Starmap/Moonmap questions.

[ossie]

I've been messing around a little bit with the Starmap & Moonmap.png files and have a few questions if anyone has answers please.

Firstly, what does Starmap_S do? Aside from ORTS not starting without it, I've changed the colour of it and substituted a completely different file for it without any obvious impact on the sim.

Does ORTS only "read" the top line of the moonmap.png file? My "testing" has consisted of multiple starts on 3 or 4 routes in various seasons but only the top 2 moons ever appear in the sim. As soon as I copy different moons over those top 2, the new ones appear. Is that the way that file is supposed to function... read the top 2, ignore the other 6?

Not that I've ever really noticed it before but as I'm testing my new moon textures, what I've noticed is that the moon doesn't rise until 2am (tested summer/clear on Seligman & Donner) then works its way across the daytime sky before setting around 12.30pm which seems odd. I haven't done a lot of editing of .env files, but am looking at SummerClear.env for Seligman and can see the rise/set times are 21:30 & 5:01. Assuming I'm looking in the right place, the moon is clearly not following those parameters.

Is the 2am/12.30pm moon phase I'm describing happening for other people, or is there something I can edit to get it to follow a more realistic time?

FWIW, I've tried my "testing" in both 1.1.1.3487 & X3753. Thanks in advance!

[uli2]

Firstly, what does Starmap_S do? Aside from ORTS not starting without it, I've changed the colour of it and substituted a completely different file for it without any obvious impact on the sim.

Theoretically I would think that Starmap_S depicts the Southern sky (in contrast to the Northern sky), i.e. the night sky South of the sky equator. The further North you are on earth the less you see of the Southern sky. If your route is located in the Northern hemisphere that could be the reason why you did not notice any effect of changing the colour or replacing Starmap_S with a totally different file.

I guess that's not on your agenda but it would be great if somebody would find a way to change the blurred stars in the OR night sky to something more realistic. In a clear sky the stars should look like pinholes. There are some excellent MSTS night skies. The stars in the OR night sky look terrible.

Uli

[ossie]

Well done Uli and thanks, you're right.... _S is south and _N is north. I just loaded up an Australian route and got a different starmap to the one I'd been experimenting on US routes with.

Trying to do something with the night sky was the main item on my agenda actually. I just got sidetracked by the moon rising and setting at such strange times and started trying to find a solution to that. As for the stars themselves, I was unable to find a way to paint them without getting a blurry effect. I tried various real photos and then created my own from scratch. I just started with a plain black texture and then added some slightly varied shades of white to it with 1pt and 2pt paint brushes. The blurring is still there, but for my tastes, it's a bit of an improvement. I have a lot less stars than the "default" starmap, and because they are in a smaller brush point, they also look further away. The blurriness still spoils the effect though.

Before:


After:


The 1pt stars aren't showing up too well in the screenshot. I used a lot more of them than I did 2pt ones and blurriness aside, the sky looks a lot less cluttered and more realistic as far as my tastes go. If anyone can work out a way of creating a starmap without the blur, that would be fantastic.

Edit: If anyone wants to compare my "minimalist" starmap, you can download it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nq9b3p.../Starmap_N.png

Just remember to backup your original file and then copy this one to your ORTS/CONTENT folder.

[ossie]

It's just after 3am here so I'm not trusting my own blurry eyes, but I've increased the size of the starmap to 4096 x 4096 and think this might have decreased the blurring effect compared to my previous version. If anyone wants to try downloading this one (take the _large out of the name) and comparing it, that would be great.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/7kw193...ap_N_large.png

[uli2]

Much better! Bravo!

There is a one pixel wide strip at the left border of your texture that is not absolutely black but very dark grey, causing a thin bright line over part of the sky. After I had painted that strip black the line disappeared.

[tbundy1982]

It's not your eyes playing tricks. The 4096 textures look magnificent! Thank you!

Tyler

[qballbandit]

RE: North and South Skies - do the 2 files rotate based on seasons? Is there ever a need for North Americans to have a "fixed" south star file as well?
And, have you messed about with the stardome file yet?

[ossie]

Thanks Uli & Tyler. Glad you've enjoyed the change.

Neil, while my "testing" was well short of exhaustive, I think the answer is no. Regardless of season or route, each time I started a NA route, I had the _N sky, and as soon as I ran one of our routes, I got the _S sky. It appears it's intended to be hemisphere specific, rather than season driven.

I didn't try any edits on the stardome as I got caught up trying some different moons and then got sidetracked by the rise/set time. Does everyone else have the same 2am moonrise and have it setting at 12.30pm? If so, I assume there's nothing that can be done to edit that so the moon is only visible during the night?

[bulletshell]

Does everyone else have the same 2am moonrise and have it setting at 12.30pm? If so, I assume there's nothing that can be done to edit that so the moon is only visible during the night?

Nope not just you Pete, same thing here. BTW nice work man.

[ossie]

Thanks Shell... much appreciated!

[burgerbern]

I didn't try any edits on the stardome as I got caught up trying some different moons and then got sidetracked by the rise/set time. Does everyone else have the same 2am moonrise and have it setting at 12.30pm? If so, I assume there's nothing that can be done to edit that so the moon is only visible during the night?

same here, weird

[qballbandit]

I wonder if using "MSTS environments" allows all the customization one can do to the .env files to simulate as expected in OR?
Or, am I missing the boat here? I've never checked that option in OR.

[wwhall]

I've tried various MSTS environments, including a lot of the Kosmos environments, in OR by checking the "Use MSTS environments" box. Apparently, the skydomes in OR are different, as the MSTS environments don't display correctly. Often, the horizontal and vertical cloud types are badly distorted. I love the dynamic weather in OR and the stock and optional skydomes built for OR are pretty nice, but the stardome and moon renderings really do need improvement. Also, the snowflakes are too big in OR and should be affected by wind in the same way that smoke is affected in the sim. It seems that weather and skies in OR are currently a "work not in progress," possibly because the OR team may not have a weather and sky programmer on the team right now.

[qballbandit]

Rain needs work as well. I appreciate the fact that we can control the density of rain, but can't cope with the little nuclear light beams falling from the sky, so I turn it off.

[baldwin]

OR is not capable of handling MSTS environments at this point in time, and there is no weather/sky programmer active on the team as far as I am aware.