How High Can We Go?

[BigVern]

Was just musing whether anyone has hit any limits on terrain height in RS? I believe both MSTS and TRS had some sort of altitude cap which meant if you felt expansive and decided to have a go at, oh let's say the Central of Peru you were in trouble. Either because the sim can't go that high or can't extend the difference in height between the plains and the summit. In the case of Peru the Galera summit tunnel under Mount Meiggs is at 4,783m/15,692 ft and the surrounding peaks even higher.

Is RS the first sim that would allow an intrepid route builder to have a serious attempt at modelling part of this route? Quite what the AI and/or despatcher would make of all those zig-zags and turnbacks is another matter!

Also, strange to relate, Google Earth actually appears to have higher resolution data following another interesting Peruvian route - Huancayo to Huancavelica - than it does for western Canada following the former BC line.

[rgarber]

The great thing about RS is you can do vistas. A vista being a wide open viewing area. With msts vistas were a nightmare for two reasons. First, you had to place things strategically meaning you tried to creat the impression there was more there than there really was. Every tile had to be thought out carefully to keep the tile count down and minimize stutter. And second, because of this vistas took a long time to do. With RS vistas don't concern me on either count. What does concern me is draw distance. Much of the default stuff disappears quickly and then what's worse, it's as if there is some kind of built in LOD for all things making long distance views look lo-res. I find picture taking awfully difficult to do unless I do close-in shots. So I think any appeciable distance can be problematic in RS. What I also don't know if this LOD thing is hard coded into the game or if it's a matter of a blueprint adjustment.

[BigVern]

From pictures I've seen of the FCC(?) much of the zigzag sections are up steep canyon walls so I guess that limits the FOV somewhat. However it's one prototype which might benefit from a custom texture set given the default rock textures are not the best...

I guess the only way to be sure is take off and nuke the site from orbit.

Err...hang on, brain reboot.

Only way to be sure is to do a blueprint and see how the terrain comes out. Biggest problem might be holey DEM but there are ways around that.

[longbow]

What I also don't know if this LOD thing is hard coded into the game or if it's a matter of a blueprint adjustment.

Object LOD distances are adjustable with the latest version of RSTools. MIP distances can be changed to reduce premature texture blurring by editing the object's GeoPcDx file.

For the default stuff I'd wait to see if these issues get fixed in RW.