Fact or Fiction? :: Musings on an upcoming Railsimulator ::

[sstyrnol]

Colleagues,

I have often criticised KUJU for their ongoing "publicity stunts", involving IMHO lots of hot steam, word bubbles and less hard facts.

Also by others, it has often been doubted that the screenies shown on the website are actual in-game shots.

Now I read on the German Railroads forums (who are developing the German route within Rail Simulator) the following:

@Bossy,

da müssen wir Dich enttäuschen. Alle Bilder außer dem ersten der Black 5 sind definitiv aus dem Spiel selber. Und der Streckenbau ist schon lange voll im Gange. Selbst das Cab des HST ist aus dem Spiel. Nur wurde dort der Kamerawinkel geändert.

__________________
Viele Grüße aus Wuppertal
und viel Spaß mit den GR-Add-Ons

Ernst Tollknaepper
German Railroads Team

For those not being able to read German a quick and dirty translation:

@Bossy (guy like me criticising KUJU for the lack of ingame shots)

we have to disappoint you: All images, apart from the first one with the Black 5 are definitely out of the game itself. Moreover the track laying is already fully underway. Even the HST cab is from the game, only the camera-angle has been changed.

[...]

Actually, I find this kinda interesting. On the other side, why are they so secretive about that? Well, we'll see what they come up with further down the development track.

If that all is true I am more than happy to revise my position towards KUJU and hope that they will shed more light on what this thing actually is gonna look like...

[AndiS]

For a balance, let me add that the same Ernst Tollknaepper said at the same time:

Also hier nochmal ganz deutlich. Wir sind NICHT das deutsche Sprachrohr von Kuju. Kuju wird in Kürze eine eigene deutsche Webseite online stellen. Wir haben auch keinerlei Befugnisse, über die Entwicklung zu berichten. Wir bauen eben nur die deutsche Strecke.

Translation:

Let me state it again very clearly. We are not the German voice of Kuju. Kuju will bring their German website online shortly. We have no permit to report on the development. We only build the German route.

Besides this - what would be the great difference between rendering the scene in 3DSMax in a way you are confident the game engine will later match, and firing up the game engine, loading the scene and taking a screenshot of this? Certainly one step nearer to the final sim, but one on a long, long road.

Inspired by all the "you could do this in MSTS as well" claims I read about TMTS, I thought we could start some competition to rebuild the Kuju wallpapers in MSTS. Sure no-one has a modelled humanoids with such high polycount and of course the Black 5 looks very good, but what else would be an obstacle?
(Ok, steam & smoke are one, but besides this)

Note: This experiment is not about KRS being vapourware or not, it is about the use and information content of screenshots.

[KlausM]

Well, the German version of the site was on-line already for a few hours, but have been withdrawn for some unknown reason (including the posting in this forum!), maybe due to some minor technical problems that occurred there. But I personally don't need it anyway.

I have some doubts that you can render an object in 3DS in such a way that it exactly matches the rendering of a game rendering engine. Hardware/real-time rendering is always a compromise, and when you do rendering completely in software, you likely choose different algorithms (for shadows, lighting, anti-aliasing, reflection etc.) that are superior.

Klaus

@AndiS: Btw, do you also post in German forums? I have seen an AndiS on tssf-forum.de and wondered whether it's you.

[ForburyLion]

I thought we could start some competition to rebuild the Kuju wallpapers in MSTS.

Probably get better results in MS Paint!

[MaxFreak]

Besides this - what would be the great difference between rendering the scene in 3DSMax in a way you are confident the game engine will later match,

Not much at all I think .... And to revisit the threads for the models shown on the KUJU site and look at the keywords " pre-shaded textures " and " pre-rendered textures " you'll see that the hard work is mostly done in the production of quality textures , the game engine will not have a great deal of trouble with these works . You could export those models to MSTS or Trainz and still have them look great .

WYS in the screenies is almost certainly WYG ( imho )

~A~

[KlausM]

We will see eventually, in the truest sense of the word I hope Kuju will show us a little bit soon.

Klaus

[GenmaSaotome]

When I saw those Kujo images the first thing I thought was "this is not an in-game image" but "this is a nice marketing image"... you know, the sort of thing that's part of a splash screen before the game actually gets to a menu. Too many polys in those trees for an in-game image.

I don't have any problem with that, it's just a part of the software business.

As far as that German fellows comments, seems reasonable that the first couple of things to pass on to your content developers are going to be terrain creation and track laying. Everything can come along later.

I do wish Kujo would open up a tiny bit and let us know if they're using UTM projection (real squares) and not that awful Goode-whatever-it-was projection they used in MSTS (diamond shaped "squares") that made it imposible to transfer right angles from maps into the route editor. THAT decision has to already have been made if indeed it is true that the German team is working on content.

[MaxFreak]

Too many polys in those trees for an in-game image.

Depends on the game engine .... KUJU may be using SpeedTree

Look at the game .. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to see what can be done with the SpeedtreeRT or I can post a screenshot of some of mine using the Max plugin

~A~

[AndiS]

Looking at http://www.speedtree.com I would say you are right.
I don't know the scene and whether there are alternative providers, but the speedtrees look a lot like those on wallpaper 2 (the guy with the cup). Also the flowers could be produced with such a tool, the light on them does not look like they are photos taken outdoor, but it is difficult to tell.

However, the trees behind the Black 5 and those on the picture of the station (guy with watch at the right) definately are cruciform ones.

[sstyrnol]

I don't see anything wrong with using few high-detail trees at prominent spots in the foreground and model entire forest with the simpler tree technology...

[GenmaSaotome]

Yes a few well detailed trees really do make a difference but did you look at the price of the Speedtree software? Not exactly within your average route developers budget.

[leezer3]

Somthing like that though is going to be licenced as a part of the app as a whole I would have thought though-
IE. the tree creator (Or at least a simplified version therof) would be included as part of the SDK?

Chris Lees