Solving the mystery of the black sky

[SAR704]

Somehow I've managed to create an abominable mess in my route, relating to the sky. In the last few days, I've tinkered a bit with the time of day files to optimise the sunrise and sunset phases with times appropriate for this part of the world. Somehow, i managed to not back up the route properties xml file in the content folder, and an inadvertent change in this file saw TS2013 failing to start. Not knowing what to fix, I saved the .bin file containing my changes to the time of day, as well as the content folder files and set up a new route with fresh blueprints.

For some reason, exporting the time of day blueprint used to cause a black screen in my route, and I could only make changes by editing the (name of TOD blueprint).bin file in the assets/time of day folder. Now exporting the blueprint seems to work, but there is a black sky where blue is supposed to be in the route. Checking all references to the blueprint, and exporting GreatNortherner's sky textures and skydome models from the source folder seems to do nothing to fix it. Instead, I get a flickering sky which looks as though the game is trying to load two skies, or sky domes at once. Railworks obviously detects the blueprint file, or there would not be the flickering in the sky. So an incorrect path might be something that I can rule out. I've also ruled out graphics card issues, as all other routes have a normal textured sky

Exporting the blueprint without the textures referenced still results in a black sky. In an attempt to fix it, I resorted to a back up .bin file and copied the text into the current file in the time of day folder. This used to resolve any problems that I inadvertently created. However, I still get a black sky after copying this 'clean' block of text. I have a feeling that RW depends on several files to tell it what time of day files it needs to use, but I seem to have exhausted all avenues in getting to bottom of this problem.

There seems to be some gaps in the information in regards to creating TOD blueprints. Do they actually have to have textures listed where it asks for them (Such as dome mesh, dome tex etc)? Or is it safe to leave this blank? Does RW refer to a default skydome/texture set if one does this?

[artimrj]

I had a black sky and white ground and discovered it was my video settings. If you DO NOT have Anti Aliasing set to APPLICATION CONTROLEED, you get a black sky and white ground. Dont know if that is your problem, but you might want to check it out.

[PapaXpress]

You may have clobbered where its picking up the skydome. When working on a new Time of Day and Skydome for RCAP I ran into this problem as well.

[SAR704]

Good old Railworks.....

After nearly a week, my route seems to be at the point now where I can actually think about plonking down some track. After looking in every xml/bin file that matters, the source of my initial problem turned out to be a dodgy entry in one of the files, caused by putting environment\ in front of the time of day file reference line. For some reason, I'd put the TimeOfDay folder in the Environment folder in the source folder, thinking this was where it went. After all, it seemed logical. Following the inevitable confusion, i eventually moved it back to where it belonged at the source, and corrected the xml/bin files. Yet it still didn't seem to work. Some more fiddling, and finally I saw a blue sky in my route.

After that, the real fun started. Ended up renaming the route due to a change of plans, and made some changes to the source files to reflect this. Some complications arose, and ended up throwing out the very tiny amount of work I had done on it. Copied to old stuff from the previous folder in content, and this seemed to work. Except then i realised that the appropriate track rule wasn't selected. Fixed this, and went to enable markers. Nothing happened. investigated, and everything had supposedly exported correctly. Except there were issues with the new build of the route. Threw it out, went back to the source, and rebuilt the vital files. More of the same, then noticed that the origin long/lat files from an earlier track laying endeavour had gotten mixed up with this one, and sent the start location 75 miles away. Played with the route properties xml, and the xml in templateroutes to correct this. Nothing happened. Went into the sim, and sent the free roam marker 75 miles away from where it was. Saved and reloaded. All good. Laid first bit of track, error message. So cleared out scenario folder and reloaded. Back to being in the middle of nowhere. Just great. Further investigation discovered my blunder.

Another rebuild from the template and corrected this. Went to load markers, and couldn't figure why they weren't loading. Decided to generate some DEM data after tiring of this funny business. The actual generation of terrain lasted about 2 seconds before the same flat pool table presented itself. By this time, my patience was wearing thin. Investigated, and realised I had inverted the long/lat in RW tools. Not knowing how to fix this, I restarted. This time to be greeted by a lifeless black plane with no ground texture. Seems that the files in the content folder had been overwritten or duplicated or something, and this caused problems. Investigation found nothing apparently wrong. Deleted everything, kept the source, did a lot of pre-checking, and copied my carefully edited time of day edit from the other route, and this time got greeted with a green flat plane which I promptly changed into something better resembling the area in question. On the right of the screen was a list longer than the screen would display full of marker files, and all with a blue sky set up to go from complete darkness to daylight in under 40 minutes. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, I managed to breathe a sigh of relief.

The joys of being a beginner playing around in RW.......

Time to go to bed, and hopefully get the first bit of broad gauge track down when I get a chance