Night Modes for Cabs?

[NJCurmudgeon]

I was talking with someone on here about modifying cab interiors for the Dash 9 locomotives. I Googled some pictures of cab interiors and found that MSTS offers night modes for their cabs.

See: http://www.dieselswest.com/Screenshots/BNSFD9/nightcab.jpg

That got me wondering if it would be possible to do the same in Trainz? After a certain hour, when the headlights come on, the interior switches?

Anybody up for a challenge?

Gordon

 

[cascaderailroad]

That's one thing unrealistic that I find Trainz to be lacking in ... driving at night, in a daylight cab, with pukey blue walls.

If you have ever been in a loco cab at night, it is really dim inside.

 

[NJCurmudgeon]

Creating a day and night cabs wouldn't be difficult (relatively speaking), but I have no idea how to do the coding that would make it switch between modes with the time of day. MSTS seems to have a lot better cabs, though I believe some good ones are available as payware. I want to try and reskin an existing Dash interior that has a good start, but could use some help in the photo realism department. I have Photoshop and a background in professional graphics, so I think I have the skills and tools to do the graphics end. It's the modeling and coding that I have no real experience with.

 

[ryanstrains]

The JointedRail CW44-9's have cabs that you can turn the gauge lights by flipping the switch on the lower switch panel down by your feet on the left side in the cab if that's what you are looking for.

 

[ATSF854]

Sadly, it used to be that outside light affected the interior. It actually looked pretty good too, but now that feature is gone for some reason I cant understand.

 

[sniper297]

Depending on the angle of the sun, amount of overcast, and other factors like shades and tinted windows the inside of a cab can be pretty dim in the daytime. I try to hit a happy medium;

Dark but not too dark. The environment does affect the cab;

That's closer to dusk. An hour later;

And the projected headlight beam kicks on. So for a cab with two different textures we're looking at (1) some way to tie it into whatever subroutine activates headlight projection by time of day, or (2) a script that will do the same and preferably change to the night texture inside tunnels, and/or (3) the JR gadget that turns the instrument lights on and off. My experience with instrument lights in trains planes and automobiles is that they're often on in the daytime anyway, you just don't notice them when the sun is pouring in the windows. Obviously that don't usually apply to private automobiles since most people don't have their headlights on in the daytime even when they should.

 

[llebrez]

This thread is going in the right direction for a long overdue Trainz problem. I hope to have a dimmed cab in the future. For a related problem: That subroutine that switches the illuminating beam of the loco is set to OFF at about 5:30 in the morning and ON after 6PM. So, when is dark outside, you have no lights. Don't get me wrong, the lights may still show in the front of the loco as you can switch them with "L", but the track and scenery are cut off of lights produced by the beam. If we could only switch the time of the morning or evening... it will be more realistic. Anybody up to it?

 

[dragonharh]

How do you even make a night mob for a cab that would be a good place to start ?

 

[NJCurmudgeon]

Graphically, it would be a matter of creating artwork of the inside of the cab with deep shadows, areas in light from internal lighting, glows around screens and dials (along the lines of what Sniper has already been doing). If someone creates the model and can send me the art files used, I could probably take a stab at it myself. The question is more how to do the coding so that it changes triggered by time of day at least. It would be nice to be able to do it in tunnels, but just having a night mode would be a plus.