I’ve been playing around with the pack today, and gone a bit further than setting up a standard pattern or triggering a single dynamic pattern at scenario start. I’m so baffled by it I figured a thread where we can swap hints and tips, and figure out how exactly it works is in order. It would appear to be a bit of a dark art. I’ll be honest, I’m stumped. What I’ve just tried to do; Set the main weather to APClear. Place a SWEP marker with a dynamic rain pattern that, over 23 minutes varies in intensity and ends with clear skies. This triggers as soon as the scenario starts. I have then put down a SWEP(Time) marker that, about 5 mins or so after the first pattern ends, should trigger a clear skies to thick fog dynamic pattern over 3 minutes and then finally, about 20 minutes later another SWEP(Time) marker triggering a thick fog to Clear(MistMedium) pattern to the scenario end. All patterns are marked as chain-able in the manual. To me this seems logical. However, the first dynamic pattern works nicely and clears to clear skies. The second pattern triggers as it should but instead of being clear skies to thick fog, the skies first fill with Fair Cloud and it starts spitting before then transitioning to fog. I’m baffled by how this is supposed to work. We almost need flow diagrams of which pattern feeds into which, or am I just a dunce and can’t figure it out from the tables? Erm….help!
I think that if you go from a pattern to a pattern that does not support the one that came before, it defaults to high cloud. Sometimes abrubtly.
My pattern went like this, with the overall weather being APClear; Scenario Start > Dynamic Weather with rain ending with Clear Skies > Clear Skies to Thick Fog > Thick Fog to Clear Skies Light Mist All chain-able. In the Clear Skies to Clear Skies Thick Fog transition I got Fair Cloud and spitting rain. That can’t be right!
Could be a bug. I wondered what happens if you trigger a weather chain before the previous has ended.
I’m going to play further with it I can’t figure out contact AP. I don’t get where the Fair Cloud is coming from when there’s no mention of it at all in any pattern.
<WispyLayerAlpha d:type="sFloat32" d:alt_encoding="000000000000F03F" d:precision="string">1</WispyLayerAlpha> When that layer is summoned with Alpha of "1" you'll see the cumulii. Maybe this helps. To understand how the (non-3D) TS sky works, check the dev docs (https://sites.google.com/a/railsimd...ual/art-guidelines/asset-authoring-guidelines)
Yes it does. Just as any weather event chain does. But it is based on this principle - control the layers either via the weather events in the weather blueprint or via script intervention.
It sounds like you haven't added ;Mist=1 to the AP SWEP Weather track marker. This is mentioned in the manual when using the Mist to Fog and vice versa weather patterns that you have said you are using.
It’s definitely there, but I spotted a mistake in the pattern I’d used. The first pattern transitioned to Clear Skies then the second trigger was ClearSkiesLightMist to Thick Fog. Still not sure why that was triggering FairCloud but I suspect that may have been the issue but I haven’t had time to test it yet.
Just a hunch. If you go from one pattern, to another that doesn’t support the previous, it slams abrubtly back to the fair cloud pattern. I’ve had that several times.
I suspect that was the mistake, hopefully I can test it later on. If it doesn’t work then I’m truly stumped
Just tested it, same thing. It’s also transitioning far too quickly from the dynamic rain pattern (which is a pre-determine pattern) to clear skies, like a matter of seconds from overcast and dark to virtually clear skies. Ho hum. It must be something I’m doing wrong, time to try something else.
I’ve contacted AP to see what they say, I’m sure they can point me in the right direction. In the meantime part of what I sent them; I set the weather to APClear in the Scenario Box. I then used a AP SWEP marker to trigger APOvercastThickMist-Rain-Clear at the scenario start. That plays out as planned although the transition from dark overcast rain to clearish skies seems very quick. I then placed an AP SWEP (Time) marker so that after a period of clear skies it should have triggered the APClear-MedFog pattern. You can see the default weather was clear, the first pattern ran to clear, and the next started with clear. Where the Fair Cloud was coming from I don’t know.
OK, seems to me like you're doing things right, let's see what AP has to say. I'm honestly pretty convinced that with the amount of possible transitions they cannot have had them all tested, so maybe a gremlin slipped into some script!
Just had a thought this morning... (yes... I have them occasionally )... If you play a lot of older (1950s or older) steam routes, AP Sky & Weather v2.0 has an issue. If you use High Cloud, it also includes plane contrails... and apart from the odd Comet flight passing overhead, we didn't really have common jet travel until the mid to late 50s... so setting High Cloud in anything older than that is anachronistic. Just my 2c worth.... I'll get back to my morning coffee now
I've got AP High Cloud (Mist Thick) set as my default weather pattern, and am adding a pass marker for "APHighCloudThickMist-ThickFog", but when the train passes the marker, "fair" clouds suddenly appear. Surely, as my default weather pattern is the same as the "from" weather in the transition, it shouldn't go via any other weather pattern? See the video below. I have placed the marker at the end of the platform - watch the sky as the train passes it.
You need to put an additional and totally separate APSWEP marker somewhere with ;Mist=1 in it I believe. Figured out after much trial and error and help from Richard.
Where do I put that? What kind of marker? Standard? Pass? Time? Before, or after the pass marker? Here's a shot of the pass marker I have added. Why's this not in the manual? How is anyone expected to know this? LOL
It is, I missed it! Doesn’t matter where. Just a bog standard APSWEP marker with that text in in. My mistake was I was putting ;Mist=1 in the same marker as the dynamic pattern I was using and had somehow not read the word separate. Stick it behind your train at the start of the scenario but in reality it can go on any bit of track.
OK, I'll try it, but not sure why "fair" clouds are appearing, as neither the standard pattern, or the transition has anything to do with fair cloud. I'll give it a go and see what happens.
I have. I have AP High Cloud (thick mist) set as my default weather pattern. I have placed a pass marker set to "APHighCloudThickMist-ThickFog". That's it. I tried adding a marker with ;Mist=1 and it just broke my default weather pattern.
Look further into the manual for the ;Mist=1 marker. You’re going wrong because you’re trying to mix incompatible patterns. You’ve set a stand-alone dynamic pattern as your default, then tried to transition to a ‘transition’ dynamic pattern and unfortunately you can’t do that. You need to do the following; 1) Set the default pattern to a standard pattern (not a dynamic one), in this instance AP High Cloud (Mist Thick) - Page 24 of the manual 2) Put down your AP SWEP Weather (Pass) marker to trigger a dynamic transition pattern from that point. You would then put APHighCloudThickMist-ThickFog into the speed limit box (Page 47 of the manual). 3) As it says on page 45 of the manual, you then need to place a separate AP SWEP Weather marker and in it add ;Mist=1 to the speed limit box as you are transitioning from Mist to Fog 4) The dynamic pattern you’re using can be chained, so if you wish you could transition from that to something else. You must always have the start of the next transition be the same as the end of the last. Hope that makes sense and you can make it work
I’ve just re-read your posts and suspect I mis-read them. Try starting from scratch again and if the sequence I’ve posted above doesn’t work then there’s a bug there I reckon, at least in as far as the manual is incorrect in it’s instructions. I’ve successfully chained a number of patterns across a 4hr long scenario but there are so many of them it’s very easy to both mis-read, mis-type or just generally get it wrong. I assume you have the latest update to the pack?
That's what I'm using. See screenshot. Again, done that... see screenshot. Yep.. when I do this, it breaks the starting weather pattern. I think I'll get in touch with AP.
Just tried again from scratch, and this time, it just instantly changes from my starting pattern, to fog as soon as the train passes the marker, and adding the second marker with ;Mist=1 seems to do nothing. Utterly baffled.
Me too. That doesn’t sound right. Out of interest, could you try it with a time marker instead? All the mist marker does is make sure the cloud type is correct (ie no fair cloud)
While you are trying those things, here is another one for you to try. This one works and is a fantastic addition. If you are like me, you like a bit of randomness in the game (that is why i do my real drives (advanced quick drives) that have random red signals). So i’ve been experimenting with what AP weather can do in quick drives. Try the following: 1: Clone a quick drive scenario. Remember to modify the starting point friendly name in the Player Spawn point because this is the name of the scenario that you will see in the quick drive menu. 2: Edit the scenario: in the scenario flyout box, click the cogwheels for the extended scenario parameters. Select AP Weather instead of “None” 2: in the object filter box, choose AP Weather EP: now you are set to go to use AP weather in QD. 3: Drop an AP weather Swep marker anywhere. Double click it. Type in the triggername for Random showers with fair/high cloud as base. (Can’t remember the exact name, going from memory). Set the max time between showers to about 120 (or even 240) minutes. What you have now is a quick drive where you might get anything from light rain to heavy rain, once or twice (or sometimes not at all) during your quick drive. It works regardless of what non-rain weather pattern you set in the quick drive menu. The one you select there will be the one that the random showers transitions to and from. This is just the base of it. What you can also in addition to what i described, is drop a pass marker some where on the line and use a weather transition that has a base in clear/high/fair cloud. And if you use the ;P=x (x being the probability in % code in the speed limit box, you can (as an example) have the scenario go in th thick fog in rare cases “APFairCloud-ThickFog;P=5 would give you fog in 1/20 times you pass the marker. I also tried the Thunder transition and what’s amazing is that it actually morphes BACK into the Random Shower pattern. That one simply seems to be able to sit behind everything else as a base pattern. So it’ll still do it’s magic once the thunder is over. And as i said, if you set the max time between showers high enough, you will have a truly random feeling weather, because you might not even get one shower. But then again you might have one or two. I think i’ve only dipped my feet in this. As you know QD scenarios are my niche, and this is an unexpected huge enhancement, because AP didn’t even know any of this was possible. Anyway, hope i made sense. And good fun modifying your quickdrives to actually make them interesting in their changing visuals. And remembet, if you run english routes, you can get random red signalling easy with the help of the AP signal pack. The more random stuff that happens, the more alive TS feels.
Pookeyhead your problem reminds me of one that was fixed during the early days of the pack. Could you check that you have the latest version installed?
Did you get any joy with this? I’ve recently successfully chained; - HighCloud Medium Mist to - HighCloud Thick Mist to - to Medium Fog to - Thick Fog using 4 time markers and 1 SWEP marker with ;Mist=1. Hopefully you were able to get it working correctly.
To get weather chains to work look from page 48 on the manual. If a weather preset shows an X then it can transition to and from another weather pattern as designed if it’s not got an X it won’t transition smoothly it will just automatically change
Not really. I'm still getting sudden changes. I recorded the whole of my process here... (only just uploaded, so if not HD yet, it's still processing, give it a few mins). Still waiting for AP to reply to my last message, which included this video.
The only things I can see that you’re doing different to me are small, but I guess it’s not inconceivable they could be causing the problem. Firstly, the first thing I do is select APWeather from the drop rather than do it after setting the default pattern. Secondly, rather than type in my transitions I copy and paste them from the manual. I do wonder also, if it’s that you’re triggering a change so soon but it shouldn't be a problem. It’s very odd. Maybe worth a try though.
Pookeyhead in that video you done the track marker you placed at 40 seconds you have placed the trigger on the adjacent track not the track the train is passing it on. The arrow must be placed on the track the train is passing over. In your video it is on the wrong track
No, what you’ve done in terms of marker placement is entirely correct. Personally I wouldn’t put the second marker on the track, I’d put it off to the side (although I don’t think it makes a difference), but other than that it’s spot on.
Pookeyhead I’m recreating your scenario there and think I’ve spotted what the problem is. Just gonna test it quickly to be sure.
how can I be wrong. The trigger has to be placed in the track the train passes over it states that in the manual. By having the trigger on the adjacent track the train is not going to trigger it. Kindly explain how I am wrong and the manual
The one at 40 seconds is not the transition marker, and can be placed on any track. Only the actual transition marker needs to be on the consist track. I'll try it on the track though later, just to rule it out.
390001 Just so there’s no confusion, I’ve got zero interest in engaging any further with you on this forum. I don’t want this thread going the way of the other one so please just add me to your ignore list. You’re on mine. If you want to figure out why you’re wrong then go and read the manual properly. Pookeyhead I think I’ve figured it out. In your video you selected ‘Standard | AP High Cloud (Mist Thick)’ as the default pattern. There is a note next to that that says ‘Mist only - cannot be used with ‘Thick Mist’ cloud - use dynamic version for that’. That would mean triggering the standard ‘Dynamic | APHighCloudThickMist’ pattern at the scenario start instead via another APSWEP marker. I tried that and it still doesn’t work. I don’t believe the standard dynamic patterns can be chained with a transition pattern and in this instance it causes the same issue where the screen flickers and it immediately transitions. Next I tried your exact same setup but changed the scenario pattern to ‘Standard | AP High Cloud (Mist Medium)’ and then changed the pass marker to ‘Dynamic | APHighCloudMedMist-ThickFog’ from page 46 of the manual and it works perfectly. I can only deduce from that that the standard thick mist pattern is the problem because of that note. I don’t believe there is any issue with you doing what I’ve done above but instead change the first pass marker to transition from medium mist to thick mist, then have another one going from thick mist to thick fog. I haven’t tested that but am 99.9% certain it would work. Hopefully that makes sense and you can finally get it going. It would be interesting to know what AP themselves have to add, if anything.
I'll give it a go later, and see if I can get it all to hang together. I really wanted the scenario to start with high cloud (thick mist) though, so maybe I need to rethink that.
