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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


openBVE v1.0.7.1 released; performance improvements and new object development features

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 16th June 2009 at 12:04 am

openBVE v1.0.7.1 is now available; I’d recommend heading over to the » openBVE homepage « to download the latest stable release, and don’t forget to read the » Changelog « for a full list of alterations and new features.

Information Icon Update (18th June): openBVE v1.0.7.2 was released yesterday. This version includes a bugfix relating to problems when some objects were loaded, which also resulted in error messages. As far as I’m aware, the objects concerned were those with meshbuilder blocks containing both Cylinder commands and AddFace commands referencing the cylinder’s vertices, which should now be loaded without any problems in v1.0.7.2.

This release can offer some potentially superb performance improvements on some routes. With Cross-City South v1.31.02, and 8x antialiasing/16x anisotropic filtering set via my graphics card drivers, along with bilinear interpolation set via openBVE’s options, I see between 20-35% increases in framerates compared to openBVE v1.0.6.2 with identical settings. With anisotropic filtering and smooth transparency enabled via openBVE’s settings, I also see between around 25-46% increases in framerates with identical settings in both openBVE versions. So for example, where the entrance to Birmingham New Street used to take me down to 15 fps with smooth transparency enabled, now I can reach a much more fluid 21-22 fps. I won’t publish any figures regarding Cross-City South v1.4 yet, as the route is still in development and the performance level changes often as I experiment with it. These results are obtained on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ @ 2.2GHz, 2GB DDR2-800 CL5-5-5-15, ATi Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB DDR2 PCIe equipped system by the way.

The improvement which has most impressed me though, is the performance of openBVE v1.0.7.1 with Watford Junction to Rugby. To say that I’m delighted would be a massive understatement, as I’ve seen between 30-160% increases in framerate compared to v1.0.6.2! Generally though, framerates of around 17-21 fps (on the four track sections between stations, in the external view with those nice AC electric and Mk2 coach objects) are now fairly typical, where around 11-14 fps was a typical range before. Framerates are higher when in the cab view, of course. Certain extremely detailed areas which still need to be simplified for openBVE 1’s renderer, like the Bourne End and New Ledburn Junctions, as well as Tring and Bletchley, are now handled much better as well (10-12 fps rather than 4-6 fps as it was before, with framerates recovering to normal levels after passing through these isolated locations). To put this in perspective, the route loads around 2600 objects of all types with over 72600 .Freeobj commands, which is a lot more than usually found in a BVE route, and this is over a 106 km distance (in comparison, Cross-City South v1.31 loads around 700 objects of all types, with around 5600 .Freeobj commands over around a 25 km distance). In BVE 4, the framerate may be comparable initially, but if I start driving from Watford Junction, it stutters frequently, and BVE 4’s renderer gives up after reaching Kings Langley just a few kilometres into the route, and BVE 4 crashes without even an error message shortly after; WJ-R is a long way past being suitable for BVE 4 now, hence an awful lot of stuff will need to be removed in the BVE Trainsim versions of the route.

These latest openBVE optimisations which give rise to improvements in framerates, may also mean that route loading times increase a little as the object geometry is optimised, although in practice, I’m finding that only 5-6 seconds are added to Cross-City South v1.4 / new class 323 loading times, and 9 seconds added to Watford Junction to Rugby’s loading time, bringing the total loading time to 39 seconds for the latter route. Nevertheless, if this is a problem for you, please read » this thread « for information about the hidden options which enable you to limit what the new object optimiser does, allowing for faster loading times, but naturally at the expense of in-game performance.

If you’re interested in how these performance improvements have been implemented, take a look at » michelle’s blog « where the relevant OpenGL concepts are discussed (the May and June 2009 pages). Essentially, OpenGL’s GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP and GL_QUAD_STRIP structures are now used along with GL_POLYGON structures which were used exclusively in prior versions of openBVE, and using these structures where possible means that fewer vertices need to be transmitted to the rendering pipeline (due to there being fewer effectively duplicated vertices), thereby improving performance. These other structures are generated automatically by the new object optimiser included in v1.0.7, which was written for openBVE 2’s engine but has been added to openBVE 1. Version 2 of openBVE should deliver even greater performance improvements however, thanks to the use of display lists rather than the immediate mode currently used.

This early performance improvement also means that I can capture some higher resolution video of Watford Junction to Rugby now, so come back soon as I’m preparing another of my YouTube videos, in which I’ll also show a couple of other things I’ve been working on. 🙂

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New Object Development Features

Two new features have been added which allow developers greater flexibility and functionality where object creation is concerned — the Shear / ShearAll commands, and the ability to specify vertex normals in B3D and CSV objects (previously, vertex normals could only be specified in .X objects, which were awkward to hand edit). Before experimenting, please make sure that you’ve downloaded the latest versions of » openBVE«, » Object Viewer « and » Route Viewer « (if necessary, clear your browser cache first to ensure you aren’t just getting older versions of the downloads from your hard disk cache instead of the webserver).

Shear and ShearAll

Using the Shear / ShearAll commands, we can now skew meshes or entire objects, which makes certain kinds of objects much quicker and easier to create. Take a bridge which crosses a railway at an angle for example; designing the bridge object such that it’s perpendicular to the railway is relatively easy, but creating it at an angle can be more time consuming, especially if the bridge includes an arch. Using the new commands, we can create the bridge in a perpendicular fashion, and then easily perform a shear mapping operation on all the vertices in either a MeshBuilder block or the entire object:

Original bridge object, perpendicular to rail--click to enlarge Original bridge object, sheared to the right--click to enlarge Original bridge object, sheared to the left--click to enlarge

These results are created with the following commands added right at the end of the object file:

ShearAll, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0.75

or…

ShearAll, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, -0.75

Please see the relevant openBVE documentation » here « for more information about these commands and the parameters.

Vertex Normals

If you’ve used the Cylinder command in your objects, you’ll probably have noticed that the resulting collection of faces were smoothly shaded. Creating any other mesh however, resulted in flat shading. If the object was converted to the .X format, it was possible to manually hand edit the vertex normals to smoothly shade faces, but due to the nature of the format this wasn’t user friendly, and wasn’t possible at all in B3D or CSV format objects. Now though, what I think is an easy way to apply vertex normals and smooth shading to meshes has been implemented. Take the following screenshots:

Standard mesh--click to enlarge Standard mesh with vertex normals specified--click to enlarge

On the left, we have a simple mesh with 8 vertices and 3 faces:

CreateMeshBuilder
AddVertex, 3, 0, 1, ;vertex 0
AddVertex, 3, 0,-1, ;vertex 1
AddVertex, 1, 1, 1, ;vertex 2
AddVertex, 1, 1,-1, ;vertex 3
AddVertex,-1, 1, 1, ;vertex 4
AddVertex,-1, 1,-1, ;vertex 5
AddVertex,-3, 0, 1, ;vertex 6
AddVertex,-3, 0,-1, ;vertex 7
AddFace,0,1,3,2
AddFace,2,3,5,4
AddFace,4,5,7,6
SetColor,190,160,160

On the right, we have the same mesh, but with vertex normals specified, resulting in the smoothly shaded appearance:

CreateMeshBuilder
AddVertex, 3, 0, 1, 0.6, 1, 0
AddVertex, 3, 0,-1, 0.6, 1, 0
AddVertex, 1, 1, 1, 0.3, 1, 0
AddVertex, 1, 1,-1, 0.3, 1, 0
AddVertex,-1, 1, 1,-0.3, 1, 0
AddVertex,-1, 1,-1,-0.3, 1, 0
AddVertex,-3, 0, 1,-0.6, 1, 0
AddVertex,-3, 0,-1,-0.6, 1, 0
AddFace,0,1,3,2
AddFace,2,3,5,4
AddFace,4,5,7,6
SetColor,190,160,160

In the first annotated Object Viewer screenshot, you can see that the automatically generated normals are depicted via the vector lines emanating from the vertices (you can view these by pressing the N key within Object Viewer). Note also the flat shading, and how this relates to the direction of the normal vectors. In the second screenshot however, which shows the same mesh with manually defined normals, smooth shading is now applied, and vertices 2, 3, 4 and 5 now have one normal vector each, affecting all faces that share those vertices. You can see that each normal vector is created relative to the associated vertex coordinates.

To give some examples of where to use this feature, the ability specify normals allows me to, for example, reduce the number of faces on a curved surface to improve performance in some circumstances, or smoothly shade the grass embankments shown in the bridge screenshots above, or the curved surfaces of locomotives and rolling stock:

Original object with automatically generated normals--click to enlarge Object with vertex normals specified--click to enlarge
Original object with automatically generated normals--click to enlarge Original object with automatically generated normals--click to enlarge
Object with vertex normals specified--click to enlarge Object with vertex normals specified--click to enlarge
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Finally, for the more technically minded amongst us, openBVE’s debug output layout (viewable via the F10 key) has been revamped and contains some interesting extra data relating to the number of each different face type in use:

openBVE v1.0.7.1 debug output

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Posted in openBVE | 4 Comments »



The innovative Chashinai Railway, RSR-UK route randomisation, hi-res Watford Junction to Rugby screenshots, and server upgrades

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 1st June 2009 at 11:40 pm

The innovtive Chashinai Railway, randomisation and new development techniques for openBVE

Some of you may remember the Chashinai Railway network which was released way back in 2004, but soon after publication it was withdrawn, after controversy surrounding permissions where certain files were concerned. The fictional Japanese route network has now been significantly updated and is available again, and is now designed exclusively for » openBVE «. The route’s developer, Jens (Odakyufan), has devised some innovative new techniques which take advantage of openBVE’s capabilities, and together they introduce some exciting new possiblities for developers and users, including for example — even within a single route file — randomised time of day selection, randomly selected choice of train and service to drive, determining the probability of certain end results occuring, and more. Using if conditions and casing, it’s possible, for example, to choose which platform or siding is departed from or entered at random, provided code for each of these routing options has been written, specially prepared and added within the route file.

This is clever stuff, which presents all kinds of new possibilities for openBVE developers. Visit » Odakyufan’s website « to download the Chashinai Railway network which includes all the required trains (you need the latest openBVE v1.0.6 release), and take a look at the » development techniques and tips section « to see how randomisation and conditional pre-processing can be applied by developers creating routes for openBVE, along with ideas for improving the handling of tunnel object lighting, cab brightness and time of day. Incidentally, Jens also hopes to model a section of the well known Odakyu Odawara Line starting from Tokyo’s busy Shinjuku station, which should be fascinating due to the railway infrastructure, proximity between the line and the surrounding city and it’s roads and numerous buildings, and the object density to be depicted in such scenes.

Some atmospheric » Chashinai Railway « screenshots:

openBVE v1.0.6, Chashinai Railway (Kawarada, Ishinden Line), Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Chashinai Railway (Ashikari, Ishinden Line), Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Chashinai Railway (Minaminaka Sidings, Minaminaka Line), Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Chashinai Railway (Izumozaki North, Misaki Line), Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Chashinai Railway (Izumozaki North, Misaki Line), Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Chashinai Railway (Izumozaki South, Misaki Line), Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge

Incidentally, the situation surrounding the Chashinai Railway presents some issues to consider. It’s a route that was built using a large number of other author’s objects, and was originally made just for personal use — publishing the route wasn’t originally intended, so it’s author didn’t keep track of where each file came from. However, over time, the project evolved into something which was worth publishing, and this creative endeavour was shared with the community. The route was also notable as being one of very few Japanese styled lines developed by a European author (the only other I can recall right now, being Viktor’s fictional » BVE Garden Line «). Unfortunately, because Jens hadn’t kept track of the origin of the many files used, determining the authors of all these files at a later stage became problematic, so some work was uncredited, and not all permissions saught. Upon it’s release, some developers objected to this. Back then, the Western (English speaking) BVE community as it seems to me, was more like a microcosm of the worst aspects of international relations and ideological conflict than an ideal community at times, and soon after it’s release, despite conflicts with developers being resolved, the Chashinai Railway was withdrawn, presumably because of all the controversy it caused, and I guess Jens was put off from releasing anything into the community again for several years. Having seen the innovation, intelligence and artistic excellence which he’s now shared with us some years later–as a community–I think we’re rather lucky that he wasn’t driven away permanently by the awful, polarised atmosphere which used to dominate the community in the past (and I’m certainly not blameless where this state of affairs was concerned either); if he had left for good, then people in another field might be enjoying the fruits of his creativity instead of us, or indeed nobody else at all would be enjoying the results, and we would all be the poorer for it.

Information Icon Edit: I was going to discuss the community, my own changed attitudes towards copyright, and the role the BVE Developer Guidelines play as a part of this blog entry, and talk about whether for the good of the community in the future, they should be revised or whether they’re even needed any more. However, this entry is primarily about innovation and development techniques, so I’ll save the extended discussion until later.

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Randomisation in RSR-UK Routes

Having seen what Jens has achieved, I’m experimenting with these new innovations on my own routes as well. With Watford Junction to Rugby for example, I’m able to use the random pathing feature of » BRR « to create short alternative paths between, for example, Watford Junction and the crossovers to the north of the station, or between Hemel Hempstead and Bourne End Junction. This is the tricky part as it involves carefully setting up the .Rail related commands (or even inserting temporary crossovers) to ensure alternative paths can be selected and generated, followed by replacing .Turn commands with .Curve commands in BRR’s temporary route file output. Then, by referring to the casing technique example which Jens has provided, I can easily add all the $Sub() preprocessing commands to these code fragments via a couple of simple search and replace operations, and then copy and paste these sections into the WJ-R route file making any tweaks necessary, and add the condition and randomisation code, to allow openBVE to randomly choose whether the player starts on the fast or slow lines, or switches between them for short sections en-route. Currently this isn’t practical for longer sections of the Watford Junction to Rugby route; not really because it’s too difficult, but rather because it increases loading times too much due to the sheer number of commands I’ve used in the WJ-R route file, which takes too long to be parsed. I can also randomise the time of day chosen, along with the service and traction, and the optional display of a multitude of objects within the route. The location and types of passing trains shown can all be randomised, along with appropriate sounds, and so-on. All within a single route file and program. 🙂 The » example code « for achieving some of these things may appear complex at first, but actually it’s not so bad once you’ve tried it–naturally something like Watford to Rugby is much harder to work with as it’s so complex, so if you try it with your own route, it shouldn’t be as difficult. I’ll continue to experiment with this as my projects develop… More to come in future.

In the meantime, it occurs to me that I don’t think I’ve ever uploaded many, if any, high resolution images of Watford Junction to Rugby before, so here are a selection showing the aforementioned junctions, and a couple of others (please forgive the mixture of pre 1990s and post 2000 infrastructure at Watford…). This is still very much a work in progress, and neither the lighting or shading is refined yet. The scenery quality has fallen behind that of X-City South v1.4 in some respects now, and 2D trees are still in use at the moment as so much detailed 3D geometry has been applied to the railway infrastructure itself; with openBVE 2’s graphics engine, perhaps more will be possible though…


openBVE v1.0.6, Watford Junction to Rugby (Watford Junction)--click to enlarge
openBVE v1.0.6, Watford Junction to Rugby (Watford Junction)--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Watford Junction to Rugby (Hemel Hempstead)--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Watford Junction to Rugby (Bourne End Junction)--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Watford Junction to Rugby (Bourne End Junction)--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Watford Junction to Rugby (Near Blisworth)--click to enlarge
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Server Upgrades

Lastly, apologies if some of you were unable to access the site for a little while yesterday; my webhost was performing a scheduled hardware upgrade of the server where Rail Sim Routes UK is hosted. I’ve been very happy with the performance and speed of the server since I moved the site to the new host last November, with no problems reported to me, as far as I’m aware. However, it should perform even better and with greater reliability now after this upgrade, which I gather consists of a step up from a single to a dual Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor configuration along with a doubling of the quantity of RAM to 8GB. In the unlikely event that anyone tried to e-mail me while the server was briefly offline (sometime between 23:00 and midnight on 31st May), any messages should have still reached me, however if you think there might have been a problem, please try again just in case.

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Posted in openBVE, Site News | 1 Comment »



openBVE v1.0.6.0, Cross-City South v1.4 Updates

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 24th May 2009 at 11:50 pm

New openBVE release–v1.0.6.0

A new version of openBVE is now available, version 1.0.6.0; head over to the » openBVE homepage « to download the latest stable release. One of the three most noticeable improvements in this version (the other two being time acceleration and the ability to mute sound, more below) concerns the Smooth Transparency feature, which has been dramatically improved. If you’ve enabled this option in openBVE previously, you might have noticed that while the quality of the rendered scenes was much better with Smooth transparency enabled, occasionally, unsightly fringes appeared around some transparent textures, where translucent pixels were rendered. This was problem was also more pronounced on Cross-City South v1.4 due to the frequency with which texture transparency is used in the new scenery. This issue concerning texture transparency and the z-buffer is a complex topic which I gather not all OpenGL developers adequately address, however Michelle has found a way of solving the problem, and while the performance is a little lower than with the previous implementation (especially on routes where a very high number of polygons use texture colour transparency), the visual quality is far better, as the following comparison screenshots demonstrate (along with the new X-City South v1.4 screenshots below).

On the left, we have the » ATS-Sn/P Test route « in openBVE v1.0.5.0; click the thumbnail and note the fringes around the catenary gantry texture. On the right, we have v1.0.6.0–no such issue can be observed, and the end result is superb:

openBVE v1.0.5.0, ATS-Sn/P Test Route, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge
Smooth transparency [openBVE 1.0.5.0]
openBVE v1.0.5.0, ATS-Sn/P Test Route, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge
Smooth transparency [openBVE 1.0.6.0]

Similarly, here we have the » Chashinai Railway «:

openBVE v1.0.5.0, Chashinai Railway, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge
Smooth transparency [openBVE 1.0.5.0]
openBVE v1.0.5.0, Chashinai Railway, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge
Smooth transparency [openBVE 1.0.6.0]

For a detailed explanation about this solution, please see michelle’s » Developer’s Blog «

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Other welcome enhancements and changes in v1.0.6.0 include:

  • A time acceleration feature (Ctrl+J, switches between x1 and x5 speed);
  • The ability to mute the sound (Ctrl+M — now you can listen to music via your media player while in-game, which is quite a lot of fun when used with the time acceleration feature! 🙂 );
  • A consistent look is now achieved where fog and background images are concerned, regardless of viewing distance;
  • And more… Please see the » changelog « on the openBVE site for details.

If you’re still using openBVE v1.0.3 or 1.0.4, then after updating to the latest release, you’ll also benefit from changes which were introduced with v1.0.5, including amongst other things, a bug fix relating to odd behaviour where unwanted roll was initially applied to the external camera view, enhanced AI driver behaviour where cruising is concerned, and additions to the Doors parameter of the .Sta command.

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Cross-City South v1.4 scenery improvements

Firstly, apologies for the lack of project updates recently… Unfortunately I’ve not done quite as much as I’d hoped to in the past month. Nevertheless, I’ve been working on updating the scenery objects for Cross-City South v1.4, and this is proceeding quite well now. It’s proving to be quite time consuming, and the bulk of the work involves replacing a fair number of the previously 2D trees and bushes with more realistic partially 3D versions, allowing the scenery to look good even when the camera is panned to the side, such as when looking out of the windows, while also enabling the camera to be moved a little further away from the train in the external view without the scenery looking unrealistic. Hedgerows have also been improved, not just the trees.

I’m currently adding pretty highly detailed vegetation just to test performance and visual quality, but once I’m finished I’ll likely perform a batch search and replace operation on all the scenery files to reduce the number of surfaces to improve framerates a little. I’m relatively happy with how the scenery is turning out, but I have to say, it’s just a little tedious; I’ll be glad when this task is over and I can get back to the animated objects!

Here are some screenshots to show the progress so far; the scenery, lighting and shading isn’t finalised yet, but the images give a general impression of the end result I want to achieve. The trees and hedges still look a little too repetetive to me–I’ll try and improve upon this if I have time… All screenshots depict the route at 1280×1024 resolution with 8x antialiasing, 16x anisotropic filtering, and with openBVE v1.0.6.0’s smooth transparency enabled. A fast graphics card will likely be needed for higher framerates with the latter feature in use, at least with openBVE 1’s renderer:

openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge
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I’m also experimenting with mixing both 2D and 3D trees to achieve a balance between visual quality and performance; 3D trees are placed near to the lineside, while 2D trees are placed behind these, and the overall effect looks reasonable to me; I hope you agree. It should work well, provided the player doesn’t move the camera beyond the effective scenery edge boundary which the 2D tree surfaces create–openBVE is still primarily a cab view simulator, after all. Here are some examples of the scenery testing location at Longbridge:

openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge
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I’ve also added shadows beneath the trees and OHLE masts (another feature brought in from Watford Junction to Rugby), as well as beneath hedgerows to improve the appearance of the scenery. The shadows are simply very low resolution textures, which in the interests of performance, don’t use alpha channels, just ordinary texture transparency. The low resolution of the textures provides the necessary blurring:

openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge
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Lastly, I’m also updating the pointwork so it’ll be up to the standard of Watford Junction to Rugby:

openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.6, Cross-City South v1.4, Smooth Transparency option enabled--click to enlarge
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openBVE Help Guide updated

Just in case anyone hasn’t read through the comments on my last blog entry or otherwise noticed, I updated my openBVE Help and Information Guide recently, to include instructions explaining how openBVE can be installed and used by Ubuntu Linux users, either via the Add/Remove option, or by installing and running the program via Wine (which allows BVE 4 plugin DLL equipped trains to be used in Linux). I update the guide regularly as well, so if you need any assistance with openBVE which isn’t covered elsewhere, please visit the updated guide for more information: openBVE Help and Information.

Incidentally, since I replaced the X-City South executable installer with the .7z archive, downloads have been just as frequent as before, and I’ve had no more requests for help with installing the route than usual (and I don’t get many requests for help usually); indeed someone who was a newcomer to train simulation kindly informed me that they’d managed to install openBVE, BVE4, and Cross-City South with help from the guides I’ve prepared. So I’m assuming that most of you are managing fine with the installation process. 🙂

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Posted in openBVE | 8 Comments »



Jaunty Jackalope and openBVE

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 25th April 2009 at 8:42 am

Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope” (which is a Linux distribution for any dear readers who may not be particularly au fait with the wonderful world of operating systems…), has just been released. With this version, it’s possible to install a seperately packaged, unofficial version of openBVE maintained by Paul Sladen (currently at v1.0.2.0; the » official openBVE « release is at v1.0.3.0 at the time of writing) via the ‘Applications’ > ‘Add/Remove…’ menu item (I haven’t used Kubuntu in a while and I’ve forgotten what the equivalent in KDE is). A specially prepared, public domain version of the Cross-City South route (v1.31.03) is also installed automatically when openBVE is installed via this method, along with a reduced functionality (plugin DLLs don’t work on non-Windows operating systems), public domain version of the class 323 which Steve over at » trainsimcentral « also kindly donated.

X-City South v1.31.03 is just a cut-down version of the public release available from this site, with the copyright files removed and alternative backdrops added, and fewer route files; I prepared it so that openBVE could be considered for inclusion in Ubuntu’s list of installable open source applications, as for a game engine to be accepted, it requires some equally permissively licenced game data to be supplied with it. Eventually the Ubuntu X-City South package should be identical to the official X-City South v1.4 package once it’s been released, and I hope to send any updates to Paul so the Ubuntu version is kept up-to-date; by implication, X-City South v1.4 will be entirely copyright free as well. Any copyright material, like the Birmingham New Street announcement audio files, will be available as an optional extra only.

After installing the latest ATi Catalyst drivers (and, at last, my Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics card finally works with Ubuntu), it was nice to see openBVE running in Linux myself, and with decent framerates too. The framerate in the first screenshot of XCS v1.31 was 80 fps (90 fps in Win XP), and in the third screenshot, showing XCS v1.4, 17 fps (20 fps in Win XP). The latter screenshot actually includes more animated trees than will feature in the final XCS v1.4 release though, and in-cab, I was seeing up to 30 fps):

openBVE v1.0.2.0 running in Ubuntu 9.04--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.2.0 running in Ubuntu 9.04--click to enlarge openBVE v1.0.2.0 running in Ubuntu 9.04--click to enlarge

I admit there was also some momentary fascination after I turned on Ubuntu’s “Extra” visual effects option which enables hardware accelerated graphical effects to be applied to windows, and watched my X-City South v1.4 development route carry on running at 25-30 fps while I distorted and bounced the poor helpless openBVE window around the desktop (sorry I wasn’t able to capture a screenshot, just a low quality video still):

openBVE v1.0.2.0 running in Ubuntu 9.04

I may be finding that framerates are just a bit lower than in Windows XP, but they’re still good and I enjoy using openBVE in Ubuntu instead. The application’s forms all rendered nicely although the loading and error dialogs remained visible once the SDL window was created; I’ll carry on testing it and see if I notice any other issues.

Any Windows users who might be considering trying openBVE on Ubuntu, should remember that plugin DLLs don’t work natively on non-windows operating systems, so various functions in BVE 4 trains like TPWS won’t work. For this functionality to be available in Linux, you’ll need to use openBVE with Wine instead, which isn’t quite as easy to set up (I haven’t personally had time to try it yet, but as shown in this » YouTube video of the Northern Line « for example, if you do go to the trouble, it’s well worth it).

Information Icon Edit (1st May ’09): I have tried and succeeded in getting openBVE v1.4.0.1 running with Wine and Mono 2.4 for Windows in Ubuntu since this entry was published, and it was quite easy after all. See the comments for more. 🙂

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Posted in openBVE | 11 Comments »



Platform Generator utility released

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 19th April 2009 at 7:45 am

Alan Wheeler’s new Platform Generator (Plat Gen) tool was released recently; head over to » eezypeazy.co.uk « to download this handy utility. The program creates a variety of photo-realistic customised platform segments, allowing route developers to choose the surface and side textures, create platform ramps, curved platform lengths at various radii, and more. The generated objects are placed via the .Freeobj command rather than the .Form commands. Here’s a screenshot of one of the resulting platforms at University station on the Cross-City South v1.4 route:

openBVE/Cross-City South v1.4 screenshot--click to enlarge
openBVE / Cross-City South v1.4 plus 323 screenshot

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openBVE v1.0 is here!

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 24th March 2009 at 12:26 am

openBVE LogoAfter 347 days of development, openBVE version 1.0 has now been released! Personally I think this is an incredible achievement–not only that openBVE has been created in the first place, but that it’s been created in such a short space of time, considering the complexity and difficulties inherent in undertaking such a project, some of which I’ve become familiar with while following the development of the program and helping to understand some aspects of BVE Trainsim’s behaviour. Congratulations michelle. Emoticon Smile

Head over to the » official openBVE homepage « to download the latest in the stable branch of openBVE releases. Whether you’re a developer or a user, if you only use BVE Trainsim at the moment, now would be a good time to enter the world of openBVE.

michelle has also added some additional documentation to help you find your way around the program, which you can read here: » Using openBVE «. For BVE Trainsim, I found myself having to create help pages to guide newcomers through the installation and use of BVE, so hopefully I won’t need to go to such lengths any more, as these are very comprehensive, step-by-step instructions. However, if any of you still have problems installing openBVE, or using the Cross-City South with the program, let me know and I’ll see if I can assist. Depending on feedback over the coming weeks, I’ll see if I still need to work on the “openBVE Help” section of this site with regard to add-on installation, although I’ll certainly update my Driver’s Guide and Class 323 Tutorial soon.

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Animated Exterior Car Objects

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 26th February 2009 at 10:00 pm

openBVE / X-City South screenshot - see video belowAs most of you will likely know already, » openBVE « now enables developers to use animated exterior car objects. I was pleasantly surprised by all the positive feedback and comments regarding my last video which I uploaded to YouTube (thank you!), but one criticism which was pointed out several times was the disparity between the quality of the scenic visuals, and the rather simplistic objects used to represent the class 323 EMU–the objects were fine for BVE’s passing trains, but less so when you can move the camera up close and look at the details, or lack thereof. I didn’t think it was worth spending much time on this latter aspect until animation could be applied to the exterior car objects, but now this is possible, I’ve been working on some far better 3D models for the class 323. I had hoped to get this task finished sooner, but it’s taken longer than I originally expected unfortunately–the main difficulty was getting the rounded cab looking right, and texturing it correctly. However, I’m now happy with the appearance, and so I present the work-in-progress fully 3D exterior car objects for openBVE and Cross-City South v1.4. Incidentally, as with all my openBVE/BVE objects, these models are entirely hand coded, with no “help” from 3D modelling software.

Currently the objects are rather more complex than I originally intended (so far, the entire three coach EMU contains around 8200 vertices/4900 faces), and there is a performance penalty that comes with using them; on a fairly typical BVE route, framerates should be okay, but when paired with a very highly detailed and intensively animated route such as Cross-City South v1.4, a fast PC will likely be required to enjoy both extensively detailed animated scenery and detailed external car objects with reasonable framerates. What I intend to do, for those of you with slower hardware, is release alternative versions of the exterior car objects with lower polygon counts, and because of the way I’ve created the textures, the end result should still look good despite less complex geometry. Even these lower detail versions will be rather better than the previous objects though. Emoticon Smile So ultimately, if framerates are a problem, you can simply choose either richly detailed scenery, or richly detailed train objects, depending on which is more important to you.

Currently, the models include the following standard animated features:

  • Rotating wheelsets including wheelslip effects (with provision for animated suspension, and bogie rotation should such functionality be possible in future)
  • Bi-parting, sliding plug doors (some issues with door open/close sound synchronisation–see below)
  • Moving window reflections (twin-layered with transparency, to create a parallax effect)

The models also include the following animated features linked to plugin (UKMUt.dll) variables:

  • Windscreen wipers (left/right sweep, plus arc motion; the wipers aren’t perfect–see below)
  • Head and tail lights (both ends of train)
  • Interior lights (on or off via pantograph up/down button)
  • LED destination display with flicker (on or off via pantograph up/down button)
  • Working pantograph (all illuminated features also extinguish when pantograph is lowered)

I’ve also prepared another video to show these features. Please note, the 3D objects aren’t finished yet; some textures need updating, and I’ve yet to add interior fittings. Developers might want to continue reading on, as I’ll explain how some of these animations have been implemented, and share some sample code from the .ANIMATED objects.

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Video: Demonstration of class 323 animated exterior car objects (work-in-progress)

» Link to YouTube page (HD – best quality) «
» Link to YouTube page (High Quality) «

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I also thought you might like to see a high resolution image of Cross-City South v1.4 and the new high detail class 323; in this screenshot, I’m running openBVE fullscreen at a resolution of 1280×1024, with 8x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering enabled (on a Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics card). Bilinear interpolation was enabled in openBVE’s settings, with the Transparency mode set to Sharp. I was getting around 16-19 fps at the time; the framerates in the next version of openBVE will hopefully be a little higher due to performance optimisations where animated object normals are concerned, although this gain may be offset by the addition of more animated scenery objects to the route:


openBVE/Cross-City South v1.4 screenshot--click to enlarge

openBVE / Cross-City South v1.4 plus 323 screenshot–click to enlarge

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Rotating Wheelsets
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openBVE / Class 323 screenshot - please see video above

The first things I tried to animate were the wheelsets. Initially I had difficulty getting this to work as anticipated, and observed unexpected results while using the Speedometer variable, i.e. the resulting wheelset rotation appeared as though it were based upon acceleration rate rather than an actual velocity value (and » Ron « found the same when he first tried to animate wheelsets, it would seem). I usually like to try and figure out solutions to such problems myself, but sadly I’m not the reincarnation of Pierre de Fermat, and as such, my mathematical knowledge was insufficient. Fortunately, a way forward could be found over at the » openBVE Japanese « site, which includes some helpful material covering animated objects and functions. The following function can be used to rotate each wheelset:

RotateXFunction = value + mod [(speedometer * delta), 2.765] / 2.765 * 3.14 * 2

Incidentally, 2.765 is the circumference of the wheel. The above formula works perfectly, but initially I wondered if it was more complicated than it needed to be, so I attempted to find a more simple alternative, and somehow arrived at the following formula, where the value 0.05949986086344 results from (pi / 0.88) / 60, where 0.88 is the diameter of the wheel:

Not goodRotateXFunction = value + speedometer * 0.05949986086344

Initially this seemed to work well, but on closer examination, the end result wasn’t as good as the more complex formula because the rate of rotation varies with the framerate, and I observed no difference in performance between the two anyway.

CorrectUpdate

Thanks to a certain mathematically adept someone, I now have a new formula which is better in terms of performance and ease of use:

CorrectRotateXFunction = value + delta * speedometer / WHEEL_RADIUS_IN_METRES
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Animated Doors
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openBVE / Class 323 screenshot - please see video above

The bi-parting sliding plug doors are comprised of a pair of 3D door objects, which slide forwards and backwards via a translation along the Z axis, with values supplied via the left/rightdoors[i] variables, e.g:

Right door animation (Updated):

[Object]
Position = 0.002, 0, -5.552
States = Class323_Door_2_R_Dark.csv, Class323_Door_2_R.csv
TranslateZFunction = rightdoors[0] + 0.864
TranslateXFunction = min[power[10 * (rightdoors[0] – 0.1), 3] + 1, 1] * 0.05
StateFunction = pluginstate[31]

[Object]
Position = 0.002, 0, -6.417
States = Class323_Door_2a_R_Dark.csv, Class323_Door_2a_R.csv
TranslateZFunction = -rightdoors[0] + 0.864
TranslateXFunction = min[power[10 * (rightdoors[0] – 0.1), 3] + 1, 1] * 0.05
StateFunction = pluginstate[31]

Left door animation:

[Object]
Position = -0.002, 0, -5.552
States = Class323_Door_2_L_Dark.csv, Class323_Door_2_L.csv
TranslateZFunction = leftdoors[0] + 0.864
TranslateXFunction = -min[power[10 * (leftdoors[0] – 0.1), 3] + 1, 1] * 0.05
StateFunction = pluginstate[31]

[Object]
Position = -0.002, 0, -6.417
States = Class323_Door_2a_L_Dark.csv, Class323_Door_2a_L.csv
TranslateZFunction = -leftdoors[0] + 0.864
TranslateXFunction = -min[power[10 * (leftdoors[0] – 0.1), 3] + 1, 1] * 0.05
StateFunction = pluginstate[31]

The StateFunction command is there to switch between illuminated and non-illuminated versions of the door objects, and pluginstate[31] is equivalent to the ats31 subject in the class 323’s panel2.cfg file (when used with Simon Gathercole’s UKMUt.dll), i.e. the Line Light indicator (so the lights appear to go out when the pantograph is lowered). The objects are also translated along the X axis so they “plug” into the bodyside when fully closed. Unfortunately the door open and close sounds aren’t fully synchronised with the door motion; with UK trains, warning beeps are heard before the doors actually start to close, but the beeps are contained within the door closing audio file, and of course the visible doors start to close as soon as the beeping starts. The duration of the door opening motion is also shorter than the duration of the door opening audio files. I haven’t tried having door animation controlled via plugin variables yet; when I have time I’ll look into this further.

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Animated Window Reflections
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openBVE / Class 323 screenshot - please see video above

The window reflections are made from two semi-transparent surfaces, which have texture shifting functions applied, based upon the current speed of the train, e.g:

Window reflection animation:

[Object]
Position = 0, 0, 0
States = ..\Class323_DMSO_1_WindowReflections.csv
TextureShiftXFunction = value + speed * 0.001

[Object]
Position = 0, 0, 0
States = ..\Class323_DMSO_1_WindowReflections_bg.csv
TextureShiftXFunction = value + speed * 0.0001

There’s a foreground reflection texture with transparency, showing near-track bushes, and there’s also a background reflection texture, showing a low resolution version of the backdrop (ground and sky) texture, and this surface’s texture is shifted more slowly than the foreground texture, creating a rather nice parallax effect when the train is in motion. The overall effect looks rather good in my opinion, but of course, if the reflection textures depict a Summer scene, but the train is used on a Winter route with snow, it looks a little silly…

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Interior Illumination
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openBVE / Class 323 screenshot - please see video above

Interior lighting strips, along with interior fittings and additional semi-transparent yellow surfaces to lighten the windows when viewed from outside at night (allowing adequate night-lighting effects while still being able to have daytime window reflections), are displayed when the pantograph is raised, and swapped for non-emissive versions when the pan is lowered, so it’s possible to turn the carriage lights on and off. When the pantograph is lowered, all exterior lights are also state-changed or translated so they appear to extinguish, and won’t illuminate until the pantograph is raised again. This is achieved using if[pluginstate[31] ... ] commands, as demonstrated in the next section.

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Animated Pantograph
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openBVE / Class 323 screenshot - please see video above

The pantograph itself can be visibly raised and lowered, with the head having a Y axis translation applied, and the upper and lower arms having X axis rotation, along with Y and Z axis translation applied. The pantograph animation is conditional upon the state of the value of plugin variable 31, or the ats31 subject in the class 323’s panel2.cfg. The code I’ve written which enables this is as follows (since updated on the 5th July 2009, thanks to a post by michelle herself):

Pantograph animation (updated 5th July 2009):

[Object]
Position = 0, 4.24, 9.071
States = ..\Pantograph_BWHS_Head.csv
TranslateYFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 0, if[value > -0.97, value – delta * 0.49, -0.97], if[value < 0, value + delta * 0.49, 0]]

[Object]
Position = 0, 4.24, 9.071
States = ..\Pantograph_BWHS_UpperArm.csv
TranslateYFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 0, if[value > -0.45, value – delta * 0.225, -0.45], if[value < 0, value + delta * 0.225, 0]]
RotateXFunction =     if[pluginstate[31] == 0, if[value > -0.29, value – delta * 0.145, -0.29], if[value < 0, value + delta * 0.145, 0]]
TranslateZFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 0, if[value < 0.06, value + delta * 0.03, 0.06], if[value > 0, value – delta * 0.03, 0]]

[Object]
Position = 0, 4.24, 9.071
States = ..\Pantograph_BWHS_LowerArm.csv
TranslateYFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 0, if[value > -0.45, value – delta * 0.225, -0.45], if[value < 0, value + delta * 0.225, 0]]
RotateXFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 0, if[value < 0.27, value + delta * 0.135, 0.27], if[value > 0, value – delta * 0.135, 0]]
TranslateZFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 0, if[value < 0.06, value + delta * 0.03, 0.06], if[value > 0, value – delta * 0.03, 0]]

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Animated Wipers and Working Headlights
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openBVE / Class 323 screenshot - please see video above

The windscreen wipers aren’t as good as I’d like them to be yet; when the if[pluginstate[i] ... ] conditions are satisfied and the truevalue formulae are executed, the wipers can jump to a position mid-sweep rather than starting to move from their currently held position. The same problem can happen when switching the wipers off as well, although the way I’ve implemented it, the wipers will stop in whatever position they are in when the wipers are turned off. More work needed here… Each wiper is comprised of two arms, and a wiper blade. The code so far, is as follows:

Wiper animation (code for left wiper only; reverse the signs of each occurrence of ‘power[]’ for the right wiper, excluding the one in the last TranslateYFunction command):

[Object]
States = ..\Class323_DMSO_Wiper_L_1.csv
Position = -0.56, 2.27, 0
RotateZFunction = if[pluginstate[198] > 0, power[1 – abs[cos[time]], 0.5] * 1.3, value]

[Object]
States = ..\Class323_DMSO_Wiper_L_1a.csv
Position = -0.5, 2.27, 0
RotateZFunction = if[pluginstate[198] > 0, power[1 – abs[cos[time]], 0.5] * 1.3, value]

[Object]
States = ..\Class323_DMSO_Wiper_L_1b.csv
Position = -0.55, 2.28, 0
TranslateXFunction = if[pluginstate[198] > 0, -power[1 – abs[cos[time]], 0.5] * 0.73, value]
TranslateYFunction = if[pluginstate[198] > 0, power[sin[time * 2], 2] * 0.13, value]

The last TranslateYFunction command moves the wiper blade up and down at the correct speed, which when combined with the X axis translation, creates the overall effect of an arc movement rather than a simple left-right motion.

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The head (and tail) lights are linked to the proving lights in the cab (the ats20 and ats21 subjects in the class 323’s panel2.cfg). Each headlight configuration has it’s own csv object. The headlights will only be illuminated when the pantograph is also raised (dependent on the state of plugin variable 31, or the ats31 subject in panel2.cfg). When the tail lights at one end of the train are on, they automatically turn off at the other end of the train. For the rear of the train, the headlights can only illuminate if the tail lights are also off. The code which enables all of this is as follows (please note, I’m presenting two alternative ways of implementing the lights on the leading vehicle, the reason why can be found below):

Head and tail lights:

Class323_DMSO_1.animated (lead vehicle) OPTION 1

[Object]
States = ..\null.csv, ..\Class323_Headlights_0.csv, ..\Class323_Headlights_1.csv, ..\Class323_Headlights_2.csv
Position = 0, 0, 0
RotateYFunction = 3.1416
StateFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 1, pluginstate[20], 0]

[Object]
States = ..\null.csv, ..\Class323_Taillights_1.csv
Position = 0, 0, 0
RotateYFunction = 3.1416
StateFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 1, pluginstate[21], 0]

Class323_DMSO_1.animated (lead vehicle) OPTION 2

[Object]
States = ..\Class323_Headlights_0.csv
Position = 0, 0, 0
RotateYFunction = 3.1416
TranslateYFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 1, if[pluginstate[20] == 1, 0, -600], -600]

[Object]
States = ..\Class323_Headlights_1.csv
Position = 0, 0, 0
RotateYFunction = 3.1416
TranslateYFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 1, if[pluginstate[20] == 2, 0, -600], -600]

[Object]
States = ..\Class323_Headlights_2.csv
Position = 0, 0, 0
RotateYFunction = 3.1416
TranslateYFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 1, if[pluginstate[20] == 3, 0, -600], -600]

[Object] States = ..\Class323_Taillights_1.csv
Position = 0, 0, 0
RotateYFunction = 3.1416
TranslateYFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 1, if[pluginstate[21] == 1, 0, -600], -600]

Class323_DMSO_3.animated (rear vehicle)

[Object]
States = ..\null.csv, ..\Class323_Headlights_0.csv, ..\Class323_Headlights_1.csv, ..\Class323_Headlights_2.csv
Position = 0, 0, 0
StateFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 1, if[pluginstate[21] == 1, pluginstate[20], 0], 0]

[Object]
States = ..\Class323_Taillights_1.csv, ..\null.csv
Position = 0, 0, 0
StateFunction = if[pluginstate[31] == 1, if[pluginstate[31] == 1, pluginstate[21], 0], 1]

In Option 1 above, the lead vehicle’s headlights are changed using StateFunction commands alone. This method works fine, but the first time each state is changed to, you’ll see the object’s texture isn’t loaded until a fraction of a second after the object is displayed, leading to a flash of colour which is a little distracting. Using Option 2 gets around this issue however, because the headlight objects and textures are always loaded upon swtiching to an external view, and are displayed by translating the relevant object along the Y axis instead, conditional upon the value read via the pluginstate[i] variable. As these textures are always loaded in an external view, StateFunction commands alone can be used in the rear vehicle.

Incidentally, the RotateYFunction = 3.1416 lines simply rotate the relevant objects 180° around the Y axis (the value is in radians, rather than degrees).

What I need to do next, is add interior fittings such as seats, luggage racks, LCD TV screens, and so-on. I might make some more progress with the route itself instead though, as to be honest I could do with a break from modelling the minutiae of train objects for a while. Emoticon Smile

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Superelevation, Flashing Aspects, Animated Points, and Station Signs

Posted by Anthony Bowden on 23rd December 2008 at 10:00 pm

I’ve been continuing with some more cosmetic updates for Cross-City South v1.4, and I’m in the process of adding superelevated track, transition curves and lead-in/lead-out track objects to enable smooth changes from level to canted track. With » Watford Junction to Rugby «, which already includes superelevated track objects and lead in/out objects, I’d adopted a system where curved track objects with 35mm, 70mm and 125mm cants were modelled, with a set of lead-in/out transition objects going from 0-35mm, 35-70mm and 70-125mm at varying curve radii, which enabled a nice, gradual increase or decrease in cant within a curve. These lead in/out objects are placed not as .Rail objects, but as .FreeObjects, and are used in conjunction with one of several invisible null rails which each have a different run sound, such that I don’t need to add too many new railtypes to cover all the possible combinations of run sound and required canted transition curve objects. This technique still results in quite a number of FreeObjects however.

While looking at the » ATS-Sn/P Test Route «, I was impressed by the appearance of the superelevated track and transition curves, which I felt were better than my attempts, and while looking at how the author achieved such a good result, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the technique used is actually more straightforward and efficient than that which I’d adopted, with just a simple pair of straight, left/right lead-in and lead-out objects used. I’ve trialled this on the Cross-City South, and I’m pleased with the results on the sharper curves, although for larger radius, higher speed curves, I’ll retain graduated 0-70mm and 70-125mm canted transition curve objects:

openBVE screenshot (Cross-City South v1.4 WIP) openBVE screenshot (Cross-City South v1.4 WIP)
– Please note that the grass and terrain textures are only temporary

I’ve also been experimenting with the signalling functionality recently introduced into openBVE’s » animated object format «. I’ve now implemented flashing aspects which are used on the approaches to the 60 mph and 70 mph crossovers between the fast and slow lines on the WCML’s New Ledburn and Hanslope Junctions, respectively. I’ve also incorporated lens hoods which become illuminated according to the aspect displayed by these new signal objects, and these look better than the standard flat bitmaps usually used to represent signal aspects in BVE.

Jason Morgan, one of the people we can thank for introducing BVE to Western railsim users several years ago, asked me whether or not it would be possible to have animated points linked to a signal, such that the blades moved to the correct position prior to the signal clearing, for example, while the player’s train is waiting in a passing loop before being cleared to rejoin the main line. Indeed this is possible, either by making the point blade position depend upon the state of a section, or by making the animation functions conditional, for example, by basing them upon the distance from the set of points to the player’s train. When basing the point blade position upon a section state, this can be done simply with the aid of a .Pretrain command, such that the point blades move as the signal changes from red. However, by using a .Section 0;2;3;4;5 command (UK routes with 4 aspect signals usually use .Section 0;2;3;4), and a specially modified animated signal object which displays an aspect sequence of Red > Red > Yellow > Double Yellow > Green, the point blades can move prior to the signal aspect appearing to change from red, which looks more prototypical. This is only suitable when the player arrives at the signal while it’s associated section state is still 0 (red), however.

As part of the experiment, I created some fully animated point objects, which include moving point blades, stretcher bars, backdrive assemblies, linkages and levers. » openBVE’s « rotation damping functions also enable a rather nice motion of the point blades, which looks quite realistic. Both conventional and High Performance Switch System (HPSS) points are modelled.

Important note: Currently, trains in openBVE follow a single path throughout a route as with BVE Trainsim (based on Rail 0), with this one path coded in the route file which cannot be changed en-route. Therefore, these points are cosmetic only!

Download openBVE / Watford Junction to Rugby video - please use the YouTube links to the rightVideo: Demonstration of working 3D bulb and LED signals, flashing apects, and animated pointwork

Note: this video is now included as part of a compilation on YouTube.

« [YouTube “High Quality” version] | [YouTube “High Definition” version]

Stephen Cross has also kindly created a set of station sign textures for use in Cross-City South v1.4, so I’ll be creating a new set of objects allowing the actual station names to be displayed on signs at each station on the route:

openBVE screenshot (Cross-City South v1.4 WIP)

I’ll also create some new lampost objects for the stations, as the existing ones look, well lets be honest, terrible. Emoticon Smile If I have time, I’ll update the route to include London Midland textures as well, although this isn’t a priority for me at the moment.

Finally, I’d like to wish visitors to Rail Sim Routes UK a very Happy Christmas! Emoticon Smile

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Posted in openBVE | 16 Comments »