My favourite thing to do in this game is take photos of steam locos. Since the recent patch (on Xbox Series X, but probably affects all platforms) whenever I start to move the camera away from the loco, the smoke/steam particle effects from the chimney “switch off”. To be clear, this is not a LOD issue, the particles do not come back once I re-approach the loco. Once the particles switch off, they are gone forever, there is no way to get them back. Even when you exit the photo mode the particles are gone, and new particles need to draw in from the chimney. I’ve been taking photos for a long time, even before the TSW4 photo mode update, and this was not happening before this recent patch. Another thing to note is, this seems to not be affecting the particles emitted from the safety valves or whistle, which stay on just fine. I haven’t had chance to see if it affects either the drain cocks! Can other steam fans try this out and confirm if they are seeing this too.
Thanks for your input. How far away from the loco did you move? You have to move at a guess, about 20 metres or more away from the loco. Here is a picture of about the distance the smoke switches off. It looks quite far I know, this is on the default camera FOV/Zoom I normally prefer to move away from my subject then zoom in as I feel it gets a more realistic photo. Further testing done today and I can say it definitely affects all the steam locos, on any route. It only affects the particles coming from the chimney. Safety valves, drain cocks and whistles all work fine, with normal expected behaviour Chimney smoke whether it is on the regulator or even the wispy off-regulator smoke, switches off when you move away from the loco This definitely did not happen before the recent patch, I have lots of photos that this didn’t happen.
I think this is a symptom of a bigger issue, it’s happening with a few other things such as passengers on trains (the 142 notably).
