Third Rail Arcing And External Lighting Bleeding Through Cab

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by londonmidland, Sep 21, 2022.

  1. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    One thing I’ve noticed when driving at night is that external lighting will bleed through solid (or not so solid) walls on the cab, lighting it up. This is particularly noticeable when driving during sunrise or sunset, as your cab is virtually the same colour as the sky.

    Now this is nothing new to TSW, as it has always faced this issue. However, one thing that is SUPER annoying is the new arcing effects. When driving at night, you have a near constant white flashing light illuminating your cab, despite the light source being down below, out of sight. It is very distracting as it also lights up anything reflective, such as glass (which there’s quite a lot of)

    I previously read that train cabs aren’t solid and don’t block out external light sources due to performance issues or something along those lines but what are DTG going to do to resolve this annoying issue?
     
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  2. vyncwr

    vyncwr Member

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    Actually from programming pov its supposed to be easy...
    Something like:
    if camera.active=1
    { playertrain.Arcing = off }
    else
    { playertrain.Arcing = on }

    Of course its extremely simplified, and can make other parts of the code bugged its way more complex than this, but the solution should be easy in logic.
     
  3. Callum B.

    Callum B. Well-Known Member

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    My suspicion is that the arc of light is non-shadow-casting, thus no calculations are made for where to block the light.

    Cheers
     
  4. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately what this would do is turn ALL playertrain arcing off, which isn't what is intended. You want arcing to show outside the train, just not through (supposedly) solid panels
    Riding a class 465 on an icy day you get quite a lot of flashes which you should be able to see reflected off walls or in cuttings and tunnels
     
  5. tsw2

    tsw2 Well-Known Member

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    Has always been a bug, never fixed. Sun also shines through the roof of the cab....still...in TSW3...
     
  6. AndyTF

    AndyTF New Member

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    This is particularly visible and frustrating when driving in snowy conditions too, the arcing lights up the snow/precipitation on the windscreen with bright white flashes making for a very unpleasant user experience. This really needs to be looked into, because at the moment the game is almost unplayable under these conditions.
     
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  7. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Not sure why some random flashing makes you unable to obey signals or move controls...? Are you really getting so much flashing you're unable to function?!
     
  8. aeronautic237

    aeronautic237 Well-Known Member

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    Ordinarily, I would be in agreement with you, but perhaps someone who is sensitive to flashing light may not be able to play because of this.
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2022
  9. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    What we should be seeing is the external scenery close to train momentarily lighting up with the spark. As is too often the case with TSW what we actually get is the cop-out low-rent solution.

    I’d say on the 465 the problem is lack of cab occlusion. On the 395 it looks sadly like it’s intentional. Either way, it’s rubbish.
     
  10. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Photosensitive epileptics react to certain flashing frequencies (from memory about 9 times per second), and I'm fairly sure the game doesn't simulate that much flashing
     
  11. aeronautic237

    aeronautic237 Well-Known Member

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    Oh fine - I stand corrected. My bad.
     
  12. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    This is what I mean.

    A human eye, at this point in the tunnel, would be able to clearly see beyond the tunnel entrance. TSW is acting as if it is a camera, which also severely limits how far ahead you can see.

    This causes issue with signal sighting as everything beyond the tunnel is washed out and way overexposed.

    TSW3_Josh_1663803066_00.jpg
     
  13. aeronautic237

    aeronautic237 Well-Known Member

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    I see what you mean, but I am not convinced that a human would be able to see out of the tunnel from that far.

    Then again, I haven't gone through many tunnels recently - I will have to check if I ever go through one.

    Would it be difficult to simulate the focus of an eye? Because the eye has a focus point and that is probably where the eye adaptation occurs, and if this were implemented, people may complain that the edges of the screen don't look so good in game.
     
  14. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    Personally I think what we’re seeing at tunnel exits probably isn’t far off, particularly for longer tunnels. Unfortunately it’s what goes on beyond that that is the problem, it is much too pronounced and causes everything to be washed out.
     
  15. Tomas9970

    Tomas9970 Well-Known Member

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    I would propose a different solution. Instead of making the illumination effect with a point light, use a spot light with about 180 degree cone of influenece pointing away from the train (so it doesn't clip through the body). Then have another point light with really small influence radius to get that nice close-up illumination on the train body and stuff.
     
  16. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Agreeing with this... Below is a camera view from a similar point of a tunnel (recent Don Coffey vid). The camera shows the tunnel mouth as an almost white out. Not sure what the human would be able to see much beyond what the camera is representing, but there's probably some amount of greater compensation in the human eye

     
  17. Tomas9970

    Tomas9970 Well-Known Member

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    I think in the real world, your eyes would adapt to best see what you are actually looking at, which isn't something a game can tell. If we assume that you always intend to look at stuff that is around the cursor, unreal engine has something called an Exposure Metering Mask, which should in theory decide which part of the screen to favor when choosing optimal exposure.
    https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/RenderingAndGraphics/PostProcessEffects/AutomaticExposure/

    With that, you could tell the engine to not bother with the screen edges and instead better expose the middle, which in this case is the tunnel portal. You can also straight-up tell the engine to favor highlights but that's not as great as even a glimpse of the portal would turn the screen black even if you intend to look at something that is inside the tunnel.

    Maybe a better solution to that is local exposure, but that is a UE5 feature so I don't know if DTG could back-port it into UE 4.26. I mean it's a post-process effect so there is some hope but I'm really not qualified to talk about this type of stuff.
    https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/local-exposure-is-in-ue5-main/274274
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2022

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