Mer info om kommande RW uppdateringar

[Mawkish]

Finns tillgängligt på RS.com's facebook sida men tänkte ändå citera Paul Jackson för de som inte har snappat upp det eller vill ta på sig sina aluminiumfoliehattar och spåna om vad detta egentligen betyder

OK so this is my first real look at the new technology that’s been coming together over the last nine months or so. It’s still some way off so here are some caveats about anything I will talk about. Also should make it plain that this is dev code, may not all make it into the upgrade, should do mind. PS: It’s also my notes built up ov...er time so feels a bit stream of consciousness like, that’s deliberate otherwise it will just sound like a load of jumble and it won’t make sense even to me!

Firstly I have promised absolutely NOT to discuss anything to do with the graphics engine, that’s been the focus of a huge amount of work and I am under complete embargo (on pain of death) from talking about that yet… other than to say our target is to jump from 2007 to 2011 in a single bound! Secondly I won’t be talking about Multi-player, it’s easy to do a crappy version, seeing a lot of that about. We don’t want to make that mistake, so not ready to talk about it yet.

We’ve been investing a huge amount in improving the technology behind RailWorks and I’m just beginning to see some of the results – these changes will make use of some of the improvements in PCs and graphics cards of the last 5 years .

First impression is that it’s still early code, no surprise there! Hmm! Is this our new route in the Allegany’s? As a birdwatcher it’s will be good to hear the new North American bird songs coming through. Some of Tim’s family come from Pennsylvania, so we had better get that right!

The consist is huge, got to be well over a mile long. Been told it takes more than four minutes to roll by at a reasonable speed (will try that later). 100 plus wagons. OK it’s a UP ES44 on point, well that’s inappropriate! But a good mix of loco’s, also SD70’s and Dash 9’s, think I can tell they are different loco’s from the sounds but I am no expert.
A three, two, two lash up, last two just idling before the climb.

OK, up the hill all going well, Oh! And the route is clearly the Cajon Pass, so I am a nitwit! Thought this was going to be the new route! Trust DEV code to throw me off my game!

OK so continuing my look at the new technology that’s been coming together over the last nine months or so. As before It’s from my notes built up over time so feels a bit stream of consciousness like, that’s deliberate otherwise it will just sound like a load of jumble and it won’t make sense even to me!

Hmm! apparently one of the loco...’s may break down in this scenario, so I’ll have to keep my wits about me, but I haven’t seen that yet!

Reviewed the train pass and yes indeed its long…. Speed dropped from 22.5mph to 16.4mph and the consist took over 4 minutes to pass my viewpoint…. Massive! Lots of debug info floating about on screen. Probably the individual wagon parameters being shown. This is the sort of reality I want, modelling the forces between and along the train, it was one of the big innovations back in the RS days and I don’t think it’s ever been properly explained. The capabilities of the simulation are so powerful, I am always amazed. But in the past the tech could only handle a half mile consist then it would bug out (and nothing else could even do that properly), we are now playing around with 180 wagon consists and making it work, though that might be a bit much for release code!

I keep thinking we really need to help people with the simulation engine. It is unbelievably powerful IF you know how to set up the blueprints properly. Look at the 156 – it’s a fantastic simulation – all down to careful tuning of the blueprint files. I need to think about that, how can we empower more people to do such great work?

Det är allt så långt

Continuing my look at the new technology that’s been coming together over the last nine months or so. As before It’s from my notes built up over time so feels a bit stream of consciousness like, that’s deliberate otherwise it will just sound like a load of jumble and it won’t make sense even to me!

Right another UP ES44, running along ...with camera close to the track and the wagons rolling movement is terrific. Actually might need to be a bit toned down. Each wagon sways independently as it moves past and the feeling of reality is very, very strong. Loco’s moving as well, but in-cab not implemented yet. I need to review against video.

OK looked through the 7idea videos and actually this amount of bucking and swaying might be OK, this is going to be one of those “Looks good in the eye of the beholder” things. A bit like the sounds, when we find the ones we know are the most accurate draw the most fire… Ho hum!

Quick note on the 7idea Videos, fantastic. I want to drive in RW and it look like that. HDR will help, but we are a few years away technologically yet I guess. Love the videos, hope those guys don’t mind a mention http://7ideaproductions.com/catalog/index.php I just keep watching the Donner Pass video, stunning.

[Mawkish]

Kan inte editera min gamla post nu tydligen?! så får bli ett svar med nästa bit av informationen.

Right what am I not seeing yet. The n...ew loading and unloading of wagons on the move, I just can’t see it yet. I think I am seeing the start of the new passenger interactions, feels like they are making progress. I have seen people waving at the train when you blow the horn at them…. I am not sure that will make it into release!!! We’ll see.

OK looking at the tools they are coming together well. The block asset tool looks very powerful to me. I guess you could lay whole forests pretty fast with that. Difficult to say as I am a rubbish route builder. Always incredibly impressed by those who build in RW, the tools are aimed at being able to create very high levels of detail and reality and are not for the faint hearted. Route builders are heroes!

Right I am fed up! Spending ages talking about everything except what I want to talk about… this thing is beautiful, I mean really beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! Mountains as far as the eye can see and over two thousand plus individual lights so far………… and that at a great frame rate. There, said it! If the marketing police want a piece of me! Bring it on☺!

[Basse]

the tools are aimed at being able to create very high levels of detail and reality and are not for the faint hearted.

Det där låter intressant om han menar att det kommer bli bättre...

[Pierre]

Snart dags att uppdatera datorn då!? Börjar bli dyrt att hålla på med tågsim...

[Totte]

Ursprungligen postat av Pierre

Snart dags att uppdatera datorn då!? Börjar bli dyrt att hålla på med tågsim...

Ja, det kan man fråga sig!

[Mawkish]

Jag tror inte att det kommer bli dyrt utan hoppas att han menar att dom kommer utnyttja resurser på en halvmodern dator bättre dvs mer jobb på GPU och en trådad klient så det kan bli lite snurr på den/de kärnor som inte används av processorn för tillfället. Jag är dock mest ivrig inför det sista han sa "unloading/loading wagons on the move" vilket jag hoppas betyder att skript delen har förbättras avsevärt jag har ju en dröm om att kunna styra t.ex. lastning/lossning bättre på de vagnar jag har gjort

[Andreas13]

Väldigt intressant att läsa.

Jag ska snart köpa en ny dator (Phenom II X4,4GB ram,MSI 870A-G54) som förmodligen räcker.

[Mawkish]

Ett stycke frågor med svar från Paul på RS.com angående kommande uppdateringar.

Q. Will this be a free upgrade the same as RailWorks 2 was? Will this be RailWorks 3? Are we looking at technology for a number of stages releases? Or one big update? What kind of timescale roughly?
A. Our current plans are for the technology we finally release to be a free upgrade, we see it as one big upgrade and I haven’t announced timescales or marketing plans for it yet.

Q. Is backwards compatibility a priority for the next major update? Will new stock features be back-ported to original stock such as the Black 5, HST etc? Should someone about to embark on a project hold off for the update? Are there any areas where there *may* be issues with existing rolling stock?
A. Backwards compatibility is always a major consideration - we have a large amount of existing material of our own! However, we need to balance the preservation of compatibility with the need to improve the quality of the experience we provide. So our intention is to ensure that existing material will work, (in fact, a lot of it will work better). However, we can't guarantee that everything (especially third party products) will work. However as long as you haven’t done any fiddling around under the hood, then you should be in good shape and need to make minimal, if any, changes. But we think that many of you will want to enhance your content to take advantage of the new features, but we do not want to make this mandatory.

Q. What does this new version mean for users of hardware that runs RailWorks ok now but may not have the capabilities to run more advanced lighting and so forth? Will the simulator run as well as it does now on the same hardware, or will there be an impact for those who do not have machines up to current standards? What kind of spec machine should be able to take advantage of much of the new features?
A. Settings and options mean that you should not have an issue with seeing what you currently see, however the experience will improve with higher spec machines. If you are thinking of buying a new machine in the next few months, we'd recommend at least 3 cores, at least 2GB of memory and a 512MB graphics card.

Q. Are there any improvements coming to the Dispatcher such as not ramming loose stock, AI shunting / coupling, dynamic slot allocation for early/late trains, dynamic routing, event triggers for scenarios etc?
A. We are working on the Dispatcher and it will be aware of loose consists but this is complicated, have to see how testing goes before we decide on final release. You will start to see Event triggers within scenarios and that will be an increasing aspect of the simulation experience.

Q. Are there any plans to modify the wagon physics and brake systems to allow Fly / Hump Shunting?
A. I am not announcing anything on this at this time.

Q. Any updates on progress with Multiplayer?
A. Multiplayer is a key aim for us and I see it as a separate technology at the moment. Frankly it’s not hard to ram it into existing technology and give everyone a rubbish experience. I think we have seen too much of that in the videogame industry. We are taking the time to craft a plan that will work for Rail fans and I think we will have some very exciting things to say about that later. But I see it as a separate stream of endeavour if you will.

Q. Are there plans for a better asset filter? If you have lots of items installed and activated it can make the scroll bar so small it's value is somewhat diminished.
A. We are looking into that yes.

Q. What new facilities can we look forward to for route builders, for example, items such as more advanced terrain painting tools? The ability to combine object sets in to saved groups?
A. We are working on Curved gradients. We are looking at grouped assets as we have stated.

Q. What improvements to game play can we look forward to, including improvements to the way Career Scenarios are handled?
A. I have not made any announcements about this at this stage.

Q. Signalling on real-life railways is becoming extremely centralized and complicated. When signalling products are sold to companies, the products are usually controlled by one centralized piece of interlocking, which then controls not only the points and signals, but also passenger information systems, instructions to drivers on speeds, and in some cases, train control itself. What improvements are you making in this update to create a more realistic simulation of signalling? Is the intention to keep with the existing lua script system where signals react to what is around them? Or is a better system of more direct control over signals being produced, whether that be with lua scripting, or with another language?
A. The way the RS dispatcher works actually lends itself rather well to this type of rail operation, but the scripts will need to be set up in a suitable way.

Q. As part of the physics updates, are there plans to give AI slightly more prototypical performance, ie no 100% throttle from standstill so the train takes off like a rocket?
A. We are working on the underlying issue, but changes to this aspect of the AI will be the subject of later work.

Q. Are there any plans to address the performance of loading both RailWorks itself and Routes? - Specifically, currently when the launcher starts it goes through a labour intensive process of scanning and cross checking all the items you have installed against the .pi files so that it can build up the relevant information for the "packager" and "package manager" tabs. Until this is done (and it can take minutes) loading RailWorks is very slow because the launcher is hammering the disk - most users won't care about this as they just want to get in to RailWorks, so its wasted effort. Once in RailWorks, loading some routes can take 10 or 20 minutes which seems excessive, again are there any plans to optimise this?
A. Yes

Q. Any progress with Super Elevation?
A. I have no statement to make about this exciting possibility at this time !

Q. Can we expect any improvements to sounds? The sound system?
A. The sound system is actually very powerful, however, we need to spend more effort on setting up the sound definitions. It’s a classic case of the underlying software is great it just needs some more love. I want to see louder locomotives, further away. But we need to work on our set-ups to see that.

Q. Will we see support for refilling steam locos from a water trough?
A. No sadly not this time.

Q. What kinds of updates might we see in relation to loco drive system simulation?
A. Key for us here is multiple consists. Individual loco simulations are running in multi headed consists on my PC right now, we are still improving it but its looks and feels very real. A 4F/Black 5 double header now feels like just that!

Q. What improvements might there be relating to the HUD, particularly in relation to the performance hit it currently incurs and also in relation to supporting those locos which are different to drive (e.g. the Class 86), also relating to the ability to turn bits of the hud off or move them around to alternative locations?
A. We are looking at the performance issue. The HUD is more complex, I hope we are able to make more bespoke HUD’s going forwards but that may have to stay in house.

Q. Might we see a fix for the long-standing "shaky cab" bug?
A. We hope so! Then we hope to include our own shaking ! I just tested the cab jolt when buffering up to a freight train and the feeling of immersion is incredible.