Thanks to the Unreal Engine Unlocker, I am able to change dates and times on the go, however unsurprisingly, this quite easily shows the flaws with the 24 hour lighting system. Daytime lighting is okay, however it’s after sunset where everything goes downhill. I will explain below. Settings are ‘Summer Clear’ on the Bakerloo Line route: 19:00 - all looks okay ✅ 20:00 - all looks okay ✅ 21:00 - STOP. Whilst the sky has gotten darker, why has the environment lighting suddenly got lighter? 23:00 - looks okay ✅ 01:00 - STOP. Why has the environmental lighting suddenly got brighter again? This is a reoccurring theme with TSW’s night lighting, in all seasons. It’s fluctuates from dark to not so dark during the night, with mornings looking darker than say midnight. The most obvious issue is that land and assets glow at night from a non-existent light source. Cloudy weather will also ironically make the environment brighter at night. Are the developers aware that this has been an issue with the lighting since day one of TSW?
Also, when it's dark on the autumn settings (and presumably also Spring and Winter), platform lights don't come on when they should, leaving paltforms and stations in complete darkness.
That is what happens in real life and can easily be observed. Light pollution from towns and cities bounces back from the clouds providing more ambient light. It can be very light indeed with full, low cloud cover. In the countryside where there are fewer man made light sources it doesn’t happen as much. The darkest nights everywhere are cloudless, moonless nights. I’m not saying the lighting in the game is right, just that it is lighter at night when it’s cloudy in real life. So that is correct behaviour.
This is something else though. There are unseen light forces at work that are screwing up so much of the lighting. They HAVE to know about, we can only hope they intend to do something about it.
Whilst you’re correct with this, TSW doesn’t have varying levels of light depending on whether it is in a built up area or the countryside. So essentially the ground illumination and surrounding assets remains ‘the same’ lightness regardless. So there’s no such thing as light pollution in TSW as you could be in the middle of the countryside, with an object/asset glowing like there’s no tomorrow. I really don’t know what causes assets to glow at night when there’s no obvious light source? Specifically when it’s cloudy. One theory could be that it’s the sun illumination clipping from under and through the world, almost like a reverse rising effect, causing it to get brighter as the night goes on?
It’s much worse on some routes than others, but yes, it’s a blanket issue with the lighting. Fog also doesn’t seem to work anymore at night. I recall it working early on in TSW 1.
If it is any consolation - night lighting is a constant source of discussion on the Xplane forms as well as having been a bone of contention in the MSFS2020 forums as well. Just saying....
I don’t think it’s a question of TSW’s night lighting being too light or too dark, it’s the fact that TSW’s night lighting is broken, full stop.
No, just that night lighting seems to be problematic in multiple simulations and those developers are struggling to get it right as well, to insinuate that it is just due to DTG inability to nail it might be a bit disingenuous. Just saying....
Think in a sense night lighting comes down to a fine line between realism and usability, and to an extent peoples perception of night time and what it should be. You do honestly have to draw the line somewhere sometimes and compromise "realism" for the sake of being able to actually use something. In the case of night time you could very easily make stuff very dark, but at the same time that isn't exactly very enjoyable, anybody who has driven NTP at night in TSW2020 will know that feeling! Quite often games do brighten night time significantly to make the experience at least somewhat enjoyable and TSW is hardly alone in this regard. Whether TSW has gone perhaps a bit too far... possibly yes and certainly there does appear to be a few erm, issues at various times of days going bright dark bright dark! Its also curious peoples perception of night, like the last picture is technically possible, with a clear sky and a full moon it can be incredibly bright at night, enough to easily walk around and see in.
I am without a desk at the moment so can’t enjoy TSW and all its delights but I think early on the decision for cross platform Train Simulation meant to use a game engine already pre-defined which DTG could build onto rather than the approach of build a game engine fit for purpose. While it does look very pleasing; it’s these little things which make up the overall simulation. I am not knocking it and haven’t got time to knock it but, higher up in DTG they want to appeal to all platforms whereas FSX 2020 is a ground up built game engine which uses code from Bing Maps to generate the landscape. But they built the weather engine, physics engine because they just did. Even little old OMSI can do the moon phases and night time is night time - but UE4 was an architectural tool to make static high end graphics. Not games as such. But I could be 100% wrong. But I like how SCS built their engine, OMSI was built, FSX has been built, and there’s a few in the works that have been built. UE4 is a lazy approach, and like TML it’s the same; although TMLs approach to better rain and weather effects are profoundly superior than DTG.
Perhaps dtg have gone a bit too far with the lighting. Hopefully they actually make the lighting realistic
Is it possible that the night lighting conditions are also specifc to each route in the game? Much in the same way how ECW has different lighting and levels of bloom compared to the rest? I remember firing up Sand Patch Grade a few days ago, loaded up a nighttime service....lo and behold, the lighting was completely different to all of the other TSW2 routes. I could actually see and navigate around, and it wasn't pitch black, despite not having touched any display settings (this was on console by the way). Its a bit bizarre, isn't it? Sand Patch Grade / Service Y111/ 20:15 Schnellfahrstrecke Köln / RE9 Aachen Hbf / 20:47 Both were done under the Spring Clear preset.
To be fair, MSFS2020 had almost perfect night lighting (sort of my area of expertise) and Asobo screwed it up in an update. In the space of a month they’ve pushed out 2 updates which have improved the situation, although not fixed it. TSW has been knackered for 4 years. Also, what Asobo had to do with night lighting, and what DTG had to do are worlds apart. If TSW even looked as good and realistic as TS no one would be complaining.
Nail on the head with this. The issue isn’t so much with how dark (or not) it is at night, it’s the fact that it fluctuates from dark bright dark bright as the night goes on. As mentioned, it’s quite often darker at 06:00/07:00 than it is at 05:00, for example. Same applies to evening and night lighting. I think we all just want a ‘proper’ 24 hour cycle of realistic lighting, without all these fluctuations in lighting.
I don’t get why they got it pretty spot on in Train Sim, but are struggling in TSW. Part of the problem with people complaining it’s ‘too dark’ is that buildings, stations, streets etc. aren’t lit as they should be, or as they are in TS1. Many windows on buildings don’t have separate night time textures, instead this weird reflective silver appearance that is there 24hrs a day. The problem with NTP is there is literally zero trackside lighting and most of the stations have no lights on the dark. That little issue has been there since release and not fixed. I don’t think the night time being dark would be an issue if the ‘world’ was lit just like it was in TS1.
Appreciate the pictures londonmidland I see exactly what you mean. This isn't something that is currently being specifically worked on. That doesn't mean to say you will never see improvements to lighting, it's just more likely there will be adjustments made over time.
Thanks, I appreciate this. I know lighting has improved on newer routes, although this is only applicable to day lighting. Night lighting still remains subpar. I know many would like the same, good looking lighting experience across all routes, new and old. As mentioned, TSW suffers from a lack of external light sources from buildings and things like that. There are some things which light up at night, however that is way below what one would expect. It’s almost as if it is WW1/2 again, with everyone turning their lights off. Adding to the above, it seems the weird lighting/glowing of assets at night may have been an intentional choice by the developers, to compensate for the lack of ‘real’ lights? Would you kindly be able to find out if this is the case, or if there genuinely is a bug with night lighting? Thanks.
Well, if lights, which has been one of the most demanded improvements requested by users over the years, is not even considered as something to discuss internally within the development team I think we are clearly not on the same page. I agree with hightower. Those are really bad news and from the customer perspective not good at all to keep us supporting this, if that´s the final target (keep customers happy is a basic rule). I understand there are limits, budget is not infinite and some of the changes are not giving direct sales profit but I think forum reflects quite good some of the most critical issues that definitely need some time dedicated to them, specially if those are brought by people who know the game so deeply to be able to identify the root of the problems, as londonmidland did among other well known members. We got smashed, so to say, by the terrible portover of the preserved collection which was litterally put in game as it was, without even checking it. Some content like NEC and it´s rolling stock is lost even if we paid for it. I think we deserve some time dedicated to our demands to compensate those things. Cheers
DTG should try to change some of their priorties and end their "release it now, fix it later" policy. The fact that lighing is not something to talk about is quite baffling it's something that has requested to be improved multiple times in the fourms is something to not talk about. It begs the question of what are the priorities of DTG
As well as finding out that the editior won't be coming to tsw2 at all after they kept saying that it would come.
It's not just night lighting of course. There's something fundamentally wrong with the way this game is lit. It can look awesome one minute and utterly terrible the next. I can't believe this isn't something being actively looked at, particularly given the move to 4.23 If not for fixing things like this, what was the point?
There’s also the issue with lighting dramatically changing brightness every couple of minutes. Particularly in partially cloudy weather. It’s almost like a slideshow transition.
It does beg the question as to what was the point of moving to 4.23 in the first place if the lighting of the game was not gonna be improved at all.
sometimes and always at full minutes like 14:02 14:03 14:04 etc. you can just see the lighting go up or down maybe they should just reduce the amount of up or down numbers so the difference is less noticeble
i was not talking about changing the clock but about the timers on the lighting changes and the amount it changes i can usually see the lighting change at every new minute
There's no doubt the lighting needs a makeover. Routes like NTP at night are pitch black in the middle of Leeds, Manchester and Huddersfield where the buildings should all be illuminated, 1000's of kilowatts of power being consumed by street lighting and all reflected back off any cloud and if there's no cloud then the moon should be providing ambient light. Conversely I've driven GWE on an autumn day clear at 1100 (am) and you would think the solar eclipse is happening.
