view limit from the tracks

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view limit from the tracks

Postby honeybaobao » Tue Feb 27, 2018 3:38 pm

Hi,

I am building a tram route for TS, but I question myself, from the track how many meters or kilometers I add the assets, because around 95% of this route is in the city, so it mean a lot of assets, to add and the route could be heavy.

I saw on some routes some conceptor do some hundreds meters around and others more far, like 1 or 2 kilometers.

Your advices will be warmly welcome.

Thanks in advance
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Re: view limit from the tracks

Postby AndiS » Tue Feb 27, 2018 6:44 pm

The following is just echo of what has been said, but since they call all sorts of opinion repeaters intelligent something nowadays, I do not feel ashamed.

Answer 1: Do as you please. First of all, you get paid by none and if you like what you do, you keep going, while you will shelve your project if you don't like it any more.

Answer 2: No one knows. No one ever defined which viewpoints the player is allowed to take and which not. A nerd like me would explicitly describe the design decision in the manual of the route. But who reads manuals anyway?

Answer 3: The answer is know, but no one cares. The answer is custom-built scenery. Most route builders don't do that, for fair enough reasons. If you create building blocks yourself, you are at liberty to create large blocks with detail that decreases with increasing distance. It will match the map and beat everything else by many miles. It will also delay your project by many years.

Answer 4: You may want to take stock of all the distant scenery provided by the routes that you decided to make a prerequisite. You might be able to beat up some fair enough streets from these items. If you curve them a bit, you limit the viewing distance (for viewing positions that are not above the roof tops).

All these are observations by a non-route-maker. Real route builders will hopefully illustrate your initial observations with their own views.
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Re: view limit from the tracks

Postby sumitsingh » Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:33 pm

The simple answer is keep experimenting.
Make a small city, then view from the locomotive how far you can view, then according to your visuals, add or remove assets.
Otherwise open any already built route and estimate distance either by lying tracks offset from Main line to end of last scenery placed or a ruler. :P :P :P
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Re: view limit from the tracks

Postby Rockdoc2174 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 6:17 pm

The drawing limit of the sim is about 3/4 mile or 1.2km and it can get a bit patchy at the limit. Different types of asset show at different distances so things pop into existence in some kind of weird dance!

The decision of how far you put scenery in is twofold, I'd say. The first is how far can you realistically see from the line. If you're on an embankment or viaduct then you've pretty much got to put it in all the way. The second is how much it bothers you, the creator. If you aren't working on a commercial offering the common view is that you make it to suit yourself and if other people don't like it it's no skin off your nose. You could put nothing beyond six feet if you like. That's your choice. With my route, The Friargate Line, a lot of it is on an embankment and you can see a long way from the cab so I'm generally having to lay scenery as far as it will be drawn.

Just as an off the cuff remark, make sure that you drive the route regularly as you lay the scenery. I found there were areas I'd completed that never showed up and others that I thought would be hidden that were visible from another part of the line.

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Re: view limit from the tracks

Postby RobertM » Sat Mar 17, 2018 5:13 pm

When I do scenery I ask myself 'can I see it from the cab/headout view?'. If the answer is no it doesn't go in.
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Re: view limit from the tracks

Postby briyeo » Sun Mar 18, 2018 12:41 pm

My limited experience in railway simulation scenery was many years ago with MSTS, back then I found the large single face scenery items very useful, like a cityscape flat scene you could place a good distance from the track so it wouldn't effect the 3D world, but it did a good job of representing a distant city or industrial area.

Would such things be unacceptable in TS2018 these days? It worked in the movies but TS2018 users will go to some lengths to expose the deceit I fear. ;)

I was going to try it at Friargate which as Keith pointed out has a slightly elevated view of Derby but so far I have failed to find any suitable images I could use.
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Re: view limit from the tracks

Postby brysonman46 » Sun Mar 18, 2018 7:29 pm

briyeo wrote:My limited experience in railway simulation scenery was many years ago with MSTS, back then I found the large single face scenery items very useful, like a cityscape flat scene you could place a good distance from the track so it wouldn't effect the 3D world, but it did a good job of representing a distant city or industrial area.

Would such things be unacceptable in TS2018 these days? It worked in the movies but TS2018 users will go to some lengths to expose the deceit I fear. ;)

I was going to try it at Friargate which as Keith pointed out has a slightly elevated view of Derby but so far I have failed to find any suitable images I could use.


Thomson's Edinburgh to Glasgow uses a flat scene around Waverley Station, showing a good cityscape of Edinburgh. Until you go into helicopter view it is fairly believable as 3D. I did suggest this to Keith some time ago as a possibility for that part of Nottingham to the north of Victoria between the 2 tunnels.
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Re: view limit from the tracks

Postby AndiS » Sun Mar 18, 2018 9:33 pm

If I would ever build a real route it would come with a user agreement (or service level agreement) stating where the camera is supposed to be.

1) Cab view, headout view, passenger view. In TSW this will include all the legit stroles you can do on foot - I guess they will put up invisible barriers that keep you from entering town and fields.

2) Viewing the train from up to X m distance, from up to Y m above track level.

3) Train spotting from selected locations. This can be a list or a rule (like all bridges and platforms) or a strip along all track.

You easily spot the related issues:

1) All those who think that proper simulations means not leaving the cab hate to pay of the eye candy they don't see and they hate the loading time it causes. You ought to sell them separate versions, twice the length at the same development costs. But they cannot be the whole audience or TSW would not feature non-cab activity so much.

2) Taking a side view shot of a freight train takes you really far away from track with a valid purpose. In-game shots want to mimic train photography and the "engine with a bit of context" composition bores me to dead. But would you really want to have foreground details on the backside (as looking from the train) on scenery 100 m from track. And 100 m is not all that much when you want to show a long train. Even 50 m from track, the backside of building would be irrelevant without this use case of looking at the whole train. And enjoying the view is something you must give to any scenario author. So all I can see is some minimum flying height.

3) A bit less arbitrary than before, but no less bi-faced. You want some fine detail in the foreground, all the blurry textures really kill any illusion. But would you really argue for loading quality texture for all the clutter along every metre of open route where the train passes at speed.

For the latter case, I hope that the Unreal engine will permit conditional scenery loading. I say some examples where they computed the distance between object and camera as a trigger for something. You could them measure camera movement speed. If the camera is stationary, you bring in foreground versions. Such would be the theory.

In the Nottingham tunnel, I would put up a sign behind the flat scenery reading "you are supposed to be in the tunnel". At Derby it is different. The train runs through a cutting with lots of bridges crossing and all the way from the station to the river could be classed as iconic. So taking shots of that would be valid desire, though quite hard to satisfy.
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Re: view limit from the tracks

Postby honeybaobao » Tue Mar 20, 2018 5:06 pm

Hi everybody,

Thanks a lot for your replies, suggestions and advices, and apologies for the late of my reply, too concentrate on my route. I choosed to don't so far from the rolling stock, because majority is in the city, so I just do the building directly on the route and maybe some parts a little around.

I checked some routes I own, some put a lot, some just around, and on my case just stay around, because the route could be too heavy or maybe no good for the FPS perf.

I will do soon a WIP to show a little some building

Cheers,

Cedric
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Re: view limit from the tracks

Postby BigVern » Tue Mar 20, 2018 7:18 pm

My general view has always been to look at detail up to around 2km for field pattern, probably up to 500m for urban or town scenery. Anything beyond that can be painted textures or perhaps a few generic houses or trees, even some carefully placed backdrops. In the mountains you need to be aware how things will look at a distance but even then a generic texture will probably do.

I've always considered the purpose of these games is first and foremost to build a working railway system with the emphasis on driving from the cab. Not catering for a wider 3D picture of the world around or wannabee train-helicopter pilots!
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