[ErickC]

I've seen quite a few questions pertaining to building 3D cabs. Having recently stumbled my way through the process of learning the new tricks myself, and in the spirit of advancing the state of Open Rails content in some small way, I have attached to this post a demo locomotive, complete with GMax source files for the cab. It's poorly-optimized (haven't done any drawcall batching, lots of uncompressed stuff, et c.), and the 3D cab is crude, but it's mostly functional and should answer a few questions, maybe give people some ideas.

The locomotive is an EMD GP10 owned by a leasing company, as it appeared when it was in the employ of a central Minnesota shortline. It's small, dirty, and sounds like it's in the mood for blood.

 RLCX 1703 DEMO.zip (74.51MB)
Number of downloads: 822

All I ask is that people please respect the terms in the included docs.

[ebnertra000]

I like it, even if the cab is still pretty crude. If past work of yours is any guide, I think it'll be just fine. There was an error or two, namely one somewhere in the .eng file, and a needle texture was missing (needleblk?). Otherwise it worked fine. It's nice to finally have somewhere to find Northern Lines power with any degree of certainty.

Here's a shot of it pulling about 20 cars. Looks pretty good for a work in progress. There should be a second engine, but OR disallowed it (something about being offside while loading?), but this one handled it solo like a champ.

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[shadowmane]

Wow. I just downloaded this gem. It'd be nice to see some more 3d cabviews coming out for stuff that's already made, both payware and freeware.

[R H Steele]

shadowmane, on 08 January 2018 - 03:35 PM, said:

Wow. I just downloaded this gem. It'd be nice to see some more 3d cabviews coming out for stuff that's already made, both payware and freeware.

For F units... the best 3D cab a payware vendor has to offer...it is very nice. I use them on all my F units.

http://3dtrains.com/...s_atsf_f7.shtml

For NA equipment, I don't believe there are any other 3D cabs. Have you seen the ones used in RUN8 -- Very Impressive, my hope is that one day OR will have 3D cabs like these.
this old thread >>> http://www.elvastowe...__1#entry155822

[shadowmane]

Now I have a question. If I downloaded the GP10's uploaded this year to TrainSim and tried to put this 3d view on them, would the paint scheme on the 3dcab .s file cover the paint scheme on the engine's .s file, or would it be safely hidden under it? Are they even the same model, or were there just two people working on GP10's in the same year?

[ebnertra000]

They were made by different people. Therefore, you will see the wrong paint on the parts of the engine visible from the cab

[shadowmane]

This thing is a spoiler. I don't want to go back to 2D cabs anymore. I'm going to have to figure out how to re-skin now because I love driving this engine.

[ErickC]

I've found myself becoming very dependent on the sounds for train operations on account of all the new sound triggers, particularly when setting and releasing brakes. Since 90% of my time in OR has been getting new models ready or playing with additional iterations of the 645C/BC sounds on Tyler's engines, this makes the odd occasion of using someone else's equipment really awkward.

Anyway, the good news for you is I'm working on a set of GP7s and they'll all have 3D cabs. They'll be payware but they'll be cheap.

R H Steele, on 08 January 2018 - 04:19 PM, said:

my hope is that one day OR will have 3D cabs like these.
this old thread >>> http://www.elvastowe...__1#entry155822

I can only speak for me, but I think the day is coming when 3D cabs about that resolution become the new norm. It's just so much easier than finding the right cab photos (taken from the seat, not the doorway) and then getting permission. Then you've got to find a way to balance an accurate perspective with people wanting to see more of the control stand than you can actually see with your eyes out the window. It's just not worth the effort. Anyway, I've got a set of CP SD40-2s in the works with a cab that's about the same resolution (I've decided to do new releases in two resolutions, one that's pretty good at most viewing distances, like the GP7, and one that's high-resolution, like the SD40-2 - the idea being I can build one or two hi-res models a year along with a whole bunch of medium-resolution Geep rebuilds and other interesting things), so there's that. I'm trying to get the GP7s done first (The GP7 is a whole lot simpler in many ways, especially since I've decided that the 40-2 needs better trucks to match the increased resolution of the rest of the model).





The Relco unit is for a planned future NLR package, but I've since measured up a real GP7 for the Soo GP7 pack, and I've concluded that I'll be redoing it mostly from scratch, so 1703 in its current form will probably end up in the file library as a freebie, complete with the control stand it presently has, which is from the CP SD40-2 (I was using 1703 as a guinea pig to test the stand).

[R H Steele]

Erick...WOW WOW WOW!!! wooohoooo They look great, you've made wonderful progress...Thanks....very cool.
Wait a minute, I think I'm too excited. Nice work. http://www.elvastower.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/hi.gif
One Question - will you be adding more interior texture work?

ErickC, on 10 January 2018 - 10:58 PM, said:

I can only speak for me, but I think the day is coming when 3D cabs about that resolution become the new norm.

Agree with that...I was blown away when I used my first RUN8 3D cab...no reason OR cannot have the same quality and attention to detail.
Congrats/Kudos -- you've certainly shown the way.

[ErickC]

The only thing in that 40-2 interior that is presently mapped is the control stand, I generally map and draw textures last (the control stand was built as a separate project, textured, animated, tested, and then dropped in). It's definitely a work-in-progress.