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    Your beautiful shots and how I can pull them off

    As with any train simmer, I like most of my screenshots. There have been many cases where I take a screenshot, love it, and post it in a screenshot thread.



    The next day, I check the screenshot threads and see simply sublime shots like this. (Credit to Marshall Starks for the shot)



    How do you guys do it? How do you get such quality and zoom effects? I have a hunch that a reduced FOV in the camcfg file is responsible for that beautiful zoom effect, but then I go on to wonder how you guys get that quality. Is it the use of SLI stock and routes? Is it a high-quality graphics card? Is it the size of the image and the format you guys save it in?

    For those who want to know, I run MSTS in 1280x1024 resolution and save my photos as PNG files. I'm not sure what kind of graphics card is in the Dell Inspiron 560 one of my installations (FBL, RMD East, LSR&C, etc.) is on, but a ZT Affinity desktop which my Allegheny Rails route is on uses an AMD Radeon HD 6570.
    sigpic

    #2
    I attached a copy of my camcfg (in text format - just copy it into your dat file, after saving a copy) if you'd like to try it.
    It's been so long, I don't remember the tweaks in it anymore.
    But, don't forget in views 2 & 3, you can use alt/ctl 9, then use your cursors & arrows to get all kinds of crazy angles.

    Yes, high quality graphics cards sure do help.






    New Text Document.txt
    Neil

    Chicago Railroading Fan

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      #3
      Originally posted by qballbandit View Post
      I attached a copy of my camcfg (in text format - just copy it into your dat file, after saving a copy) if you'd like to try it.
      It's been so long, I don't remember the tweaks in it anymore.
      But, don't forget in views 2 & 3, you can use alt/ctl 9, then use your cursors & arrows to get all kinds of crazy angles.

      Yes, high quality graphics cards sure do help.






      [ATTACH]60996[/ATTACH]
      Alt/Control 9? Never heard of that, but I might try it out. I have a feeling it's in the graphics cards. Open Rails may guarantee better screenshots, but then again, the stuff that people like Marshall, Anthony (elitedubs), and you post here is solely MSTS, but in amazing quality.

      Also, take a look at how close the ties in Marshall's shot are, showing sort of a zoom effect. Maybe tweaking the camcfg could do that, but I have yet to try.
      sigpic

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        #4
        I think we all wonder

        Visit me on Youtube:
        https://www.youtube.com/user/csx8851

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          #5
          That is scalerail, and it naturally looks that way.
          Neil

          Chicago Railroading Fan

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            #6
            Originally posted by qballbandit View Post
            That is scalerail, and it naturally looks that way.
            Well, to me, it looks like a zoom effect. Hopefully, I should have time to test out camcfg tweaks this weekend.
            sigpic

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              #7
              I don't think the alt/ctrl 9 thing that you mention works. I think you might have confused it with the ctrl+shift+9 command in the "4" trackside view....
              Visit me on Youtube:
              https://www.youtube.com/user/csx8851

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                #8
                Originally posted by csx8851 View Post
                I don't think the alt/ctrl 9 thing that you mention works. I think you might have confused it with the ctrl+shift+9 command in the "4" trackside view....
                And almost every other view. I used that command in the 2 view for that shot of 844 that I posted.
                sigpic

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                  #9
                  Zoom might have something to do with it, Dustin, but the fact remains that many members here edit their screenshots before posting. There's a whole host of things you could do in a photo editor to enhance photos that you couldn't do with capture software. Nash said that's what he does with his pics, and I bet Marshall does it too.
                  So yes, computer hardware and simulator rolling can make a difference in the level of "realistic-ness", but the environments and scenery of a route, combined with post-capture enhancements, that makes shots of Noah's and Marshall's caliber possible.
                  Zooming with a camera shouldn't make any difference other than eliminating background stuff you might not want in a picture unless all your stock has really high-resolution textures, i.e. 2048x2048 (basing it off the following observation, correct me if this isn't true). On older stock (for example the Scenic V1 GEVOs), it just makes the individual pixels in the textures visible.
                  Last edited by MP36PH3S; 10-18-2013, 16:54.
                  Writer and Wolverine, among other things.
                  Interested in railroad stories? Check out the Fiction vault:
                  https://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showth...82#post1882582

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                    #10
                    Yes, I forgot about editing. Could that editing be how folks like Nash and Marshall get their shots in such high quality?
                    sigpic

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                      #11
                      The quality of a photo varies depending if you are using a photo storage/sharing site of uploading them directly from you computer to this site. I just upload mine here and they are somewhat degraded but I don't care
                      Jim

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                        #12
                        I think I did it! I changed the Spotter Cam's FOV in the camcfg file to 15 and this happened. I love it.



                        Oh, and for those wondering, it says "Jimmy Lambert" on this 4-6-0's tender. Happy early birthday, Jimmy!
                        sigpic

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                          #13
                          Ya, I meant ctl/shift 9, sorry. But I only have it working in views 2 & 3. Not sure what to edit to get that to work in view 4?
                          Neil

                          Chicago Railroading Fan

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                            #14
                            Hi Dustin,

                            First go to your MSTS install and find the GLOBAL Folder. If you click the Type Column title the DAT folders will come to the top.

                            Amongst these there is the camcfg file.

                            FIRST YOU MUST Make a copy of this and keep it some where safe. You can just Copy and Paste it in the Global folder where it will appear as "camcfg - Copy", but you may want to store it on another drive or in a Back Up folder.

                            Then read this tutorial http://msts-trains.tripod.com/cameraangles.htm
                            It's been around as long as MSTS but gets overlooked nowadays.

                            Go to your camcfg file in GLOBAL.
                            If you right click this with your mouse and select "open with" choose WordPad (or if you have it ConTEXT, a free and IMHO best Unicode editor for MSTS) you'll see the code for the various Cams

                            You can experiment with different FOV's to your hearts content! Thanks to the BIN patch we can now pull back from the train in exterior view for a massive distance so it is possible to use extreme telephoto lens narrow Fields of View. You can also get those rail level shots.

                            The key to composing shots is the Shift/Ctrl/9 combination. Use the arrow keys together with the mouse right clicked to point the camera in the precise direction.

                            With this you have total control ....AND an ability to instantly grab aerial shots that a REAL RAIL photographer would die for!

                            BTW Context can be downloaded here http://www.contexteditor.org/
                            One of the useful features for MSTS is to be able to COMPARE similar files. For example you can compare two .eng files and it will instantly highlight where they differ.

                            Hope that helps

                            Geoff
                            Geoff
                            Dorset - near The Swanage Railway.
                            UK

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by qballbandit View Post
                              Ya, I meant ctl/shift 9, sorry. But I only have it working in views 2 & 3. Not sure what to edit to get that to work in view 4?
                              Neil, you shouldn't have to edit anything that I remember. In the 4 view it will lock the camera so you can see the whole train pass without the camera panning. You can still use the arrow keys or mouse to change the angle as the train passes.
                              Jim

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