News from SLI/TS

[ragtimer]

What I was referring to was the equivalent of cam.cfg which in the original MSTS was as restricted as that in OR is now.Nothing like as good as that in the BIN installation.What has been posted above looks very complicated.All this will do is let those payware vendors who go "OR only" the opportunity to sell you something you may well have already.

[rober]

Will these "OR Only" Routes & Models only work in OR because of OR's MSTS compatability, or will they still work in OR when the MSTS compatability has been removed? This is supposed to happen in the future.
Does anybody but the OR Team really know what the OR Formats for Routes and Models is go-ing to be?
I do know that these questions are almost unanswerable, but I do wonder about it.

Cheers Bob

[PerryPlatypus]

Will these "OR Only" Routes & Models only work in OR because of OR's MSTS compatability, or will they still work in OR when the MSTS compatability has been removed? This is supposed to happen in the future.
Does anybody but the OR Team really know what the OR Formats for Routes and Models is go-ing to be?
I do know that these questions are almost unanswerable, but I do wonder about it.

Cheers Bob

I have NEVER seen any mention of MSTS compatibility being removed. That would be completely counter-productive, and a waste of thousands and thousands of hours. One major point of OR is to take what MSTS already has and build upon it. I am 100% confident that it is in the plans for MSTS compatibility to remain!

Also, as long as Goku's editor is not complete, most route projects are going to be at least semi-compatible with MSTS, since it requires the MSTS editor to build them. They will simply work far better performance-wise (usually) in OR. And there will be secondary features in them that would not work in MSTS, but they are (in general) not features that will "break" the route in MSTS. I know this because I believe that TS's statement includes my own upcoming Mullan Pass route (which will be eventually sold through them, as has been built using the MSTS Route Editor, but with plenty of features to take advantage of OR). For the time being, it is far more likely that we will first begin to see Engines and Rolling Stock that can only function in Open Rails, since MSTS cannot handle as high-poly of models as OR can. But as long as the MSTS RE remains as the primary may of making routes (which may not be too much longer, hopefully), then the routes themselves should at least be able to load in MSTS, as long as the user has a computer up to the same Specs as the route builder. But like most people, I hope that either eventually OR "adopts" Goku's route editor (which will most likely require Goku turning his project to open source), or else OR is going to have to create an official route editor themselves.

What I was referring to was the equivalent of cam.cfg which in the original MSTS was as restricted as that in OR is now.Nothing like as good as that in the BIN installation.What has been posted above looks very complicated.All this will do is let those payware vendors who go "OR only" the opportunity to sell you something you may well have already.

Ragtimer, from my own experience the OR cameras are far more versatile than MSTS Bin. Pressing "8" allows a total free-for-all camera movement on all axes. Page In and Page Out for moving forward/backward, and then arrow keys for up and down and side-to-side. Admittedly, the Page In/Page Out thing is very awkward, and MSTS I think had more user-friendly control in this one regard with using just arrow keys and the Ctrl key. In OR, using the scroll on the back of a mouse allows instant zoom in and zoom out, which was NEVER possible in MSTS Bin. This eliminates the need for adjusting the FOV value in the cam cfg file whenever you want to change what "lens" you are looking through. What do you believe was possible in Bin that is not possible in OR?

[seagoon]

Short sighted.....

"Short sighted"?!!

For crying out loud, a respected third-party developer is advising of support for what is essentially MSTS v2 and you say that they're "short sighted"!

Are you expecting MSTS to undergo a resurrection?

[geepster775]

The beauty is, you don't have to do it anywhere near the way I do it. The gist of what I was showing was how a user can have a highly customized Trainset folder and still have a parallel 'default' setup which is needed to run a factory to crank out activities usable by others. If you don't produce activities, or don't have a customized trainset folder, you don't have to worry about it.

I keep the templates as an accommodation to keeping the global folder down to a smaller size. The global folder inside the 1MSTS directory is the old MSTS Global folder that contains the whole track system kit and kaboodle, everything is in it, Xtracks, Scalerail, Newroads, DB Tracks. The shapes folder in that copy of Global approaches 40,000 files, and runs close to 1 GB. That's alot of dead weight to replicate around if you are a mini-routes person. If you didn't have any MSTS mini routes, just use the 1MSTS copy of global once. Every track system is there, no sweat. If you are a person who used mini routes under MSTS, then you can diet down each copy of your global by using the "only what's essential" templates for a particular OR mini, only what the particular cluster of routes in that folder requires. When the Mullan Pass route comes out, all I will need to do is copy the Scarlerail/Scaleroads template, rename it MRL, and then install the route into that mini folder, and I'm good to go. No Xtracks or Newroads baggage clogging that copy of Global.

As for the camera, it's all in there, you just haven't figured it out yet. The mouse wheel is the equivalent to any camcfg hacked value, with the added benefit that it is dynamic when you are in the sim, you can change it anytime by rolling the wheel, compared to MSTS where its a fixed value before entering the sim and unchangeable once you are in it. The next time you are in open rails 2 or 3 camera view, use the 4 arrow keys, the pg up/pg dn keys, and then press and hold ALT while using the same arrow and pg up/dn keys. Then scroll the mouse wheel. See what each one does. When in 4 trackside bystander view, pressing the 8 key as the train goes by freezes the pan action. Pressing the 4 key again unfreezes and instantly 'catches up'. You can reset any camera view back to the default by doing CTRL-8 when in that particular view.

One area that I do wish OR cameras would improve upon is the distance to move the camera out (which is different than the 'zoom out' distance. I want it to move back, not zoom back and end up looking all fish-eyed). I miss those distant "across the field" views one could get with Bin.




Compare to the farthest distance possible with OR

[OTTODAD]

What do you believe was possible in Bin that is not possible in OR?

I think Peter means this MSTS #7 Yard Camera, my favorite camera, the #8 key in Railworks also does:



Used here in my MSTSBin DB-Tracks Gold-Spike-X route at Whitefish:

https://youtu.be/JHvOzxyNKvM

Uses mouse and arrows keypad only ! Best viewed FULL screen.

[geepster775]

Unfortunately that involves modifying world files of a route to accommodate one camera view that works only on specifically modified routes. That is a concept that should be left behind, for good reason.

[baldwin]

The ORTS #8 camera will do that without having to modify world files. As for the pullback that would have to be changed in the code, not too difficult a job to do, just needs time to do it.

[OTTODAD]

The ORTS #8 camera will do that without having to modify world files.

Using mouse and arrows keypad only ?

[trainman_47]

I have NEVER seen any mention of MSTS compatibility being removed. That would be completely counter-productive, and a waste of thousands and thousands of hours. One major point of OR is to take what MSTS already has and build upon it. I am 100% confident that it is in the plans for MSTS compatibility to remain!


I sure hope your right about this but from what SLI is saying, there going all OR. WHY not just offer models than can run in either format?

[baldwin]

Using mouse and arrows keypad only ?

No, but then I am not too concerned about that because it gives me the same flexibility without having to hack the world files.

[PerryPlatypus]

I have NEVER seen any mention of MSTS compatibility being removed. That would be completely counter-productive, and a waste of thousands and thousands of hours. One major point of OR is to take what MSTS already has and build upon it. I am 100% confident that it is in the plans for MSTS compatibility to remain!


I sure hope your right about this but from what SLI is saying, there going all OR. WHY not just offer models than can run in either format?

Just to clarify, I meant that Open Rails will not remove MSTS compatibility. (That does not mean that SLI will not eventually remove MSTS compatibility) So that means that old MSTS content will continue to work in OR. But that does NOT mean that content designed for OR will always work on MSTS! As to the question "Why not just offer models that can run in either format?" The answer is that models can be made far more detailed and run in OR, but those same high-detail models may no longer work in MSTS.

[dcarleton]

By way of illustration, let's suppose that SLI/TS comes out with a Union Pacific U50 for the Sherman Hill route. The U50 had a B-B+B-B wheel arrangement. MSTS cannot handle a double-articulated S file, so a U50 designed for MSTS would need to be made up of three separate units. If Open Rails can handle a double-articulated model, then a U50 designed for Open Rails could be just a single unit.

Is there anyone here who would argue that, given the choice, SLI/TS should not design this locomotive to the full capabilities of Open Rails?

[CSRX]

As I've been saying. There is much more possibilities within the ORTS capabilities that we have been limited for so long with MSTS.

To tell you the truth I've been doing a lot more repaints involving SLI/TS items, lately, because of their focus towards ORTS.

[R. Steele]

I've always wondered why FORD couldn't keep making the Model T while also producing the Ford Focus. GEEZE, what is their problem!