Cabs

[jimmyshand]

One thing that stands out to me as an avid RW consumer is that I've not ever seen any 3rd party cabview mods come out. In MSTS there were about 5 or 6 different cabviews per loco available, where you can pick your favourite and amend all that class of loco to have that cabview.
Obviously the cabs in RW are far superior in detail and more complex than those in MSTS but I was just curious as to why there has never been a cab mod produced by the community. There are certain freeware and payware locos out there that could be completely transformed with the inclusion or upgrading of the cabs, I won't list examples to avoid any unintended offence to the original creators.

I wonder how long it takes to create a quality cab and how difficult it is compared to the other aspects such as sounds / exterior model?

Just curious really as I'm someone who routinely uses RW 'from the cab' so it's a subject of great interest to me.

For the record my ranking of the top 5 best and most accurate cabs are (diesel biased!):

1. FGW HST - still the best
2. JT 20
3. Class 37
4. Class 101 DMU
5. IHH Peak

[RSderek]

Having built many cabs I can tell you how long it takes me.
101/class37/Class08 and Tornado took about 4 weeks, 6 days a week and about 8 hours a day. For all of those cabs I had personally been inisde which helps with details that really do make the difference.

That being said simple cabs can and should be made. room for all standards.
And for the record the best cab in the game in my opinion is the 294 german shunter, mind you it did take the guy 3 months.

cheers
d

[karma99]

As far as I know, I'm the only person who's built a cab for an existing model that wasn't my own.

Invalid File ID [21003]

You can't really compare the MSTS cabs which are effectively a single image with some sprites for the controls, to a full 3D model.

My views on it:
It took as long to build as a loco
It took as long to texture as a loco
You not only have to build the cab but any parts of the body that are visible from within the cab - in the case of the prairie, the tops of the side tanks and the boiler
It had many more animations to set up and create than a loco
If you don't have the original model you can write off a good 5-6 hours importing over and over into the game to get the dimensions and the location of the cab correct - probably the time it takes to make an MSTS cab!
Getting reference material for a whole cab is difficult. You can't just use a standard pretty shot of the backhead as a fixed viewpoint cab can, you need 360 degrees of images - due to this, some parts of the prairie cab are best guess as I didn't get custom pictures until I was 95% finished and couldn't face starting over after a couple of hundred hours
After all of that, half the people probably drive from outside anyway! (as an example 3702 loco downloads, 1273 cab downloads currently for the 45xx/4575)

It really is a labour of love model, something the creator desperately wants themselves and can't see happening any other way, and I doubt very much whether you'll see more than 1 per loco, or any at all judging by the solo effort after 3 years.

If it helps, that cab was my first major model (before that I made a water tower!) and a huge learning experience in modelling and blueprints, controls, etc so if you fancy trying it is achievable. But you will need to be stubborn to get to the end! As I say, a labour of love!

[DarrenCarter]

Have to agree with both you guy's. It really does need to be a labour of love which means going to considerable lengths and cost to get reference material or even access to a cab to take pics. My Standard Stock cab took nearly eight months to complete because of the level of detail that I required.
I started building MSTS cabs for tube trains using a 3D modelling program then taking renders, so the transition to RailWorks was quite a simple one. I just needed to be more careful with texturing and the amount of poly's I used.
Trying to get the cab working with the engine is a real blueprint eye opener. It all takes a very long time, but in the end, if you have enough passion and desire, you will perservere until the very end.
Of course, I'm speaking from a freeware point of view. With payware it doesn't matter if you don't have the passion for a particular cab as you're going to get paid for it anyway but the standards still have to be very high.

[g0fthick]

As has been said, there's really no comparison to be made between RW cabs and MSTS ones. I recall people complaining when one of German Railroad's releases limited the view the player was subject to, presumably because they didn't have the resources to model what was left out of view. Whilst some cabs in MSTS were built in 3D and then implemented into the MSTS cab interface, they only had to look the part. Half of the battle is getting the cab to look right, but the other half is getting it to work, and in real time.

I applaud anyone who has built freeware cabs, because they're nightmares to build. Often without any plans or drawings, you have to build a virtual area no larger than a few feet, yet packed with a number of components that require a fine eye for detail in order to recreate fully.

[kevmt]

All these loco's, most released over 2 years ago, came with somewhat simplified cabs:-

2ft Gauge loco Britomart V2 [4443899 bytes] - Britomart_V2 (2ft) Kngtrains.zip File ID: 19009 Date: 28 Feb 2013 - 3216 Downloads

Corris Railway Loco no 2 [2919125 bytes] - Corris Rly loco 2 (kngtrains).zip File ID: 18520 Date: 28 Feb 2008 - 4106 Downloads

Corris Rly loco no 1 (2ft 3in gauge) [3319277 bytes] - Corris Rly loco 1 (kngtrains).zip File ID: 18594 Date: 10 Mar 2008 - 3968 Downloads

Talyllyn Rly loco Dolgoch (2ft3in gauge) [4160781 bytes] - Kngtrains Alpha Dolgoch (TR).zip File ID: 19643 Date: 28 Aug 2008 - 2629 Downloads

To be honest, doing the sort of cabs that I included with those models was relatively simple to do. I'd rate it easier then with MSTS.

However, to do an all singing, all dancing fully accurately detailed cab, is a different kettle of fish.

Kevin

[TransportSteve]

Are interior cabviews in Railworks interchangeable though, take for instance the British diesels, Class 24, 37, 47, 50, 55, 60, 66, HST's, etc, which are all unique in themselves, and the American diesels are mostly different also. I didn't think it possible to have more than one cab for each locomotive, and if they were built how would you be able to attach and detach them, it's more than just changing bin files and lots of scripting, etc, surely.

Cheerz. Transport Steve.

[Sly401]

Labour of love ?

Mine is most definatley a labour of Hate

If it wasn't for cabs you could have had another dozen loco's

But yeah commercial offerings have to have them really .......... sigh

Sly

[karma99]

...it's more than just changing bin files and lots of scripting, etc, surely

Nope, it's just that. The changes are quite extensive as you need to change the controls over, not just the link to the cab geometry, but it's possible to alias any cab to any loco (certainly within it's type: steam, diesel, electric - maybe even outside that!)
I've been meaning to add the RSC Hall cab to the King and the Collett for a while but I spend about 1% of my time playing RW these days and 99% building and testing.

[stuart666]

Pete, how hard would it be to add the prarie cab to DTs 61xx? Im tempted to have a go myself, but Ive a feeling that there is probably a lot more involved then editing a couple of lines.

[RSderek]

stop your crying sly and get on with it.



d

[AndyUK]

..how hard would it be to add the prarie cab to DTs 61xx? Im tempted to have a go myself, but Ive a feeling that there is probably a lot more involved then editing a couple of lines.

There's a thread running here: http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 7&t=107141 that might help.

Andy L

[Sly401]

stop your crying sly and get on with it.



d

Quite Happy with my model per staff member rate

Trying very hard to get myself back into the err........."enjoyment "

Sly

[stuart666]

..how hard would it be to add the prarie cab to DTs 61xx? Im tempted to have a go myself, but Ive a feeling that there is probably a lot more involved then editing a couple of lines.

There's a thread running here: http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 7&t=107141 that might help.

Andy L

Excellent, thank you for that.

[karma99]

Pete, how hard would it be to add the prarie cab to DTs 61xx? Im tempted to have a go myself, but Ive a feeling that there is probably a lot more involved then editing a couple of lines.

It really is just that mate. If you've got the prairie cab download handy the file "Controls xml.txt" contains instructions on what to do.
Just make a copy of the original xml/bin and put it somewhere safe before you start.
If you can't get it after a try or 2 drop me an email and I'll have a crack. I'd do it now, but after an OS re-install my RW install is totally vanilla other than steam addons/IHH addons and the Q1 WIP at the moment (to avoid distractions while I try and finish it!)