Blinking Water and Dynamic Track

LAST EDITED ON Sep-21-02 AT 10:42 PM (EDT)

I know this has been Brought up several times in the past which i have observed both in post and building, but that "Problem" has seemed to completely go away!im working on an Area in Philadelphia currently working on the Conrail Frankford Yard which im using quite a bit Dynamic track and there is a Creek near by "1 block" if even that and i have yet to Notice the water flicker not even onceand this all stopped when i built a new computer which leads me to Strongly believe that the flickering is related to the Processor speed it self and the video card installed, i may be wrong about this but it seems that wayI Would Really like to know the System or Systems Microsoft/Kuju used when they built all the Default routesmy Specs areAsus P4T-E System Board Intel 850 Chip Set
Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz
256 Megs of Rdram (Rambus) (2GB Max) which i plan to go up to
ATI Radeon 8500LE 128DDR
Windows98SEAnd this is a home Built system
Bob
Philadelphia, Pa

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RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., jleslie, Sep-22-02, 00:29 AM, (1) RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., Tree Frog, Sep-22-02, 00:34 AM, (2) RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., Motley24Crue2, Sep-22-02, 00:55 AM, (3) RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., robertreedy, Sep-22-02, 08:41 AM, (4) RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., Tree Frog, Sep-22-02, 12:40 PM, (5) RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., jeff9595, Sep-22-02, 02:17 PM, (7) RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., markhyams, Sep-22-02, 01:51 PM, (6) RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., Mark_Blum, Sep-23-02, 10:07 PM, (8) RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., Tree Frog, Sep-23-02, 11:08 PM, (9) RE: Blinking Water and Dynamic Track..., Motley24Crue2, Sep-23-02, 11:22 PM, (10)

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SIS735 Mobo - single bus, no north/south bridge
Athlon 1.4 Tbird
256mb PC2100 DDR
GeForce 3 Ti500 64mb
Windows XP HomeI get flicker.My guess would be the difference between your ATI and my Nvidia, if it is even being caused by hardware at all.Jeff Leslie

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Bob,There is definately a correlation between dynamic track close to water and blinking. I just removed all the dynamic track from a spot that was blinking badly and it stopped completely. Cheaper than buying a new computer. Blinking water gives me fits since Sea View has so much water. Sure with someone would come up with a cure. For you the blinking was solved with a new computer, but won't others driving your route still experience the blinking?Bill Burnett

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see that's the question more or less, since it does seem to be more Hardware related then anything else what could be the cure "Besides stripping the area, or buying a new pc" my idea for a while was creating a flat object in tsm or similar program texture it to look like water and just put that in the effected area, i haven't done this yet but it's just a thought
Bob
Philadelphia, Pa

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Bill and Bob, I have a couple of places on the new section for ADFRR where there are some small creeks and these blink like crazy with one consist and the next one there is no problem. There is no dynamic track within 10 miles, so I'm wondering if it couldn't also be something in the .eng files that could be causing this.

RobertR .. ADF-M&RM at http://www.adfrr.com

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Robert,I remember reading months ago that the animated wheels on some locomotives cause blinking. I have observed that some animated objects cause the water to blink. In those cases, turning off the animation stops the blinking.I know Jeff Bush has investigated blinking water. Maybe he will respond here.Bill Burnett

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Well, this is interesting! We've got good evidence here that the "flashing" water problem has a set of causes connected to the following things:1) The video card
2) Dynamic track
3) An animated object in the visual scene with the water.
4) Animation of the water itself.Yeah, I have done a good deal of digging on this issue, but let me offer two things. (1)It's probably related to ALL OF THE ABOVE, and (2)I'm going throw in a detail from the ENV file that the problem is related to as well. This is something called a "shader" in 3D graphics (it's a software object that combines images in different ways), and there's one used frequently in the ENV file called "BlendATexDiff". I feel strongly that a bug in BlendATexDiff is what causes all the other symptoms; with the video card, the animated objects, probably the dynamic track. It's odd, cause BlendATexDiff seems to work in the sky OK, but with water, it causes this problem. Swap it out, use "BlendATex" instead, and the flashing goes away. Problem is, if you do that, the water's got to be re-designed, with different textures. Re-designing the water without BlendATexDiff is not as big a problem as it sounds. And it'll be a whole lot easier once Michael Vone comes out with the new version of his "Guide to Route Building". He's been doing some really interesting stuff with water, and with the rest of the ENV file, and I understand there'll be a ton of info about it in the new version.Jeff

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The blinking has to do with animation, and the water itself is animated. There is a way to edit the .env files to stop the water from being animated, and hence it stops the blinking. I have tried it and it works, and my route is almost completely dynamic track as well. Do a search in the archives and the fix should come up.MarkMoffat Road Tabernash to Craig (50% of track laid)

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Hi gang:Some kind soul suggested I throw something into the lake and the flashing would stop. It worked. Now that we have reeds to place into the water, I can retrieve that old car I threw into Lake Lanier (North Georgia Route - in progress) and eliminate the flashing. - Well almost - it's very much reduced with an object sticking slightly out of the water - hardly noticable. Hope this is useful.Mark
A Southern Railway Fan

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Hi Mark,You have got to be kidding! An object in the water? I am sure going to try that. I will be thrilled if that works for me.Why an old car in Lake Lanier? Probably prototypical, but wouldn't something like a sailboat or pier also work?Bill Burnett

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lol but hey if it works then it works
Bob
Philadelphia, Pa

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