trevor

Attachment of proper Direct X "light sources" is clearly missing in MBS. Further, and probably even more crucial, proper shadows is also missing. Shadows make a HUGE difference to realism as is evidenced by this screenshot from the competition.

As cool as all that is... it leaves me wondering about the math being used in MBS. At a high enough speed... maybe a train could make it round that loop... but not at a crawl. Something is amiss with the math with the auto speed turned on. It seems to only drop to a minimum of 10% of the demand speed. Further, in general. an application like this should be fully capable of handling proper acceleration and deceleration based on weights, friction, slopes and turns for any given train with a defined locomotive thrust or braking component. That is, if I load up my empty cars on a train, one should expect it to accelerate slower (if at all) and only be able to maintain a lower speed. Braking distance should be likewise affected. As it currently stands.. users need to fake all that... assuming they understand the dynamics. Further, gravity is severely missing in MBS. It would also be cool if trains de-railed when trying to make a turn too fast...

Loop.mbp Must be magnetic wheels.... Maybe we should start a new group page for the best roller coaster layouts LOL

Wondering how you got that reflection effect....

AH..... will do.. Looks great, though I need to fix my track separation. It's probably not too sound from an engineering point of view though LOL

Soon to be released new version of the controller now includes a cockpit function that allows you to watch the auto-pilot drive a train. (As seen in the video), OR LETS YOU DRIVE IT YOURSELF. BTW: Driving trains is A LOT harder than it looks.... esp. on fast short section layouts. It IS a lot of fun though I have a whole new respect for train drivers... Regards T

I did add that as a feature request to Neo... no idea if it will make it into V4 though. If not.. then yes that's a great plug-in project... I had the same idea My issue was duplicate names though. What is selected MUST be uniquely named, and grouped stuff really messes you up.. Plus you have to decide which object is the "prime one" you want to align to. But I guess you could show a list of selected names and have the user pick. You may also want to add rotational alignments too... i.e. make them all the same rotation angle in x,y or z PLUS.. aligning along some other axis other than the basic X,Y,Z. based on the prime object's orientation. Which also gives me an idea that you could add a slider to MOVE the group along that vector too.... Sounds like a fun little project though. Regards T

Hi Neo, I seem to recall you are doing something different with scales in V4 but just in case you missed it..... There is an issue with the MAX speed we can apply to a locomotives, in that the speed value is limited to 750mm/s regardless of model scale. By my reckoning, translated up to real word dimensions, that means Top Speed : Z-Scale = 594 km/hr (wow) G-Scale = 60.75 km/hr (zzzzzzzzzzzzzz) Regards Trevor

So, I think this plug-in has pretty much reached the point where I can release it, or more accurately, let it escape as a Beta to the general users. It should now (or soon) be available in the plugins / simulation section. The plug-in is intended to allow users to "easily" design and run an automated layout by following a few simple naming conventions, design rules, and editing tools. Rather than clogging up Neo's. forum, and to make it easier to maintain and reference from the help menu in the application, I have set up a separate website that documents the plug-in in detail. Due to the complexity of the plug-in I strongly suggest you at least read the home page theory first at http://www.aaadbs.com/mbs_controller/ The user interface is detailed here... http://www.aaadbs.com/mbs_controller/UI.html And I put together a step-by-step tutorial to get you started here... http://www.aaadbs.com/mbs_controller/Tutorial.html As I said, this is a Beta release. The plug-in is still a work in progress and robustness is, as yet, to be determined. Further, features may change or expand as time progresses. PLEASE REPORT AND COMMENTS, ISSUES, FEATURE REQUESTS THROUGH THIS FORUM ARTICLE. Regards Trevor

The issue with analog systems... virtual and real, is you are stuck with one control for one section of track. You can not easily do something like reverse in a second loco to couple with the first.. GOOGLED : Das Problem mit analogen Systemen ... virtuell und real, sind Sie mit einem Steuerelement für einen Abschnitt der Spur stecken. Sie können nicht einfach etwas wie Reverse in einer zweiten Lok, um mit dem ersten ..

Just a quick suggestion. Although every object has a visibility property, that can be bit of awkward if you need to select and edit it for some reason. The only way to get to it is by doing an F3 select from list. If you have a big layout that can be a looooooooong... list to search though, assuming you remember what you named the darn thing..... Further, if the object happens to be contained in a group.... good luck with that. Because of the above, I have stopped using that method to hide objects. Instead I add a Hidden_Objects layer to my design and allocate the hidden objects to that layer instead of making them invisible. Now I can hide, or more importantly.. SHOW, all my hidden objects with one click in the layer dialog I hope some of you find that concept useful. Regards T

OH .. I did not know that..cool ... HOWEVER, it would also be good to add a complete (small) layout that way too. That way you could include all the EV code associated with it. And sharing all that would be nice. Regards T

hmm.. well I am pretty anal about keeping both up-to date.. In fact they are both set to auto-update... BTW... EEP may NOT be a great example since it stops updating when their window loses focus. Something that you can't do with MBS due to the multi-window setup and the plug-in interface. Though you COULD stop intercepting mouse events at that time..... But I do have other heavy graphics apps that do not have this issue.

7 with A... I believe

EEP 12.. for instance As I said it is NOT performance related... it only happens when the MBS graphic panel is obscured None whatsoever