Looking at the track shadows fix that will be part of the core update for TSW5, I wonder how easy will this be to retrofit to older routes? I think this is something everyone would like to see universally implemented, given the massive visual improvement to the driving experience.
This would be huge if it would port back, or could be ported back to older routes. I am sure the modders will figure out what's changed in TSW5, and explore the options.
Agreed. It would be a great quality of life and immersion feature. Nothing breaks immersion more than something which, once seen, cannot be unseen. I think it would enhance DTGs reputation for some hopefully low hanging fruit. +1 for the retrofit.
Looking at today's roadmap Pt 2 article; Bakerloo & NY-Trenton do not appear in the list of routes to be getting the track shadow upgrade in TSW5 even though they are 2 of the routes contained in the Special Edtn ?
Retroftting new features should really be one of the priorities. Tiny details can totally change your perception of a route. I saw this with the 101. Was having lot's of fun until the suspension update arrived and left the 101 without it at the moment. Immediately the 101 felt outdated driving it. Same thing is gonna happen with track shadows TSW has a huge library but every year a big piece of that library becomes "obsolete" because of new features.
This track shadowing is going to be a huge upgrade, of all the things to immediately notice when playing, both good and bad, the track looking like it’s being drawn 10 meters ahead of you stands out a lot. It’s now going to stand out even more when you switch to a route that doesn’t have it. The way every route is built as its own eco system is getting a little obnoxious IMO, we’ve got so much being left behind now. It’s not really fair to players or the devs who have worked on them. It’s great that DTG are making new features & improvements to fit into future content, but they are making older content obsolete too quickly. ToD4, suspension & now track shadowing being missing from old stuff is really going to show that contents age, which isn’t really fair considering most of it holds up fairly well. There’s a reason the vast majority of sims & games have a central core & for how much DTG talk about their core, each new title update features seem to contradict its existence.
Agree. I think TSW lacks many display/graphics customisation options that most other modern games have. It's also a shame that the shadows are no longer actually shadows. Before Matt explained that they are now drawn on, I was looking at the comparison (in the roadmap stream) thinking, they look far darker now, then noticing they didn't appear to have any transparency to them. Ah, they are simply black textures now. Oh... Maybe they will look fine in action, on a larger display than my phone screen.
There's more to them than "just black textures" It's quite an advanced bit of material work and beta feedback has been that it's a massive improvement on the routes that dont have it. I'll take that as some confidence it's a move in the right direction. Matt.
If it stops the pop in of the visual effect, it could be done with blackberry pudding for all I care, as long as it works.. A little facetious of me, but I am quite tired. In all seriousness, if it looks better than it did, its a step forward, especially if it's with very little to no performance hit.
We’ll have to see on release, but if the game is no longer using cascaded shadows for the track it could be quite a substantial performance win. Cascaded shadow count and resolution seem to currently be one of the biggest performance killers in TSW but can have one of the biggest effects on visual quality, particularly the existing track shadows. TSW5 looks to be shaping up to be a nice little step up I think. Looking forward to it.
I take it that these track shadow effects are added features to the routes. So its not just a material file that a modder could simply go into to overwrite with a tsw5 shadows material bp.
I mean, you can download the Editor from the Epic Games Store, play around with it for a bit, and then decide for yourself whether or not teaching a chatbot to use it seems like a viable option.
You do realise that AI is being used already a long time in science and research applications? Chatbot's and image generators is just hype. The AI that is actually useful isn't that shiny
