Concerned About Smoke Particles For Spirit Of Steam

Before you comment... yes I am aware that it is an unreleased DLC that is a work-in-progress. However with what appears to be "close-to-final" promotional material appearing for this DLC, I am concerned that the current development schedule will not permit many additional changes at this stage.

Very recently, a new screenshot was released that was in-line with Steam (the platform) promotional material. Whilst very nice indeed, I couldn't help but notice the particle effects which looked... rather poor.


This also seems to co-incide with what we saw as a previous tech-demo, which doesn't really show much of change shown last month.





This means that more than likely

a) We are getting a traditional 2D particle system (which is fine... but...)
b) The number of sprites to depict steam is significantly lacking
c) The number of particles itself is also severely lacking, which will be painfully evident at running speed
d) Steam lacks a certain element of viscosity
e) Steam will react to certain objects, but possibility of not reacting to the wind, ending up with a "straight-line" effect of smoke that we've previously seen in train sim classic
f) Smoke transparency is uniformly low.
g) Limited attempt at self-shadowing volumetric smoke

You get the point, and some of the items could be debunked at launch or with more footage. But I hope what we've seen so far is not the final effect, especially since Unreal Engine is more than capable of making convincing looking smoke (either from 2D particles or raymarched). Amongst those, all the proper depictions of smoke with the cylinder cocks, safety valves etc.

 

I tried to get an answer to this on every steam stream and it was always the unseen question. I have tried here too to no avail. Good luck with an answer. My inherent concern is that when you currently put the 8 cam directly over a loco it can take an 80fps down to a 20fps with the diesel smoke making me very concerned about getting a 1/10th of the above

 

Frame drops is my one my major concern with SoS full stop and why unusually I won't be buying on day 1 unless I see a preview stream ran on a recommend spec PC showing good FPS.

 

Perhaps if steam comes out with particle effects like the one shown in the in game screenshot, it could be down to performance reasons as I would assume having "realistic" or "close to realistic" effects would impact performance particularly on last gen consoles so some sacrifices would need to be done to not drastically hurt performance.

 

FPS will most certainly be lower due to the newer motion blur technique. The route itself shouldn't be as demanding as something like Brighton Mainline. But I agree that lower-end consoles might be a voice of concern.

But... isn't this why we have tailored rendering options for different systems.

 

You've also got to consider that simugraph is likely to be working harder for steam engines then diesel or electrics

 

The route may well be as demanding in places as there will be a lot more railway infrastructure in certain places, even a small station will have a few sidings. Crewe in particular, a huge railway town with a large station, yards and Crewe railway works. There will be yards around Liverpool, Edge Hill for example.

 

Not demanding in terms of services, but aren't there some large yards and infrastructure on this line? That could impact performance

 

Fair point actually. Didn't take that into consideration. I suppose we'll find out

 

I "believe" they said sorting the wheels didn't have hardly any impact. It would be good if there was a smoke slider or if londonmidland can work his magic and help us kill our FPS with ooodles of steam if gets his hands on it.

 

Have to say after looking at the screenshot a bit closer, is the cotton wool ball effects, a bit Ivor The Engine. As said though, WIP...

 

Not sure how old the above image is but the steam particles look very 'MSTS like' in the way they look, as well as the way they 'follow' the train.. I hope we won't have to deal with very simple smoke particle animations and visuals as that will totally kill the immersion.

 

It will be a big killer if the smokes minimalist.

 

I hope people keep expectations in check- particle effects are one of the biggest performance hogs in gaming.

It's not just last-gen consoles, they have to keep to the minimum PC specs, which at 8GB RAM and 2GB VRAM aren't particularly beefy.

Even AAA games have historically struggled mightily with it, just saying....

 

It’s not smoke effects but dirt rally 2 managed some very decent dust effects with volume and shading and that was made for gen 8.

They used a totally different engine, but I can’t imagine there is that much disparity between what the different game engines can achieve these days.

maybe some clever tricks were employed but, that’s the magic we have come to expect of developers these days isn’t it?

 

Steam particle effects on TSC started out badly but have improved massively since. I don't see this as a big concern (performance aside) especially when most new features and improvements get backported to older content unlike in TSC.

 

For me the important thing is that i can see the stage of the fire in the smoke color.

Not using the hud, so from the smoke i know if its time to put more coal.

 

Stop worrying so much. Don't buy it if you don't like what you see.

 

Actually that is a very very good point for steam simulation. I always aim to switch off the hud, I hope it’s achievable for steam. Even if the learning curve is steeper, I wouldn’t want to be pinned down by limits in what is simulated.

 

Agree - that particles look very MSTS-y, and I was expecting a lot better TBH.

Even modded MSTS managed better results than that if memory serves me right.

One of the stock locos in MSTS, for comparison.


The problem might be performance... but I hope it's just early WiP shots.

 

Every time the discussion of steam particle effects is discussed, I think back to this 8 year-old video.



I never had much hope in the particle effects being this good, as DTG has not made a big deal about the steam effects apart from that they've done a bit of optimisation and collision with bridges. But I truly didn't expect something as poor as in that screenshot. It was the first thing I noticed when I looked at it in the other thread.

Cheers

 

Steam only looks like your photo when its cold. In summer you'd be lucky to see any steam - technically you never "see" steam, what you see is water . Smoke yes, steam no.

 

DTG JD is this topic something you and Matt can bring to the table at the appropriate time please?

FPS concerns
Steam scalability
Steam density around loco
Will it only come from top of boiler etc

Much obliged.

 

Could simply be that the regulator was closed or only slightly open - on railtours they seem to keep the regulator open to keep the passengers foaming.



Looks to be a similar amount coming out here. Images ©Ben Brooksbank

 

I think it only emphasizes the point that steam/exhaust is particuarly complex, and also underlines that a really sufficient simulation would have a deep interaction with the environment (wind, drag, temperature, moisture etc.)

 

Not so much of a worry...

Thing is, I do want to buy more TSW content. I want more innovation and more engaging content. There have been past releases where that threshold has been so low, I would outright refuse to buy a DLC (cough Rivet). Considering this is the first steam release, I don't think it's unreasonable to convey "constructive" feedback amongst others in the community in order to :
a) Get some clarification or
b) Get some improvements in

 

I agree with the points made here, the steam effects in that current state are a standout negative point but I also get the for concern points also. I do hope some improvements are made up until release or we see some better images or footage.

I would also like to see effective colour changes based on steam production/coal burning effectiveness and the need to fire/add coal as this is used IRL.

 

They did this for steam locomotives in TS so I'd assume they'd do it for TSW. Would be odd for them to miss a detail like that out.

 

Ts has animated diggers everywhere. TSW took a step back to statics.

 

One thing that jumps out at me from the screenshots is what seems to be the overuse of heavy flat bottom rail, which gives the permanent way a (too) modern flavour. Although FB was becoming more popular at the time, the classic bullhead rail profile would have still been the most prevalent, especially on secondary lines, sidings etc.

 

Indeed. I mentioned this back in the main thread at the time the first screenshots appeared, but it seemed to get glossed over. Certainly in 1958 even any FB rail would still be jointed track as CWR and welding out joints didn't really get going until the mid 60's, from what I've read.

 

Right. Although the first CWR dates back to the 1930's, it was not common until the mid 50's in the US and the mid 60's in the UK. So Liverpool - Crewe should have plenty of " clickety- clack ".

 

Place camera just on top of any of the Sand Patch locomotives (like in a 3rd person view) and you will see how fps drop dramatically when you are close to the exhausts. And this is not even a steam engine. The promo pictures is what you can expect: 3-4 smoke big bubbles with a lifetime of 5 seconds. It was the same in the older game versions.

Cheers

 

Then why does the TS Classic version of effectively the same loco manage to have noticeably fuller looking smoke?

And even if we assume that maybe they're just running it at idle in that TSW picture it's still wrong, because it shouldn't have defined puffs of smoke, it should just be a barely noticeable trail like in this picture.

It's a lot more comparable to early TS Classic versions of locos, and with how long it's taken for steam to arrive I think expecting something at least on par with modern TS Pro offers is completely justified.

 

Hi all, I spend quite a bit of time around steam engines as a volunteer on a heritage railway, I've taken some of my clips over time and put them together with captions of what the loco is doing at the time and the weather conditions. You'll see that the same locomotive (type) running at various times produces very different emissions - there is no right or wrong in how it should look and everyone will have different experiences based on their experience. Likely most people here have seen a steam engine in operation but the level of experience is going to vary. I figured this might be helpful to the discussion.

Paul

 

That seems like a inaccurate statement, there's lots of different conditions at play sure, but if you set the same power settings in the same conditions with the same engine it will be very similar. You're never gonna have a steam loco which produces more smoke at idle then it does running full power. Likewise smoke is going to be far more visible in colder environments than warm ones assuming all other factors are equal. There's lots of variation sure, but it ain't quantum physics, you can make very good guesses as to what it should and shouldn't do.

 

Smoke Density curve linked to temperature of environment.
Colour output linked to fire mass in simugraph. might be some simple handles on how the internals might simply simulate the environment.

I can imagine that producing quite a good challenge for hudless driving.

 

People are jumping to an awful lot of conclusions based on a single screenshot

 

Especially considering it is devoid of context.

 

Welcome to the forums

 

Hi Mich, I've given you concrete examples via video evidence in different conditions. I've worked around these engines for the last 40 years mate. You don't have to believe me that is entirely up to you but I am telling you my personal experience. My statement stands. Please watch the video.



Paul

 

Probably dtg needs to make compromises with the smoke effects.
Its just not linear. So they have to connect the visuals with weather and temperature. Well even more nice, if they find a way to make that happen.

 

Read my post again, you'd realize that my post isn't arguing against that point, yes, smoke changes depending on the conditions. But those factors are hardly random, there's some degree of consistency. Smoke's gonna be more visible on a cold winter day than a warm summer day, assuming all other factors are equal. Likewise a engine will produce more smoke with the regulator wide open then with it being shut, again, assuming all other factors are equal.

Now when you add in various temperature changes, power settings, and various other factors I'm not mentioning for the sake of simplicity there's lots of variation for sure. And indeed you're rarely gonna have a repeat of those conditions in real life, so it can be seemingly random. But it isn't actually random by any means, you can predict how much smoke a engine will generate, and how it will generally act and look depending on varying factors.

 

That was the point of my providing examples. The discussions on this thread were revolving around a narrow set of experiences and very high expectations.

Interestingly smoke and steam behave quite independently even though they are coming from the same stack, they don't really mix and behave quite differently. You can depending on the locomotive design with spark arrestors also get soot and cinders raining down.

Paul

 

Coming from the latest previews shown about 10 minutes ago. I'm still not convinced. Route itself still looks lovely though!



Here you can see the steam really hugging the front boiler and accumulating.... instead of something that looks like it has a bit of inertia from being pushed out the funnel and then being dragged by the wind.



And then a few seconds later, you can see the individual particles spinning about. Kinda breaks the illusion.



Slower speeds seem to be pretty decent, but again you can make out the individual particles spawning and then expiring almost instantly.

Anyway, I'm sure it'll be a subjective viewpoint for alot of you, but for me it does seem like a downgrade compared to TS Classic.

 

Forgot to add, in the engine shed, locos will accumulate a sort of steam afro above them

 

I realise we are still SoS WIP, but watching the little preview video in todays roadmap there's SMOKE from the chimney - but where's the STEAM? from the valves and cocks around the chassis and wheels, and from the steam heating leaks between coaches?

 

Edit : After reading the first paragraph of the roadmap, Matt confirmed they are still working on the particles. So apologies for my incessant whining xD

 

Particles not as bad as the screenshots made the out to be but there is still room for some improvement between now and release and as stated this is still very much work in progress.

My main gripe is that the exhaust seems to come from the base of the funnel rather than the top, it appears to clip through it.