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Project Status (21st April 2019)
Welcome to the Railsimroutes.net Blog, where I'll be posting progress updates, work-in-progress screenshots, information about the progress I'm making with active projects, as well as anything else I feel is worth mentioning. Hopefully more frequent updates here will make the wait for upcoming releases more bearable! News from 2008, all the way back to 2001, can be found in the News Archive.

Railsimroutes.net YouTube Channel My openBVE videos and other comments from users and myself can also be found via my YouTube channel.



Blog and Progress Updates


Watford Junction to Rugby update, and collaborative project development

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 12th March 2014 at 11:41 pm

Update on Watford Junction to Rugby project

Railsimroutes LogoI’m pleased to say that I resumed development of the Watford Junction to Rugby project recently. Currently I’m working on implementing new .Beacon commands which support the UkTrainSys plugin’s advanced safety system functionality.

 

Signalling along the entire 66.5 mile / 107.1 km route has been updated, with all aspects now comprised of animated objects with ground night lighting.

All Automatic Warning System (AWS) magnets are now comprised of beacons simulating the permanent magnets and electro-magnets of the real life system, and sections are now aligned with track circuit breaks and axle counter head locations.

All Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) induction loops are now simulated with beacons emulating the real life system in terms of induction loop spacing and frequencies.

There are four OHLE neutral sections modelled on the route, and all of these are now updated with UkTrainSys compatible beacons for the Automatic Power Control (APC) permanent magnets both before and after the neutral section, as well as denoting the start and end of the dead section of contact wire itself.

 

Screenshot
New signals awaiting commissioning (note the out-of-use covers), and modular AWS magnet objects
[Click to enlarge]

Collaborative development

The other significant development, is that the project is now open to third party contributions, to speed up development and bring the release date closer. Ben Leahy is the first developer to contribute to the project by building objects, and I’d be more than happy to hear from you, if you think you’d be able to contribute some more high quality, efficiently coded 3D models for the route, leaving me free to concentrate on the systems and permanent way infrastructure.

Currently there’s a list of objects which need to be created and added to the route. These include:

  • Station buildings from Kings Langley through to Rugby inclusive;
  • A few lineside buildings, such as houses, warehouses and the like, to be positioned at various locations along the route, but especially at Roade, Weedon, and Rugby;
  • A few road overbridges for the Weedon Line, as well as retaining walls at Weedon;
  • Road vehicles for road bridges, and the section of M1 motorway at Watford Gap;
  • Passing train objects.

If you think you can contribute any of the above, please get in touch and we can discuss options, and I’ll draw up an effective collaboration plan. Thanks 🙂

Screenshot
Blisworth pointwork and REBs – can you help by creating a new overbridge object for the site?
[Click to enlarge]

Information IconFor more information about these ongoing projects:


Railsimroutes.net - Watford Junction to Rugby Project banner

Watford Junction to Rugby Project

Railsimroutes.net - UK Train System Cross-platform .NET Plugin banner

UK Train System (UkTrainSys)
Cross-platform .NET Plugin

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in openBVE, openBVE 2, Site News, Uncategorized | 12 Comments »



New cross-platform .NET plugin for UK trains released, class 323 3D cab and Cross-City South v1.31.09 update, openBVE v1.2.9 development branch, .NET plugins and AI support

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 20th November 2010 at 7:30 am
Screenshot
Updated: 22nd November 2010 @ 00:15 UTC (FEVF railway and steam loco update – see below)

New cross-platform .NET plugin for UK trains (EMUs currently), 323 3D cab / X-City South v1.31.09 updates, and openBVE v1.2.9 AI support

Railsimroutes LogoAfter the latest development branch of openBVE (v1.2.9 series) was released last month, I started work on a new open source, cross-platform plugin written in C#, which I wanted to be a suitable alternative to the plugin currently used by the class 323 EMU. Simon Gathercole’s UKMUt.dll has served me well since BVE Trainsim 4 was released, but after the latest openBVE developments, I knew the time had come to create a new plugin which could be developed to take advantage of the new possibilities which openBVE now provides. I also wanted to create a plugin which could be updated as openBVE develops, either by myself, or with help from other programmers and developers, so that the community doesn’t need to experience plugin-related problems for too long.

This new plugin is called UkTrainSys (short for UK Train System of course); it is modular in design, and aims to simulate a variety of systems that trains which run on the UK’s rail network may be equipped with. Initially, I’m working to recreate as much of the functionality found in Simon Gathercole’s range of BVE 4 plugins as necessary, although some new features are included as well. So far, the plugin features the following:

  • Automatic Warning System (AWS);
  • Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS);
  • Driver Reminder Appliance (DRA);
  • Vigilance Device;
  • Traction and brake interlocks;
  • Battery which can be discharged, recharged and overloaded;
  • Overhead supply;
  • Pantograph and vacuum circuit breaker;
  • Automatic Power Control;
  • Power supply and electrical system circuit breakers (more for future use);
  • In-cab blower;
  • Head and tail lights;
  • AI guard for station stop monitoring and buzzer codes;
  • AI Support which assists openBVE’s AI human driver in handling systems simulated by the plugin automatically
      (including support for visible in-cab driver’s hands and arms).

Note: Wipers, windscreen rain effects and diesel engine simulation are yet to be started. I’m also planning for various other systems to be inlcuded in future, such as TPWS+ (TPWS Plus), RETB, ERTMS, random failures, and a tap changer.

Users of trains which include plugins developed for BVE 4, will likely know that when openBVE’s AI human driver is enabled, the AI driver may not always be able to operate a plugin enabled train correctly, simply because openBVE has no way of knowing what systems are simulated by a plugin, and even if openBVE did know what systems were simulated, it still wouldn’t know what to do with them. Hence, the new UkTrainSys plugin uses openBVE v1.2.9’s AI Support feature, which lets the plugin assist openBVE’s AI human driver with operating the systems which are simulated by the plugin.

When you start a route, and enable openBVE’s AI human driver by pressing Ctrl+A, while using the latest release of the class 323’s 3D cab in combination with the UkTrainSys plugin (see below for the download), you will see the AI driver’s arms and hands reach out for the controls, and interact with them whenever necessary. The AI human driver will run through the startup and self-test procedure for you, pressing the AWS reset button, raising the pantograph if required, and setting the taillights and headlights. The plugin takes the time-of-day into account, so the correct headlight setting is chosen based upon the in-game time (and updated as the day goes on). The AI driver will deactivate the DRA before departure, respond to the guard’s buzzer signal with a buzzer response, cancel AWS warnings as they occur, respond to TPWS brake demands, re-raise the pantograph if it is lowered mid-journey, and so-on. The UkTrainSys plugin’s AI Support will also respond to a new beacon type, which instructs the AI driver to blow the horn at certain locations.

Screenshot
Note: Both the 323 3D cab and UkTrainSys plugin were updated on 21st November 2010 @ 01:30 UTC
Issues with TPWS Isolation, and the driver’s arms remaining visible after turning off openBVE’s AI driver, are hopefully resolved…
Inset image

I’ve updated the class 323’s 3D cab with new animations which require the UkTrainSys plugin (now included in the download), and I’ve also equipped Cross-City South v1.31 with the aforementioned new beacon type, so the AI driver can sound the horn automatically.

  • The updated 323 3D cab and pre-configured UkTrainSys plugin can be downloaded here [2.3 MiB]
    (The unrefurbished class 323 from Trainsimcentral is required first – the 3D cab and plugin update should OVERWRITE any existing files in the “Cl323 Unrefurb_openbve” folder).
  • If you are already using Cross-City South v1.31.071, you can download a small update to v1.31.09 link out of date [95 KiB]

If you don’t already have the route, aren’t sure which release of Cross-City South v1.31 you already have, or want to see details about the latest changes, please download the full version and visit the Cross-City South v1.31 project page instead.

Screenshot
Important: Remember that you need openBVE v1.2.9.15 in order to use the new UkTrainSys .NET plugin with AI support, and to enjoy the new 3D cab features! Also remember that this is an early alpha release of the plugin, so it has some issues, but they’ll be addressed as development progresses.

The UkTrainSys plugin also has it’s own project homepage, where just the plugin, source code, current and planned feature list, changelog and documentation can be found. Train developers with an interest is using the UkTrainSys plugin, now or in future, may wish to visit the following page and read the documentation.

Note: If you have downloaded the updated class 323’s 3D cab with the pre-configured UkTrainSys plugin, remember that you should not overwrite the UkTrainSys.cfg file included with the class 323 3D cab update!


Railsimroutes.net - UK Train System Cross-platform .NET Plugin banner

UK Train System (UkTrainSys)
Cross-platform .NET Plugin

[Alpha release now available]

I’ve also been working on some new backdrops for both Cross-City South v2.0 and Watford Junction to Rugby. I was happy with the daytime backdrops which you’ve all seen already, but the sky portions of the last set of sunset and sunrise backdrops were entirely hand-made (replacing low resolution BVE4-era images), and I wanted to replace these with photographic textures of a similar quality to the daytime backdrops instead. Fortunately, there as been some favourable weather during the past few days, so I was able to take some nice photographs. Here are the new sunrise and sunset scenes, shown with the 323’s latest 3D cab update, and the openBVE v1.2.9 / UkTrainSys plugin enabled AI support feature in use:

Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot Screenshot

Recent openBVE v1.2.9 development branch updates

openBVE LogoTowards the beginning of the November, openBVE v1.2.9.11 was released (now up to v1.2.9.15), and Michelle introduced a new set of experimental preprocessing directives. These take the form of $if(), $else() and $endif(), and obviously, these allow for conditional parsing of blocks of code within a route file. This can be an alternative means of achieving what can be accomplished with the $Include directive, which is handy when only a small block of code needs to be conditional.

Personally, I’m finding this very handy for such features as temporary speed restrictions (TSRs). In this scenario, I can randomly introduce TSRs at different locations, so routes can be rather more fun to drive. At the start of the file, we can declare a variable $Sub(0), which has a random number assigned from within a certain range, and then use the value stored in $Sub(0) as a condition which is used by $if() directives. If the value held by $Sub(0) is zero, then the code within any $if() block which depends upon this variable is not used, but if the value is greater than zero, then it is. By using the $else() directive, we can show something else if the TSR is not to be included, such as discarded sections of old rail, left there by the track workers after they made their repairs and removed the TSR. Spate indicators could be handled in a similar way.

For example:

; Declare a variable which stores a randomly generated number…
$Sub(100) = $Rnd(0;1)

With Structure
.FreeObj(0) tsr_warn_20mph.csv
.FreeObj(1) tsr_20mph.csv
.FreeObj(2) tsr_terminate.csv
.FreeObj(3) discarded_rail_sections.csv
.FreeObj(4) track_workers.csv

.Beacon(0) portable_aws_magnet.csv

With Route

; Enclose the route commands related to a TSR within $if()/$else()/$endif() directives…
$if($Sub(100))
    3000, .Beacon 44001;0,    ; portable AWS magnet
$endif()

$if($Sub(100))
    3183, .Freeobj 0;0,    ; 20 mph TSR advanced warning board
$endif()

$if($Sub(100))
    4200, .Freeobj 0;1, .Limit 33;0,  ; commencement of 20 mph TSR
$else()
    4305, .Freeobj 0;3;5,    ; no TSR so show discarded old rails instead
$endif()

$if($Sub(100))
    4400, .Freeobj 0;2, .Limit 97;0,    ; termination of TSR
$endif()

It’s also possible to use these new preprocessing directives elsewhere in the route file. For example, a different object could be assigned to a free object index, depending upon a condition being true. You can also nest these new preprocessing directives; i.e. place $if/$else()/$endif() selection statements within other selection statements, for example:

; a nested $if()/$else()/$endif() selection statement
$if($Sub(100))
    4200, .Freeobj 0;1, .Limit 33;0,  ; commencement of 20 mph TSR
    $if($Sub(101))
        4205, .Freeobj 0;4;-4,  ; track workers shown based upon another $Sub variable but only if the TSR is shown
    $endif()
$else()
    4305, .Freeobj 0;3;5,    ; no TSR so show discarded old rails instead
$endif()

Support for these new preprocessor directives is still experimental, and not guaranteed to be included in the next stable release of openBVE, however I’ve not encountered a problem with the feature thus far, at least with regard to the things I’d like to use the feature for, and it’s really very easy to use. Some more testing would be beneficial, but I hope the feature stays, and I’ll certainly be making use of it if it does.

Other news – Chashinai .NET plugin updated with AI support, new Network West Midlands video, and FEVF railway updates

Information IconIn case you weren’t aware, the new cross-platform .NET plugin which is used by the trains which run on the Chashinai Railway, was updated earlier this month to include AI support, which is a lot of fun, especially with the Chashinai 9000 series train complete with ATS-Sn, ATS-P, ATC and TASC. As with the new UkTrainSys plugin, the updated Chashinai Railway plugin’s AI support assists openBVE’s AI human driver in operating the safety systems, so you can enable the AI human driver and even watch the startup procedures handled by the AI driver. The plugin source code is available as well, of course.

Screenshot Screenshot
Chashinai Railway Takahagi Line (9000 series train, ATS-P, AI driver enabled)

I also wanted to quickly mention that Steve Green has posted a short YouTube video of the upcoming Network West Midlands 2010 update, demonstrating animated level crossing barriers interlocked with the signalling, together with updated objects such as a new AWS magnet, which I thought looked really good:

Several other videos of the upcoming NWM release can also be found on Steve’s YouTube channel, and screenshots can be found on the Network West Midlands website.

Screenshot
Update: 22nd November 2010 @ 00:15 UTC

Lastly, I wanted to show something a little bit different – Roberto Benini, developer of the FEVF (Ferrovia Elettrica Val di Fiemme) railway, has released an animated Mallet Henschel & Sohn 6036 steam loco for openBVE, which is well worth a look, and I noticed that the FEVF Railway itself now has some moving trains at Cavalese station too. The route and train can be downloaded here:

Roberto Benini has also posted a YouTube video of the new loco:

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Posted in openBVE, Site News | 13 Comments »



openBVE v1.2.7.0 released, new Railsimroutes.net site design, Cross-City South v1.31.07 and miscellaneous project updates, Watford Junction to Rugby screenshot featured in the UK’s PC Gamer Magazine, Genova Brignole – Recco route (as far as Genova Nervi) released

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 11th July 2010 at 6:00 am

openBVE v1.2.7.0 released

openBVE LogoToday sees the release of openBVE v1.2.7.0, and some interesting changes have taken place. To begin with, the handling of key and joystick buttons has been revised, and key repeat is now possible. This means that you can hold a key down, and after a short delay, the keypress will be repeated continuously until the key is released again. I’m glad that openBVE now supports this functionality, and this is great for quickly moving a power handle to the limit of it’s travel without having to keep tapping the key, or for sounding the horn in a long and loud fashion, for example. The fly-by camera has also been improved, and now, the leading vehicle (of the nearest train) is tracked by the camera, which is great for loco-hauled trains in particular. 🙂

Superelevation is now simulated differently as well; in previous versions, when cant was applied, the train would simply rotate around it’s z-axis, but now, the outer wheel is raised instead. Cant is also interpolated better now, leading to smoother transitions between differing levels of cant. I’m currently rebuilding the canted track objects used by my routes to make better use of these openBVE improvements, such that the wheels will remain on the rails when passing along superelevated track, and the cant transitions at either end of such sections:


Superelevation and wheel-rail interaction in openBVE v1.2.7.0 and Cross-City South v1.4 - click to enlarge
Superelevation and wheel-rail interaction in openBVE v1.2.7.0 and Cross-City South v1.4 - click to enlarge
Screenshot showing superelevation in openBVE v1.2.7.0 and Cross-City South v2.0.
Note the wheels touching the rails throughout the transition curve (scenery is not finished yet).

Cant behaviour can also be adjusted now, via the new 'Options.CantBehavior' command. Previously, cant was always applied towards the curve centre, i.e. banking inwards, and this couldn’t be overidden. Also, it wasn’t possible to have cant on straight track. Now though, cant be in either direction, regardless of the direction of the curve, and cant can be applied on straight track too. How might this be useful for simulating a real railway? Well, on the 11th July last year (exactly a year ago as it happens), I was unexpectedly invited for a visit to the preserved Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway, and this line has a curve known as Chicken curve, and one peculiar feature was that the cant at this location leaned outward from the curve rather than inwards. So, openBVE can simulate this too, now. Class 20 “chopper” (20154) was our traction on the day, and here’s a photo for fans of the class 20, which I took before we departed from Toddington:


In the cab of a class 20 loco at Toddington, on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway - click to enlarge

In the cab of a class 20 loco at Toddington, on the
preserved Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway.

The simulation of track inaccuracy has been overhauled, too. Previously, the familiar cab and vehicle sway was achieved with horizontal and vertical movement, but now, cant inaccuracy and bounce is also modelled, and cars rock from side to side as well as moving vertically and horizontally. While we were testing the new inaccuracy model, I found that this was an interesting way to represent the effect of travelling over more poorly maintained jointed rails. I’ve made some adjustments to the track accuracy in the newly udpated Cross-City South v1.31.07 (see below for download), and travelling over pointwork or on the jointed rail sections of the Cross-City South, should be a little more interesting now, especially when the class 323’s 3D cab is used. 🙂

Essentially, I think .Accuracy values of 0 to 2.0 are suitable for continuous welded rail, and values of 2.1 to 4 are suitable for jointed rails. I’m aware that not everyone may be sure about the new inaccuracy model, however I think it works well when used sensibly, and I would also point out that the development release has been publicly available for testing for at least three weeks, so if you don’t like it, you’ve missed your chance to give feedback prior to the latest stable release. Nevertheless, if you have any comments, please let us know. Personally I prefer the new algorithm and enjoy the representation it can give when accompanied by the sounds of jointed rails, but some may prefer the old; please give it a try with the updated Cross-City South v1.31.07 and class 323 3D cab though (see below), as this update shows what the new inaccuracy model can do. Also bear in mind that you may only prefer the old algorithm because you’re used to it, not because it was more realistic; the old algorithm had it’s limitations.

Also, BVE4 style timetable textures can now be displayed when 3D cabs are used, and not just with legacy 2D panels, although this is considered an experimental feature. The timetable texture can be shown as part of the in-game user interface overlay, or as part of a 3D cab (animated object); if the latter is not specifically catered for within the 3D cab, then the former is the default behaviour. Adding BVE4 style timetables to a 3D cab is easy to do; I would recommend simply creating an object with a four-vertex mesh and default texture applied (which is shown if there is no timetable image to display), and add this object to your panel.animated file. Then, make use of the new 'TextureOverride =' command:

Object for timetable texture (timetable.csv):

CreateMeshBuilder
AddVertex,-0.35,2.9,11.52
AddVertex,-0.06,2.9,11.52
AddVertex,-0.06,2.6,11.52
AddVertex,-0.35,2.6,11.52
AddFace,0,1,2,3

LoadTexture,some_suitable_default_texture.png
SetTextureCoordinates,0, 0, 0
SetTextureCoordinates,1, 1, 0
SetTextureCoordinates,2, 1, 1
SetTextureCoordinates,3, 0, 1

Addition to panel.animated file:

[Object]
States = 3d_cab\timetable.csv
TextureOverride = timetable

I’ve added the aforementioned timetable functionality to the class 323’s 3D cab, but it’s commented out by default, as displaying the timetable images via openBVE’s UI overlay makes more sense where the Cross-City South and class 323 are concerned, plus the feature is still experimental.

You can download the update here, and if you want to experiment with the 'TextureOverride =' command, please see the included ‘Readme_3DCab.txt’ file:

→ 3D cab for unrefurbished class 323 – July 2010 [1.7 MiB]

For more detailed information about the new cant behaviour, and timetable support in .animated objects, please read the official openBVE documentation. For details of all the changes introduced with the v1.2.7.0 release of openBVE, including those not mentioned here, please see the changelog.

Cross-City South v1.31.07 update

Railsimroutes LogoAs openBVE v1.2.7.0 has been released, I’ve updated Cross-City South v1.31 to remove an obsolete timetable texture, changed some of the timetable images to make them suitable for both openBVE and BVE4, and made adjustments to track inaccuracy to take better advantage of openBVE v1.2.7.0’s new track inaccuracy model. I’ve renamed the route folders to more clearly indicate which sets of routes should be used with openBVE, BVE 4 or BVE 2, as well. I’ve also decided to finally split the openBVE routes away from the BVE 4 routes, as testing every openBVE improvement across numerous route files for 100% backwards compatibility with BVE 4 is somewhat inconvenient, and this also lets me get rid of all those pesky "detail levels" in the openBVE route folder, as these simply aren’t needed with openBVE. The new naming convention is as follows, and should be much clearer (the BVE 2 foldername is as it is, so it’ll fit within the size constraints of BVE 2’s small file selection list):

  • <YourPath>\Railway\Route\Bham_XCitySouth_BVE2\
  • <YourPath>\Railway\Route\Birmingham_Cross-City_South_BVE4\
  • <YourPath>\Railway\Route\Birmingham_Cross-City_South_openBVE\

Cross-City South v1.31.05 users can download a smaller update here, which updates v1.31.05 to v1.31.07:

→ v1.31.07 update for existing Cross-City South v1.31.05 users [1.03 MiB]

If you have an earlier version of Cross-City South installed, or you’re not sure which version you already have, please download the full version instead.

Screenshot
Important note: Please delete the existing Birmingham Cross-City South folders in your Railway\Route\ folder, before installing Cross-City South v1.31.07, whether it’s the update being installed, or the full version! If you don’t, you’ll end up with four Cross-City South route folders rather than three, and you might not be sure which is the right folder to use (incidentally, this is the reason why I haven’t changed the folder names until now).

Genova Brignole – Recco route (as far as Genova Nervi thus far) for openBVE released

Information IconI wanted to mention that a fantastic new route has been released for openBVE, the Italian Genova Brignole – Recco route (as far as Genova Nervi thus far, and 8.1 Km in length). This is one of the most graphically excellent routes I’ve seen to date, with superb textures, and I’m impressed; the route is beautiful. There are some animated objects to enjoy, and staggered catenary as well, which is great to see; pedantic people like me will note that some registration arms pull in the wrong direction, though. 😉

You’ll likely need to read the included PDF instructions before operating the newly released ALn501 – Minuetto v2 train, but it’s well worth the effort. Incidentally, the train comes with some very detailed exterior car objects. These look very nice, although they would benefit from the addition of custom normals to smoothly shade some of the surfaces. Please note that these exterior car objects may have quite an impact on your framerate; even on my Core 2 Quad Q9650 / GeForce GTX 260 system, I get around 30fps in the external view, which is down from anywhere between 80 – 300 fps in the cab view. If you have a slow PC, you may want to stay in the cab. I’m looking forward to seeing this route develop further. 🙂

Screenshot Screenshot
Screenshot Screenshot
The Italian Genova Brignole – Recco route (as far as Genova Nervi thus far), available
from BVEMania (Trenomania) (see the Download section)

Miscellaneous news

Railsimroutes LogoI’m officially announcing the Railsimroutes.net UK Railway Infrastructure Object Library today, which will contain all the objects and textures which are shared between my two upcoming openBVE route projects, Birmingham Cross-City South v2.0, and Watford Junction to Rugby v1.0. This library will be maintained by me, and all developers will be welcome to install and use this library with their own projects, without any conditions or requirement to seek permission.

The library will contain all sorts of objects, including track, catenary, signals, lineside objects, some basic scenery, and so-on, which might help to make new routes easier to develop. It will also have the advantage, that whenever I update the library, perhaps with higher quality textures or better objects, any routes which call upon the library, will also get updated. I’ll plan it carefully, to ensure that changes remain backwards compatible. I anticipate that the library will be released along with Cross-City South v2.0 initially, and then it’ll receive it’s first update when Watford Junction to Rugby is ready.


Railsimroutes.net - UK Railway Infrastructure Object Library banner

UK Railway Infrastructure Object Library
[Now in development]

Next, as you may have noticed, I’ve decided to increase the version number of my upcoming Cross-City South upgrade for openBVE, from version 1.4, to version 2.0. I think I’m making enough changes and enhancements to the route, to justify a version 2.0 release instead. 🙂

I’ve also updated the openBVE Help and Information section to cover the installation of openBVE in Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). It’s hard to imagine how installing openBVE via the Ubuntu Software Centre could be any easier, and installing openBVE via this method, also makes installing and running the latest official openBVE release with Mono, easier too. I’ve decided to remove the instructions explaining how to run openBVE with Wine, as I’m experiencing problems with the version of Wine available for install with Ubuntu 10.04, relating to GDI+ (and the problem isn’t just occurring with openBVE, either). Perhaps something to do with a Beta release of Wine being supplied rather than a stable release, I don’t know. Running with Mono is much easier though, if you can live without plugin DLLs.

Screenshot Screenshot
openBVE Help and Information updated for Ubuntu 10.04 users

I was lucky enough to have one of my screenshots published in the July issue of the UK edition of PC Gamer magazine, where I also gave a brief overview of the work being undertaken on openBVE 2. I will admit that it was nice to handle such a press enquiry! Here’s the screenshot which was chosen for the article, shown amongst screenshots of various simulators, such as Railworks, X-Plane, Sail Simulator, Space Shuttle Mission Simulator, and others:

Thumbnail image
The Watford Junction to Rugby screenshot chosen to appear in simulation
article “The Realists”, in the July 2010 issue of the UK edition of the
best selling PC Gamer magazine.

Incidentally, I also want to apologise for the lack of progress with my routes, and for posting so many screenshots and not delivering anything, which I feel that some of you are not impressed by. This is mainly due to me working on openBVE 2, which means that I don’t have much time to devote to the routes at the moment. openBVE 2 is a priority though, and a fantastic experience for me, so I hope fans of my routes will understand. Besides, both routes will run even better in openBVE 2, anyway. I know that the routes look more-or-less finished already, but they’re not – there are such issues as missing track in places, performance optimisations which still to be carried out, and an entire missing station to deal with at Rugby, to name but a few examples. I don’t make a habit of releasing junk and expecting people to be happy with it, so the projects won’t be released until I’m satisfied that a decent standard of quality has been achieved; that doesn’t mean they have to be perfect in every way, just not a disappointment.

New Railsimroutes.net site design

Railsimroutes LogoAs regular visitors will have hopefully noticed, I’ve redesigned the website, as I felt it needed an update, and I also wanted to put some updated website design skills into practice. The site was last redesigned in 2007 with a theme called “Modern”, characterised by a metallic grey colour scheme and smoothly shaded backgrounds, where Windows users would have been greeted with the Tahoma font throughout, and it was designed to be XHTML 1.0 and CSS Level 2 compliant. However, the content of the site wasn’t reorganised very much since the time of the previous “Retro Blue” design, and over time it became somewhat cluttered and untidy in my view.

This latest redesign is the fourth incarnation of the site, with a new theme called “Clarity” (hopefully it might live up to it’s name ;)). The new design is meant to be clearer, better organised, and easier to read. The site has been completely rebuilt from scratch; PHP is now used as well as HTML, and much of the site is XHTML 1.1 and CSS Level 3 compliant. I’ve tested the new site using Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 8, Opera 10, Chrome 5, and Safari 5, and everything works well. The site also works just fine in Internet Explorer 7 and earlier too (tested as far back as IE 5.5), but if you use one of those older Microsoft browsers, you might notice a minor rendering issue around the style selector dropdown box in the footer of each page. Essentially, I’m not happy having to devote much time to dealing with the quirks of browsers which aren’t properly compliant with more recent web standards, partly because it’s just annoying, but also because catering for them can lead to such browsers outliving their welcome (IE 6 springs to mind!). So, if you use Internet Explorer 7 or earlier and want perfect rendering, I would recommend upgrading to Internet Explorer 8 if possible, which is just fine.

I’ve also decided to reorganise the content of the site somewhat. The navigation bar has been expanded with the addition of Gallery and Help links, and the Projects and Downloads section has been overhauled to place emphasis on active projects, and non-help related information. Much more background information and history concerning my route projects is provided now, and information and downloads should be easier to find when they’re ready for release. You’ll also find a "What I’m currently working on" infobox at the top right of this page, which you can check to see what I’m up to, between blog posts. 🙂

I’ve taken the decision to remove some old sections of the site which never received much of my attention, and I’ve moved my old BVE 2 and 4 add-ons into their own de-emphasised legacy add-ons section, as they’re not really reflective of the quality of work I’m now producing; the emphasis is now placed on my upcoming openBVE projects instead. I’ve also introduced a sitemap, as a couple of people have indicated that some information was harder to find, previously.

I’ve also used a different selection of fonts this time:

  • Windows 7 and Vista users will get the Segoe UI font throughout (along with the rather nice Consolas for code snippets), giving the best appearance.
  • Windows XP users will also get the Segoe UI font, if Windows Live Essentials applications have been installed (for example, Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery or Writer), or if Office 2007/2010 has been installed. XP users will also get the Consolas font with Office 2007/2010, or this can be downloaded free from Microsoft’s website. If neither Windows Live Essentials or Office 2007/2010 have been installed, but the free Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer 2007 is installed, then Candara (along with Consolas) will be seen instead. If none of these have been installed, then Trebuchet MS (along with Courier New for code snippets) will be seen, which are fonts included with Windows XP.
  • Others will likely see generic sans serif and monospace fonts (although these look very nice in Ubuntu Linux, for example).

Incidentally, I experimented with CSS3’s @font-face declaration for embedding fonts, so that a consistent text style would be seen regardless of which fonts are installed locally on someone’s computer. This does indeed work fine, but I haven’t yet decided upon a set of fonts which I like, and which are also released with acceptable non-restrictive licencing terms, so that I can host the fonts on my own server without issues. I’ll explore this again in future, however.

More observant visitors will have noticed that I’ve also renamed the site slightly. I’ve dropped the “UK” part of “Rail Sim Routes UK”, and the site is now called “Railsimroutes.net” instead. The site is still available via two domain names, railsimroutes.net and railsimroutes.co.uk; I have no plans to retire the .co.uk domain, although you might want to update your bookmarks if you still use it.

Anyway, I hope you like the new Railsimroutes.net design. 🙂

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Posted in openBVE, openBVE 2, Site News | 34 Comments »



Animated digital station clocks for openBVE, and 3D cab for 1992 stock released at BVE Routes & Trains

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 14th May 2010 at 6:50 am

Animated digital station clocks

Railsimroutes LogoopenBVE/DemoRoute1 screenshot - click to enlargeI’m not sure if any other openBVE developers have attempted this yet, but a feature I’ve been wanting to add to my routes for some time now, is animated digital station clocks which show the actual in-game time. Of course, we’ve seen a very nice working analogue station clock featured in » DemoRoute1 « (see right), but a digital clock would be useful, too.

I studied the functions in DemoRoute1’s analogue clock .animated file, along with openBVE 1’s source code to see how the display of in-game time is handled, and eventually opted to use multiplication rather than division in my functions as per the animated object in DemoRoute1. You can find some details of the finished set of files below.


Animated digital clock shown in the openBVE Object Viewer utility -- click to download sample files

Animated 24-hour digital clock shown in the openBVE Object Viewer utility.
Sample files can be downloaded here.

Please feel free to download and use the above files if you’d like to adapt them for your own route, all you need to do is create an enclosure for the digits, and translate or resize the digits, to suit your own needs. The digital clock consists of an object which shows a single digit from a texture containing a strip of digits from 0-9, a separator, and a black background. The .animated file is as follows:

digital_clock.animated:

[Object]
States = back.csv
Position = 0, 0, 0

; Hours

[Object]
States = digit.csv
Position = -0.51, 0, 0
TextureShiftYFunction = 0.1 * floor[mod[time * 0.000277777777777778, 24] * 0.1]

[Object]
States = digit.csv
Position = -0.33, 0, 0
TextureShiftYFunction = 0.1 * floor[mod[time * 0.000277777777777778, 24]]

[Object]
States = digit_separator.csv
Position = -0.21, 0, 0

; Minutes

[Object]
States = digit.csv
Position = -0.09, 0, 0
TextureShiftYFunction = 0.1 * floor[mod[time * 0.0166666666666667, 60] * 0.1]

[Object]
States = digit.csv
Position = 0.09, 0, 0
TextureShiftYFunction = 0.1 * floor[time * 0.0166666666666667]

[Object]
States = digit_separator.csv
Position = 0.21, 0, 0
StateFunction = value == 0
RefreshRate = 0.5

; Seconds

[Object]
States = digit.csv
Position = 0.33, 0, 0
TextureShiftYFunction = 0.1 * floor[mod[time, 60] * 0.1]

[Object]
States = digit.csv
Position = 0.51, 0, 0
TextureShiftYFunction = 0.1 * floor[time]

Note: The purpose of the mod[] function used in displaying the hour digits, is to ensure that the displayed time wraps around back to 00 when passing midnight, rather than 24 or higher being displayed.

Here’s a screenshot of the above working digital clock, adapted for use in a prototypical structure at Kings Langley on the Watford Junction to Rugby route; note the displayed time on the clock, matching the in-game time shown at the bottom left of the screen:


openBVE / Watford Junction to Rugby screenshot showing animated digital clock - click to enlarge

openBVE / Watford Junction to Rugby screenshot showing animated digital clock — click to enlarge
Note: Station nameboard textures created using » Station Nameboard Generator v2 «
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3D cab for 1992 stock released

Information IconI also just wanted to briefly mention that a new openBVE 3D cab has been released for the London Underground 1992 stock, with animated features including a traction/brake controller, speedometer, and working in-cab CCTV monitor. Night-illuminated cab indicators and screens are also included, and the overall effect created by the cab is very nice, despite a couple of initial teething problems. The 3D cab is an add-on for the BVE4 1992TS, which needs to be installed first; both downloads can be found at » http://bveroutes-trains.co.uk «. A note on installing the 3D cab — at the time of writing, I noticed that the 3D cab download contains an incorrect folder structure, i.e. there’s no “1992TS” subfolder included, and the files could easily end up accidentally being placed in your Train folder directly instead, which won’t work, of course. You will need to be careful as to where you choose to extract the files. For further information, you might like to monitor » this thread « on the BVE Exchange forum.

Screenshot
openBVE / 1992 Stock screenshot
» Download from http://bveroutes-trains.co.uk «

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Posted in openBVE | 9 Comments »



Chashinai Railway April updates

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 14th April 2010 at 12:30 am

Information IconWhat I would consider to be one of the flagship routes for openBVE due to it’s innovation, and one of the most varied and enjoyable, namely » odakyufan’s Chashinai Railway «, has been updated. The Misaki Line from Tawaramoto to Hitachiomiya can now be driven back and forth in both directions (via seperate route files), which is fun. The ATC system has also been redesigned, such that a gradual, smooth brake curve is now implemented, along with a Rapid Mode which removes the smoothening for use in the rush hour where trains are more frequent and adhering to the timetable is harder. Driving the Chashinai 9000 Series train with ATC, TASC and ATO activated is one of the most enjoyable things which can be done with openBVE, so I’d strongly recommend that you give this a try — it’s well worth it. Instructions can be found » here «. Please also note that the source code for the plugins used by the Chashinai Railway’s trains is included within the train download, and I’d recommend that anyone considering plugin development in future, study the cleanly written, concise source code as well, of course bearing in mind that a move to cross-platform .NET plugins will occur in future. Incidentally, publishing the source code for plugins is something I would like to see more train developers doing in future, and certainly something I will be doing in future (I’ll be writing a new cross-platform .NET plugin for the new class 323 of course), once » openBVE 2 « is in a more advanced stage of development.

Moving road vehicles have also been added together with traffic sounds, shown to best visual effect on overbridges, I think particularly on the Koriyama Line (also bi-directional), Takahagi and Ishinden Lines, and vehicles can be seen travelling parallel to the railway between Shirosato and Motegi on the Misaki Line as well. The use of texture shifting functions here, enables vehicles to appear as though they’re travelling along the road, despite it’s apparent gradient and directional changes. I’ll be doing something similar at Watford Gap and other locations on the Watford Junction to Rugby route, using a technique developed for 3D vehicles by odakyufan, » details of which can be found here «. Other details, such as beacons correctly aligned with sleepers and track are taken care of too, as I’ve tried to do with AWS magnets in my routes. You’ll also find far more variation in the numbers of passengers waiting to board your train, which makes stations pleasing and fun to approach as there’s far more to see now; the recent changes to openBVE regarding the weight of the train increasing with passenger load and the effect this has on performance, can be used to good effect here (don’t forget to download the most recent version 1.2.6.1 of » openBVE « for this to work). Watch out for wheelslip depending on location, environmental or meteorological conditions too!

Developers might also be interested in taking a look at how the Chashinai Railway’s route files have been prepared. openBVE’s $Include directive has been used extensively, with much greater efficiency and flexibility now possible.

Please visit » The Web Presence of Odakyufan « to download the latest release of Chashinai Railway, and also » this thread on the openBVE forum «, where additional screenshots, information, details and benefts of $Include can be found. This is sophisticated, high quality and beautiful work, and I look forward to seeing more in future.

Images captured at 1680×1050, with smooth transparency and 16xQ anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering
(Please hover over any thumbnail image for a description)

About to pick up additional passengers waiting to join the train at Izumozaki North on the Misaki Line, with ATC indicating a clear line ahead. [Click to enlarge] Animated road vehicles crossing the overbridge at Kawarada station where the Ishinden and Uchiike Lines join together, as the warmth of the rising sun adds ambience the scene. [Click to enlarge]
openBVE / Chashinai Railway screenshots
Download from » The Web Presence of Odakyufan «
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Railsimroutes Projects

Railsimroutes LogoI know haven’t posted any updates regarding my own projects for some time, about which I can only apologise. I have a couple of features which I want to be working on for » openBVE 2 « first, however when I have time spare I’m also working on implementing another feature for both of my routes, and I’ll post some screenshots of this once I’m happy with how it all looks. More to follow fairly soon…

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Posted in openBVE, Site News | 1 Comment »



openBVE v1.2.5, Watford Jn. to Rugby progress, class 390 Pendolino, other developer’s add-ons, Cross-City South bugfix, and one million visits

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 31st January 2010 at 5:50 pm

openBVE v1.2.5.0 released

openBVE LogoopenBVE v1.2.5.0 was released a few days ago, and various changes have been made to openBVE since my last blog entry. In this release, the main form (i.e. the window for route selection, setting options, etc.) is smaller so that it can be used on smaller screen sizes (e.g. 800×600) or with larger fonts, and if the window is resized, the new size is saved between sessions. The player’s train now derails when passing the end of the track, as well.

Michelle has also written an impressive RIFF/RIFX/WAV PCM/ADPCM parser, which she’s ported from openBVE’s successor to openBVE 1. This removes the need for two dependencies, namely ALUT and SDL, and her parser supports a wider range of sampling rates. Other improvements recently, include a shortening of loading times for routes using detailed animated objects (which eventual users of the projects being developed here will appreciate). Also, there’s the addition of the $Include preprocessing directive which allows text in other files to be parsed in place of the directive in a route file (with random selection of multiple included files), and point-based turns (via the .Turn command) are smoothened out, which gives much more pleasing results. Please see » this thread « for more discussion about these latter features.

Head over to the » openBVE homepage « to try the latest v1.2.5.0 release, and you can read the changelog for further details. Remember that the » developer tools « have also been updated as well.

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Watford Junction to Rugby progress update

Railsimroutes LogoIt’s been quite a while since I posted any updates regarding my routes, so I thought you might like to know what’s happening with the Watford Junction to Rugby project this time. I’m relatively happy with the state of the permanent way and between-station railway related lineside objects, so I’m now implementing some more scenery enhancements, including improved under-bridge shadow effects, moving road vehicles, and lineside buildings. I’ve also, at last, started working on the stations and so far I’ve created new photo-realistic lamposts, photo-realistic 3D platforms, and various signs.

Previously, the underbridge shadows I’d implemented were simple untextured meshes with alpha applied via the SetColor command. In addition, I’ve now applied a small 8×8 pixel texture where the outer 28 pixels act as the transparent color, and the inner pixels are nearly black. When this texture is applied to the existing shadow meshes and the color adjusted accordingly, smoothly transitioned shadows can be achieved. I’ve also added deeper shadows to the sleeper textures to improve the appearance of the track, and added more blue colouration along with reducing the lightness of the railhead, to make the rails look a little more metallic. I’m also implementing shadows cast by platforms and embankments as well. The way in which I’ve implemented the latter can give the appearance of dappled sunlight caused by trees, and increases the effect of warmth created by sunlight and the realism of locations within cuttings, although this feature will be optional in the final release as there’s a possibility that it may incur a performance penalty on slow graphics cards. Lastly, I’ve added some new photographic backdrops which I’m experimenting with at the moment. Take a look at the following screenshots to see how the route is coming along (please note that there may be some inaccuracies, as the route shows trackwork or infrastructure as it was in different eras simultaneously at the moment):

openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge
openBVE v1.2.5, and Watford Junction to Rugby with new lineside buildings, station details, road vehicles, scenic shadows, and backdrops.
All screenshots taken at 1920×1200 resolution, with openBVE’s smooth transparency enabled, and 16xQ anti-aliasing/16x anisotropic filtering (Core 2 Quad Q9650 at default 3GHz, and GeForce GTX 260 55nm)
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Class 390 Pendolino

Railsimroutes LogoSome of you may remember that the class 390 Pendolino was given an » openBVE exterior car update « some time ago, thanks to Cramaboule. I’m pleased to announce that I’m now working with Cramaboule to produce some detailed exterior models of a similar quality to the class 323 I’ve demonstrated previously, along with a full 3D cab, so there will be some more nice looking rolling stock to run on Watford Junction to Rugby. I’ll post some screenshots as the models are developed, but for now here are some photos of what we can look forward to:

Class 390 Pendolino photograph (Milton Keynes, June 2005)--click to enlarge Class 390 Pendolino photograph (Milton Keynes, June 2005)--click to enlarge Class 390 Pendolino photograph (Cheddington, June 2005)--click to enlarge Class 390 Pendolino photograph (Old Linslade, October 2004)--click to enlarge
Class 390 Pendolino photos (1400×1050)
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Other more recent openBVE add-on releases

Information IconSince my last blog entry, some high quality openBVE add-ons have been released. Just in case anyone missed these releases, here are some screenshots and links to some excellent new add-ons with rather beautiful graphics:

Note: All screenshots taken at 1920×1200 resolution, with openBVE’s smooth transparency enabled, and 16xQ anti-aliasing/16x anisotropic filtering (Core 2 Quad Q9650 at default 3GHz, and GeForce GTX 260 55nm)
openBVE v1.2.5, FEVF Railway and EM A1 3D cab--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5, FEVF Railway and EM A1 3D cab--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5, FEVF Railway and EM A1 train--click to enlarge
FEVF Railway and EM A1 3D cab.
Homepage: » FEVF Railway «
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openBVE v1.2.5, mtrain HD v2.0 and Hong Kong Island Line--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5, mtrain HD v2.0 and Hong Kong Island Line--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5, mtrain HD v2.0 and Hong Kong Island Line--click to enlarge
mtrain HD v2.0 and Hong Kong Island Line.
Homepage: » winsome’s Studio « | » Hong Kong Island Line «
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openBVE v1.2.5, First Brno Track and CD163 plus coaches--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5, First Brno Track and CD163 plus coaches--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5, First Brno Track and CD163 plus coaches--click to enlarge
First Brno Track and CD163 plus coaches.
Homepage: » Brno BVE Website «
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openBVE v1.2.5, Guaianazes-Estudantes route and CAF 440 train--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5, Guaianazes-Estudantes route and CAF 440 train--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.5, Guaianazes-Estudantes route and CAF 440 train--click to enlarge
Guaianazes-Estudantes route and CAF 440 train
Homepage: » BVE Brazil Fans «
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Upcoming openBVE projects to keep an eye on…

Information IconThere are a couple of new projects in the works which I’m personally very much looking forward to seeing, namely » Odakyufan’s « representation of the Odakyu Odawara Line running from Tokyo’s Shinjuku station, and the new Iida line currently being developed. The latter will of course be known to BVE users as one of Gaku’s classics (see my links page), but the new Iida line, train and exterior car objects being developed at » http://mus-iida.jpn.org « look beautiful and very realistic so far.

Some superb early screenshots of » Odakyufan’s « representation of the Odakyu Odawara line were also published a little while ago. The Odawara line starts from Tokyo’s busy Shinjuku station, and the line is well known for it’s Romancecar limited express services for tourists visiting Odawara and the surrounding resorts, but it’s also a busy commuter route and the Odakyu Electric Railway uses it’s own OM-ATS safety system, which will be simulated in a semi-realistic way due to the absence of detailed technical information. Odakyufan has a goal of modelling at least the first five stations, and this will be interesting to see, as this section of the line is surrounded by densely packed buildings. The screenshots showing the exit from Shinjuku station, Japanese 1500V DC catenary and Tokyo’s buildings all look very promising indeed, and easily recognisable, even at an early stage of development.

Odakyu Odawara line -- click to visit homepage Odakyu Odawara line -- click to visit homepage Odakyu Odawara line -- click to visit homepage
Homepage: » The Web Presence of Odakyufan «
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mus-iida.jpn.org -- click to visit homepage mus-iida.jpn.org -- click to visit homepage mus-iida.jpn.org -- click to visit homepage
Homepage: » http://mus-iida.jpn.org «
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Cross-City South bugfix

Railsimroutes LogoI’ve uploaded an update for Cross-City South v1.31, which fixes the following issues:
  • Incorrect pathname in route files using the class 323 passenger views.
  • The ground repeater signal prior to Birmingham New Street station is now accurately modelled, such that the red aspect is nearest to the driver (i.e. the signal is as though it were upside down now, as in reality). Many thanks to Paul Sladen for pointing this out.
  • In the night routes, “P” has been added as the ArrivalTime argument of the Five Ways .Sta commands (to indicate that trains are not meant to stop). Thanks again to Paul for bringing this omission to my attention.
  • Also in the night routes, the repetition count for Background(0) has been added, which was missing previously, leading to a horizontally compressed background image.

Existing Cross-City South v1.31.03 users can simply download a small update to v1.31.05 here: xcs_1_31_05_update.7z [180 KiB]. If you’re using a version earlier than v1.31.03, you might be better off downloading the full route pack again, which also now includes the aforementioned update. The previously separate class 37 and 158 route files are now included in the main download as well. Please also note that BVE 4 doesn’t work on my current Windows 7 64-bit/NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 setup, so this update has only been tested in openBVE, as it’s inconvenient having to dual boot or use another computer every time I want to check some minor thing in the old BVE 4. There aren’t any changes which should affect BVE 4 users, but if any issues arise, please let me know with as much detail about the problem as possible, and I’ll investigate.

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Finally…

Railsimroutes LogoI noticed that the site has had it’s one millionth visit today (as opposed to page view), insofar as it’s possible to measure such things — the actual number of users of my routes will likely number in the low thousands, of course. Thank you to everyone who has taken an interest in my work during the eight or so years since this site was launched!

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Posted in openBVE, Site News | 39 Comments »



High resolution openBVE screenshots and updates

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 12th October 2009 at 7:39 am

Thankfully I have more time available now, so I should be able to pick up where I left off and resume development for openBVE. I recently upgraded my computer, and I’m rather pleased with how openBVE and various routes including my own are running on the new system, so I want to share a few more screenshots of how openBVE, Cross-City South v1.4 and Watford Junction to Rugby can run on higher-end hardware, as well as to show some progress being made. I’m working on adjusting the dawn lighting to produce some nice visuals on Cross-City South v1.4, and I’m also experimenting with some higher resolution catenary textures particularly suited to openBVE’s smooth transparency mode, as well as adding some 3D trees to Watford Junction to Rugby to see how the extra detail is handled. Here are some WUXGA 1920×1200 resolution screenshots from openBVE v1.2.2, with full 16xQ anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filtering, and with smooth transparency enabled; there aren’t many animated objects visible in these scenes however, so framerates on equivalent hardware (see below) will be a bit lower in the final releases. Some other openBVE add-ons are presented, as well as my own:

openBVE v1.2.2 and X-City South v1.4--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and X-City South v1.4--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and X-City South v1.4--click to enlarge
openBVE v1.2.2 and X-City South v1.4--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and X-City South v1.4--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and X-City South v1.4--click to enlarge
» openBVE v1.2.2 «, and Birmingham Cross-City South v1.4 with new class 323 and 3D cab (1920×1200)
(London Midland Class 153 externals by » Steve Thomas «)

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openBVE v1.2.2 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge
openBVE v1.2.2, and Watford Junction to Rugby with 2D and 3D trees (1920×1200)

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Amongst the features planned for openBVE 2, are thunder and lightning effects. Early on during the openBVE project I demonstrated rainfall effects and thunder using openBVE 1’s capabilities; while it’s possible to create these effects within a route, I think it would be better to have these effects handled by openBVE rather than the route developer, along with lightning. This is another feature which I’m very much looking forward to, but I wanted to see what kinds of effects could be created anyway, so I did a few experiments. The following screenshots show how I envisage lightning might look on a route like Watford Junction to Rugby in future; the textures require a little refinement as this is just a test, but you get the idea (in full motion, the lightning strikes flicker and the effect looks better):

openBVE v1.2.2 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Watford Junction to Rugby--click to enlarge
openBVE v1.2.2, and Watford Junction to Rugby lightning experiment (1920×1200)
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Another openBVE project, the excellent » Chashinai Railway « network, was updated again a few days ago; the 1000 and 2000 series trains now have new plugins catering for ATS-SN as well as ATS-P in the case of the 1000 series train (don’t forget to read the train operation manuals on the website before driving with these safety systems), and both feature photo-realistic 2D/panel2.cfg based cabs with fully working ammeters and slightly dirty windscreens. The rivers found on these routes also demonstrate a good way of implementing moving water, and the new passenger textures, and photo-realistic trees and scenery textures enhance the routes as well. Here are some high resolution screenshots of the routes and 1000/2000 series trains; note the fully working ammeters in the in-cab screenshots (requires » openBVE v1.2.2 «):

openBVE v1.2.2 and Chashinai Railways--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Chashinai Railways--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Chashinai Railways--click to enlarge
openBVE v1.2.2 and Chashinai Railways--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Chashinai Railways--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Chashinai Railways--click to enlarge
openBVE v1.2.2, Chashinai Railway (» odakyufan «), and 1000/2000 series trains with working ammeters (1920×1200)
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Also, here are a few high resolution screenshots of the recently released » Saijou Line « for openBVE as well, which include various animated objects, night lighting and great atmosphere:

openBVE v1.2.2 and Saijou Line--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Saijou Line--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Saijou Line--click to enlarge
openBVE v1.2.2 and Saijou Line--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Saijou Line--click to enlarge openBVE v1.2.2 and Saijou Line--click to enlarge
openBVE v1.2.2 and the Saijou Line (» http://tozai.s77.xrea.com «) (1920×1200)
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Watford Junction to Rugby, Performance, and *BVE

All of these screenshots were captured on a system with a Core 2 Quad Q9650 CPU (3 GHz), 2GB DDR2-1066 RAM and a GeForce GTX 260 graphics card, running on a motherboard equipped with the P45 Express chipset, and as you can see, even Watford Junction to Rugby runs nicely here, never dropping below about 40 fps in the external view with the class 87 and a 600m drawing distance (achievable with 2 CPU cores in use rather than 4). It will likely run even better with openBVE 2’s renderer, allowing those with slower computers to enjoy some higher framerates too. It’s also important to note, out of openBVE, BVE 2, BVE 4, and the latest pre-release version of BVE 5 (after the route has been converted to it’s new formats), that at the moment, openBVE remains the only simulator that is capable of loading and/or handling Watford Junction to Rugby with the high level of detail and object count it currently has, and openBVE handles the route on a slower Athlon64 X2 4200+ system with a Radeon HD 2600 Pro as well. Incidentally, I can’t assess whether Cross-City South v1.4 would be suitable for BVE 5 yet, as the route is very unfinished and there’s still a lot left to add; of course you’d certainly lose all the dynamic scenery and animation effects, along with the 323’s 3D cab, exterior and passenger views after such a conversion–hence I can say that my priority will remain openBVE. Naturally with Watford Junction to Rugby, I want to focus on openBVE primarily as well, and as the project is taking a long time to complete, BVE 2 and 4 compatibility and detail reduction will now be a lower priority, and I’ll only start on this task after all the openBVE features are finalised and the project is otherwise completed.

Lastly, I’ve been used to using openBVE with a 17″, 5:4 aspect ratio TFT monitor at a resolution of 1280×1024, but now I’ve seen openBVE running on a 24″ TFT with a 16:10 aspect ratio, routes and trains can look magnificent, and I’m highly impressed by the additional immersion which is offered, especially with the 323’s 3D cab. The higher resolution also makes arranging and working with a text editor and openBVE’s development tools much more enjoyable, and it’s also better for working with something like a C# IDE for example, or image editing software. More updates will follow soon.

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Posted in openBVE | 9 Comments »



openBVE v1.2.2, working ammeters, X-City South v1.31 bug fixes, minor 323 3D cab update, openBVE route updates

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 28th September 2009 at 6:34 pm
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Information Icon Note: Updated 21:40 BST

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openBVE v1.2.2 Released

openBVE LogoopenBVE v1.2.2 has been released, and this version includes some new variables for developers to use in animated objects or 3D cabs, including new variables for acceleration and motor acceleration; more variables can now be used to query specific cars as well. New subjects covering acceleration and motor acceleration which developers can use in the legacy panel2.cfg file are also provided, and some bug fixes are also included in this release. Please visit the » openBVE homepage « and read the » Changelog « for more details.

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Working Ammeters

One new variable is accelerationMotor. As mentioned on the openBVE forum, this can be used for creating working ammeters. The class 323’s cab doesn’t feature an ammeter, however, anyone wanting to experiment with this might like to consider the following panel.animated code as a *starting point*. You can copy and paste the code below into the 323’s panel.animated file to add a new ammeter needle to the cab and see it in action. Please bear in mind that I’ve not had time to test this in a variety of scenarios though:

panel.animated code for a simple ammeter (including illuminated needle):

[object]

states = 3d_cab\speedometer_needle.csv, 3d_cab\speedometer_needle_dark.csv

statefunction = if[hasPlugin == 1, !pluginstate[30], 0]

position = -0.43, 2.23, 11.45

rotatexdirection = -1, 0, 0

rotatexfunction = -2.4 + abs[accelerationMotor[0]] * 1.5

rotateyfunction = -1.11

rotatezfunction = -1.57

rotatexdamping = 2, 1

Notes: in the rotatexfunction line, -2.4 determines the needle rotation with no motor acceleration, and 1.5 determines the needle rotation with maximum motor acceleration. You can adjust these two values according to your ammeter gauge design. If you add an ammeter to your own 3D cab, remember that the statefunction line and multiple states (*.csv files in this case) may not be necessary depending on what plugin DLL, if any, you wish to use. When it comes to designing full 3D cabs for the class 86 and 87 electric locomotives for use with Watford Junction to Rugby, I’ll revisit ammeter design in more detail.

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Cross-City South v1.31 Bug Fixes and 3D Cab Update

I’ve also fixed a few bugs in the Cross-City South route. There were a few objects (houses, warehouses etc.) which included some surface lighting issues, which have now been fixed. Some class 170 3D objects also contained incorrect ‘Color’ commands resulting in errors being reported when the routes were loaded; these have now been changed to ‘SetColor’, which is correct for CSV format objects. As some of you will know, the Cross-City South also uses some .Sta commands only for signalling approach control purposes, which aren’t meant to be stopped at. However, you would still be penalised if you passed such a station without stopping. Thanks to Paul Sladen, I’ve now corrected these .Sta commands so that you can pass them without being penalised, while preserving the approach controlled signalling functionality.

You can download the full v1.31.03 route package via the Cross-City South download page.

There aren’t any new features included, as all of those improvements are going into the Cross-City South v1.4 project instead, and I’d prefer to hold those improvements back until the v1.4 is ready for release, as the end result will be more enjoyable that way.

Incidentally, the changes to the .Sta commands are as follows (the ArrivalTime and PassAlarm arguments, which are underlined):

Old: .Sta ;;09.4300;;-1;1;;;1;0;;11
New: .Sta ;P;09.4300;0;-1;1;;;1;0;;11

Important Note: Those of you still using BVE 4, will find that the route files now call upon the openBVE version of the unrefurbished class 323 EMU by default (Train\Cl323 Unrefurb_openbve). BVE 4 users can either install the openBVE version of the train, or edit the route files to use the older BVE 4 class 323.

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openBVE 3D cab screenshot I’ve also updated the 323’s 3D cab so that it makes use of the new hasPlugin variable. If you’re using openBVE v1.2.2 with a non-Windows operating system, then this will allow the cab illumination to work in the absence of the Windows only plugin DLL, which wasn’t the case previously.

I’ve also made some adjustments to the placement of the brake gauge, as it wasn’t quite right before, and now when you pass through a neutral section, the cab lighting should remain unaffected as the UKMUt.dll’s ats30 (pantograph up) is used as well as ats31 (Line Volts) now. The carriage light dimming effect will be retained in the passenger area once the new 323 external objects are released however. I’ve also remembered to remove several superfluous GenerateNormals statements from some objects this time, as they serve no purpose in an openBVE add-on.

Someone also kindly informed me that there may be some further innaccuracies with the cab’s indicators; once I’ve investigated further I’ll address these issues at some point in future. It’s also nice to note that the 3D cab may have been downloaded perhaps as many as 1500 times since it’s release.

Download:

» 323_unrefurb_3d_cab_28-09-09.7z « [1.7 MiB — requires openBVE v1.2.2]

Important: Also requires » Cl323 Unrefurb_openbve_05.02.09.zip « to be installed first.

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Other Things

I’m not making much progress with my projects at the moment, and I know that some of you may be disappointed that I’ve not yet finished Cross-City South v1.4 despite me saying that it’d be done before now (this is also why I’m usually reluctant to give release dates, and I shouldn’t have done so where this project is concerned). Rest assured, barring any disasters, it will be finished eventually and I’m still in the game, however, sometimes circumstances in the real world prove to be too much of a distraction, and it means that what one wishes to accomplish in the simulated world has to wait for a little while. This won’t last long however, and patience will be rewarded.

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And Finally…

The Saijou Line for openBVE was released a few days ago (the author’s » blog « is linked to via my blogroll), and this is an openBVE exclusive route featuring some very nice atmosphere and night lighting. There are a few errors, however the route is well worth giving a try, as it’s a good example of how animated objects and lighting can be used to bring much more life to a route and make it that much more enjoyable. You’ll find a variety of blinking lights, such as car indicator lamps, and the aviation obstruction lights fitted to tall structures (I’ll be modelling the same feature on the cluster of 250m tall VLF radio towers at the Rugby Radio Station on the Watford Junction to Rugby route). Moving cars and buses can also be found on roads, as well as flashing level crossing lights, road based traffic lights which change when the train is approaching, animated water, and moving elevators. You can download the route here: » http://tozai.s77.xrea.com/BVE/Sjyou.html « (the author’s homepage is here: » http://tozai.s77.xrea.com «)

openBVE and Saijou Line--click to enlarge openBVE and Saijou Line--click to enlarge

Information Icon Edit: Another openBVE route recently updated, was the Chashinai Railways network, along with the 9000 Series train; when this train is used with the Misaki Line in particular, in addition to ATC, you can now enjoy simulated TASC (Train Automatic Stopping Controller) and ATO (Atomatic Train Operation) systems which enable fully automated driving, thanks to a new plugin which enables sophisticated safety system simulation. The 9000 series’ panel also includes photorealistic dirt on the windscreen, increasing realism. Visit odakyufan’s website for the updates, and don’t forget to read the Train Operation Manuals before you start: » http://odakyufan.uuuq.com «

openBVE and Chashinai Railway (Misaki Line, 9000 Series train with ATC, TASC and ATO)--click to enlarge openBVE and Chashinai Railway (Misaki Line, 9000 Series train with ATC, TASC and ATO)--click to enlarge

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Posted in openBVE, Site News | 11 Comments »