lateagain]

I get the impression that people are more concerned about what the game looks like rather than functionality. A game wouldn't be much use without signalling and AI traffic control.

Why should one be exclusive of the other? A simulator should be good at all aspects of a virtual world. Don't forget that your home PC is a million miles away from simulators that buck and pitch on hydraulic rams and have 100% accurate sound. It's the "whole" that helps create the illusion on a static PC.

Funnily enough I just looked at a couple of Signal Sims and was impressed by their scope, but they can be quite convincing just looking at a monitor.

Geoff

[WoodheadRail]

I get the impression that people are more concerned about what the game looks like rather than functionality. A game wouldn't be much use without signalling and AI traffic control.

Why should one be exclusive of the other? A simulator should be good at all aspects of a virtual world. Don't forget that your home PC is a million miles away from simulators that buck and pitch on hydraulic rams and have 100% accurate sound. It's the "whole" that helps create the illusion on a static PC.

Funnily enough I just looked at a couple of Signal Sims and was impressed by their scope, but they can be quite convincing just looking at a monitor.

Geoff

I believe I've just said that young man

[lateagain]

I get the impression that people are more concerned about what the game looks like rather than functionality. A game wouldn't be much use without signalling and AI traffic control.

Why should one be exclusive of the other? A simulator should be good at all aspects of a virtual world. Don't forget that your home PC is a million miles away from simulators that buck and pitch on hydraulic rams and have 100% accurate sound. It's the "whole" that helps create the illusion on a static PC.

Funnily enough I just looked at a couple of Signal Sims and was impressed by their scope, but they can be quite convincing just looking at a monitor.

Geoff

I believe I've just said that young man

Good then we're in agreement