TRS22 / Trainz Plus - HD Terrain Update and More!

Release Features for TRS22 & Trainz Plus

Builds

• TRS22 Windows (Trainz Store): 122418
• TRS22 Mac (Trainz Store): 122419
• TRS22 Windows (STEAM): 122427
• TRS22 Mac (STEAM): 122432
• TRS22 Mac (App Store): 122478
• Trainz Plus Windows: 122411
• Trainz Plus Mac: 122431
• Trainz Plus Windows (STEAM): 122428
• Trainz Plus Mac (STEAM): 122433

S20 3D Asset List

• The existing 2D thumbnail option will be removed in favor of 3D previews.
• The toggle to a text-only list remains available.
• S20 only, not available to retail TRS22 users.

GPU Clutter

• This is a code-level upgrade to the existing clutter effect layer which increases performance. Future releases will build on the groundwork here by way of advancing clutter to completely replace turffx.
• Static performance (fps) should be as good or better.
• Dynamic performance (fps while moving the camera) should be better.
• The latency of clutter updates in response to camera movement should be substantially better.
• The latency of clutter updates in response to editing should be substantially better.
• Available to all WINDOWS builds.
• MacOS has this feature disabled due to a late-cycle-identified critical bug.

HD Terrain

• This is a new selectable baseboard option, not a drop-in replacement for the existing options. This will be the default for new routes, and the existing options are deprecated.
• Render performance is equivalent to existing terrain while sustaining a much higher visual quality.
• Editing performance will vary depending on the demands placed on the tools. Basic editing remains smooth, however HD scrapbook edits may be noticeably jerky in this release.
• Improved spatial resolution.
• 0.125m, as compared to 5.0m previously.
• Down to 2.0m is lossless; lower than that uses lossy compression.
• Less texturing flexibility (16 textures per baseboard, down from 250).
  • This can be mitigated by:
  • Clever texture management.
  • Scrapbooking various texture patterns together using a small brush radius.
  • Generous use of clutter effects to reduce the visibility of the underlying texture.
  • Increased spatial resolution.
  • Improved visual quality.
  • Use of vertex color painting (Color Tint Effects Layer).

• Pave the way for Ray-tracing compatibility.
• Clean minimap transition. The legacy "low lod" / "minimap" textures are visibly different from the terrain textures, and so there is a jarring transition. That won't happen with single-pass HD Terrain as it renders the 3D terrain for map view.
• Continuous LOD. Detail will gradually reduce into the distance rather than entire blocks of terrain changing LOD at the same time.
• Tessellation is used to increase the polygon count near the camera. This allows for the display of the HD height data and for displacement mapping, without requiring excessive increases to the scene poly count.
• The extent of tessellation depends on the shader detail setting.
• Displacement mapping is used to provide a similar visual effect to parallax mapping without the "wobbly terrain" edge cases at sharp angles.
• By itself, unless the tessellation factor is extremely high, the displacement mapping effect has insufficient sampling points and noisy LOD transitions.
• Parallax mapping is used on top of the displacement mapping to negate the visual effect of the LOD transitions, giving the full benefits of each technique.
• Baseboard walls won't be rendered on this terrain type. This is a deliberate decision as we're moving to infinite terrain in the future.
• Legacy (Surveyor Classic) water isn't supported on HD terrain.
• Use one or more water effect layers instead.
• Route conversion (https://docs.trainzsimulator.com/docs/converting-to-hd-terrain) will convert legacy water to a water effect layer for you.
• Editing is active only in Trainz Plus.

Surveyor Classic

• Editing of HD baseboards will be entirely disallowed.
• A brief notification will be displayed on any editing attempt which hits a HD baseboard.
• Edit operations which span both classic and HD baseboards will take effect on the classic boards and will have no effect on the HD boards.
• Conversion of HD baseboards to either 5m or 10m grid is permitted.
• Creation of HD baseboards is not an option.
• Conversion to HD grid is not an option.

TRS22

• HD terrain will display at degraded resolution.
• Data buffers will cap out at 4m resolution, except for hole/color data which will cap out at 2m resolution.
• Tessellation will be equivalent to the lowest quality setting in Trainz Plus.
• Displacement mapping is disabled.
• Editing of HD terrain is not possible.

The Living Railroad (TLR) Properties User Interface

• Available to all builds.
• Will continue to be improved and extended in future releases.
• TLR itself is not active in this release, so TLR scheduling features are not visible in the UI.

Increased maximum draw distance to 22km.

• Available to all builds.
• HD Terrain renders out to 30km as the lower lod single-pass terrain is much more efficient than legacy terrain.

Removed shadow texture size setting.

• Available to all builds.
• 2048 is now used at low shadow detail, 4096 at higher settings.

The Driver List is now available in S20.

• The limit on total Effect Layer data size has been raised substantially.

Multiplayer Surveyor Compatibility

• MPS users must always have the latest retail build, as we only run servers compatible with the latest build.