Train Sim World 4 - Antelope Valley Line Q&a (september 7th)

Figures. They are always reluctant to showcase routes at night. Wonder why?

 

Matt was going to show LA at night, then Jamie said "We're being told it's not ready yet" and so they ended the stream after that long run.

 

Yea I just saw that. probably because is pitch black at night and can’t see anything. Hopefully they are working on it

 

Okay, I've had a chance to watch the entire Q&A and route preview. I will start of with this. I was off base earlier and my comments were wrong. This route is far from being done lazy or only using LIDAR. It appears a great deal of effort was put into this route and the things I was reading about it even before watching the video were just simply not accurate. And for that, I apologize for my earlier comments. I should have watched the entire video first before rendering an opinion. I enjoy the friendly conversation in here, as well as being someone who might be able to provide insight into the real world operation and I don't want to come across as "that guy" who posts stuff like I did earlier. So with that, again, I apologize. That said, here are the observations I have made and they're overall positive:

- The sounds (from the F125 and coaches anyways) are very accurate as is the cab. That's basically what it sounds like and looks like IRL. Even the doors closing beep! I would have liked to hear sounds from the cabcar (like horn to verify it is in fact the different, correct sounding horn.) The airbrake sounds are accurate and actually make noise when you set the air! I would have liked to hear the alerter.
- The bell in the locomotive cab is way too loud. It's way more muffled sounding and quieter real life.
- I saw basically no stuttering at all, which was a concern of some people, myself included. The performance seems to be quite good!
- Some questions asked Matt didn't know the answer to, even though they've been answered on here multiple times by myself, and others, who are familiar with Metrolink. In particular, if 4 cars was accurate and if it could be changed. Almost all trains to Lancaster are 4 cars, primarily due to the steep grades through Soledad Canyon and the relatively short platform at Lancaster as well as the layover track where 3 trainsets need to fit (2 trainsets on the platform) during layover. The maximum number of cars to Lancaster is 5 cars however. No 6 car trains ever go there, unless it's some kind of special occasion. It would also require a second locomotive. 5 car trains are fairly common on the Via Princessa only trains (referred to as a "Princessa flip" by many crew members.)
- The cabcar cab is almost perfectly accurate. That's basically exactly what it looks like. I don't want to say "it's perfect" because, well, nothing is in life. But that's about as good as it gets! The only thing missing was hearing some of the sounds.
- There were hints made several times at future DLC that could come along. No mention of MP36 and Bombardier cars however, even though they talked a lot about them and showed IRL photos they took. It was mentioned that Metrolink managers urged them to go take photos and audio of stuff that was running that particular day that often doesn't and wouldn't be much more during their trip. (F59PH perhaps?)
- Several services are in fact the whole route and not split up into two parts. So it gives the option of running the whole route without needing to exit.
- I found the quality of the game in the stream to be a little meh. It almost appeared like maybe Matt had the graphics settings turned down a little bit? TSW and TSW2 on high settings looked far better. The trains looked great but a lot of the buildings and surrounding scenery like trees and bushes were on a lower quality than what I'd say we're used to.
- No preview of night lighting, rain effects, and overall new weather effect.
- The game and overall graphics were lacking in certain areas but made up for it in others.

Having said all of this, it doesn't erase the certain frustrations people have with DTG and how they do thing or chose to do things. Trust me, I'm one of them to. And I may be missing stuff here and I probably am. But overall, the route is done quite well as are the trains themselves. The stations are modeled pretty much exactly how they look in real life and aren't re-used. Each one appears to have been specifically hand crafted. I didn't particularly see any major, noticeable bugs but then again, it might have been hard to see through the stream. I only wish I was around the days they were out and about grabbing all the recordings and photos and riding the trains. Would have been cool to meet them! Overall, I'm pretty satisfied. I think they did a great job on this route. Like I said above, it doesn't reflect my earlier comments. These guys certainly put a great amount of effort into this recreation of the Metrolink Antelope Valley line, which is the second busiest in the whole system of 8 lines that run to Los Angeles. I'm definitely more excited for it than I was before and without a doubt, will be getting TSW4 so I can experience this route.

 

If the same people who worked the night lighting on Voralberg and numerous routes in TSW3 did the night lighting for AVL, I think we can safely predict the outcome " when it's ready ".

 

Thanks for all the detailed information. The F125 looks like a fun loco to drive with great sounds. It even has a working accelerometer and a horn sequencer! Nice.

 

Different teams do different things. Scenario staff aren't going to do physics or implement new features. Completely different skill sets.

 

probably just the stream quality, if like me you’re used to something like 4K on the series X then YouTube or I’m also assuming twitch will not look like that. I tend to notice it improves when the game view camera stops moving in the stream and it looks quite a bit more better and closer to what you’re used to seeing routes like. YouTube as how I watch the streams, definitely appears to make the general graphics more blurry unlike when I play the routes myself.

 

I would agree with you. I sort of figured it was likely stream quality. It did noticeably improve when he paused and moved around. But I thought I'd throw that in there anyways, just in case.

 

Correct and I did ask Matt on Twitch about the MP36 from Caltrain being able to layer to Antelope Valley Line he said that they are working on that or plans to do so

 

Come on now, Youtube doesn't make the models in low polygons, popin, and low res ( MS Paint) textures, I doubt it even has PBR materials on many of the assets. The lighting is totaly off. Box shadows under shrubs. 2d trees close to track.. And this should be better then TSW 3?

It's a rush job and a poor one. But, keep supporting this kind of stuff, and DTG wont change one bit.

I feel sorry for the people who want to do better but upper management wont spend a dime. It's pathetic.

Edit: What I find amazing is that you couldn't find one person in Los Angeles to make a few pictures of the building or find "reference" material on Google Image.. The more I think about it, the more I dont understand how stuff works at DTG..

Google Maps Photogrammetry

 

That's good. The question will be though if it will be a free upgrade for those who already own the CalTrain Baby Bullet set or are we paying full price again for basically just a reskin and no other upgrades? Buying the same trainset twice?

I noted above too that I thought it could be Matt was running the route with lower graphic settings, maybe because he was streaming at the same time? It almost looks as if they're set on a low/medium setting. Trains look okay but surrounding scenery like trees and bushes and even some buildings are rather low quality. Other TSW versions, high or even ultra quality yields much different visual results.

 

you seem to be putting way too much focus on that one building, yes any developer can spend days perfecting every windows and creating every shadow the sun could hit at all months of the year, and the window glass designers unique architecture style, and they’re signature neatly carved into each pane, brick and stone… DTG don’t put 100% focus into every building they simply ain’t enough time in their development Shedule to do so.

They didn’t do the 2 apartment blocks exactly in real life at Mainz HBf, they put in a picture for SF skyline not create every one with extreme detail, because it’s close enough to the real thing, what people aren’t using (this isn’t skyscraper sim world) and only need to see probably most times not for more than a few minutes or seconds in many cases doesn’t need a massive focus.

that building is one of the most detailed close true to life ones out their in TSW. Many often use already existing models like the ones at Mainz HBf which aren’t entirely close to the real ones and therefore are duplicated even on GWE and even on the same route (which is almost the equivalent of running a train down Austria and seeing this model)

 

If he did run on low settings he should have said that. But why would you preview on low? Vorarlberg looked a lof better and got me excited to play that route, but this preview totaly ruined it.

 

No, DTG put way too less focus on that one building. It's a iconic building and no it doesn't takes days if you have good textures, by using real photo materials you can hide a lot of the detailing in the model itself. But not and a low poly model, no PBR and some MS Paint texture then you endup with something that was used 15 years ago.

I really dont understand why you accept such a poor job. And even more so, why you care for their schedule? They make schedules that are obviously unrealistic 80% of the time. I dont force them to do that.

The trick with games is to minimize object details further away and maximize close(r) objects, not the otherway around. This route should have many boulders and rocks near the track, have you seen one? Terrain tesselation to make it look more rocky near the track would have made a huge difference also, instead of a flat plane. It needs to be cheap and fast,

One example of Arosaline: First is Rivet/DTG



And my very little time invested mod.




It makes a big difference just to spend a bit more time on it. And instead of 1 texture for all rocks and rockwalls it adds a bit of variation.. The bridge I can't find the original for but it has the same boring texture as picture 1.

Is it perfect, no. Because they are just straight (boring) walls with no extrusion added. But atleast it looks a bit better.

 

I didn’t say it would take days, I said any developer could spend months. But if the schedule is say 6 months it’s not very proportionate to the route to spend 2-3-4 days doing this one building.

Their is many routes in the game with iconic buildings, this one and many like them have had more focus or less focus, but as I’ve said this is game about trains and isn’t about skyscraper details and recreating with great detail no matter how iconic they are.

If DTG spent however long making sure every window is aligned on the original blue prints etc or not i probably wouldn’t notice as long as it’s close enough and doesn’t appear ridiculous.

MetLife tower is the same on Harlem, the office tower in oriental design in Dresden, the Shard on Bakerloo, each one is modelled to higher quality but not exact, they are very much close enough and above satisfactory for TSW. Literally every station in TSW is the same, they’re close and most times very nicely done but never exact, if your ever at the real life ones you will be able to find differences quite quickly.



I don’t control DTG’s schedule and I have my doubts i have reason to do so by myself. I have mentioned my feedback on scheduled before but even I would be going too far to demand change for the purpose of every building. It’s also the reason I refer to it as DTG’s timings not fixed unchangeable timings.

Even as a huge fan of building architecture and other architectural stuff I still realise it’s necessary purpose to this game.

 

It's not a necessary purpose! You pretend it is because DTG themself makes a very tight schedule. If you have good reference material you can spend 30 minutes more and it would have looked a 100 times better. Anyway, if you accept a few rectangular models a building who am I to tell you otherwise, enjoy your real life architecture.

 

I know that, but as a consumer I don’t really care. They are selling me a simulator but I’m not getting one.

 

The old conundrum of every route builder. Are you creating for a train sim where people are driving from the train or viewing from humanly achievable positions around it, or a helicopter sim? In which case MSFS >>>>

A train sim route is a bit like a movie set, you put in the bits people need to see, not a load of detail the camera will never pick up. If I’m about to depart LA Union, I’ll be busy setting up my train for the journey ahead. If I’m arriving, I’ll be focused on not hitting the buffers.

I will have to look in Run 8 later on, see what their LA Union looks like, but I would be surprised if they have done as good a job as DTG and on the surrounding area.

 

I like the longivity of this route. But traffic is dead boring like in a reality

 

The game has simulated trains

It allows you to simulate driving them

It is a simulator

Its very rare I criticise someone, but what an utterly ridiculous statement. One scenario that you don't like does not invalidate its simulator credentials

 

My bet: Both Oakville and Antelope Valley reskins and upgrades to fit the routes, scenarios on both routes, and the timetable addons in one package, paid.

At least that would be better than CalTrain on Oakville and just a reskinned CalTrain on Antelope Valley.

 

Its a difficult balance, but I think I would land on the side of the fence that has scenery that you will interact with or get up close and personal with, ie. within the immediate track vicinity plus say 50m for the highest level of detail, and decrease the further out you go. Generally even if you're in helicopter mode, your immediate focus is what's directly around the train I would think

 

I was very impressed by this route. It's not gonna be my favourite route. But I'm impressed by the way they want to make this route a fun route. The movie scenario is something that was on my wishlist for TSW4 so another checkbox has been checked

 

I don't know if you posted two screenshots of the mod (or without the mod) by mistake, but I can't see any difference in the first two images (and no I'm not being facetious). Can you point them out?

 

I think the Metrolink MP36 depends on which Bi Levels they decide to include with it.

Thier older ones are not rebuilt and are probably pretty similar to the Caltrain ones

Their newer rebuilds from Talgo however have a bunch of new improvements to the car, that they probably cannot be simply reskinned from the Caltrain cars.
https://metrolinktrains.com/news/me...enities-for-riders-comfort-and-travel-safety/

 

[Removed - Alex: Highly Insulting]

 

Sadly, badly made scenery assets with horrible texturing kind of became the norm for TSW.

How can anyone think that signature building besides the station looks acceptable in 2023 is beyond me. It looks like something out of Trainz 2009.

And sadly there are manny assets that look the same in TSW. What makes it funnier is that there are assets that actually look very nice. The quality standard is all over the place in TSW.

 

It would be nice if both style Bombardier coaches were included. The older ones in the old paint that they saw in LA and previewed again in the stream AND the Talgo rebuilt ones that you included in your post. I'm not sure when they were in LA for the 2 weeks doing the work but the Talgo rebuilds are still fairly new and might not have even been back and in service yet when they were there. But there's plenty of reference photos to go off of to do a decent recreation of it.

 

Serious question, aside from showcase/one-off buildings, would it be better to have them as they are or omit them entirely? For example while they don't overly bother me, the identikit terraced houses on some UK routes are as basic as they can be, but I think the route would look far more bare without them, and thus less immersive

 

Maybe to stop excessive stuttering?

 

I've only had time to watch about half the preview stream so far, but I have to say that the way that freight is included in the route seems utterly miserly and needlessly complex.

Why was the UP loco from Sherman Hill not just included with the route along with some appropriate already existing freight cars?

Instead, we're left in a situation that even relatively experienced TSW players are finding confusing (not understanding for instance that you have to have Cajon Pass for the freight layer to activate at all, even if you have Sherman Hill installed).

It doesn't affect me personally as I already own both Cajon Pass and Sherman Hill but I would strongly urge DTG to think about simply including the UP freight as part of the package.

 

The route’s looking better than I expected. Initially, this was the route I was least excited for but it looks and sounds really well crafted. Seems like that trip over the pond really paid off!

The freight situation does seem really odd though. If availability of layers is such a concern, then why not copy-paste the Sherman Hill stuff over? It’s always done for the UK (Class 66) and Germany (Br 185 + Br 363). Why not for the USA? Having to own a route with the wrong operator to activate the layer in addition to another route with the right operator just seems like a mess.

Don’t want to be that guy, but it actually looks good to me.

 

If you build a Train Simulator that lets you walk around and move around with a external camera then you created a situation where you need to spend more time on detailing. Else you might as well lock the camera to the cab.

 

Agreed.

 

Heh, if you like popin of vegetation and low polygon models and dull looking scenery that's okay. I'll just stay with TSW2-3 which can do everything this route can. And probably (i'm sure it does) looks even better on TSW2. Atleast that one isn't overly bright with weird SSR issues on glass and shiny grass/tarmac.

Fence that point outward copy and pasted where one side with barbwire is pointing outwards and the other side is pointing inwards. Is it nitpicking? yes it is, but we talk about a business here that does this job for 15 years already.

Buildings that have all windows illuminated at night, because thats easy to do. Nevermind it looks ugly and weird. Buildings that have the wrong material i.d and not have light at all.

Still the same hedge that is used in about every single route to date. Nobody has time to make a new hedge with some transparency added in the texture to give it a bit more depth? Same track texture for 70 miles. etc. etc.

 

Sorry, I noticed that I didn’t quite quote you correctly. I was specifically referring to the building in LA thay you take issue with. Could you elaborate what’s missing to your mind?

 

It has an incredibly basic representation of a train. It’s hardly simulating anything.

 

That's why it's a video game that you buy on a console and not some sophisticated piece of tailor made software that comes with a very expensive hardware simulator build specially for the rail network you own

 

Hehe, it's not the best picture for an example. But I didn't have time anymmore to use the pc with Steam so I made a fast example of the first station that had the textures. Anyway, it's the river wall. The bridge uses the first pictures wall but no example added. But only the layered texture one I did. If I remember and want to put the time in i'll make a few better examples.

 

I play a certain flight simulator game and that gets pretty close to the real thing. With yokes, throttles and vr and my wife shaking the chair it's hard to think it's a game.

 

I would not know if it comes close to the real thing. I ain't a pilot.

 

The Q&A is September 25.... So right before the official release.... Or do you change it again?

 

You can sit in the passenger chairs also, or haven't flown either?

 

I think you should expect people to be looking at major buildings right next to the tracks. The Metro Headquarters dominates the area.

 

You can have all the vibrating controllers you like, but no sim road, railway or aviation on a 2D screen is going to impart the same sensation as a full motion simulator, or the real thing. Mainly the sense of acceleration and deceleration. I had to put a downhill freight into emergency on Cajon last night, simply because the speed crept up without realising. Probably not helped by less than sterling physics - if a full bailed brake application and full dynamics can't slow or stop a train on a 2% falling grade IRL, then the railroad should have its safety case thrown out. But that's a debate for another thread.

With a sensation of being pushed back in your seat plus the general sense of speed all around and your peripheral vision and hearing, you would avert that situation before it became critical.

 

What do you mean missing? Whats missing is the time spend to make it a bit less 2009 looking. Or do I "miss" something here?

 

There are cheap motion simulators for years already. Close to the real thing doesn't mean it is the real thing. But with VR ,hardware and photogrammetry it is more real then what TSW provides.