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Gameplay patch 4 (Facelift)

Inspired by the cutting edge graphics of Running Train, the fourth gameplay patch brings several enhancements to the visuals of Diesel Railcar Simulator, among other improvements.

Sky and clouds

Sunsets have darker clouds with more realistic sky colour and lighting. Clouds have more volume and variance in size.

Trees

Some tree models, like this London plane, have been upgraded. Adjustments to the screen-space ambient occlusion parameters make the dark insides of the trees less exaggerated.

Grass

Grass, flowers and other plants are now smaller, of more realistic size. Each plant has its own density modifier to increase the number of plain grasses at the expense of other plants. Vegetation also becomes gradually sparser farther away from the track, instead of having uniform density and a clear cut border.

Water

Reflections for ocean and lake materials have been toned down for more authentic appearance.

Other graphics improvements

  • Adjusted "patchy grass" ground texture to make it look less turquoise
  • Fixed visual glitches on some viaduct models
  • Fixed cloud clipping

User interface

  • Added route and train names to driving settings menu (under "information")
  • Fixed service filter list showing an empty station option for some timetables (where clicking on it would lead to a crash)
  • Removed option to zoom out map using QE keys because the map looks bad when zoomed out and AI trains are only rendered as far as they would be in the normal view

Editors

  • Improved 3D-gizmo mouse hitpoints, rotations and visuals in the route editor
  • Fixed a possible crash when exiting the train editor

Miscellaneous

  • Attempted to fix packed normal maps
  • Fixed default tilt to only apply to "head" views (not bogie view)
  • Optimized some geometry-related computations

What's next?

Another patch coming soon