Backward Compatibility

[OTTODAD]

Would one of the team like to comment on this: https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showth...17#post1744317

If ORTS is not going to make changes to what MSTS does not do as it should then what is the point of it ?

Much of MSTS has been tweaked and improved by it's users, MSTSBin, modifying rolling stock physics, signalling, sounds and a lot more, like the Railwaves track joint sounds I can no longer hear other than in #5 passenger views and am looking forward to see what it will do with regards to distant mountains.

O t t o

[wacampbell]

To the credit of the team, we've acheived more compatibility than I originally planned. My original objective was to provide for an easy port of MSTS content to OR, but not necessarily to guarantee operation of 'off the shelf' MSTS downloads. I envisioned content providers or end users adding OR specific configuration files to the MSTS content to provide for proper compatibility. These OR config files haven't yet been fully defined but its coming. In the interim, we've provided some backward compatiblity to 'unmodified' MSTS content, but its not our priority to perfect this.

Some examples ...

- MSTS .eng and .wag files contain a huge array of undocumented and inconsistent data. Although we do provide some ability to read these ( and have taken it further than I expected ), rolling stock will need the OR config file to take advantage of all the features of OR.

- Activities - OR's ability to read MSTS .act files was just a convenience for demonstrations. Our programmers, following their own interests, have enhanced and evolved this to a pretty good level. But it has never been a goal to use MSTS activities. Instead its our intention to develop a OR specific activity editor which will use its own methods and file formats

- Signalling Systems - my original plan was that any signalled MSTS route would need to have its signalling configuration files replaced with custom OR files. ie, OR would ignore any existing MSTS signalling. We will reach this point eventually, but in the interim the developers have done a pretty good job of interpretting and matching MSTS's behaviour. That backward compatibility will remain, but eventually we will switch our focus to the new signaling system.

[OTTODAD]

Yes Wayne, that's what I thought the team is trying to achieve.

We already have better graphics and frame rates, new functions like being able to set switches by clicking on them and uncouple by clicking on couplers, but to make all of what is being used by MSTS and MSTSBin and has been moded by some compatible with ORTS is not possible.

Forinstance the YardCam4 and some animations like the barges in the river Rhine at Cologne are not working.

To take advantage of all that ORTS will be capable of much of what MSTS uses now will have to be re-created or re-coded, the same as some are using TRAINZ and MSTS objects and re-code their graphics for use with Railworks.

I am still not sure what progress has been made regarding the display of distant mountains, essential for all mountainous routes like the Donner shown below, using DEMEX and KOSMOS environments.

All the best to the hard working team and hope that they are not going to be over-stressed trying to achieve train simulator perfection !

Take care, O t t o.

[csantucci]

... some animations like the barges in the river Rhine at Cologne ...

As far as I can see in ORTS no animation works on non-interactive objects (e.g. the nice animations of didi2004 - that unhappily left us - http://didi2004.de do not work). I hope that the ORTS will add that functionality.

[OTTODAD]

As far as I can see in ORTS no animation works on non-interactive objects (e.g. the nice animations of didi2004 - that unhappily left us - http://didi2004.de do not work). I hope that the ORTS will add that functionality.

So do I because there are many animations in routes, planes, balloons, gliders, Zeppelins, ships, cranes, loaders and a lot more like below in the Seaview-5, planes doing aerobatics, fish swimming in it's ocean, space ships taking off and aliens landing in flying saucers !

Can't tell whether your extended sounds Soundcfg.dat still works in ORTS ?

O t t o

[csantucci]

Hi Otto, I assume ORTS does not consider soundcfg.dat

Carlo

[OTTODAD]

Here are the MSTS Seaview Gecko Park animations in action and don't think that ORTS will be able to show them and others until more important basics of coding their train simulator have been taken care off.

www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/video/seaview-gecko.wmv

O t t o

[eric]

If running gear for a steam locomotive works, then support for .s animations already exists -- it just hasn't carried over into the static objects yet.

As a route builder, I'd rather see improvements in the types of shape objects (other formats) and textures (non-square), added options for forest objects (i.e. increased densities, the ability to do a square grid of plants to replicate fields), support for DEM "out of the box" and improved granularity for terrain shaping...

Animations? Nice, but it's just eye candy compared to the other shortcomings of MSTS and other sims.

[GoGoran]

Without getting lost in details: The more perfect the backwards compatibility of OR, the better it will be. It is easy to create an all-new train simulation, as we can see on the examples of RailWorks or Trainz, but it is much harder to try and replicate the many functions and peculiarities of the best existing commercial simulator ever, which still is MSTS. My hat goes off to the developpers of OR, please keep up the good work ! To me as a repainter and 3d modeler, it is infinitely more important to get full MSTS-funcionality - incl. BinPatch 1.8xxxxx features - into OR than obtaining new features. First replicate the old MSTS, then march on to new frontiers, that should be the guiding principle.

[csantucci]

I also suppose that running animations for non-interactive .s objects should not be a big task for the great ORTS developers, as interactive objects (e.g. level crossings) and rolling stock .s files already have animations running.

Carlo

[nicober]

Hi Every Body!

I hope that the ORTS will add that functionality

I agree with Mr Santucci and Mr Wipfel for better sceneries animation in OR in the future.

Animations? Nice, but it's just eye candy compared to the other shortcomings of MSTS and other sims.

OK this is just decoration, but think just about the 30's films like Erroll Flynn with a static background,
In the today movies this would be unacceptable level.

Look at these two videos from me on the new version of the Quebec - Charlevoix route made on MSTS and compare the difference between static objects and animated models.

1- "Les Tortillards" no animation of the Montmorency Fall and the cable cars.
Look at the departure of the two trains Tortillards 1984-85 and Tortillards 1995-96 in the second part pf the video.



Now compare with this second video.

2- "QC-Telepherique" - "QC- Cable Cars" with animated Montmorency Fall and cable cars



I took my time on these two objects just to show the difference in those videos.

I have a great respect and appreciate the excellent work done by the OR team at this time.
With the time and when some priorities will be set, these functions will be added in the future releases.
I think so. Keep Up your great work!

Have a nice day!

[crstagg]

Video 1 is not viewable in the USA. There is a warning about being blocked because of copyright laws.

[csantucci]

Hi Nicober, my compliments for your excellent animations!

Carlo

[OTTODAD]

To me as a repainter and 3d modeler, it is infinitely more important to get full MSTS-functionality - incl. BinPatch 1.8xxxxx features - into OR than obtaining new features.

Got some examples of your MSTS 3D re-painting and other 3D modeling work, indicating the graphics software used to create it, which will enable the ORTS team to comment on whether you could have some compatibility problems using it in ORTS, of interest to others doing the same ?

O t t o

[nicober]

Hi!

A new video to replace the first one.



Thanks a lot Mr Santucci for your appreciation of my work.