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There are many reasons why that would not work and the viewing distance is only one of them. Of course, any item that got too close to the sun would be fully baked. Unlike that idea which is half-baked

I firmly believe that simulating effects such as sun, moon, stars, weather and so on should be implemented by the simulation engine (openBVE in this case) rather than the individual add-on developer....

How about signal glare at evening times making the driving more difficult ?

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Except, of course, that seeing a signal on a video is different to seeing it with the naked eye, sat in the cab - which is what we're comparing with.

In general, colour light signals can be seen at a greater distance in real life, than in BVE.

In real life, on a straight section of track, it is not unusual to be able to see the double yellow signal in front of you, the single yellow in front of that, the red in front of that, the tail lights of the train in front of that, and the aspect of the signal that train is approaching!

On BVE you generally have to be within a few hundred yards of a signal to be able to see its aspect. In particular, double yellow signals are very difficult to distinguish from single yellow signals until you're within 50 yards or so.

I'm not sure there's a great deal that can be done about that. As far as I'm aware it's just a limitation of the fact that however good the grahics, they have to be projected on a screen which is less sophisticated than the human eye.

In terms of visual effects, I would like to see an attempt at a much darker night. The attempts at night time runs I have seen on BVE are all much too bright. Running at night on the real thing, basically all you can see is the signal aspects, and other lights (railway and non-railway). Good route knowledge is essential, or you soon won't have a clue where you are.

Take a look at armstrongpowerhouse.com and the 'lighting effects enhancement pack' they do for RailWorks (you don't need to buy it - just look at the pictures and description o the site). Something similar for OpenBVE would be great. I've no idea whether it's possible.

The night runs on the lamented and much missed NWM routes were well executed. Nightime lighting varies a lot, from different weather conditions, moon phases, light pollution from urban areas etc. so its pontentially more varied than daylight. You can still factor in rain and fog whether its night or day. Trouble is, there's precious few routes being built at present for daylight let alone night variations. Its a lot of work to make a night time scenario, you double the number of textures needed for one thing. So, the potential is there, but whether many examples of night routes will emerge is more doubtful. And no, there's no plans for a Ballyfeckin night run.

If anyone wants pretty lights and nighttime rides, try to develop a couple of miles of Blackpool tram lines to start off with, Jeffrey, that's not far from you, is it?.