PC Skybox And Distant Scenery

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by nne4229, Feb 9, 2020.

  1. nne4229

    nne4229 Well-Known Member

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    Is this something that is being worked on? UE4 is capable of amazing environments.
     
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  2. BjornGroen02NL

    BjornGroen02NL Well-Known Member

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    UE4 is capable of a lot of stuff but DTG doesn't use all of it. I wish they did, because the skybox looks terrible. Just look on google for "UE4 skybox" and see how amazing it CAN look. I think DTG really needs to consider this, but also the distance scenery as you said because empty hills look horrible.
     
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  3. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    UE4 is capable of alot of nice stuff, BUT only when you use it as initially intended, with small maps, baked lighting, not lot of moving stuff, or only basic translation based movement. TSW is a realtime lighted environment with alot of complicated moving stuff and heavy physics calculations all around the trains. Given that, UE4 is not capable of all those nice shiny things anymore, unfortunatley. Distant scenery could look better in a newer engine version, and i guess we will get that some day. But dont compare TSW to some stuff that can be found on Y`T or somewhere. Most of these things are just small area experiments.
     
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  4. Digital Draftsman

    Digital Draftsman Well-Known Member

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    You're missing the fact that DTG are getting the basics wrong. They could do a lot to improve the distant terrain if they just took time to texture it properly. If they added wang tiling, used several textures and painted the terrain with regards to the formation and contours of it, it would look so much better than it currently does.

    Here the terrain is a single texture and the mesh is missing:
    [​IMG]

    Here the terrain is textured with random splodges of green and brown with no regard for the geography of the terrain:
    [​IMG]

    They haven't even bothered to use wang tiling like Rail Simulator did back in 2009, so you can see the obvious repetition of textures:

    TSW (2017)
    [​IMG]

    Rail Simulator (2009)
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2020
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  5. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    No, i didn't, but i'm just bit more patient than you ^^

    And regarding wang tiling, did you investigated about the abilities in UE4 in respect of that wide open, tile based, real time lighted world? Wang is not an option here i'm afraid. Best you could do is, overlayering with detail and distant layers (geo layer). But that again costs more shader instructions then. Not suited well in that 4.16 yet. We need to wait for a engine change before we could expect such things (if they were done at least). Its all about developement time for sure, knowledge within the artist team, and whatever.

    You can raise more and more complaints about it, it will not change in a fast way. If you want to have a better TS, you need to do your own one, from scratch. I'm personally happy whith the state of TSW and how it goes further. It needs time to grow up, more than TS1.
     
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  6. Digital Draftsman

    Digital Draftsman Well-Known Member

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    Some of the UE4 devs I know are using Artomatix Infinity Tiles, which are basically wang tiles, even if there's a slight increase in resources it's nothing dramatic.

    You didn't address my other point about the texture application. It's either a single plain texture or random splodges. Why don't they take the time to properly texture the terrain using several different textures and taking into account the shape of the terrain. It's a basic aspect of world building, it's not something with needs to be learned again for every engine, the principles are the same as MSTS, Trainz, Rail Simulator and TS2020.
     
  7. hyperlord

    hyperlord Well-Known Member

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    Guys, sorry for jumping in with this question, but that "shadow circle" around you that's painting the shadows as you move, this (radius of) is limited by the engine, right? Besides the flickering (got almost rid of by upscaling 150% with TAA) this is the most annoying problem with the lightning IMHO and I really hope this will be addressed some day :-\
     
  8. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    Did you tried it with world composition in 4.16 yet? I don't think so. If, you would know that this will impact alot to performance. That can be used on very small higher detailed areas at least. It's used by alot of games that are bound to small maps and visible areas. But not when you need to have 9 and above 1x1km tiles displayed at once, that need to look the same. Yeah, i know that this is doable at least, BUT.....
    .... it needs alot more time. Time is the cosuming factor when it comes to route building and not only for that. Even building 'only' a train can have its resulting quality depending on the give time. As i know, at DTG there are deadlines set, especially because of the consoles, and they need to target these deadlines then. It is a commercial product, nothing else. Don't expect to much from it. Even 3th parties that need to have a look onto the finacial side of all this, will not deliver what you want. This will become more obvious than in TS1 at least, simply because you need to do more work done for TSW.

    But anyways. We need to stop here. As long as we dont created our own stuff for TSW yet, it's simply just speculation and whises.
     
  9. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    I can only take Matt’s word for this but he says they are working on updating the skybox as well as dramatically increasing the frequency of how often light is updated.

    Light is currently updated every 30-60 seconds I think which explains the fact why we have such harsh lighting transitions in TSW, most noticeable in partly cloudy weather.

    No ETA of when this update will be released unfortunately.
     
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  10. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I don't know the ins and outs of what's possible with these things but the main thing that niggles me about the sky is that it follows you. You can be travelling at 125mph and the clouds ahead follow your speed at 125mph too. For this reason I usually set the weather to clear or full cloud cover so I don't see it.
     
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  11. hyperlord

    hyperlord Well-Known Member

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    Oh cool, thanks for sharing!
     
  12. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    I reckon that's the dynamic shadow distance. (I could be wrong). Given the simplicity of the assets in TSW, they should be able to rack this distance up a few hundred metres (and out of your field of view), without too much performance hit. It's not as if the trees are animated. Or anything much else - its not WRC8 in a storm.

    This might have an impact on the road traffic though (if they are actually casting shadows). And... of course... any passing trains - I guess they are the only objects that might interact with less performance. Personally, I'd take a very slight performance hit to get rid of that circle, but others might not be so tolerant. Also, I tend to run mostly at night, so it doesn't matter that much to me.

    If it is really necessary to have such a short range for shadow management, the least they could do is make the edges blend in a bit better.
     
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  13. DominusEdwardius

    DominusEdwardius Well-Known Member

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    Its a limit due to the performance impact of cascade shadows, as you increase the distance they render out the cost of them exponentially rises. Sadly in 4.16 there is nothing more you can really do, although in later versions I think starting 4.18 or 4.21 you can use distance field shadows which are much much less expensive at a distance, however have a notable memory usage so they aren't ideal either. Basically not ideal either which way!

    P.S trees do actually animate if you turn up the wind (or at least some of them do).
     
  14. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    You could switch off the cascade.... But, it depends on what that then looks like, of course...! .... I'd probably lose my lovely pylon shadows, even at night... ;-(

    Thanks for your reply. I didn't realise that trees were (or could be) animated - I guess I need to get a PC version of TSW and have a tinker... ;-)

    But there is a much more general point here - in that TSW should easily be able to deal with a high dynamic shadow distance.... and push any boundary flicker way out of view. The expense on performance only matters if you are already right at the edge of performance, and I have a strong feeling, with TSW, that there are lots of options available to gain optimisation in other areas... such as not hexiplicating certain textures... (like with the buildings on WSR).....

    Takes time though. Lots of it.
     
  15. DominusEdwardius

    DominusEdwardius Well-Known Member

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    Well if you switch off cascade you literally wouldn't have any shadows at all :D
     
  16. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    .... on moving objects. Yeah - it wouldn't look good. But if you could get rid of that radius... it might even be worth it...

    Seriously though - I have not seen any other UE game that has the problem that TSW has with this, to the extent that TSW has it (and possibly at all - I am really struggling to think of any title where this happens...)..

    So to widen the radius, you'd have find performance elsewhere - and there must be something that is worth sacrificing, or something that can be built more efficently. Do station walls on RSN have to have fully glossy reflections?

    Do the sides of all rolling stock have to have super shiny "straight out of the paintshop" reflections (....although they do look nice...!)....., at all times....?

    Do you need to have fully reflective puddles in the middle of nowhere, even on hot dry cloudless summer days....?
     
  17. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    Yep, all the trains for example :D *just kidding*

    The reflections are screen space. So, post processing. Doesn't matter much what is using it at least, on or off is what matters with them. I think most impact is by the tracks and trains, but not only visual wise but also CPU wise. The CPU needs to handle both, the visuals (draw calls) and the simulation onto the first or lets say the games used render core. A limitation from within the engine. Does not matter on PC much, but on the consoles it will. There are ways to prevent that, but DTG is not AAA, so let them have some time to make more money to adress these things later.
     
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  18. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    I did a run just now - Spring weather setting, super sunny, 10.35am (longish shadows), on NTP, Manchester-Leeds loaded oil train (Class 47...). You'd lose all the shadows cast by the trees, and passing trains, but also bridges, etc., .... And I had a really good think about it and I still came to the conclusion that the progression of that radius is so out of place, that it ruins any appreciation of these nearby shadows that progressively pop in (or rather, get "painted" in).... including the shadows on oncoming trains.

    The radius doesn't need to go out to 500m, but if it was doubled to say 100m (or whatever double the current radius is), then that would be perfectly fine. If this really can't be done, then I genuinely think it would look better if the whole CSM cascade was switched off. Seriously. Even if it looks a bit scorched in sunny weather.... and, um, permanently mid-day-ish.... That is a purely personal (possibly radical) view and a very limited personal preference. Others would have different views, of course.

    Class 47
    By the way - what is happening with the Class 47?
    In all honesty - I just ran it on that oil train (mentioned above), and I was completely fine with it, steady to 9.6mph on 1.7% out of Manchester, steady 8.2mph on the 2.1% grade, and then acceleration to near line speed (to 20mph) as the grade dropped off, then steady at 30+. It was absolutely fine (on PS4) for me. I changed the initialised setting of Air Passenger to Air Goods, released the brakes very very slowly to initial application, and very gingerly slipped into running with the L1 on DS4. And I obviously waited for the oncoming double-headed Cl 40 empty oil train to get out of the way before I tried to climb the first hill... It all seemed reasonable to me (even if I joked about it being a Class 20 on another thread...)... ;-)

    All that said, a Class 56 would be bonza on that working (and possibly more typical...?).
     
  19. Digital Draftsman

    Digital Draftsman Well-Known Member

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    Assuming you're on console, the 47 is feeble in comparison to how it should be. Do the same run with a 47 and then the 45 and compare the acceleration and top speed and you'll see the issue.

    If you're on the PC the 47 is fine. It's only a console issue.
     
  20. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    I am on PS4, and I am aware that many other PS4 users find the 47 to be horrific.

    LOL - I am probably just a weirdo, but I don't have a problem with it. I find it performs pretty much equally with the 40 on the loaded TEA train. I haven't benchmarked it against the 45 for a while (when I did I found the 45 to be much nippier with the MkIIs...), but I have since completely changed the way I drive the 47, and it's now basically fine for me.

    I could try and do some (six) recorded performance runs for the 40/45/47 with the TEAs and MkIIs to confirm my view, but that's a big time commitment....

    Anyway, I think that there's an easy test for the 47 (on PS4). If you can get it to roll out of Manchester without applying any power at all, then you're sorted. If you can't, then you stuffed up the brakes, and they'll drag.
     
  21. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    I just needed to do one run - 45 on the loaded TEAs (10.40am one), and yeah, it's still way punchier than 47, from a standstill - a pocket rocket. But generally not so much better than the 47 elsewhere (especially on the very steep grades). So it gets some initial momentum going really quickly, and that makes it about ten times easier to drive, especially at the start and out of the 15mph TSRs (LOL - they might have been permanent...). There's a weird stretch of track a few miles out of Manchester, at 1% grade, that kills the speed of both the 45 and 47 (but not elsewhere at 1%, oddly enough).

    The 45 (with the TEAs) was also way more responsive on the brakes (along the whole pipe), than the 47 (with the TEAs), which made it much easier to preserve momentum, and balance power against the brakes. If they were racing cars, then the 45 had the ultra-softs on, and the 47 had the hard compound, but they both had the same engine. And the 47 had a much longer set of gear ratios.

    I'd be completely unbothered if the 47 wasn't "fixed" on PS4 (because it makes the MkIIs a challenge against timetable, and the TEAs a real challenge....), but I fully understand why pretty much everyone else has the opposite view.
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2020

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