At Night?? Hmmm Can't See Obb Outside The Window

Hello can someone explain me that? I mean do you see any tracks? any lights? All lights turned on..Thats on the new OBB 4024 route at night...

 

That's just how the lighting is on the route

 

Yeah, same problem here. Yesterday, I rode on the line the 14 october at 17h00.
The light was as if it was the middle of the night with no moon in the sky even though I could glimpse the sun setting in the sky…

Even with full lights, I wasn’t able to see anything when I was not in a lit station… Bad light design

 

and they gonna leave it as it is?? They just release it...

 

A flagship TSW4 route. It’s a joke.

 

Not a joke. I think you've been playing this game long enough to know that night lighting is hit or miss in TSW. Mostly it's a miss.

I and one or two others have been banging on about night lighting for several years and have received zero responses.

 

Lighting full stop but yeah, it was a rhetorical question.

It’s LOVE.

 

There used to be a system of night lighting where it got far too light at night and a few people complained enough for them to change it. Now it is generally far too dark at night in most situations. It’s a classic example of fixing something too much. I think it is better now but only when there are a lot of light sources around to compensate for the total lack of ambient light but that isn’t the norm on most routes.

Antelope Valley is quite good at night because there are a lot of lights about on parts of the route and the good headlights on the trains light up plenty of near scenery but it is a rare good nighttime driving experience.

Urban routes generally need more light at night, there needs to be more moonlight around, and the headlights on most trains could be improved by making the light cones behave more like a headlight would. Some trains have far too much of a darkening effect from the windscreen too as if it was tinted glass. You can see the difference by using an external camera in front of the train to see how much looking through the windscreen dims things.

 

Sadly it seems to be dominated by the same stubborn POV that brought us the over bright daytime and adaptive eye in response to complaints about tar across everything in TSW2 and refuses to acknowledge the nights are way too dark especially in large towns or cities and that modern train headlights, especially European and US, should light up at least some of the area in front of the traction type.

 

It is annoying that if you use the outside view it’s reasonably lit up for a short distance ahead of the train, but not when you look from the drivers seat, which makes zero sense.

 

I agree with you about AVL except that the volumetric fog makes it impossible to drive at night. When you switch it off, the night lighting is pretty good.

ECML is not too bad at night compared with BCC, Cathcart, Glossop and Voralberg all of which are dreadful for night driving. I simply avoid it on those routes.

The bottom line is that there is no consistency and you never know what to expect.

I hope JT can get it right.

 

The night lighting in TSW is always too dark, but your example seems very very dark indeed. Not even the headlights are visible. Did you turn the switch behind you on the right wall from signal lights to headlights? Otherwise the lights will just be red even if you select the bright option on the desk in front of you.

 

Too dark? I dont think so, really apreciate the times are over when i had to use a unreal unlocker command to make all the routes darker. If its raining you get wet, if you dont like it just choose a summer weather in TSW. Same for the night i guess...

The lightening sources on the routes can be discussed because there could definetly be more detail. But too dark?, again no. --> If the headlights on full flash not working properly, it doesnt have anything to do with a "too dark" setup.

I guess the player just forgot to turn the switch on.

 

Something else I noticed the other day when driving at night on Cajon in a heavy rainstorm. The rain was hammering on the windshield, making it impossible to see out. The wipers didn't help much. The headlights were totally ineffective.

Switching to an outside camera it was hardly raining at all and the headlights were fairly effective for a short distance ahead. Visibility was much better than inside the cab.

But I like to mix it up, inside/outside. Guess I'm SOL, then.

 

To be fair, even day lighting is awful in Voralberg.

 

The other point about night lighting is that, yes, pitch black might be realistic in some locations or weather conditions (maybe not even then) but it is hardly entertaining which is the whole purpose of the game. So far as overall night lighting is concerned I would prefer the option of a heavy twilight, so you can still see hills etc. silhouetted against the sky or discern buildings against the ground. And anywhere with more than a cluster of buildings and streetlights and especially large towns and cities should be alive with an ambient glow visible from miles away.

 

This topic is there since tsw and really depends of the taste.
I guess we need a selection in the option menu:

- realistic (black & dark as it is now with new routes)
- visible threshhold (a brighter setting where areas are still visible)

I clearly prefere the pitch black, but with 2 options we could finally close the discussion "which is the right" night setting.

 

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but no no no!

We don’t need fake lighting, the game needs realistic lighting. It needs proper lighting on buildings, streetlights etc. They need to actually cast light, as do vehicle headlights etc. There also needs to be ambient lighting above populated areas. It also needs to recreate the fact that the human eye is actually capable of distinguishing features in the dark. On Antelope Valley for example, the damn thing is completely and utterly pitch black, even under a full moon. So, as I said, we don’t need fake lighting (like something like RDR2 has), it just needs to be realistic.

Many many other games achieve this but DTG don’t even try. DTG make the windows of many of their building assets reflective (not lit, crucial distinction). Many street lamps aren’t even lit up, don’t cast light or aren’t visible from the side. Station lights are lit but cast no light, and if they do cast light often come on on an arbitrary timer that means the world is pitch black at 0705 in Winter because the lights all go off at 0700.

They made a far better stab at this with TSC, and I would have expected that TSW, on a newer and much more capable engine, would have been a significant step forward. Instead they do the absolute bare minimum and then say ‘we know we need to do better at night lighting’. Well get on with it then because again, every DLC we’re paying money for here is broken and will remain broken forever.

 

Just having decent headlights would help a lot. One ought to be able to see the track in front of the train for a few hundred meters/yards, at least.

 

In DTG's world there is no such thing as light pollution. It's frustrating because most urban areas should have a lot of ambient light due simply to light pollution. Even if all the streetlights on my block went out it would be bright enough to see where I'm going without a flashlight simply from all the city lights reflecting off the atmosphere. It literally never gets truly dark in urban environments

 

I too was surprised at the dimness OBB 4024's headlights, even with highbeams I can hardly tell they are on. Pretty sure they are set right, the knobs on the right side of the cab are set to "Signal Lights Headlights" and "Signal Lights Direct Standard" then using the switch on the right side of the console to switch between Normal and High Beams. Are there any other applicable controls?

I also very much agree with the guys saying that nighttime has become too dark since TSW3. I totally get that night could be way, way too bright in TSW2 at times but without lights sources casting light appropriate distances and urban areas creating ambient light in the sky its just too pitch black now. I've really come to dislike night services because of this. It would be great if it had realistic lighting like JetWash desires but I wonder how much more graphically demanding it would be? I've seen others mention a gamma slider elsewhere, perhaps that would be an easier solution allowing people to tweak the setting to their hardware\tastes. I'm surprised TSW lacks such a slider.

DW

 

I dont get this discussion about "how dark" a night should be. Ok Light sources is an entire different thing and many players / modders have valid points, but following this thread i recommend to drive on daytime, if your complaint is the night is too dark.
Looking outside the window now i cant see anything, also if an area is rather rural, there are just way less light sources.

I finally can enjoy night driving since routes released with tsw3. Was a pain to use unreal unlocker to make every single route darker. For route knowledge its very interesting.

 

I must say that the night visibility is good for me using Xbox and TV, even on Lindau - Bludenz. Especially compared to TSW2 DLCs like München - Augsburg or Köln - Aachen. The latter is so dark, Cologne looks like there is a complete power breakdown. TSW3 made it much better in my opinion, Left Rhine is for example very nice in the dark. Don't get me wrong, there would be a lot of room for improvements, but it's getting better.
The Problem with the Talent 1 and with lighting in generel is that the amount of light differs from train to train. The lights of the BR 103 for example is much to weak compared to the 110 of the same era. DTG increased the lights on the 110 and the cab car with one of the last updates (and broke the cab car's headlight textures with this) but "forgot" to do the same with the 103.
The headlights of the 4024 are way too dim, the bright lights are what the headlights should be. Driving in foggy weather is nearly impossible because you can't use the brights than, but the headlights are too weak to see the signal signs early enough like for shutting down the power.
I think that every developer has it own thoughts about what lighting should be and this leads to this inconsistent behavior throughout all the DLCs. It seems that there is no general rule for this, and the product managers, who shoud be responsible for this, don't care or don't think about the side effects.

 

Driving at night is still ridiculous. If it's on Blackpool Preston or whereever...
It doesn't make any sense to me driving any scenario or whatever at night because it is pitchblack.
Even if the loco would have perfectly configured headlights it would still be absolute nonsense!

Recently i drove Mainspessartbahn and there i could see at night (was too bright but still it was at least fun and not as absurd as the pitch black night lighting on newer routes.).

I would prefer the older way even if unrealisitcally bright.
The newer (dark) night lighting is at least equally unrealistic. Never will we see a moonlit night for example. And the light sources ingame are cut off after a few meters (resulting in pitch black environment).

I can imagine that a really realistic night lighting (where each light source affects 100s of meters of environment lighting) is killing the performance. At least lets have a slider for the "main light source" at night so i and others can at least enjoy the night schedule.

I wonder why devs (like JT) go to lengths with night schedules when there is only a small amount of people playing (ore even moreso enjoying) those. To me it's a complete and utter waste of effort.

 

That might be your opinion (but just asuming most player have it is a bit off), i enjoy night services especially on the preston route like on every other hudless.

The night is dark and the rain is wet. If you prefere to see something (which is great by the way) just drive on daytime.

I personally like the challenge if a zero mistake tolerance and drive the route according to my memory in pitch black + noHud. I think DTG got the darkness really well in last routes.
The old routes are way too bright.

 

The night is dark but it isn't all black.
I prefer to see something at night too. I have good eyesight left. So at night it's not all black for me...

I think you are wrong about "most players". I guess you are part of the minority which have got it their way and are now teaching people about the physics of night and rain. Thanks for that.

 

Which is why we have these things called headlights and windshield wipers. But the former is never simulated properly in TSW.

According to your logic we shouldn't need windshield wipers simulated in the game either, because rain is wet and we should just drive by route memory.

And headlights aside, scenery lighting is also quite lackluster on most routes - missing lights on stations, yards and nearby streets, therefore nights are much darker in game than they would be in real life.

 

I was just refering to the visibility of the night it self. Headlights, light sources etc is something else which was a topic on every route and could done better mostly.

I for my self just dont like bright nights.