As title suggests - I'm thinking of picking up AP Weather EP 2.0 pack but can't seem to decide the differences. I currently own the original weather EP pack or V1.0 which was released before but it seems most scenarios these days support version 2.0. What do you people think about EP 2.0? Is worth picking it up?
It's a game changer. Much better colours, a new set of shaders to replace the old stuff, no more blue tinted distant mountains due to a trick I haven't figured out (I guess they are working with a hidden skydome within the skydome), and much better clouds that can be enhanced with the cloud pack (which is never mandatory), that swaps out bitmaps in the background. The distant mountains fix is probably the biggest visual difference to APSWEP 1.0 and finally gives TSC a modern natural lighting, plus the reworked shaders including Adaptive Bloom make a difference in clarity and vibrance. I'd say it is the single most important addon to make TSC look modern. I'd go so far as saying DTG should licence it from AP and make it part of the core. The moment after I had installed it, seeing the highres High Clouds sky, was "Whoaa!". You can never go back to the shabby DTG TimeOfDay and Skydome. And implementing random weather changes into your scenarios is super easy, with options to being triggered randomly, by a train passing or at a specific time.
Here's a quick comparison using Hope Valley. Default TimeOfDay files - black mountains at noon, "Nintendo" colouring that don't match lighting, complete rubbish - unplayable, looks like a 90's game without shaders. Screenshots like these are the main reason people say TSC looked outdated - and that's true. It looks like original Doom lighting, only areas around the player being lit. But... AP Sky & Weather v1 - core related distant fog being tied to upper sky colour results in blue mountain smog AP Sky & Weather v2 - all issues fixed. And nobody could figure out how to uncouple the distant fog from the upper sky colour def for years. AP did - against the official dev docs. Amazing work that can only be really appreciated if you know how the TSC TimeOfDay system works. Blue mountains are now optional, by using hazy weather blueprints.
Thanks - this looks good. As I understand V2 also features new clouds textures as well other bits and bobs that you have mentioned above. I guess I will give a go - As I mention previously above this is used into scenarios a lot so it will be worth a while.
Absolutely worth it as it will transform all your routes, and even the most dated routes will literally appear in a new light. Note if you are using RWE, it may overwrite AP's shaders. Try without it first. Imho, RWE is not necessary any more for visuals.
And no-one has mentioned how good it makes TSC look at night. You can see into trains, the lighting effects on platforms look brilliant and it's an altogether better, darker experience.
And other stuff in conjunction with their locos like non light casting headlights in daytime as the sun will always be brighter than a lightcone, better wheelslip simulation depending on weather and seasons whereas it is static per scenario by default, you'll now experience less friction after a rain shower which gradually improves again after some time of drying, improved glass shaders etc. Just fantastic. Have to say the "High Clouds" are my favourite, giving a good spatial impression. (I've used it as a RW_Clear.bin replacement). AP Class 56 Colas west of Thornaby (DPSimulation's North East England)
I recommended it as well. I was recommended to buy it on here and haven't regretted it. I've since deleted RW Enhancer as it's really not needed in my opinion. Only problem is, it really got me started on other AP enhancements and that's when things got expensive. Well worth it though. If you don't already have the AP signal pack, that's very good as well.
Did the same with the high clouds instead of clear. And for cloudy i use fair-high-cloud patterns. With the cloud expansion pack, the variations seem limitless.
Yeah I already have majority of AP packs installed including the signalling pack which is unique on its own. It really increases that immersion level in the sim
Add the cloud pack and my Reshade preset (Reshade is free too) into the mix and you can make the game look even better. Yes, I know it's a US route, but you get the idea.
I was quite happy with SWEP version 1, but after seeing Spikee's comparison pictures, I think I may have to invest in version 2.
Personal taste. For me that looks too pale. I think the AP shaders plus playing with ingame Contrast / Ambient light is perfect. Preferring the natural look as my eyes perceive it in real life
I'd like to add that the Cloud EP, while expensive, adds plenty of variety to the Weather EP and is worth getting. It automatically chooses the skyboxes when opening the game, but you can force it to load a specific skybox using a track marker. However, I prefer leaving it alone so that it's more random.
I think it's as bad as those that say "TS looks like a playstation 1 game" and i think have you even played one? I mean the original weather wasn't that bad, I mean compared to AP most likely because it's a big improvement but still comparing it to a 90s game? (to note though I do like what AP have done with the weather packs (I only have v1 though), despite what people think i'm not anti ap (I've had a few comments thinking that i am )
It depends on the reshade shader settings as well as time of day, weather, what route you're running and also monitor. Each can be adjusted to make the game look fantastic
While I have the 2.0 pack downloaded now, I still am trying to figure out if installing it will break scenarios that use the 1.0 pack. That's the thing that has me a little puzzled as to whether to install it or wait until I use some other scenarios on the old pack first. Still need the signal pack, and held off at the last sale for some reason. But that also seems like a no turning around situation. Once it's in, all scenarios on the routes in question get it. Does it break any of the scenarios?
I don't think it's unplayable, but it is very jarring, like games with bad pop-in or lots of screen tearing. The AP signals are pretty much a one-way trip, although as long as the AP files for routes aren't extracted it should be reversable to an extent. It is worth noting though that a route built with AP signals will (from my experience) have broken signalling for those without it, but it could just have been bad luck on my end.
That "unplayable" depends on how you perceive things, and especially due to the different colouring many ToD files have, it becomes apparent that some look good and some don't. For me it is a deal breaker, as I'm the type for whom lighting is more important than texture resolution. There is TimeOfDay files that render everything in almost complete darkness while the sun is still up in the sky, some have very bland sky colours (same upper and lower sky) that look flat, or are too blue or almost green, have huge sun and moon textures etc. Thanks to AP, everything is consistent and naturally lit now. I've tried for years to arrange a good 320-colours palette myself and syncing the time of day with the sun's position. It's not easy and I gave up And that Hope Valley shot is just a demo for "how not to do it", because it looks as there's a giant spotlight above the player while the rest is covered in darkness. At noon. And the colour tint does not match the blue sky - it just immediately feels unreal for me, without knowing why at first. Put it next to the APSWEP2.0 image and it looks like games from different eras - though using the same technology. Check Academy or Norfolk Southern Coal, on a summer's day you have an almost completely white sky at noon. On the other hand, that enabled non-blue tinted distant mountains. Mannheim-Karlsruhe had a strange turquoise tint. I've played that using SL weather only (which has its own flaws and looks to bland in daytime), until I've started swapping out TimeOfDay files. A bit like the mistake that was made in the old days - taking photos of trees for textures when directly lit by the sun. As the shadows are baked into the texture, they look completely off when rainy weather is selected. Textures must be taken during overcast skies with diffuse, neutral lighting. And on another note, the Kuju\RailSimulatorCore weather blueprints were never correctly adapted / compatible with the post-Kuju skydomes. You see the layer with the upper small clouds rotate way too fast when using them with the most common weather bp, RW_Cloudy ("2. Cloudy") for example. These parameters were for the original 3-spheres Kuju skydome without the horizontal cloudbands RSC introduced in RW. Thanks to AP for sorting the mess of different skies for different routes, which became really an annoyance for me, especially for connected routes, and offering much more variety with the Clouds Pack which is just awesome. Still no volumetric voxel cloud algorithm can match a photograph. Like I said, the Sky&WeatherEP it should be licensed and integrated into the core. AP have been working on this almost since day one of RailWorks. Default Academy. Summer. Clear skies. (Norfolk Southern Coal District is almost the same) Looks more like "Kalima". Or 2. Cloudy. The sky is white. Was that a typo in the blueprint (I've seen some, with RGBA values swapped.) And here's why. The sky colours are "shades of grey" in the Academy summer bp, at Noon TimeOfDay, with an almost unnoticeable blueish nuance for the lower sky. Glad AP addressed all of this, and I've adapted the AP ToDs for US region and NZ. Now all routes feel like they are part of the same planet sharing the same sun. And then there's the issue with 70% of all DTG routes that have the sun azimuth prefix wrong so it goes from right to left across the northern sky. I can only be thankful, after trying for myself to create a good looking ToD, I see how much work it is to have all the different colours, shadows, uplight, ambients and backfills match to give a realistic impression, and AP delivered that, even if you don't know exactly why you immediately feel the immersion it gives, that "wow" effect. Something's right here, that was always off before.
Just get it. The lighting is so much better. Early winter mornings, with mist etc. actually look amazing. Coupled with the AP Cloud pack, it transforms the game. In rainy conditions the skies can look amazing, and would you look at how the distance just fades away without the nasty outlining and colour shifts that the standard game would be giving you here. It's worth every single penny, and then some. Both these screenshots predate the Vegetation pack as well.... add that as well and it genuinely makes a massive difference (see this post here). So much so that if you also use shaders like ReShade as well, the game looks equally as good as TSW IMO...in fact, can look more realistic. TSW is too "shiny" somehow. TSW looks technically impressive at times, but IMO, doesn't necessarily look accurate. [edit] Same for the signal pack too. You can actually see signals from miles away in daylight, like in real life.
Hard disagree. I hate the vanilla TSC experience.It looks bloody awful. If i wasn't for AP and ReShade and RWEnhancer, I'd have stopped using TSC years ago.
Sorry to dig up an old thread, but where in the Assets folder would I find the TimeOfDay files for the Koln-Koblenz route? Can't find them and the game is using the default DTG weather.
Just copy the AP TimeOfDay folder to DTG\CologneKoblenz And don't confuse weather and sky - TimeOfDay is enabling the AP Sky which is needed for AP Weather to work.
Hi. I just installed AP Weather 2.0 and it is as lovely as people are saying. However, it DOES 'break' any scenarios that used a number of specific Weather 1.0 variations (eg Weather\AP Light Fog to Clear.xml was used in one of my scenarios and isn't present in version 2.0 so the game defaults to 'clear'). The scenario still runs but the weather is not as intended. Not a problem per se...except that it appears that I now need to package two/three versions of my scenarios - one for no AP weather, one for Weather v1 and another for Weather v2. Does anyone know of a better approach? The new weather is lush (as I believe da kids are saying) but I don'ty want to p*55 off any non-v2 users when I do a next release.
I believe there are some weather patterns that work regardless of what version is installed. However, for anything beyond that you're out of luck. As far as making scenarios is concerned, most creators now only support V2. It is the clearly superior version that has completely replaced V1. You can still make multiple variations, but there isn't really a need to do it.
