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Clarendon route update

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The Snap

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Excellent news Dennis. Will run the route when I can, but from the screenies I've seen, I'm sure it will be amazing!
 

Nitro

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Ooooh off to download now. Looks like another cracking update Dennis :p
 

TAS

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Great route, I enjoyed driing it. The route just gets better. :thumbrig:
Thomas
 

Dennis

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dennis63uk said:
I get a error trying to download the clarendon route update.
Error
Line: 10
Char: 1
Error: 'dragObj' is undefined
Code: 0
N


Hmmm...never heard of that error, I won't pretend to know anything about this side of things (as you might have guessed from the website) but it should download just by double clicking the zip file icon.
 

nutter

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WWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are a :angel13: . I have just driven the first two stations and was blown back by it. What a standard. Well done. I just can't wait to see what the 'little surprise' will be as this is just fantastic. Well done indeed
 

nutter

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It looks like you haven't installed it properly. It tells you on his website the directory you need to copy the folder to. If that dosen't work, try re-downloading it as it may be a corrupt download
 

andrewmay

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I really like this route. You have captured the atmosphere of night driving perfectly with all the lighting effects being spot on. Very well done and look forward to more routes from you.
 

Coxster

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DVN - by the looks of things you have not put the night objects into the correct place.
 

devon_metro

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Coxster said:
DVN - by the looks of things you have not put the night objects into the correct place.

after looking at installation it appears i put them in the right place but renamed the folder by mistake!

Fantastic route, great driving!
 

Nick

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Looks good, thanks to Dennis for the equation worker outer device...very useful!
 

Gareth Hale

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I like the route, but, its impossible to see anything, Not sure its my GPU but the cab of the '170' doesnt light up.
 

ChrisCooper

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It's a problem with BVE4 that means that when the ambient light command is used to adjust the lighting level of objects and scenary, it also effects the lighting of the cab aswell. Unlike when the brightness command is used, for example when in a tunnel, it doesn't do this by fading to the night cab which has the instruments lit up, it just darkens whatever cab image is set to be shown. Unlike with the objects though, which if using the .X file format can be set to have emmisive lighting (light they give out, but it also gives the impression of light reflecting from sources such as the train headlights), their is no setting like this for the cab it seems, so it just goes dark. The only way around it is to use the old BVE 2 method of having specially created dark objects, and using fog to reduce visability. I have been experimenting with night effects for my route though, and have found that by turning off directional lighting [ .directionallight 0; 0; 0, ] (this stops the light level varying depending on the angle of the train to the light source) , setting ambient light to around 100-150 (it does vary depending on people's monitor settings) and having the night cab showing (so the instruments themselves light up) it can give a good night effect but with enough view of the iinstruments to drive by, as long as the room is fairly dark. Hopefully this issue will be solved in later versions to allow proper use of the directional and ambient lighting without making driving very difficult.
 

Dennis

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When I first started making the night route I was getting a bit disheartened at the poor effects I was getting using just ambient/directional lighting and dark fog, while OK the results were just not realistic enough.

In the end I used Photoshop to light any objects that needed it, turned the ambient light right down and had just a little directional light with a some black fog. By making use of the emissivity (and to a much lesser extent) specular reflectance possible with .x files, I found the results were much better (although cab lighting is an issue).

When I first drove the route in a dark room (which was quite a way into its development) I was amazed by the effects achieved. As with any route, there are deficiencies (and it's not the most exciting run) but I thought it worth putting into the PD as an example of what can be achieved.

You would not drive a car with the interior light on so don't drive a night route with the light on!
 

dennis63uk

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Eccles, Greater Manchester
Dennis said:
When I first started making the night route I was getting a bit disheartened at the poor effects I was getting using just ambient/directional lighting and dark fog, while OK the results were just not realistic enough.

In the end I used Photoshop to light any objects that needed it, turned the ambient light right down and had just a little directional light with a some black fog. By making use of the emissivity (and to a much lesser extent) specular reflectance possible with .x files, I found the results were much better (although cab lighting is an issue).

When I first drove the route in a dark room (which was quite a way into its development) I was amazed by the effects achieved. As with any route, there are deficiencies (and it's not the most exciting run) but I thought it worth putting into the PD as an example of what can be achieved.

You would not drive a car with the interior light on so don't drive a night route with the light on!


How i am suppose to see the keys on my keyboard in the dark :(
 

Bill EWS

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10 Feb 2006
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Didcot
Hi Dennis,
I appreciated your comments to the Richwell subsidiary problem. Hopefully it will work properly before long. However, my main comment here is with your day and night routes for Clarendon. From experience of the real situation you have caught the night mood extremely well and it brings back memories of driving in such conditions with twinkling stars and points of light here and there to catch your eye. Finding stations too is made harder and you have to use your route knowledge more fully.

I once had a passenger come up and ask if he could have a cab ride, which I granted and as we sailed away from Marylebone station a thick fog rolled in and my route knowledge started working big time and as we rolled into the inky darkness he went very quiet. When we came out of St John's Wood tunnel I put the light on and he was crunched up in a frightened position, in the secondman seat and when I asked him what the problem was he said 'How do you know where you are"? "Route knowledge" I replied. He was very frightened most of the way to High Wycombe and everytime I put the brake on he would nervously ask 'Whats that for, I don't see anything". Thankfully by the end of the trip he did start to enjoy the experience and was disppointed to leave the cab. He had been traveling the route for over 40 years too and from work and had never seen it from the cab. As he was retiring in a few weeks he took a chance to ask for a cab ride. Hopefully it stayed in his memory. Just as well it wasn't an HST!
In those days the DMU's at Marylebone weren't fitted with AWS never mind TPWS and were mainly semaphore signals, with the usual 'black' paraffin in the reservours. Thick fog is an all year round ocurrance in that area.

--------------------------

Is it possible to make the cab lights a shade brighter in your night route? They really wouldn't be that dull, especially with a new unit such as the 170's etc. I realise this may not be possible with the restrictions within BVE but I think if the blacks were a shade darker and the lights a shade brighter it would be more realistic. Your eyes really get used to the darkness and there is still a fair bit of detail around.

I also wonder about that 'fixed' distant signal as you approach the mainline. It is just about acceptable in the day route but for a passenger route I am not sure if this is acceptable and a working semaphore or MAS signal would be better as this would be tied in with the stop signal and controlled by the mainline signal box or Panel. Afterall, you are running straight onto a fast mainline. Likewise, especially with the passenger route, this would be signalled in both directions and the route would have a far more expensive signalling system than for a single line freight route. I don't recall seeing any backs of signals! Or perhaps it is just too dark!! An interesting affect is that with MAS you get a yellow, green or red glow in the immediate surroundings, which may be a good idea for a future update, if BVE allows it.

On your day route I feel that you should have a ground signal or a stop board ahead of the train showing at the start. A ground signal gives the driver a number of commands which they will take into account with the type of route it is. The main one is, that you drive forward at caution and are prepared to stop short of any obstruction (Another train perhaps, or wagons) an/or be prepared for the main signal to be 'on'. Most ground signals are known as 'permissive' which means that other movements can be taking place up ahead, you could even move up to the rear of the train preceeding you. This then leads you up to what should be the start of the 'Branch' proper, where you should receive another signal, be it a semapore starter or an MAS with a single yellow to take you up to the main junction signal.

By the way, I have a Cl66 on your route. You don't see many, if any, Cl37's on Power Station coal trains these days, as the remaining ones probably don't have slow speed control and/or require double-heading, except maybe in Scotland and I note that the BVE v4 Cl37 is indeed a Scottish one, so that may well be acceptable. Mostly today it would be a Cl66, with the ocassional Cl60 (Its a pity there isn't a v4 Cl60, that would be nice). The 60's are far superior to the 66's but suffer from the 60 mph maximum speed, but they will pull anything a 66 can, and better. Few EWS drivers care for the 66's, but sadly they are stuck with them, probably for the rest of their careers. However, the v4 66 is an excellent effort and very realistic.

I understand what you mean about a power station run-round train being quite boring for a BVE driver, but it was seldom boring in real life as there is so much going on around you too keep your attention, as my photographs show and, you got to know the place in all seasons and weather conditions. During a break we could go into the Power station mess room and have a chat with the lads or go below the coal hoppers and watch the coal being conveyed to the main heap. Why, we even got to know the Rabbits by their first names!!! All missing from BVE, I'm afraid. But it would certainly be interesting to see such a route working. Perhaps you could have a train start off for a while then be able to jump to the end of the run and take the train up to the main outlet signal where you would have relief! The Bo'ness branch allows you to jump to the front of the cab for a return journey, perhaps that coud work for jumping to the end of unloading as mentioned!

Well, that's my little grumble in regards your day and night routes, but other than that you have done a nice job in producing them. If there is anything I can help with in regard to signalling for future updates please feel free to ask.

Thanks again for the Clarendon route, it has a great Midland feel about it.

Bill EWS.
 

heart-of-wessex

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Clarendon is brilliant dennis!! done the 37 day route (the fast one) but lacks realism at the junction off the Berkley branch as the AWBs are well too close, i know route knowledge would help with it but in real would be far off than that though, other than that it runs ok :D

Drove the night 37 Weedkilling train, warnings of keeping quiet at 4 in the morning, forget that, thrash into full notch at every town, wake up ya lazy sods! :P lol

had to drive it at night with the light off to see obviously and made it realistic! however i found my eyes burning more when i switched back to the bright desktop! lol!

good route dennis, hope to see more routes/diagrams on that line soon!


James.
 

The Snap

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Nick said:
Looks good, thanks to Dennis for the equation worker outer device...very useful!

Yes, I use that, it is very, very useful! :)

Bill, if you are meaning whether you can make the light beams from the front of the train more visible, no. I don't think you can make the light beams visible at all at this point. Maybe that is something for Mackoy to consider for BVE5.
 

Dennis

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Thanks for all the feedback,

I'll try and answer some of the points raised -

:blah5:
Brightness issues - this is to some extent display dependent; on my laptop I need to turn the brightness right down to get it to look right. If the ambient light in the route was set higher, things in the distance (like fields) would become to prominent. Bit of idleness on my part for not creating more textures to suit a wider range of different lighting conditions.

If the route is too dark to view properly, edit the route file to increase the ambient light -

Route.ambientlight 16;16;18, <<change these values higher>>
This will also increase cab brightness.

:blah5:
Signalling issues - I agree that the fixed distant board before joining the mainline is completely inappropriate and a normal YG signal would be better suited.

The single lines are signalled in both directions although in the back direction there are fewer signals, no AWS ramps and some of the TPWS loops are misplaced.

:blah5:
AWB's at the junction off the mainlne might well be too close to the restriction - any guidance on siting these would be useful.

:blah5:
traction - not much choice at the moment, with only classes 37 and 66 being available specifically for BVE 4. No reaon why BVE 2 locos cannot be used; in the 1988 scenario lack of TPWS is not an issue and imagine the AWS has been isolated (not certain this was allowed mind).

:blah5:
lighting - light beams emanating from the headlights (and from streetlights etc) would only be visible when misty / foggy. I did have a go at creating these effects using glowing semi-transparent textures. Not a great success as there was a lot of flickering the way I did it. For the night runs, many of the objects have been illuminated using a combination of Photoshop and the capabilities of .x files. A lot more could have been done (diffuse glow around signals being just one example) but as I had no idea how well recieved the night runs would be, I did not want to spend too long on it.

I would like to think I have demonstrated what is possible in terms of night routes; I am currently working on a short extension (which will be night only), but once thats done I intend continuing with the Devizes line.

If anyone wants to create more scenarios and publish them feel free to do so, after all I never got around to publishing any runs with rain in, or request stops, engineering work, thick fog, semi-fast passengers etc etc.
 

Bill EWS

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Sorry Dennis, I should have explained more positively. I meant the cab desk lights, to make them a little brighter and making the ambiance of the cab a little darker. That's if BVE allows. I know getting these night scenes has been very difficult and appreciate if these can't be changed. Just wondered if it was possible.

I take it, seeing that you can't show headlight spread, you won't be able to show any signal light spread either. That's answered that, thanks.

Your Devises line will be interesting. I just remember the track and junctions being in at the Woodburgh and Holt Jct ends when we used to work to Westbury via Reading and also from Swindon and the Melksham lines in the 60's.

Bill EWS.
 
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