Features

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Fully configurable

RWE comes with a configuration software that can be used to fully configure everything. You can enable/disable various graphic effects, restore the default Train Simulator shaders and you can even enable some special optimization settings if you want to have some performance gains. Every setting is explained so you can understand which effect you want to enable or not.

New lighting technique

A brand new lighting model has been implemented for the sun light. It's partially based on Physically Based Shading (PBR) technique so the lighting now feature better and more realistic specular reflections, better metalic surfaces rendering and more consistent lighting intensity.

New Adaptative bloom

The default adaptive bloom effect has been completly replaced with a better one. The new one give a very great "depth" effect to the lighting. The new implementation also feature a much better and visible luminance eye adaptation effect so for example when you are in a dark environment such as a tunnel, the exterior will look very bright. Night lighting and cab lighting will also look much better. The effect intensity can be reduced in the configurator software.

SSAO effect support

One of the biggest visual improvement is the Screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) effect. This effect is a computer graphics technique for efficiently approximating the ambient occlusion effect in real time. This will give you nice additionnal shadows in some areas. We took care to optimize the effect to have a stable framerate (please keep in mind that this effect is still quite costly in terms of performance but can be disabled with the configuration tool). This effect will improve the global lighting realism quite dramatically. In the above images you can see where the SSAO algorithm is adding shadows and then those shadows are combined into the final colored image.

Depth of field enhancements

Depth Of Field effect has been also improved and is now lighter and more realistic. The foreground screen image is not blurred anymore and only the background image is blurred. This change is giving an awesome depth effect to the landscape. Additionnaly the effect has been optimized so it will have less impact on your framerate when enabled.

Fog rendering enhancements

Fog calculations are completly changed. The fog strong blue tint has been greatly reduced and the fog range is now much better handled. With those changes you can now really enjoy the distant landscape of Train Simulator.

2D vegetation shading enhancements

The 2D vegetation rendering is now enhanced with a "random color variation" system. No texture has been modified it's only some shader magic stuff ! 2D vegetation will now appear to be more varied than before. You can look at the images above for a comparison between the old and new vegetation shading.

Procedural flora enhancements

Procedural Flora rendering distance has been slighly increased without any performance hit and a random size variation system has been introduced. The procedural flora is now slighly more visible and more beautiful. Click on the above images to see this subtle improvement.

New light glow effect

The old light glow effect has been completly replaced with a new rendering technique. No more shiny flickering lights, the lights are now more natural and the new effect is more framerate friendly.

Specular reflections improvements

Due to the introduction of the new lighting technique, the sun specular reflections on various surfaces are more visible, detailled and precise than before.

Glass rendering improvements

Glass rendering is improved. The glass opacity depends on angle between the camera and the glass surface. The glass will now behave more realistically. Dynamic reflections are also greatly improved. Last but not least there is a optionnal setting that will "fix" the driver glasses that are too much tinted on certain locomotives so you can fully enjoy the landscape colors.

Color Banding Fix (New In 1.03)

The nasty color banding issue has been fixed ! So now you can trully enjoy skies and other texture without color banding artifact. A special algorithm is used to simulate more color than TS Engine can normaly output to your screen and because of this everything will feel much smoother and less noisy than before espcially at night time ! You can see thoses improvements on the images above (click on them to see them at full size). Banding is eliminated in the sky and the cabin texture are much less noisy.

Weather effects enhancements

Rain and snow effects are slighly improved with a random opacity and snow flake rotation effect. The sun glow radius has been minimized to look more realistic. Also, Train Simulator 3D dynamic clouds have been optimized so you can now enjoy this feature without a big framerate drop. RWE is still fully compatible with any other improvement weather addon.

Sun shadows rendering improvements

Sun shadows filtering has been improved with a distant fade effect and better transitions betweens each shadow cascades. Also, the filtering algorithm has been slightly optimized.

Image enhancements

The image constrast is now much nicer ! A new color desaturation system will give a more realistic look to the environement. Finally, the game textures will look much sharper/detailled with the smart image sharpening effect integrated in RWE. Some FXAA improvements are also available so it now work better with HD displays resolutions.

Please note that there is a lot of other small improvements and fixes that are not listed here...