Trees on track

[jjtang]

The problem is simple: most people do not know how to use RE at all (including me). I hate to bounce to the damn tree in St. Moritz, on a route I love to play.

[neyland]

I know how to use it, but i went to mod a route to use in OR a week or so back.

When RE opened i was stunned as to how small the window was and how limited moving around in the editor seemed to be, no jumping to destinations etc ( last time i used it was about 6 years ago).

Having become used to using the route and scenario creation tools in Trainz & RW, it was a real eye opener.

[Stuz]

Hi Neyland,
You can jump to a destination if you know the Lat. and Lon. Just enter it in the Camera Box and click "Jump". I learnt a lot lately when I was moving trees off the track in Canton Route. The editor works pretty well doing this job, hav'nt ventured any deeper though. I got my information here in the Articles section.
Regards Stu

[OTTODAD]

The problem is simple: most people do not know how to use RE at all (including me). I hate to bounce to the damn tree in St. Moritz, on a route I love to play.

Using the MSTS Route Editor to correct such errors caused by ORTS is of no use because it does not show them in MSTS !

Which of these overlaid forests has this tree which ORTS has placed on the track outside that tunnel ?

The combined throttle and brake control also does not work.

O t t o

[mdeming]

Using the MSTS Route Editor to correct such errors caused by ORTS is of no use because it does not show them in MSTS !

Which of these overlaid forests has this tree which ORTS has placed on the track outside that tunnel ?

The combined throttle and brake control also does not work.

O t t o

https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?313592-Win-7-MSTS-and-missing-hardware-acelleration

In a post in this thread here you said

I am no longer monitoring the ORTS forum, there not likely to be anything to be of interest to me happening for a long time yet !

O t t o

Guess that lasted a long time, however if a route builder uses a forest region and has part of the red line overlapping the track there is a chance that a tree will be placed there. In other words it is because of sloppy route building in msts that it shows up in ORTS which as you said you are no longer monitoring.

[eric]

[COLOR=#000000]

Using the MSTS Route Editor to correct such errors caused by ORTS is of no use because it does not show them in MSTS !

Which of these overlaid forests has this tree which ORTS has placed on the track outside that tunnel ?

Yet, it's clear to me that you have at least one forest object which are placed over the track -- the second and third set of lines which are on a 30d angle from the bottom center most certainly bisect the track.

It's hard to tell if they're the same forest object or two separate objects without seeing the entire bounding box of the forests.

Either way, if this is what everyone is making such a kerfuffle over, it looks like a content error, not the rendering engine.

I'm not going to download the route just to test this, but I suspect someone could adjust the density of the forest object up/down in MSTS and trees would appear on the track in the RE as well.

[rdamurphy]

Combined brake and throttle control? That issue was corrected back in January.

Robert

[eric]

...if a route builder uses a forest region and has part of the red line overlapping the track there is a chance that a tree will be placed there.

Not only is there a chance, but there's also a chance that you'll have overhang beyond the boundary.

I was doing some testing of JJ's new code for preventing trees from being placed on the tracks, and decided to test a couple of other assumptions I'd made.

I've been under the assumption that MSTS was taking tree width into account when seeding and rendering, and forcing overhangs to honor the object's boundary box.

To test this, I built a box in SketchUp with solid walls that was exactly the same size as my random forest object:




Oops. Looks like branches are clearly poking thru the walls and overhanging the boundary lines. So much for that theory. MSTS doesn't honor the red lines as absolutes, aside from making sure all tree trunks (or at least the axis of the cruciform) stay within the boundary lines.

I already knew the same happened with OpenRails:



So, while the random seeding algorithm is indeed different, how the objects get rendered within boundaries isn't.

And yes, the density in OpenRails is indeed fuller. MSTS has limits. ORTS apparently doesn't -- I successfully loaded a tile with 99,998 trees in one 200x200 forest object. Frame rates were in the dumpster, though. Next challenge will be to find the balance between performance and visual appearance.

[rdamurphy]

Without checking the code, and making an educated guess, if OR uses a 32bit Integer value, the maximum number of trees would be 2,147,483,647.

Or, basically, 2^31. I wouldn't try it, though, since you'd run out of RAM trying to draw them...

Robert

[ChrisD]

Next to the tracks where the driver will notice every tree, they should always be in fixed positions.

Just my 2 cents worth.

ChrisD

[rdamurphy]

They are. Once they're placed, they never move. In MSTS what you see in the RE is what you get. However, the algorithm that Kuju used is unavailable to the OR team, so they used one that places trees differently. It is consistent, but you do have to go into the game to check your work.

When I place forest objects, I plop them down, set the boundaries, and "walk away." Mother Nature plants trees randomly, and random is something we mere humans just can't seem to replicate, we always end up with some sort of pattern...

Hopefully, at some point, OR will have it's own RE and that problem will go away...

Robert

[rrroberttt]

When using the tree removal option with The route Dorset Coast v6, which has an excessive amount of trees on tracks when run in ORTS, it removes the trees, and also start removing scenery from the tiles. Then after an while, the scenery returns, and then disappears again. I then turn off the tree removal option, and the route runs as normal, with the errant trees on track. So, not only does it removes the trees, but some of the scenery. That code need to be examined. I have filed an bug report about this with ORTS. Using version 1488.

[jjtang]

That code is expensive to run, thus you will see objects missing because it tries to load them but spends too much time on the checking.
We are working on a better solution.

[rrroberttt]

Thanks for your effort.

[ChrisD]

A better solution may be to produce a utility that processes the route file and moves the tree-boxes to a safe distance of the tracks, producing an OR version of the route.

Make the distance a parameter, so the Route builder can try out what value is the right one for his route.

If the route builder then discovers that the utility has removed one tree too many, he can just go back in and place the tree or scrub where he intended it to be.

This solution has two advantages. No game power is used to remove encroaching trees and a route builder can place trees or scrubs on the tracks deliberately, without the game spending time to remove his work.

I have seen abandoned sidings where trees has started growing right between the sleepers (go east of Bad Schandau in Saxony and see what I mean).

There is no way the game developers can make code that knows if the tree on the track is there by accident or is placed there deliberately.

The processing power saved could be used to extend the drawing distance instead.

OR developers, please consider this seriously. Thanks

ChrisD