When reflective signs were introduced in TSW2 times, I thought that this was a great new feature. In my eyes it added alot to the immersion and added a kind of depth to the otherwise flat outside during night. Unfortunately I noticed that this feature has completely gone on BRO. It makes it basically impossible to drive at night with the cab car and without HUD on. Also, I am simply missing the feature from a visual standpoint. What about other new routes, as I have only bought BRO after TSW3 release? I sincerely hope that it will be added to new additions again...
Are you referring to the lighting system in the Dresden route? This had two specialist 2nd party devs brought in specifically to do the lighting on that route (including all the surface updates etc) and it was never intended that this would become "a standard" Unfortunately DTG do seem to shoot themselves in the foot with this sort of thing, with various dev implementing systems that don't become the norm. I'm expecting this to be the case with the management system on the upcoming scottish route. If we ever see that rolled out as "normal" I'll be surprised
No, that was not was I meant. I am talking about the reflective signs, which can be seen from further away, then what the normal light cone of your train would light up. It’s basically simulating the reflection which these signs have in real life as well. You can also see it quite well on KWG. But on BRO it is completely gone… EDIT: added screenshot from KWG, where all mileage signs ending in x,0 are reflective. Additionally the yellow framing signs are also reflective: I can’t remember when it was introduced, but I do remember that DTG Matt was mentioning it in a stream at the time (it may very well have been DRA) and it really made a huge difference.
Yes, I'm sure they were part of the Dresden lighting scheme (the reflections have to be set up as a reflective surface for light and that's EVERY surface, so it's a lot of work to do from scratch)
Wasnt aware that it is such a big effort. However, it was done on KWG as well and I would have assumed that this, at least, would have been taken over as new standard, even though the rest of the extensive night lighting from DRA was not (which was also clearly communicated by DTG). But what about the other newer routes on TSW3? Do they have it?
I'm sure you know the saying about people who assume? Best not to assume anything and just take what's in front of you No it wasn't made as a new standard and indeed because DTG works in separate teams, even if it WAS made as standard it would take time to go from the team which did that work to the teams that were doing other works (and therefore need training on how to use the new system) Given routes have been said to take over 12 months to complete, you're talking 1 months minimum for any new route made by another team to be of that standard
Thanks for bringing this thread back to attention, OpenMinded and Puddington Bear For the life of me I can't understand why this has been dropped. Not only would it add greatly to immersion, but it would also be helpful for people driving without HUD, or watching signs and signals primarily and use the HUD as backup (like myself). I'd really, really like to get a statement from DTG why this has been discontinued, and if there are plans to implement it again...
I can only agree with AmityBlight & OpenMinded. Without these reflective signs, it is very difficult to drive at night. Please let us know, DTG, whether this will be reinstalled in the future or whether we will have to do without it. As it stands now, it really breaks the immersion. Perhaps DTG Alex or dtg_jan could comment on this?
TSG routes like NID (and I believe also MIT) still use this feature, but all newer DTG routes don’t, as far as I know.
As I don’t have those routes I don’t know… I would assume that they don’t have this feature, maybe others can tell?!
Well I played last night and could see any signs until I was like on top of them. That explains why then.
Lighting and reflections need to be better. Night driving seems to be either too bright like a clear summer night with a full moon or too dark to the point that the light from stations is only visible for the last half mile before a station stop.
I just investigated retro reflective surfaces (that's what they are called) and how they could be implemented. The outcome is sobering. If you have one sign and one light in your scene, that's fine, could work nicely. But in TSW we have tons of signs and multiple light sources all over and they need to be visible over long distances, at least for the infrastructure related signs. That makes it really heavy on processing. The way it was done on NID and the other few routes is not even retro reflective, it's just emissive based on distance. But even that needs lots of computing power since the material is a big waste of spaghetti. DTG probably decided to not use them anymore to save performance for other things. In a fully baked environment like other games use it would be doable without heavy impact on performance, but then with the problem of not having real time ToD what is a need for TSW. So, not a option.
Thanks for that explanation! First time I hear another reason then cost that is plausible. I am surprised that it has a noticeable impact on performance, especially at it is, as you say as well, not even really reflective but simply a function of distance. This is actually noticeable in game as well, as the signs do reflect light even if your lights are off, I believe. Never was a problem, though, as the otherwise positive visual impact it had outweighed it thousandfold, in my eyes. When you released the 218 on Hamburg the only reason I could actually drive it there during night was the reflective sign Mod, which was released for this route. Without it I would probably have only used it there for about half the time… I simply love this feature and am sad it’s gone. However, I understand the argument of performance. Just hope more mods would bring it back to us PC players, at least;-)
One of the issues (in my opinion) is that the lights on a lot of trains are also not really set up properly, and provide almost zero forward illumination. I’m not talking US style ‘lights up everything around for 2 miles ahead’ lights, but enough to be realistic. That is absolutely the case for some of the more modern units, which certainly contributes to the problem.
It’s true, real reflective signs would certainly react differently with different headlight intensity than the ones implemented in game, as they are not truly reflective, as explained by Maik. The effect in game is still quite convincing, especially if you are in a non American train that does not illuminate the track for miles. It gave you the chance to note a sign from a longer distance away and helped immensely driving without HUD. But I would also agree that many of the train lights could do with better set up. I was told, though, there are many limitations on the graphics engine TSW uses (something you will know much more about then I do)…
From reading about lighting in 3d engines this last couple of weeks (do this at your own peril LOL it's a rabbit hole and a half), as i understand it there's no such thing as reflectivity in 3d engines (as we understand it in RL situations i.e. reflective sign etc) they mimic it in game by making the item that is required to reflect emit light itself, which can work in some situation, but there is a limit in how many light sources any given engine can handle without it costing to many resources, take for example the reflective sign mentioned in this post (i may be wrong about this so don't take this as fact) how i understand how it was done is, when player cam reaches x distance from object and object is in view, emit light at x level, i don't know if that's how they did this, but it appears it is a common way of doing things. Now I'm going to lay down as my head hurts, Major respect to folks that work with 3d engines and lighting in specific, that stuff is complicated.
That's not a problem of setting up the lights on the trains. It's a general limitation of how light works in such a 3d game engine. Real light 'travels' (yes, i know that is wrong, but we are not at the university here) with nothing stopping it until it hits a object. In the game light stops 'travelling' after a certain set distance for performance reasons. Yes, we could set the distance to 2km or something but then you also need to increase the brightness of that light source so much that it looks odd near by the source. I did that with some, used them for lighting up the signs but with a very low brightness, as a additional light source. Downside is the extra performance needed. It's a balance of 'looking good' and 'unusable bright sun in front of the train'. Especially when you then pass such a train you can see that over-brightening effect on the tracks as they basically get white by the heavy light, what is physically wrong. And yes, in full baked environments that can work. But we don't have a full baked environment with TSW since it needs real time ToD.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. Many trains in the game have their lights set up in such a way that the light itself illuminates pretty much nothing. Now, in some cases (mainly older locos) that is correct, but modern units with LED lights then it’s not. By simply taking the example of the best lights in the game (which, by definition, are perfectly performative) and applying similar numbers to the poorer examples suddenly everything works as designed. I’m not suggesting this is an issue with any of your trains (because it isn’t), but there are plenty examples of this in the game where it is a problem. Regarding reflective signs, I believe they are generally a German only thing and would not be prototypical for the UK or US.
Yes, and that is mainly because of what i said with the near by the source problems. You can have it really bright and far, no problem, but then you have a 100 sun masses heavy light source at the front of the train and that is a problem for sure. You can't tame the real time light in UE4 that much as you would need. I often use IES profiles to make it a tad better, but that is not the perfect solution either as you have to crank up the brightness even more to get any light in the distances.
It basically comes down to the fact 3d engines and tech at the moment can't simulate enough of a world to make it accurate enough for the human eye to not be able to discern, like view distance in most games caps out at a couple of km, and contained within that are LOD rules, our eyes don't work that way nor does the real world, for example take a flight sim, and you're flying at 30,000 feet, and you look down, you can't really see that much detail, so the engine says well we don't need that grass or those bushes, and groups of trees look like green blobs, what the engine cant take into account is the fact that in the real world all those objects are still there absorbing light, reflecting that same light and blocking some, it may not be much, but the human eye can pick up on those small changes, that's what gives you that feeling when you look at superb graphics that wow you, but at the same time look fake, it basically all boils down to a game of compromises, what can we get away with without impacting other things too heavily. On a side note, loving this discussion by the way, I'm learning new things and that's always good
On Dresden - Riesa, those reflective signs are nice, at least on the original not remastered version. However the train lights seems to be to bright, at daytime they still give a light beam on the tracks and other objects and at night they're also pretty bright compared to other routes. I don't know if the brighter lights are because of the reflective signs, or it has another reason. Also on the remastered route, setting fog at night time gives a terrible blinding light beam, even if it's only a little bit of fog. Kassel - Wurzburg has this too, but I think not that bad as Riesa - Dresden.
Personally I would like night lighting to be a little (or even a lot!) brighter, even if that is unrealistic. I find doing runs where you can see absolutely nothing quite dull.
