Variable Car and engine numbers?

[geepster775]

My biggest pet peeve with Run8 is the weakness of the rolling stock visuals and the lack of accuracy in the fonts, and no competitive alternative to solve that deficiency. You land at the mercy of one individual who may live on a different continent trying to model accuracy far away and who does not hit the mark.

Look at this Run8 screen. I assume that's a SD45-2 in the foreground. But there never was any 1713 on the roster. And I never recall the number 1 on NS ever having a serif, let alone the company using any (universally misapplied in the trainsim genre) arial font.

I do not support anything that boxes users in to one individual's "interpretation"

[TrainSimJack]

My biggest pet peeve with Run8 is the weakness of the rolling stock visuals and the lack of accuracy in the fonts, and no competitive alternative to solve that deficiency. You land at the mercy of one individual who may live on a different continent trying to model accuracy far away and who does not hit the mark.

Look at this Run8 screen. I assume that's a SD45-2 in the foreground. But there never was any 1713 on the roster. And I never recall the number 1 on NS ever having a serif, let alone the company using any (universally misapplied in the trainsim genre) arial font.

I do not support anything that boxes users in to one individual's "interpretation"

Thanks for posting this geepster!

I'm not a huge NS guy, so I never noticed the font, but you're 100% right, NS isn't using Arial though looking at Pete's font set for NS, it does sound like they did use a serif font:
Lettering Manual - NS LOGO (railsimstuff.com)

It's also interesting to see where various communities focus on features - This whole topic over numbering has highlighted a feature that people like about openrails: the complete control over every aspect of a cars visual. (And in fairness, I assume this was also true for MSTS and probably a few other sims as well.)

[geepster775]

Bottom line - there is no such thing as a 'barcode unit' NS SD70ACe in Run8.

[TrainSimJack]

I didn't understand but I googled it.
I see what you mean.
NS has a unit 1111 for the SD70ACe
That same unit in Run 8 would have a serif font, ruining the illusion.
Another example of where a sim like OpenRails would offer a different experience.

I have always felt that each sim has it's strong points, so I appreciate you pointing out where OpenRails has an advantage over other sims.

[Erick_Cantu]

Erick C - are you saying it /is/ possible?

No. I am saying that even if it were possible, which it is not, it would not work very well unless you had a separate model for each variation in number position.

Using secondary shapes dedicated to car numbers is an old MSTS trick that people accept without question for passenger cars but get bent out of shape about when it's implemented on freight cars. It provides a compromise to the car number dilemma, but isn't as user-friendly as giving the sim number ranges for it to then auto-populate car numbers.

I think with ORTS and how well it handles high poly models, it's time to step away from freight animations. Regardless of ORTS allowing to have many of them at one time. Of course, granted I still use a F/A here and there for ditch lights, or lumber loads, but still. I personally don't think this variable car number or engine number method, is a step in the right direction for ORTS.

In principle, I agree, but in practice, using multiple secondary shapes for the carbody and detail parts greatly enhances the user's ability to customize models by moving detail parts and also allows for the hoods to be visible in the 3D cab provided they are placed in a secondary model with the correct visibility parameters set. This makes it a whole lot easier to use one 3D cab model for a whole bunch of different locomotives, and is roughly equivalent to my old MSTS trick of not having hoods in the cabview images, but placing the hoods in the freight shape.

What Erick Cantu has done, is fine. Sometimes I remove those numbers though, so I can my own personal lettering and numbering as needed, which I have done with several cars of his set up for my fictional railroad. I also had to remove them, as they weren't lined up as CSXT has them set up for their centerbeams.

Agree 100%, and I think you hit the nail on the head for the problem with any numbering system that doesn't rely on the car's main texture map. My system allows for a lot more leeway in positioning numbers, but it doesn't apply in every case because reporting marks might be anywhere on a car. For the SOU coal hoppers, I had to make custom decal shapes because that railroad applies huge road numbers to the middle of the car!

[CSRX]

In principle, I agree, but in practice, using multiple secondary shapes for the carbody and detail parts greatly enhances the user's ability to customize models by moving detail parts and also allows for the hoods to be visible in the 3D cab provided they are placed in a secondary model with the correct visibility parameters set. This makes it a whole lot easier to use one 3D cab model for a whole bunch of different locomotives, and is roughly equivalent to my old MSTS trick of not having hoods in the cabview images, but placing the hoods in the freight shape.

That's fair. I guess though the way I see it for these 2d versus 3d cabs is simple, most of the time, you are focused out the window, almost zoomed in like. Kind of how TS has their cabviews set up now. To me, that's pretty spot on compared to real life railroading. Most of the controls and handling of the trains are done by feel, rather than constantly looking at your gauges or looking down at your controls to throttle up or down, or put on the brakes. So honestly, to me, I don't see much value in 3d cabs. Even in TSW or TSC, I don't notice it much, as I either use the keyboard or controller, with the camera zoomed in a bit to see better out the front window.

Agree 100%, and I think you hit the nail on the head for the problem with any numbering system that doesn't rely on the car's main texture map. My system allows for a lot more leeway in positioning numbers, but it doesn't apply in every case because reporting marks might be anywhere on a car. For the SOU coal hoppers, I had to make custom decal shapes because that railroad applies huge road numbers to the middle of the car!

Yep, some of the former Southern wood chip gondolas that the NBSR are getting, are the same. Some of the cars still show the old lettering and numbers across the entire car, and others have funny looking patch jobs all the way across, with the giant numbers still in place, and a tiny little "DJJX" marking next to them. I'll be curious if the NBSR just slaps a little tiny "EMRY" on a patch over the DJJX lettering. Haha.

But yes, one thing I noticed with the UP centerbeams you had done, I had to adjust the "CSXT" lettering to match where the numbers were located, so the CSXT letters aren't in the appropriate spot. I ended up fixing this, by removing your number objects, and slapping my own lettering and numbers on the cars like I do and have done with my other repaints. In theory, your approach is great, however as you and I both know, not every railroad has their reporting marks in the same exact location from car to car, or use the same fonts.

[TrainSimJack]

..., I don't notice it much, as I either use the keyboard or controller, with the camera zoomed in a bit to see better out the front window...

It's important to remember that not everyone is at this level of mastery - In your case, you have such an advanced mastery of running the locomotive, that the 3D cab offers you little benefit.

However, the 3D cab can play a critical role in onboarding new users, the people who aren't yet at your level.

Hobbies need growth to survive in the long run, so it's important to attract new people.

I think it would benefit openrails to make the "new user experience" as good as it can be.

When you think about 3D cabs, think in terms of what 3D cabs could do to help OpenRails grow its user base.

[CSRX]

I wouldn't say is because of mastery, it's more of a preference, because honestly that's how I see the cabs in reality too. Visual is more so focused out the window, versus constantly looking at the controls. Sure peripheral is key where you can see the control stand and what not, but mimicking that is a bit difficult is assume, otherwise it probably would have been done by now in any of the train sims.
if you think about it. The zoomed out view where you can see a majority of the control stand on any locomotive, is like standing at the back doors entry way versus actually being in the seat.


Do I think 3d cabs will bring people in? Maybe, do I think they will stay? Probably not, most will move back to other sins that they enjoy.

I personally don't think 3d cabs will make a difference when really, orts has the best it can offer now, with physics being on par, beautiful routes and rolling stock, amazing sounds, and a great community that is constantly producing and releasing items.
Can't really say that about the other sims to be fair. It's either locked tight by the main developer releases so so items, or third party creators that are extremely close minded when it comes to "community".

[TrainSimJack]

I wouldn't say is because of mastery, it's more of a preference, because honestly that's how I see the cabs in reality too. Visual is more so focused out the window, versus constantly looking at the controls. Sure peripheral is key where you can see the control stand and what not, but mimicking that is a bit difficult is assume, otherwise it probably would have been done by now in any of the train sims.
if you think about it. The zoomed out view where you can see a majority of the control stand on any locomotive, is like standing at the back doors entry way versus actually being in the seat.

3D cabs let people look around, so you don't really need to be zoomed out to see the control stand, you just use your mouse to look at it.

Do I think 3d cabs will bring people in? Maybe, do I think they will stay? Probably not, most will move back to other sins that they enjoy.

Why so pessimistic? Openrails has value to offer and there will be some percentage of people who continue to use it after trying it.
3D cabs would help with that percentage.
People can run multiple sims - a person doesn't have to give up other sims to come to openrails, and using another sim doesn't mean they've given up on Openrails.

I personally don't think 3d cabs will make a difference when really, orts has the best it can offer now, with physics being on par, beautiful routes and rolling stock, amazing sounds, and a great community that is constantly producing and releasing items.
Can't really say that about the other sims to be fair. It's either locked tight by the main developer releases so so items, or third party creators that are extremely close minded when it comes to "community".

Every sim of course has its value.
What I'm saying here is, I don't think 3D cabs in any way detract from openrails, so I don't understand your aggression against them -
If 3D cabs make the sim more attractive to people, and as a result, vendors of openrails products sell more products, isn't that a good thing?

[TrainSimJack]

image.png

Here's a screenshot I took on a 21:9 widescreen monitor - The green area shows what a user sees if the full monitor is used.
The red area represents the 4x3 cropped image area that Openrails would present to the user.
For those of us with widescreen monitors, when we use openrails, the areas on both sides are black.
The additional side vision can be really helpful for switching operations and yard work.

[R. Steele]

People can run multiple sims - a person doesn't have to give up other sims to come to openrails, and using another sim doesn't mean they've given up on Openrails.

Amen Brother!

[lineman]

Shadowmane they're over at Elvis Tower d/l section.

[jasonjedi1]

Thanks for the confirmation Jack. Cements my plan to migrate to Run8.
Cheers
Duncan

https://www.youtube.com/@carlray7224/videos

I dunno. Run8 does this, but the cars pretty much ALL look the same. Which kills any variety in different numbers.

[CSRX]

How am I being against or aggressive towards it, for having a different opinion on it?

This is wild...

[TrainSimJack]

Shawn

Maybe I read your comments in the wrong frame of mind - one of the downfalls of written only communication is that tone is often missed, and sometimes a stranger will fill in an aggressive tone when none was present.

I hope over time we'll get to know each other better and can help each other get more out of this hobby we both share a passion for.

- Jack