Great White Void in Distant Mountains

[drelyea]

Hi,

The following has been happening in the last month's worth of Saturday Experimental releases.

Open Rails 2014-12-09 01-39-58.jpgOpen Rails 2014-12-09 02-04-41.jpg

These are on the Wilkes-Barre and Eastern, out by Laflin. In the first, it looks like the line is the width of a normal terrain subtile. In the second, about 3 miles east of the first, it has almost disappeared.

Other people involved with testing report somewhat different effects here, but something is happening.

I think this is on an East-West region line the route crosses, but I'm not positive. Meaning the route has a north region, and a south region in the Quad Tree.

Doug Relyea

[charland]

Can you go to the tile location(s) in Route Editor? If you can you may see that it's a crack along one blue tile line or more common, at the intersection of two blue tile lines. For the most part, changing the tile error to 0 (zero) for all four tiles at the intersection will fix this. If that doesn't do it you may have to "bridge" the gap with a piece of track and hit "Y" along it until the gap is sealed, then I would smooth it out using the red box for F9 and hitting "F" around the area, and then select the four tiles and change the error bias to 0.

This isn't an OR error, it's MSTS where the route was created, you might be seeing it in OR for the first time as OR lets you see much further then MSTS.

Paul :-)

[drelyea]

Hi Paul,

This is definitely in the Lo tiles. The normal terrain that can be seen in the MSTS RE ends just this side of the space. Right now we don't have normal tiles to the north (right side of pic1), and west (left side of pic1).

I'm not saying the Lo tiles are bad, but I'm wondering if there is something in the math in ORTS that is leaving the Lo tiles short along this border?

I don't think we have track on the East side of the route at this region border. If not, I'll lay a stretch and see if the same thing is happening on the East side of the route.

Doug Relyea

[OTTODAD]

https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?295415-Ts-Tools-2-overload&p=1620874#post1620874

[drelyea]

Hi,

Thanks Ottodad. It's an option if it turns out there's no other fix.

Doug Relyea

[drelyea]

Hi,

Turns out the void is the result of a vertical offset, not a horizontal one.

I set a track over on the east end of the route on the same tile line, got a train on it, and no void on the seam. Removed all that from the route.

Set a path on the lower track in the second screen, coming up from Hillside Junction. The void only flickered until I crossed the blue tile line location, and then it continued to grow.

Something must be pushing the DM tile down, the one the train is on. It develops there is a North-South running DM tile line here, but it is not showing any void, north of where the Normal Terrain runs out.

Is there any way to explain where there might be an issue in the normal terrain tiles, ie a single point peak or gouge that could be forcing this DM tile to be lower than the adjacent one? I really don't want to have to put zero bias into all 256 of the subtiles just to try to find the source.

Doug Relyea

[OTTODAD]

Here is more on the subject of the GWV and reading that thread again it appears that MSTSBin might have fixed it ?

I have not seen one for a long time to date !

https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?211566-no-more-great-white-void-on-conrindy-route&p=946355#post946355

[mikeebb]

I thought ORTS was immune to the GWV - the MSTSBin fix for it applies only to MSTS.

[R. Steele]

I thought ORTS was immune to the GWV - the MSTSBin fix for it applies only to MSTS.

Yes, I believe that is true, MSTSBin has no relevance to ORTS, nor do any of the MSTS executables.

[baldwin]

What is your setting for DMs in OR?.

[muskokaandtahoe]

I've seen the same problem on other routes. Its a disappointment for sure.

I don't know the answer but I suspect it might have to do with the grid spacing. Near tile terrain grid is 8m. I assume DM is larger but I do not know by how much. Let's assume 4x; That suggests only 1 in 4 near terrain vertices will match the DM terrain. A lot of variation could occur in between leaving plenty of room for a visible white gap.

Maybe. I'll ask around.

[llanning08]

I've noticed this "Mini White Void" lately. It has been discussed in the Elvas Open Rails Forum.

It is caused by this function of the Experimental Option: "Automatically tune settings to keep performance level"
and the Target Frame Rate. This Exprimental Option was introduced in April 2014.

If your computer and video card cannot maintain the Target Frame Rate, certain options are changed to maintain
performance (at the expense of quality). This causes a gradual reduction in Viewing Distance (while you are running)
and the result is this "mini white void".

Solution is to uncheck the Auto Tune option, or reduce the Target Frame Rate to a more realistic setting that your
computer rig can actually maintain. This worked for me.

[drelyea]

Hi.

Sorry for the lateness, recovering from a tagteam match with the flu, laryngitis and a yet to be determined issue in my lower back.

I don't have my ORTS set up with a target frame rate, this is an elderly dual core, with a middle of the road graphics card. So for my setup, it may be a graphics setting in the AMD software.

I haven't been around all the edges of this route, but this was the first time I'd seen this.

Doug Relyea

[llanning08]

Doug,

In the case you illustrate (near Laflin), you're actually peering at the Route's western "End of the World". You are positioned on a tile close to the Route's western edge. There is no scenery to render in this case. In the Route's interior, you can see the "mini white void" as a circle some distance out which moves with your train as the center. This is the effect of enabling "Automatically tune settings ..." and high Target Frame Rates.

I've often seen the "Edge of the World" in other routes in both MSTS and Open Rails, especially when selecting View 2. Since I unchecked the option to Auto tune, the circular moving "Mini White Void" is gone, but I still can see the void at the "End of the World".

As to your case, to prevent seeing the "Edge of the World", you would have to provide "buffer tiles" with textures to reduce or eliminate seeing the void from tracks within the Route.

Larry Lanning

[drelyea]

Hi Larry,

Thanks, I've just gotten extracted tiles from another member of the confederation. I was going to replace the two incomplete ones first, that might be forcing the offset in the DM. If that doesn't work, I'll add the rest of the normal tiles in that area and see what happens.

Doug Relyea