The update fixed a few things, but still a lot to go. I notice now that when I'm in developer mode it thrashes my GPU until it crashes. Not a good sign, but I can get around it by lowering the resolution while developing, and save/reload at the first sign of trouble.
I've been exploring some changes to the way scenery is put together, mostly concentrating on NZTI as I hope to release a 2024 version shortly. It has grown into a bit of a monster, as I decided to update the aerial images, which means that I need to model the new buildings which show up now. Maybe an excuse for a road trip.
One thing which caught me out is the need now to create an xml file for every texture. I didn't know that, and my first attempt at building the project gave me pink checks on everything. Fixing it was a bit of a job, as there was one building which just continued to show pink. Took a week to fix. At least it doesn't look like this anymore --
The new sim has some quite heavy optimisation requirements, in that the LODs which I created for 2020 no longer work as they did. Luckily there's a new 'autoGenerate LODs' feature, which saves a lot of work. I think I finally have a handle on LODs, and I know when to rely on autoGenerate and when to make them myself. Blender helps a lot, I'm beginning to appreciate it now.
Here's an example of LODs in action -- the first shot is just as it appears in the sim, and the second is forcing much lower LODs. The tractor has hand-made LODs, and the building in the background is auto-generated -- you should never see it like this up close, it's just to show that there's something there from a few hundred metres away. The trick is to minimise the LOD transitions so things don't suddenly change shape too much.
I finally got around to modelling the rail flatcars, I left them out of the 2020 release, as I wasn't in to trains back then:) You don't really get a good look at them, as they sit under containers, but they do represent a few new ways of modelling for the sim, just building a very simple shape without textures, and using Vertex Paint to give a bit of rust. Another new feature in 2024 is SimPropContainers, which is a way to optimise complex models, but it's also handy for these flatcars -- as the new ground mesh is a lot bumpier than 2020, putting a container on top of the flatcar requires it to be raised to the level of the car, but this is relative to the ground, rather than the flatcar. So when I duplicate/move one I need to fix the elevation for every container. Converting them to SimPropContainers means that they retain their relative position. Building the SPCs is kind of counter-intuitive, and just doesn't make much sense, I guess it was just tacked onto the SDK at some point, but I'd recommend it to anyone looking to build stuff for 2024.
The new sim has plenty of very clever features, it just isn't quite finished yet. If anyone is looking to build some scenery for it, let me know.
