PIP (Picture-In-Picture) for power and brake

[ekto]

Some of the trains have the controls, speedo and the vigilance system so that you can somewhat see them even if you are fully zoomed on your view. Like the EU07. But some trains you need to zoom out, move the screen and so fort to see the brake leaver, speed and so on. Like in the Pendolino, speedo is on the opposite side of the leavers. This is an issue if your trying to drive without the interface on. When your going 160 and see a yellow aspect, you then need to start zooming, moving the view around, see the brake leaver, then see the speedo, the SHP is flashing etc. 

So I thought that, would it be nice if there would be this PIP function. When ever you apply power or the brakes, a PIP would appear for some time to the corner of the screen. Something like I drew on the attachment. This way I could accurately see where the brake or power leaver is and could concentrate to driving.

[Gazz292]

Get yourself a head tracking set up (my laptop's webcam has the Tobii eye tracker thing built in),
SimRail has had TrackIr support from the beginning almost,

i just use the 'almost free' program FaceTrackNoIr to translate my Tobii tracker signals to TrackIr signals, 
FaceTrackNoIr can use lots of different inputs, even some regular webcams.
If you need to buy a webcam to use for head tracking, the sony PS3 eye camera is recommended by the FaceTrackNoIr people, and it can be bought for between £4 and £10!

The FaceTrackNoIr  software 'costs' €3.45 (it's a donation like thing to help the creators family out, as the writer of this software can't work much due to medical issues) so for between €3.45 and ~€10 you can have a head tracking set up that you will likely want to use on all your other driving games, as once you experience and get used to it you'll not want to go back to using the mouse to look around.

Face / eye / head tracking is so much more immersive, it's like being in the real train cab,
You just move your head and the view in the cab moves with it, want to look out the window at the scenery, just turn your head to the side a few degrees, need to look down at the controls, move your head down a little, change the radio channel?, look at the radio (to the left and down in the EU07)

A common misconception for people who have never used head trackers before is that you have to move your head as much as in real life, therefore can't see the screen when you look out the side window etc,
the movement is amplified (by how much you control and can set up) so you do not actually move your head 90 degrees to look sideways, maybe 10 degrees if that, so your eyes still look at the screen... it becomes second nature after a short time using it.

 

I only touch my mouse to operate the buttons that do not have keybinds, and when i do that, i just look in the direction of the control i want to use (if it's out of the normal straight ahead view) and use the mouse as normal... just no need to drag the view around with the mouse first.
(please please please dev's.... give us more keybinds, we can turn the wipers on and off by pressing a key, but 99% of the time we do this to clean the bugs off the screen, which needs the washer button pressing with the mouse) 

[lDestinyl]

1 hour ago, Gazz292 said:

(please please please dev's.... give us more keybinds, we can turn the wipers on and off by pressing a key, but 99% of the time we do this to clean the bugs off the screen, which needs the washer button pressing with the mouse) 

The keybind for the wipers is already in the settings, but there is no keybind for the washer. (I hope it translated well.)

[Gazz292]

Oh yes, there is a keybind for wipers, i use it all the time now it rotates back to 'off' if pressed enough times (in the EU07/EP08 at least) 

But what i'm saying is, that most of the time i turn the wipers on to clear the bugs from the screen,   to do this you need to use the washers to squirt water on the screen whilst the wipers are running, 

But there is no keybind for the washers... so i have to use the mouse to operate the washer button,  but just a key press operates the wipers. 

 

I really wish all possible keybinds could be enabled, but need to be assigned in the controls.conf file, so it does not confuse people who only set things up in the SimRail menu for controls, 

Sorry for going OT... tho i kinda did that with my first answer, instead of picture in picture, suggesting using head tracking for the ultimate immersion and a way to see the controls without having to use the mouse.