Hey folks, I can't help but I'm not happy about the new ohle rendering. I had no issues with the old one. But the new one feels like the wires are too thick in the distance. Or rather to say it feels like it has the same thickness on screen despite the distance - up to a certain point. With the "old" method they got thinner as you would expect and of course they started to disappear but that would blend in with the "low resolution" feel of the background. Is there an option to deactivate the new method? I haven't found anything in the settings. What are your thoughts about the new ohle rendering? I wish you a nice weekend Pierrechi
Yeah they need another look for sure, but I do think actually being able to see them is an upgrade over how they were previously. The issue is that they’ve only done this to the catenary, dropper & contact wires, all the rest of it is still the old rendering which in comparison, is practically invisible.
I see it as an upgrade.. it is far from perfect, but imho an improvement from what we had previously. I think the root of the issue is that we do not have good AA method for deferred rendering (globally, not just for TSW), so we're stuck with shader antialiasing, which cause loss of detail, ghosting, flickering...etc. Thin lines are just hard to preserve for any method that cause loss of data, so you either make them thicker, or you end up with the semi-transparent weirdness that is the old OHLE...
I see the point that it counteracts the TAA flickering artifacts. I had no problem with the fact that they were semi-transparent since real catanary appears thinner in the distance and does not draw that much attention to it. Now there are fat pixels blocking the view. I guess I would like a mix inbetween. Rando-Technical Stuff: I assume what they did is a world-position-offset multiplied with tangent normal multiplied with distance to camera (capped at a certain distance) multiplied by custom value. That's what I would have done to get this result. But I'm not happy with this result. Maybe I would have tried additionally set the blend mode to "masked", add a AA-dither in the opacity-mask output multiplied with distance to camera multiplied by custom value. But maybe this gives terrible results either.
Just mentioned this in the ECML feedback thread. The OHLE just looks wrong, too thick and clunky - like it appears in ETS2 when you encounter a railway line.
‘Encounter’ asif ETS 2 isn’t my second in line train sim But yes I do agree it does look exactly like that.
I'll dismiss it, I had no trouble with the old rendering. The new OHLE rendering makes the lines too thick in the distance instead of being invisible. You can see the OHLE still in the distance but not the catenary. So "new" ain't always "better".
The new OHL looks terrible. The previous version looks more like the real deal. I don’t know why they made them that thick now, it’s just not what OHL looks like.
I totally agree. The old one looks way more realistic and natural to me. So I would wish for an option to deactivate it - but I do not believe in it.
It's laughable to say the least. Makes other supporting infra appear invisible and where multiple wires exist close to each other it looks even worse. It feels very rushed and is not an upgrade at all IMHO.
Meh the old one didn't bother me and neither does the new one. Guess it's just not something i notice, but hopefuly they can find a good compromise for those that do.
I don't have a problem with the thickened wires, I definitely prefer them to the flickering. But it needs to be extended to the entire wiring rig, since now we have a combination of thick and vanishing wires.
They looked bad on the stream but looking at them in-game, I have no problem with them. Still prefer the older version though.
More importantly, whole chunks of the catenary are now missing, few spots on Vorarlberg, but a lot on DRA, where it previously worked without problems.
Hey DTG JD could this be moved to Feedback? Think it's important to get our thoughts on this to the team.
I can do that - and again thank you everyone for the feedback, we're listening and passing this right to our development teams
As I wrote in the What Are Your Tsw4 Impressions So Far? forum..... The new OHLE rendering is distracting and too prominent, looked better before, please revert back or make it optional.
I’ve just been looking at some YT clips of the old Triang Hornby (possibly Hornby Dublin) cat system and it really does remind me of that. Overscale, insidious and intrusive!
The old type certainly had it's floors but overall I think it was better. I'm not offended by the new type but just feels a bit intrusive and too prominent.
In my opinion, it's definitely an improvement over the old default. Personally, I was using an engine.ini with adjusted AA settings that I fine-tuned to get the catenary looking as good as I could, and while I think I prefer the old OHLE with that config specifically, it isn't by much. The ideal is probably somewhere in-between. I'm not sure if that will be possible in a future update, but I have hope.
I do prefer the new set OHLE, except that it is too dark and prominant and can be a bit destracting, a lighter colour would help I think. Overall though I prefer it to the old OHLE. It they could do something with the rest of the equipment so that doesn't disappear, that would help.
Actually that might be the main issue, it is almost black. Look at the span support wires on 4 track sections and they are fine.
Yes on reflection I do think it's the fact they are jet black rather than too thick causing the issues.
I originally posted this after seeing it in a live stream… Now that I have seen it in game on PS5 I must say that the new OHLE is better than the old OHLE rendering despite it showing a little too black and too thick when two wires cross when looking at the wires end on like you do when you drive. It hasn’t been as distracting to me as I feared it would and in most cases the slightly unreal look it can have can be overlooked as I quickly got used to it and it does look better overall, especially what you see around you and not dead centre. Maybe with a few tweaks to how black it is from below and it will be even better but I must say I am liking it more than what it replaced. I’m now glad they did this even if it isn’t perfect.
Im always for new approaches and making things better, but for some reason the new OHLE just doesnt work for me. as i drive it reminds me either snakes or static fences in the air. When driving older routes it looks way more real & convincing to me, also its rather "annoying" because it looks just like a misplaced scenery. Maybe something between would have been more appropriate? I really really hope it doesnt stay this way. As much i tried, it just seems a step in the wrong direction. Here the old on BRO:
My suggestion here would be to keep the wires reasonably thick (to avoid the flickering), but make them fade in colour into the distance. I think that would replicate the physical effect of them appearing thinner when further away.
So DTG, is there a plan to add all missing ohle on the new routes? This clearly isnt something considered "nice to have". Its absolutley nessecary since with the new rendereing you see every missing meter. And yes there is a lot of them, on dra which were even there in tsw3... "How could you...", the ohle was an advertised feature, so makes it look like pretty "not tested".
Something else I've been noticing is that the hanger orientation often doesn't match the zigzag. The registration arm must ALWAYS be in tension, but roughly half the time it is modelled as being in compression. Note that the measurements in the above image are for model scale, not full scale. The important point is the distinction between the registration arms which pull the wire off the centreline, and the support cable which prevents the arm from dropping into the loading gauge if the catenary is damaged.
I appreciate that this may be Accurate, but in fairness, 99% of people would not notice. There are other more important areas to fix. I am on the fence with the new OHLE. In certain conditions, I do not really notice it. In others, it's not great. It really is too thick. Perhaps it's because its jet black.
IMHO, if you go to the trouble of modelling in the level of detail TSW4 does, and advertise improved OHLE rendering as one of the key features, then getting the cantilevers the right way around for the stagger should be a given. This came up in the Railworks days, and at that time there was a tool to help route builders get it all correct from the outset, largely because people DID notice precisely this sort of error and complain about it. Something's gone backwards since then.
A good idea maybe would to have had the wires animated when a train passes ,don't know if that would cost memory or not but a cool feature I think
The feedback i would give on the OHLE is it needs to be reduced in thickness a bit, the old was too thin/didn’t properly render where as the new is too thick in my view, somewhere in the middle seems to be the sweet spot.
Actually, seeing how it's very closely related, would it be possible to discuss here in this feedback thread about the catenary *poles* that are misplaced in various (at least German) routes and builds of the game? I feel it's part of the OHLE, even though it's not specifically the thicker wires, and it would be nice for both community and devteam to have a single location where to find reports of misplaced OHLE supports.
there’s not much to discuss on it, it’s a bug what needs fixing, whereas this thread was for a specific update done to the OHLE
