TSW still has an issue with the way its 24 hour dynamic lighting operates. This has been reported multiple times but nothing has been fixed or acknowledged by DTG. There is nothing on the roadmap either. For those who are wondering what the issue is, basically as the sun sets, the terrain and assets will actually get brighter and glow. It’s almost as if the sun is shining through the world below, causing everything to get brighter. So as the sun starts to set, it’ll get darker as you’d expect. However once the sun reaches a certain level below the world, you’ll notice everything starting to get brighter again. Ironically, when the sun starts to rise again, the world will get darker. Also, when setting cloud at night, this causes everything to get significantly brighter. Even more brighter than it already is. So you can see how broken the lighting cycle is, and it can be quite annoying as it prevents me from having fun whilst playing services during the evening/night as everything looks off.
My experience on recent routes like Cathcart and Clinchfield is that it's so darn dark at night that some services are virtually unplayable. CRR, in particular, has very little ambient lighting and the loco headlights, especially the F7's, are like a single birthday candle. Some of Cathcart's stations are so dark, I'd be afraid to wait there for a train. I like both routes, but I wish they'd fix the lighting. As you say, our complaints are falling on deaf ears, so I'm not hopeful.
I can't figure how to set up a night run during winter. The sky is pitch black, but the ground and assets shine with a strange eerie light...
Yes, I once did an early run with the 483 and the sky was pitch black, yet the snow was white as a sheet. Really immersion breaking and why can’t they dim the lights of certain assets- like snow. Yet again the community is falling upon death ears; so come on DTG, why don’t you listen to us and fix this issue.
There is also the “game just turned the light on” at night transitions rather than gradual lighting changes on some routes
This is one of the biggest frustrations I have with night time lighting. Why is the sky pitch black (as it should be) but the ground is so much brighter looking? It’s like it’s being lit up by an invisible light source, such as a super bright moon or something.
This is particularly noticeable during sunrise and sunset. The transitions are so choppy and noticeable, it’s like a slideshow. It can also be seen when you set the weather to partially cloudy.
Night time in winter is broke. All you’re doing is looking at gauges. Might as well have window blinds down
Lighting is a very important part of any game. If they have a lighting team which I suspect they do, why can't they work on the lighting? People have been mentioning this alot and there has been no response. They can make new routes but can't address core issues in the game. What a joke
There doesnt seem to be a happy medium. Some routes its dark dark- see Cathcart and NTP. Others its bright as day- ECW. The dark dark routes are seriously discombobulating, I guess that is how its in real life- especially as you cant find the light switch in the cab, you just have green and red lights to look at, unless you have the HUD on you cant see the speed signs either. Its where the bright snow of the German routes is "easier" as you can actually see where the hell you are in relation to anything. Especially stations. Cathcart if you dont have the HUD on the stations literally appear out of nowhere. There will be a happy medium? Surely? Maybe not. D
We can only hope DTG can fix the night lighting, but they cant even seem to fix the headlight flares on the locomotives! Pretty ridiculous when an old game like TS has better headlight flares which had to be added by Searchlight anyway.
If we get annual core update that doesn't fix the lighting then my wallet is going to get tighter. I love this game but I've not bought the last 2-3 releases because this is still not fixed. My wallet will become even more airtight if we get the class 101 as a route loco again.
Catchart is actually too bright. What you’re thinking of is the very dim platform lights. Naturally, the world should start off pitch black at night. You then add ambient light sources and lights to buildings to illuminate things. DTG have two issues at the opposite ends of the scale: - The world is dark (as it should be) however they don’t add near enough ambient lighting to the route. - They artificially make the world brighter to make up for the lack of ambient lighting. However this makes the terrain and assets glow at night without any light source. It looks absolutely ridiculous driving in a rural area at night with the whole world lit up like it is day time or something. Why is my whole cab lit up when in fact all I should see is the lights from the gauges?
I don’t know how they messed up the platform lighting on Cathcart to be honest with you. Clearly it wasn’t tested at night. Not only is it far too dim, but the platform lights should be orange, not white.
Also in the dark, road signs along the railway line are not visible. I have to have the HUD switched on when driving at night.
The real night sky is very rarely pitch black. It can be, on a clear moonless night in the middle of nowhere but anywhere near a town or city the faintest bit of cloud cover reflects light from below and the sky is lighter. With full low cloud, reflected light from the ground can make nighttime very light indeed and the whole sky acts as if a giant light source. On clear nights everywhere there is moonlight which varies in intensity but rarely is there no natural light coming from the sky. Creating that realistically in-game, simulating actual ambient lighting being reflected down would be impossible. Because games can’t model the way light works in reality everything has to be faked. Starting from pitch darkness is how it is done but whenever that is the situation in game then it becomes unplayable. If environmental light sources (lampposts, house and office lights etc) were modelled better in TSW they would still only illuminate downwards and the sky without some other simulated ambient light would still be unnaturally dark. TSW has fairly good moonlight, which helps playing on Clinchfield for example, it just isn’t present for long periods during the bad twilight time periods. The way textures behave under different lighting conditions is different again and is more of a problem, as is the poor lighting from external environmental fixtures. I’m sure it can be done better and it’s not just night lighting, the day lighting needs work too. Environmental light sources need the most work I think, as shown clearly in Cathcart. All lights in TSW appear to have a well focused, fairly narrow beam, like a theatre spotlight, whereas in reality those lights would give a wider, softer pool of light with each lamppost casting light that overlaps with the next. That must be done that way in TSW for performance reasons because nobody would design it to look like that for artistic purposes. It always looks bad.
Well, take, for example, Sand Patch, which has always been my personal benchmark for environmental features (ignoring, for the moment, its other shortcomings). It's very drivable at night. There are lots of ambient light sources, such as street lights, yard lights, buildings etc. as well as moonlight when available. And the locos have half decent headlights. It is the oldest route, beginning with CSX Heavy Haul, so we know that DTG are quite capable of producing viable night gameplay. Clinchfield could have been almost as good, albeit with less civilization to provide light sources. Cathcart should be easy to drive at night. It's on the outskirts of the 2nd largest city in the UK, is it not? These last two are, on the whole, well modeled routes with lots of good daytime gameplay, good train models* and well modeled environments. They are spoiled, though not broken, by the poor lighting. A good portion of their services are, to a large extent, unplayable, or at least, unenjoyable. As we say over here, "Go figure". *the CRR locos have some missing features and poor headlights.
I too think it can be improved. Fernbus is a a game with pretty decent night lighting and that's a UE4 Game. The Bus has decent night lighting as well. Much better than tsw2. And if the lights have to be done in the way you described, then this game is clearly optimized poorly. Alot of last gen console games I've played as well have pretty good night lighting and handle it just fine.
I should have worded my comment better... What I meant to say is it's likely to be a part of a future core update, after this summers' update. As you say, if it was a part of the Rush Hour update, we would have known by now. My mistake.