LOTUS Discussion (1 Viewer)

whistlehead

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Hi all, this is a thread for the discussion of the upcoming successor to OMSI - LOTUS.


Exciting development today as the first in-editor pictures have just been posted on the LOTUS-simulator Facebook page! Looks like it's entirely new, I can't see anything directly ported from OMSI in there so far. Possibly a whole new way of drawing splines, too - note the interesting symbols along the kerb edges - maybe Trainz-style control points, or alternatively could be defining the edge of the pavement for a new way of controlling pedestrians.


https://www.facebook.com/LOTUSSimulator/
 
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whistlehead

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Also noteworthy is that in response to a query (by our own iomex) as to whether infinite plane or time systems will be used, the response was:


"Both systems will be used - you will get more details on that later"


In the same post they also said that they are open to suggestions from map builders.
 
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iomex

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I'm dropping hints to them that they should create a panel of people well-versed with OMSI. There are far more experienced modders out there than anyone here, but still it'd be nice for them to talk to the people who have analysed OMSI down to the brass tacks.


As far as level editors go, OMSI's is pretty good. Features like the 'skew' tool for splines (and skewing automatically upon rotation), sin waves for splines, rotation about any axis, attaching objects to splines, attachment points on objects, are all things which make it a powerful tool.


There are, however, changes and additions I'd love to see:


- 'preview mode' whereby you can make alterations to paths, and have AI vehicles spawn so you can test them without going back into the game proper


- the same bounding boxes seen in debug mode, in the editor


- ability to group objects or splines together, so that they can be copy-pasted or manipulated as a group (prefab house/garden/driveways, for instance)


- a friendlier, more reliable way of scheduling buses


- a GUI-based spline creator


- ability to choose the poly density of the ground mesh and of individual splines
 

Fellowslothb

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Those are some excellent suggestions!


The bounding box feature is already implemented though if you go to Helpers and then click "Show Bounding boxes" :P  
 

whistlehead

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That's a selection of good ideas.


One that I've just thought of is having a tag in the .SCO file which tells the game to always render something that's above a certain screensize, irrespective of distance. That would be really useful for major landmarks, such as tall buildings. It would be optional, of course.
 
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whistlehead

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They say that at the moment they only have a single light source, so it sounds like they're intending to develop the graphics engine further.


I asked a couple of questions a few days ago.

1) Will we have more control over how many polygons splines use on corners? In OMSI this can be a big cause of excessive lag.

2) Will you let us 'cap' the ends of splines? This would help get rid of 'hollow' walls and hedges, for instance.

3) In OMSI, there was a first person walking camera (F11, I think?) - will this be developed further in LOTUS? It would be great to be able to choose where you enter the map with this camera, either with entrypoints like for OMSI's buses or by pressing a "get out of vehicle" button. This would be amazing for screenshots, and I'd love to be able to walk around a map!

They initially responded:

1) Yep.
2) I currently can't answer this question. Please hold the line ^^
3) We would love this, too wink emoticon wink emoticon wink emoticon

So, good on the first count, though I'm still curious as to how it has been implemented, intriguing on the second, and I'm not sure how to take the third, though it certainly seems positive. Today, they came back with:

2) Yes. But please note that the success depends on the shape of the spline. Walls should work fine.

Because of the delay, I'm assuming that they must have gone out and tried it after reading my questions - so that suggests that they really are taking feedback and suggestions seriously. So, all round good news so far! My opinion is gradually shifting from "Oh-god-what-are-they-doing" to "Tentatively hopeful".
 
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whistlehead

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From a few days ago. The devs posted a serie of images on modelling buildings for LOTUS. Mostly the same as OMSI, but there are a few interesting features of note - particularly the window shine effect, seen here. I think this is the first screenshot of an object in LOTUS's lighting engine, and it looks pretty good! Still no dynamic shadows yet, though...


Njt3CVLWY5aKiw9Zzu_GI-Km6O5QyGbp.png



Also notable is that textures will only be of .bmp or .dds format.
 
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Road-hog123

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No *.tga? That's interesting... The shine effect has somewhat been possible on a per-mesh basis with specular in Omsi (although the o3d converter removes it by default) but that looks like a specular map. I wonder if it'll support normal mapping? Also, given Omsi's performance, I'd think dynamic shadows would be deadly to fps... :P
 

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iomex

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Dear fans,
we love your creativity and endurance while creating content. Your passion for the realization of maps and vehicles is in no way inferior to ours. That's why we want to provide comprehensive material for content development: Besides a detailed reference to all concerns of content development we will provide our collection of photos, sounds and 3D objects that can be used as basic material for map and vehicle creation. In addition, we are looking forward to host regular "online tables" with you in order to philosophise, exchange experience, answer questions or marvel at your building progress.


On top of that, we know that many of us earned their knowledge from tutorials. We will create great tutorials for you about content development in and for LOTUS - but where should we start? How do you want the tutorials to look like? Please take a short time to fill out our little survey and show us what you desire: http://goo.gl/forms/ZSeuSTsJHY


Please note: The form's structure seems not to translate completely. The possible answer "Sonstiges" leaves space for your comments to some of the questions.
 

Coachman

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I really hope they do a major reconstruction of the AI (cars,buses and humans). as a Player I think it really does let the simulator down. Overtaking, controlled Jams, give the humans a walk that doesn't look like they've 6 Bones, vehicle breakdowns, poor parking/Driving & The ability to reverse  would be amazing. Also a more robust ticketing system with far more variety and options. passenger queries and problems. simple things like that stop the game getting repetitive.   
 
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