Atomic Systems

Hi all,
Just found this loco at http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/cache/d ... _BETA1.rar.
Appears to have external headlamp beams.
Going to try it on a night route

Just tried it and yes there is a beam of sorts...

Regards
Bryan

Can you post a picture of it?

graphicrail wrote:Hi all,
Just found this loco at http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/cache/d ... _BETA1.rar.
Appears to have external headlamp beams.
Going to try it on a night route

Just tried it and yes there is a beam of sorts...

Regards
Bryan

That's not bad! Works when you change ends as well.

Tried it, here are some results.

Headlights off



Headlights on:



Spot view:



Overhead;

Oh wow wickford has been lit up lol

I would say thats to bright now lol


Can this be applyed to say the class 47?

How about a night shot please.

graphicrail wrote:Hi all,
Just found this loco at http://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/cache/d ... _BETA1.rar.
Appears to have external headlamp beams.
Going to try it on a night route

Just tried it and yes there is a beam of sorts...

Regards
Bryan

This file - I got it and set it up on a nighttime run on my own route, and was pleasantly surprised to say the least. This is what I've been waiting for ever since the first time I tried out Rail Sim back when it came out and I got my own copy. This is a rather crude setup, to say the least. It's proved to be possible after all. The only thing here, is that in my own opinion, the view out the front windscreen seems rather a strain on my eyes, especially at night, but the headlight beam is making it possible to see the speed discs on lineside, properly, but the whole windscreen view could be better, like the Class 47's view, which, in my opinion, is near-perfect.

So, the next step now, is to try to adapt the script for other locomotives. Obvious start would be for the American diesels, but to tweak the beam so, if possible to do so, make it a bit wider and extended further. Then work out which other applications it can be applied to. I want to see more of this, if it's possible. Why not ?

Regards

Jim McDermott

From the pictures, I assume that this is just lighting up the ground in front of the train. This was possible since the release and was always used for cars and street lamps. If it was that simple to apply this to trackside scenery, I guess RSC would have applied it long ago. Most likely, a vertical plane with this shader (AddATex or similar) would light up the surrounding, but how you would have reflective signs stand out from vegetation is beyond me.

you right AndiS

it's pretty much the same procedure like with the cars, streetlamps in RW/RS. a plane placed in front of the train, with an
alpha map on it, that's it. of course the plane must be placed higher than the track, otherwise you can't see the effect.
from wide it looks good, but from the near? i think temporarly it's useful, but nothing special. i'm really interested if the developers are
working on a completely new light system. to lit up assets/terrain with a new light system, would give RS/RW the final realistic touch.

regards

Rail-X

RailX wrote:you right AndiS

it's pretty much the same procedure like with the cars, streetlamps in RW/RS. a plane placed in front of the train, with an
alpha map on it, that's it. of course the plane must be placed higher than the track, otherwise you can't see the effect.
from wide it looks good, but from the near? i think temporarly it's useful, but nothing special. i'm really interested if the developers are
working on a completely new light system. to lit up assets/terrain with a new light system, would give RS/RW the final realistic touch.

regards

Rail-X

But - someone seems to think it may tax the graphics system too much if anything good is worked out. Would this be correct or not ? The original MSTS lighting was rather weak and innefective, to say the least, but someone (third party) managed to work out a really powerful and effective headllight system, but the only thing that marred it, was that quite a few rear headlights also came on at the same time as the front headlight. But yet there was the dim/bright separate effect that worked. Like the level crossing problem, the headlight problem was oversome fairly quickly, but again, being British originally, Kuju was not all that concerned over bad lighting effects (station platform, yard & locomotives) in the beginning, but others out there, managed to make MSTS much improved over a remarkably short space of time, when Microsoft didn't appear to care any longer, and it definitely shows with the canning of Flight simulator, and MSTS2 - there may have been other choices to pick on, other than MSTS2, which was well-advanced when the plug was pulled. A crying shame, as there're many of us out there who would have loved to have owned it.

Regards...

Jim McDermott

I find this an interesting thread regarding the differences in user's priorities. From my perspective, I see pictures of a magnificent locomotive and cab, but all people seem to be getting excited about is that patch of light on the ground

Dave B

Yes thats right. And its very much welcome in RW. This is becuase its hard to see signage when driving at night.

I am not sure from the screenshots tho, will this illuminate a speed signs etc correctly?

Simon

davveb wrote:I find this an interesting thread regarding the differences in user's priorities. From my perspective, I see pictures of a magnificent locomotive and cab, but all people seem to be getting excited about is that patch of light on the ground

Dave B

I know that when ben did the 158 he had multiple settings for the headlights. It would be very good to see it change the beam settings.

TheTazman wrote:I am not sure from the screenshots tho, will this illuminate a speed signs etc correctly?

If it's using an alpha blend quad on the ground, then no, it won't. The technique is the same as that used to create a fixed shadow below rolling stock, but in reverse.

It's actually very easy to "fake" the visual effect of reflective speed signs by changing the sign's shader to a non defuse light version. You will then get the impression of light being reflected off it at night. Again, this is the same technique used to get "illuminated" cab dials.

Dave B

Hi all,
Well we have seen another step in the ongoing developement of our sim.
Can't help wondering how it would look on a class43 or Voyager.
Be interesting to see who comes up with the first British loco
Class ***(HL) ?

From my own perspective yes it is a nice loco and yes it has a nice cab
and it also has that little bit extra which puts it a little step nearer
to the realism most of us want in a Simulator.

When I used Flight Sim I changed all the cockpits from the usual hand drawn
examples to ones I had made using real photographs as the background.
If there is a switch in the cab/cockpit that's labelled lights I want to see that I have in fact
turned a light on.

Regards
Bryan

Regarding performance impact of true projected light -- sure, Derek said something to that extend, and mentioned DX10 which would me for one have out of the game (but I really would not mind). This is why we still don't see a decision by RSC, they could have fitted such alpha planes to all engines long ago, if they were sure that projected light will not become a reality sooner or later.

Regarding reflecting signs, since there are dedicated night texture, and LODs, you could certainly get pretty far in finely tuning the appearance of the reflecting parts to become brighter and brighter as you approach. Just no one sat down yet to do it.

Regarding lighting the other surrounding, it would be an interesting experiment to put such a plane vertically in front of the plane and tweak the alpha channel (i.e., the shape of the blob/ellipse) to make it look from the cab as if the front lights would light up the surrounding. Moving to the side in the cab might spoil the illusion, and it certainly will only work for moderate lighting, and not US-style very intense spotlights, because they lead to colours to be seen, too, not only the brightness going up. But anyway, a range of people will be pleased, just like the above shown modification definitely makes a part of the community happy, which is all you can wish for.