Driver in Loco's or not ?

[dzien50]

Hi All

I had a very interesting discussion with " davesnow " regarding his Loco's having no driver on board or the facilaty of adding one. His view is that the drivers are " Plastic and Goofy " looking and he would never add one to his creations and of course I totally respect his point of view.

However, I myself take the exact opposite view and will never run a loco driverless, I suppose I could argue that there are real drivers in the real world that are " Goofy " looking !!!! ha ha but that might be a tad unfair !!

So I thought via this thread I would ask the community for opinions on this matter, which do you prefer drivers or no drivers ?

As I say Dave and myself are in opposite camps but I suppose there are many who will run both together but for me its just too irritating to see no one at the throttle.

What do you think ?

Cheers
PJ

 

[AlanBradbury]

Most of the driver models do indeed look a bit crap, it is especially something of a mood killer when you see a model of a figure more suited to Thomas the Tank Engine in 1957, complete with a peaked cap and a neck tie, sat at the controls of a GP9 that is meant to be on some short line in Montana in 1995. That looks worse than there being no driver in there at all.

Al

 

[sniper297]

Not. I drive in the cab most of the time, and to make more realistic cabviews I use a copy of the actual body mesh, adding interior controls and lighting effects to that. It's often difficult to adjust the positioning of the controls to hide the console and seat that's built into the mesh, and a driver just makes the whole process more difficult to hack.

 

[clam1952]

Can always add a driver using PEV's attachment maker. The obvious solution is to create or use a better driver model as some have done.

I suppose if you only drive the loco's the absence of a driver isn't a problem, if you like to watch using camera view etc then no driver, even a bright orange one does look a bit odd.

 

[cascaderailroad]

"Willy The Gimp" and his conductor is a pretty good looking animated driver.

The "Coal Shoveler" in Alto Dave's - Wonderful 0-4-0 (and some Renfe loco's) is, kinda fun, making him stoke coal in the opening/closing firebox door, like mad, by continually pressing the"Shift" key.

Some of my favorites: "Yosemite Sam", "Robo Cop", "Fred Flintstone", and "Amy Winehouse" ... to name just a few of the dozens of oddball drivers on the DLS. :hehe:

Did anyone win the (Willy Wonka) "Golden Ticket", where you get to be a made into an official, personalized N3V driver ?

 

[Ricke82]

I tended to agree with Dave Snow until I discovered dricketts US drivers. They look realistic and the animation is subtle enough so that it is not distracting or noticeably repetitive. Now I lean more in the other direction and find that an empty cab looks a little strange.

 

[teddytoot]

The basic problem is that most drivers are reskins (if that) of the original Auran driver mesh that dates from the beginning of Trainz and shows its age. As pointed out above, there are quite a few new meshes produced by contributors that are much better (and some, unfortunately, that are not).

 

[dzien50]

Hi Rick

Thats interesting, where can I find these drivers, are they on the DLS ?

Cheers
PJ

 

[Ricke82]

Yes.

G Stuckey,<kuid:135229:100196>
JT Reynolds,<kuid:135229:100201>
L Simpson,<kuid:135229:100192>
S Witten,<kuid:135229:100199>

 

[dzien50]

Hi Rick

Thanks for these, I've downloaded them and I think they are quite good

Cheers
PJ

 

[tbryson2]

I decided to add drivers to my engines, but only because they really didn't look right going down the road without somone controlling them! I have to admit, they may be kind of cheezy sometimes only because I was trying to keep the poly count down. I'm sure if I tried, I could make someone look pretty good! I also took the time to put "clothes" on my engineers that match the era of the locomotive. Not too difficult to do if you research it a little bit.

I too am undecided if I want to remove them altogether, or leave well enough alone. They DO look better with someone at the "wheel", but in "Cab mode" when you stick your head outside it can interfere with the view. (Wish there was a way to resolve that issue).

Perhaps if I knew how to create a menu of "options" that one can pull up and add the driver if they want to? Unsure how to do that, but I do know it's possible. Had a steam engine a long time ago where you could add headlamp, or reposition it for different versions....

anyway, PEV's attachement maker may be the answer also.

I vote for options. (for the user, not necessarily the creator)

TB