So I've been running a few services in wintry conditions, and something I'm noticing on a variety of routes is that there's an effect which I'm guessing is intended to represent a "cold gust of wind". It's a kind of fast-moving misty effect at the front of the train - but (and maybe it's just me) it's incredibly off-putting, especially if you have your lights set to bright, you get these weird blinding flashes every few seconds. It doesn't come across so badly in a still image, but there's a kind of strobe effect. Does anybody else get this, and is there a way to turn off this particular visual effect?
Yeah it's not the best effect. Sometimes it goes from being a bright day to almost darkness in the blink if an eye. The only way to stop it is manually set the weather and set wind strength to 0.
Hmm, I was really hoping there was something like an engine.ini setting that could be tweaked to turn it off.
They are intended to represent the snow being kicked up by the wind - the whole effect was overhauled and dialled back considerably for TSW3 as well as fixing the issue that meant it was spawning bheind you after about 10 miles per hour, pushing it further away from the front of you. Currently the only way to disable it is to not have a combination of wind + snow.
TBH, I am not sure the effect is actually to be blamed, here. To me it seems that it is much more a problem of the propagation of the light in front of the loco. It seems that the head lights are shining at an angle close to 180°, lighting the whole area right in front of the wind screen. If I compare it to cab ride videos in snow fall, you can actually see that the light propagates much more focused towards the front, rather than to the sides. An example I have found: Mit dem Zug durch einen Schneesturm - YouTube I know that there are limitations in the core engine, as it was discussed before, however, I hope that there is room for improvement. I like the effect, but I agree, at night it gets very irritating, if you look at it for long...
I think that's a good point - I've been running services without headlights on and it's not causing the issues. With headlights on bright, it's even leading to a kind of screen-tearing effect (highest visual settings). Watching the effect while waiting at a station, it's good - but at speed and with headlights on, that's where it's breaking immersion.
I've just played a few services on the journey mode of the newly extended SEHS with snow at night and this flickering flashing 'wind' effect is awful, looks ok in the distance but as it gets closer to you it seems to almost constantly cause the screen to strobe bright white. Very annoying, very unpleasant. If you use the 2 or 3 camera to sit atop the train, it seems to give an altogether more pleasant experience. Feels like it needs to fade out to transparent while it is still a way off in front of the player rather than passig through it as we seem to do now, I think subtlety is the key here
There's higher priority bugs such as red lights, derails and save game. Sure, this effect makes it unplayable, but it's just a nuisance/annoying thing rather than being stuck at a never ending red light or getting a derail for no reason. If dtg spent all their resources on this one going, then we might not get the other more important fixes and more people would get mad
Download god mode, while on the route open the weather menu from god mode and set wind to 0, enjoy snow without the ugly effect of the wind+snow