Driving the 47 yesterday for the Duff Coal scenario reminded me of the quality of some of the graphics in default stock, specifically the awful polygonal outlines for curved objects. My question for the TS/programming cogniscenti here is, just how difficult can it be to render a sphere with curved edges? I imagine you have to epecifiy a much greater number of coordinates that straight lines have to be drawn between, so that to the eye, it appears as curved. Ok, that might take some work initially, but surely you'd only have to create the script once for a control knob suck as below - and subsequent locos can use the same script with different radii, colour, etc? So time wouldn't be the reason? (Unless it's time just to go back and sort dozens or hundreds of items that were done this way in the first place?) What's the issue with not doing this as a matter of course, at least for new releases? It would certainly improve the appearance of default trains no end. As you can no doubt tell, I have little idea about what goes on 'under the bonnet', so some elucidation from those that know would be gratefully appreciated!
As I understand creating curves and various shapes with rounded edges comes with a significant performance hit, the more polygons the more is required from your computer.
That might have been true in 2009, but is it an issue now? I can’t say using AP trains has made my PC grind to a halt, or anyone has ever complain of that!
I It may be the limitations of DirectX 9.0c which dates back to around 2006, DirectX 10 (used in TSW) gives much smoother images as do 11 and 12.
Thing is, it can be done in the existing setup (and without a performance hit - just look at AP DLC).
Hmm. You're right there Ted. But... somehow I like the old stuff, it is part of TS's history. You have old and new rollingstock to choose from. Sometimes the new looks better but the old plays better... But we can't touch the models. Encrypted BLOBs. Good DRM. Tried removing a _.sbn file once out of curiosity. What happened? Polygon madness! Well protected... I like the way John Carmack handled things in the famous and groundbreaking idTech3/Quake3Arena game engine 23 years ago. Total scalability. r_subDivisions comes to mind... means you could set a variable to determine the roundness of curves. The thing is that there might be a max number of tris the Railworks engine (Yes I still call it that because all we have is slight improvements and fixes) can handle. Technology moved on with TSW2, and TS will basically exist because of DLC. Maybe some years in the future software like OpenRails will handle TS content with engine improvements made by passionate coders and railfans.
