The Ground Is Lava...ahm...white? Lighting Problem In Tsw3?

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by tsw2, Aug 20, 2022.

  1. tsw2

    tsw2 Well-Known Member

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    Hi,

    just watch the stream "Schnellfahrstrecke Kassel-Würzburg - Preview - Train Sim World 3" at 1:22:00 on the entrance to Würzburg Hbf.
    The ground infront of the train, the tracks and all looks completely white. Like snow. Especially in the distant its just white...that actually looks worse then the tar black lighting in TSW2.

    Oh and is the "the sun shines through the solid roof of the loco" fixed in TSW3?



     
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  2. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Ouch. The effect is bad enough in TSW2 at times. They really need to pull this from release until all the issues are cleared up.
     
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  3. tsw2

    tsw2 Well-Known Member

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    I recently played lots of indie games (mostly shooters but with large areas, some outdoor). Many even UE4 games.
    None of them had this strange lighting and the massive lighting problems that TSW2 and (seemingly) TSW3 have.

    I really dont understand what DTG did to the lighting...and why they seem unable to correct it even after years.
     
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  4. CK95

    CK95 Well-Known Member

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    I think DTG just have a nasty habit of wanting to do something, then doing it, but only learning how to do it afterwards.

    This is probably how we keep ending up with nasty bits of code deep in the core which go unfixed.

    The core of TSW just seems to be nothing more than a well aged bottle of milk.
     
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  5. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    This is realy bad. I love to drive in wet conditions but this is imposible in TSW becouse of the risk of brain damage. Hope the fix will arrive someday.
     
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  6. tsw2

    tsw2 Well-Known Member

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    Just looking at similar Train games like Hmmm Sim or Tram Sim. None of them have these lighting issues and Hmmm Sim is probably done by one person so nobody can tell me that "DTG dont have the resources for that because they are a small company"

    I guess, just like with the "in scenario planer its always summer" thing...there is some awful hardcoded limitation at work. And now they have to try to fix a broken foundation instead of creating something new that actually delivers.

    I know they said they have redone the lighting but from what i saw in the livestream it looks like they just adjusted some values and turned the brightness up which now leads to new issues like bright white ground.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2022
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  7. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I can see a fix for this being the removal of the wetness setting from weather and all the weather presets. It is really just a ‘weird white overlay on the ground’ setting anyway, even in TSW2. We can easily live without it. If that doesn’t work as a fix then we are possibly doomed. Doomed I tell you.
     
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  8. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    A good posting, worth a separate thread, I think. Appeal to the makers. Turn all the wet releated features in the game off. I love the new weather but in current situation it is non-useable.
     
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  9. tsw2

    tsw2 Well-Known Member

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    I had high hopes once i heard that TSW3 has a "completely new lighting system". But it seems to have it's own big issues just like the old one. The "wet ground" textures do look good on screenshots on the Steam Shop page but seem broken ingame.
     
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  10. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    It’s a material problem with the ground terrain and ballast assets, which DTG have never bothered to fix.

    EB8523FD-9022-4F92-9867-A548CA5537F9.jpeg
     
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  11. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    That just looks bloody awful. Apologies for mild sweary but I can't express it any more articulately than that.

    It actually reminds me of Trainz where certain textures painted at a certain angle and viewed in a certain light would adopt a similar severe shine. But that is not going to be enjoyable.

    Once again I implore DTG. Pull TSW3 until you have:
    1. Sorted out all the lighting issues.
    2. Sorted the sound issues.
    And 3. Of course sorted the save game.

    Then we might have something worth paying £40 for.
     
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  12. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    This is related to the wetness level in the game. Maybe these settings should or could be caped/limited by DTG or at least in engine.ini.
     
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  13. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    That is not really the truth. The problem is how the PBR stuff works in UE4. By definition of the Metallic-Roughness workflow that is used, the specular value is set to 0.5 on all materials by default and specular is not driven at all. Again by definition of physically based rendering the specularity increases on flat surfaces by the viewing angle. There is a way to compensate that, but that is a massively huge pile of work and might have a huge performance impact. Basically every used material needs a addition of a material function and tuned parameters that corrects that bad looking but physically correct behaviour. We talking about a few ten thousand of different materials ind the whole game now and way more material instances that needs a hand on manually. Month's of work to do.
     
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  14. tsw2

    tsw2 Well-Known Member

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    Sorry Maik Goltz ...i have played lots of UE4 games and never (except for TSW) came across such insane lighting/texture issues. Actually the "wet surface" effects in most UE4 games i have played looked really good.
    So i say: Dont blame UE4, dont claim "it is just to much work to fix"...many other UE4 games dont have these problems.

    This "effect" is unacceptable for a 2022 new release for a big company like DTG and is reason enough for me to skip TSW3 for now.

    Just looking at the screenshot that londonmidland showed. This looks embarrassing...sorry if this is harsh but just look at it. Or would you say that is acceptable quality for 2022?

    ...not to mention that the sun shines still through the roof of the loco judging by what i saw of TSW3
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2022
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  15. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    You seem to forget or not to know that most other games (i assume that you compare to them) games using completely baked light. That's not possible with TWS and so we have those issues. When the whole light gets baked in UE4, it look waaaay better and is way more controllable. But you can't do a train sim with it's huge real map size and use baked light. You would lose the ability to have working time of day (it would be always the same time and light). The baking would need months for a single route. The memory footptring with all that baking would not fit onto the consoles. That would end in routes not longer than maybe 16km.

    I know, the next thing you have in your bag is a comparison to a open world game that uses different time of day too (but no real time ToD). Those games are made with lots of tricks to present a world that is way larger than it actually is. I can give some examples. AC:oddysey or Valhalla has a overall map size of 15*15miles (approximation by me, might be smaller but not bigger). It looks huge, but it isn't in engine units sight. With that map size you would not even fit the smallest route available for TSW. Next example is maybe Horizon (ZD or FW). They have a ways smaller map size than newer AC games. And i could name lots of other games with open worlds. They are basically tiny compared to a train sim route. They can use baking all over, making multiple bakes for different time of days (that gives the ability to do the meditation or how its called (that fast forwards the time to the next day). And so on... could talk hours about how they trick the players. Maybe you try to get some information how those games were made (there is alot of it on the net). And then you know why they are looking so much better than TSW now.

    For a open world streamed tiles game of that size, TSW actually looks really good.
     
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  16. eldomtom2

    eldomtom2 Well-Known Member

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    I'm not so sure - TSW routes are long but thin...
     
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  17. tsw2

    tsw2 Well-Known Member

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    I have to disagree. TSW does not look acceptable for 2022, especially considering the bad performance even on modern hardware. Since Im not payed to develop the game I actually dont care that much about how its done. I know Tram Sim is also UE4 and it does look much better when it comes to lighting, weather and wet surfaces. Its also a large area.

    While TSW covers a huge area, the player basically goes on "rails" through the scenery. I personally dont care for the "walk everywhere" part. So if there is a way to get less awful looking lighting and surfaces they should do it. Does not matter if it TSW is going to "trick the player". What players care for is acceptable looks, textures and lighting.

    Again, look at the screenshot above. Playing something that looks like that is not fun, totally kills the immersion.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2022
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  18. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    At least i can only say, also from a player/customer perspective, if you are not happy with it, don't buy it anymore. Move on to y better (from your perspective) game and be happy with it. You always tell us what's bad and that other games are way better. Then please play the other games. It's your choice. No one forces you to play TSW.
     
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  19. 2martens

    2martens Well-Known Member

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    One of the issues with a train sim is also speed. In open-world games like, for example, Witcher 3 (not on UE4 but with Red Engine), the fastest speed is that of a horse. They stream in tiles as well but have more time for doing that. Their sun is dynamic and the lighting looks beautiful. They have physically based rendering and outside of dwellings/city no light sources but the sun/moon. The trees cast shadows and the god rays of the sun are really nice (post-processing that isn't visible on screenshots).
    This kind of lighting probably does not work with 280 kph. Even though it would be nice.

    As for the wet effect: one issue here is that TSW3 has a flat texture/material that gets uniformly wet. A lake with the sun at a certain angle is also very bright, windows as well (sometimes really bright). But in the real world on a rainy day, the water does not pile up on the tracks like that (in that case you would have flooding). Rather, the stones are getting individually wet and the track surface becomes wet. So the bright reflection would be on the tracks but not the ground.

    For my part, if I wouldn't care for TSW3, I would not spend time on the forum pointing out issues. I guess most people here have the same attitude. Some are more aggressive than others, admittedly. I personally can understand problems if they are explained with the technical issues in the background. I'm a software developer myself (not with games though) and the supposedly easiest things are sometimes very hard to fix.

    So I want to thank Maik for giving details here, as to what the specific issue is and what would have to be done about it. That said, the end result still looks bad and criticism of that is OK.

    Likely the backlash would have been less if the lighting wasn't one of the biggest selling features for TSW3. As it stands, DTG focuses on the new lighting as awesome. The comparison shot in SEHS in St. Pancras looks amazing. But so far, the lighting seen in the first gameplay stream of TSW3 does not live up to the hype created by the marketing photos. It appears that every weather other than summer/winter and sun still looks somewhat bad in every train sim out there.

    Precipitation and fog appear notoriously difficult to get visually looking good while keeping the performance.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2022
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  20. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    So why have DTG decided to use this method for the new lighting? If it’s going make lots of textures look terrible then it’s not the right thing to do for the game. If they can’t do PBR properly then they shouldn’t be doing it at all. There’s no advantage for anyone in DTG making the game look worse than it was before.
     
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  21. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    DCS is pretty large, has volumetric skies and good lighting. But this is not about compare one game to another and about to cry. We are all worried about current state of this aspect because this looks not so good at all. The issue appears to be to hard to fix, like Maik said. Well...
     
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  22. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    If DTG are making the game that people were happy to buy into one where it looks so bad that they don’t buy it any more then good luck to them. I don’t play any other games, just this one, and I find it hard to take when things not only don’t improve but get worse. It’s up to DTG to make the game better so that customers are happy and if they drive them away with repeated failures then that’s a sad state of affairs and cannot be excused.
     
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  23. 2martens

    2martens Well-Known Member

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    They have done it because it was a move to fix other lighting issues (do bright tunnels/night being one). As they have explained, it is not really possible to do it halfway. PBL is the better way to do it because it comes closer to reality.

    But usually, with big refactorings, there are some problems and the question comes up, why have you done the refactoring in the first place? Well: taking the lighting values direct from manuals is both more accurate and easier than having to balance them forever following your gut feeling. I don't know the economic outlook of DTG but you cannot work on something forever without additional income. While they were working on the new lighting, they obviously didn't want to release things with the old lighting. That means if thought to completion, they could not release anything (nor any 3rd party) until that issue has been fixed. As Maik said, fixing it could take months, meaning months without new releases.

    With current inflation and stuff, that isn't feasible. So they had to make the decision to release the best thing they could deliver in the time available. Over time, it will improve and it is the better decision for the long-term outlook of TSW.

    My personal way to deal with it, will be do avoid driving a service at that time of day with the sun ahead of you. ;)
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2022
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  24. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    There is no other way. You can use TSC if you don't wan't PBR. That is how it looks then. And the Metallic-Roughness workflow is the only suitable workflow for doing it in UE4. A Specular-Roughness workflow looks not any good for trains/cars and is more for stylistic games that not uses real world materials for visuals.

    It's the same comparison as to MSFS. They are flight sims. They have way more capacity for doing nice skies and light because they don't need a massive populated ground that eats up the memory and performance. If you would try to make a train sim out of those two engines with the neat skies and the light, you would end up in a 1fps slideshow.
     
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  25. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    that's why I mentioned the limits. at low and medium levels of wetness (slider in the timetable) it does not look so bad. rainfall may progress, but wetness may be reduced. I don't know anything about it, I speculate, accepts an explanation ...
     
  26. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    The wetness param drives only a roughness mask that gets laid over on vehicles and on other materials it just lowers the roughness to near 0 or so to make it shiny. But that at least does not affect the problematic aspect. The specularity stays on 0.5 * aFactorOfViewAngleToSurface. Might be look a bit better on surfaces they are less rough, but does not eliminates the specular problem. I tried a bit with that a while ago and what it really needs is more usage of more height-maps on a distance on ground materials and other horizontal surfaces, but that is expensive on the performance. So they all need a function that drives down the specularity with the view angle to the surface and the distance to the pixel. And that's massive work to do and maybe also expensive because it needs some instructions on the shader.
     
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  27. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I don’t have a PC to play TSC. I have TSW on PS5. Talking about issues in TSW and having the only solution to any of them being “don’t play it” will not improve TSW and is a copout. When I look out of the front of a train in TSW2 I see the ground, and when wet is had a grey sheen to it but it was still recognisable as ground, in the stream of TSW3 the view from the front of the train was just a blanket of white. I don’t see why they have changed to a system that causes that and I’m sure as a developer yourself you wouldn’t want any changes that make things a whole lot worse and you shouldn’t be excusing them. All of the TSW games have been in UE4 so there is a way to make the ground look like ground because we’ve seen it in the TSW games up to this point, so it’s not a UE4 issue it’s a DTG issue caused by a change they have made to the lighting. They can’t possibly look at was in the stream and think it’s okay. It’s not. Anyway, there’s not much more I can say about it because I don’t know how to fix it other than going back to how it was before and only DTG can sort it.
     
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  28. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    This hasn't changed. It was there all the time since TSW2020. That's not new. Just the weather conditions were not so fortunate to the issue. It looks the same with similar settings in TSW2 too. It's an older problem. And i'm not on it to solve that, i can't do that. I would maybe find a solution if that would be "my" game. But i'm just a DLC developer, nothing more. I'm not sticking my hands into the core functionality.
     
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  29. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    The hard but unavoidable fact then, is DTG need to ditch UE and find a more suitable game engine, or develop their own, for the specific needs of TSW. Or maybe, as many have suggested, it’s time to revisit TSC and look at bringing some of TSW features across, like complex integrated timetables and player movement/interaction with the environment. Then TSW can be laid to rest as a bold experiment that didn’t quite cut it.
     
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  30. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    So, the new dynamic weather is a bit of a Pyrrhic victory
     
  31. CrAzZyKiLLa

    CrAzZyKiLLa Well-Known Member

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    This video is a good example that shows how specular mapping works (which Maik mentioned in tbe quote above) and how it causes that shiny texture effect and ways for the developers to improve it. But as expained by Maik above this appears to be alot of / performance costly work.

     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2022
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  32. Delta_Who

    Delta_Who Well-Known Member

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    They don't need to ditch Unreal engine. All of this problems are solvable or workable. TSC is an ancient engine to work on.

    The only thing that should be questioned here is DTGs development strategy, and how rushed almost every feature seems to be.
     
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  33. Birita

    Birita Well-Known Member

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    Boy It was so bright and white that even the dev that was playing thought that was snowing...hahahaha...tsw 3 lighting doesnt look good at ALL...why change If Tsw 2 was better?
     
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  34. mariussoare_84

    mariussoare_84 Well-Known Member

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    I remember when Maik was telling me, maybe around a year ago, I can´t remember exactly, that dynamic weather is a gimmick and not really that useful and cool.

    One can feel the frustration in-between those lines above, either coming from not being able to do better or not being allowed to.

    One would not dare to afford to say to clients/users to bugger off if they don´t like the product if there is competition around because saying that is cutting of your income but now you can afford to say it while there is no one else around.

    Just like with the dynamic weather gimmick, you never know what time has prepared for us and when it will hit back like a boomerang, just like it does now.

    Good luck with that attitude!
     
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  35. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    Please show me that. I can't remember saying such things. Dynamic weather is a gimmick, but it is also useful and a nice visual immersion added to the game. Especially because it's not only weather dynamics but also adhesion dynamics. That's very cool and it works good. Have you seen in the stream, while Lukas was doing a manual braking, that only the rear head was sliding? Such things i do like a lot. And that comes from the different conditions on the rails and the overall physics-dynamics that are in the game.
     
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  36. chieflongshin

    chieflongshin Well-Known Member

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    That looks awful
     
  37. torfmeister

    torfmeister Guest

    Just my 50 cents.

    I've only recently got into Euro Truck Simulator 2. Out of the box, the dynamic weather and lighting is absolutely fantastic, and remember the engine is older than TSW. Playing this you instantly get the feeling that this is a game designed with love and care.

    And being an open world sim too (Well, it is a 1:19 scaled map of Europe, but still bigger than any TSW route), it just shows what can be done if you're a good and willing game designer/coder.

    And all the technical apologies why TSW looks bad are not helping. You've had enough time to learn, DTG.
     
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  38. erg73

    erg73 Well-Known Member

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    There have always been many complaints from the community about lighting, so it is only natural that DTG is trying to take steps to improve this area.

    What I don't see as normal is that they want to sell us what they say is a new game under the pretext of some improvements they've made, including lighting, only to find out at the first preview that it's actually a real disaster.

    I don't understand about engines, graphics, tiling or anything else that has been said in this thread. I don't have to understand that to develop a simulator they chose an engine that, according to those who understand, is not suitable for making simulators. I don't need to, I'm a customer who only wants to have fun with a game and I pay for it. By the way, much more money than I've paid for any game in my life, and I've been playing for over 30 years.
    I can only compare with what I've seen so far. And what I can't understand at all is that the severe lighting problems I saw on Thursday I've never seen in TSW before. To the point that the same developer who was playing the game wonders if it has started to snow. Are we going forwards or backwards like crabs? What will be the solution to this? Tell us not to buy it if we don't like it? Or are they really going to take a step back if it doesn't work properly?

    Do we have to put up with this in a "new" game, really? If they've done everything they can and haven't got it right, let them go back to the old system and do more research. But please stop fooling us for once. On the day of the presentation everything was wonderful, with amazing visuals. And then, with the game in motion, it turns out that there are many things that are not right at all.
    This image I think defines very well how my mood has changed since that countdown and subsequent presentation until today regarding TSW3:
    AnotherDisfiguredLeafcutterant-size_restricted.gif

    I think most of us know that this is not a new game, DTG knows that too. It's a facelift that they've tried to do, and I'd really be happy and willing to accept it if I could see that at least what they've promised us with these improvements works. But as much as I try to see the positive side of all this, every day that goes by I find it more and more difficult with what we are seeing.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2022
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  39. mariussoare_84

    mariussoare_84 Well-Known Member

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    Here you go. Where it says ¨whatever¨ originally it was weather which you said later that it was a typo.
    There are a lot of gimmicks listed and of course everyone is entitled to own opinions.

    Not everyone can say what flies through the mind however, if you now what I mean. Diplomacy can get you a long way.

    post.jpg
     
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  40. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    The punch line is this, it should be fixed. Sam said we didn't get all the rest of the changes because there is no time, but everyone wanted dynamic weather. Right, halfway. We wanted well-functioning dynamic weather. It's a bit sad, trying to convince customers that we only think we know what we want. I appreciate Maik's explanation, but I would also like to hear the whole truth, e.g. we won't correct it because we can't.
     
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  41. torfmeister

    torfmeister Guest

    Agreed. And the numbering is a BIG mistake. It should be "TSW" and nothing more, with continuous core updates - then people will find trust in its longetivity to start collecting DLC.
     
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  42. Got my snow shades ordered just in time for this route :cool:
     
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  43. Princess Entrapta

    Princess Entrapta Well-Known Member

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    Indeed, and it can serve to confuse and put off new people who might be interested, but see the multiple versions listed rather than it all under a single umbrella title.
     
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  44. OpenMinded

    OpenMinded Well-Known Member

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    Please, not again…
     
  45. Delta_Who

    Delta_Who Well-Known Member

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    Only thing I don't understand is why we didn't get live weather. Even if it wasn't a full simulation like the flight-sims... it couldn't have been that hard to read a metar every 5-10 minutes and then tell the weather system which one to change to?
     
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  46. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    Without wishing to sound like a broken record, it became very clear very quickly that this ‘new lighting built from scratch’ is stretching the truth beyond breaking point. After getting over the initial excitement of them saying they’d been working on it I knew it would be too good to be true because well, DTG. As it stands I’d say it’s bordering on false advertising.

    The lighting (in which I would include shadows and by definition draw distance) is identical in every way to TSW2. That same awful ‘wet’ effect is apparent in TSW2 just as it is here.

    From what I can gather all this ‘new’ lighting has done is change the overall brightness and the luminosity of individual lights to their (supposedly) real world values, much like londonmidland was doing with his night-time lighting mods. It has also supposedly corrected the time of day issue but we’ve yet to see any actual evidence of that. From what I can see absolutely everything else is identical to TSW2 and these things don’t appear to have changed one bit…

    - Wet effect
    - Tunnels (which are apparently being looked at but yet again, why only after we’d all pointed it out for the millionth time!)
    - Lack of cab occlusion
    - Draw distance
    - 2D trees not affected by, or affecting, the lighting system once outside the draw distance
    - Unrelenting and unrealistic fog effect in rain
    - Trains, Locos and rolling stock lit entirely independently of the environment.

    There will be more for sure. I’m also very suspicious that (unless I’ve missed it) we haven’t seen this game running at night.

    It should be very clear by now that what we are being asked to pay for is the EXACT same game that we have now. The new features (dynamic weather, volumetric skies etc) were things that existed already in the engine and have been ‘turned on’, whilst the new UI (on it’s third or fourth iteration now) and Training Centre are attempts to correct previous bad design decisions. Is it fair that we have to pay for their mistakes yet again?

    Maik Goltz, This game has been out for over 5 years…if it is ‘months of work’ to fix this issue properly then it should have been done by now. We are long past the point of excuses for all of this. Also, it’s not true to suggest that TSW has more detail on the ground than MSFS. The detail in the third party content (airports, cities, seasons, ships, boats, harbours etc etc) that is available for that sim is in a different league to TSW.

    I’m here because I want a modern Train Simulator that truly belongs in 2022/23. I’ve spent an unholy amount of money on TSC and TSW content and I’m frankly hacked off at the unrelenting poor quality of it. I initially bought into the whole ‘we’re going to make it better, we’ve learnt from our mistakes spiel’ but realised when Rush Hour was released it was all hot air. I’ve not bought a DLC since then. I want TSW to be amazing, yet DTG seem to be on a completely different trajectory where barely good enough will always do.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2022
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  47. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Exactly. Enough with the excuses for and from DTG. If routes have to be retextured for the new lighting, get on and do it. If that can’t be done then have an option to keep the old lighting.

    And suggesting that if people don’t like it to “FIFO” and go and play something else is disingenuous at best, it is not solving the problem.
     
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  48. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    I hate this attitude of ‘if you don’t like it don’t buy it’.

    I think it’s absolutely indicative of a business that is out of ideas and likely out of it’s depth. That’s not an accusation levelled just at DTG, too many businesses seem to think that is an acceptable attitude to adopt these days.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2022
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  49. tsw2

    tsw2 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, i also dont think they "completely reworked the lighting system".
    It looks just as bad as in TSW2 just way brighter in general. Almost to bright, just like TSW2 looked to dark.

    The sun and how it impacts the ground and enviroment still looks like it is not happening on earth but on some alien planet.
    As i said before, i have never ever seen another game with such messed up lighting.

    That the sun still shines through the cab, after years...(and by the way its 2022) is just sad, really sad.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2022
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  50. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    Good God. Everything that guy is demonstrating how to avoid is exactly what TSW looks like.

    Perhaps DTG should collectively sit down and watch that tutorial.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2022
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