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OVERVIEW:This guide
will take you step by step through the process of aliasing your cabviews. There
are two methods to alias your cabviews. The first is to alias one locomotive to
the cabview of another. The second is to alias locomotives to a “Common Cab”
folder. Using a Common Cab folder has many advantages in that you can save a
lot of memory. Another is that if you decide to make changes to your cabview,
You can
alias any locomotive to any cabview. So if you want to spruce up your SW1500 by
giving it the Acela cabview, go ahead. That is a little extreme, but you get
The most
In this
section we are going to alias an add-on locomotive that you just downloaded to
STEP
1: Open the folder GP20 files that end with names like ace,
Look for the file that ends with .engSTEP
2: Now scroll down past the Lighting
For a line named “CabView”. CabView ( GP20.cvf )STEP
CabView (
“..\\..\\GP38\\CabView\\gp38.cvf” ) Your new GP20 will now have the
QUESTION: The
..\\..\\
MSTS that it wants to go somewhere
In this case it is being told to go
GP38. It is
Subfolder named CabView. It is
the file named gp38.cvf There are several ways to create the
used when working in the black art of
quotation marks allows for the use
other path creator is: ../../GP38/CabView/gp38.cvfSome
CabView folders have a subfolder named Alias that will
one or more
.cvf
files. These are usually variations of the main CabView to
make them more specific to one railroad. In this example we will assume our
default GP38 has an Alias subfolder with .cvf files for
other railroads; BNSF, CGW, GN, and MRL. The inside of the AliasSTEP
STEP
CabView ( “..\\..\\GP38\\CabView\\Alias\\GNGP38.cvf”
) Your GP20 will now have the cabview
If you have
followed the above instructions and your locomotive either has no cabview or a
partial cabview go to the PROBLEM Once you
are satisfied with your new cabview you may safely delete the CABVIEW folder from your GP20 locomotive folder or move it to your Common.Cab folder. If you move it to the Common.Cab folder be sure and rename it
METHOD 2:This
section will deal with using the Common.Cab folder. This is loacted in the TRAINSET folder. If there is no Common.Cab folder, you will have to create one.
Just make sure you name it Common.CabThis folder
can be a central location for all cabviews. By aliasing most of your
locomotives to this folder you will save a ton of memory. Cabview folders can
be 2mB or more. So if you have 200 locomotives and alias 150 of them to the
Common.Cab folder you will save 300mB of Hard Drive space. If you 20
locomotives aliased to the same CabView and you make a change to the cabview,
you only have to make 1 change not 20. It is basically the same as aliasing to
In this
example you have just downloaded a cabview for a SD60 that you want to use in
STEP
1: Open your Common.Cab folder named SD60 Open the folder and look for; SD60.cvf Alias subfolder for SD60.cvf Note the names of the folder and .cvf
Close the Common.CabSTEP
2: Open the folder for your GP20, then
open the .engSTEP
3: Go to the CabView CabView (
If Alias CabView (
That’s all
PROBLEMS:Now that
you have aliased your cabview, you want to see how it looks. So you start the
sim, pick your locomotive, and your new cabview isn’t there! You may see
needles and handles floating in mid air, or you have a cabview with no needles
or handles. Don’t get frustrated. We all know that MSTS can be rather quirky at
First thing
to do is check the path in the CabView line of the .eng
file. Make sure all the dots and slashes are in their proper places. Then check
your spelling. I have a nasty habit of “fat fingering” the keys because they
are small and close together. It is quite easy to hit two keys at once without
Whether you
have aliased to another locomotive or common.cab folder you will have to create
an Alias folder. Simply create the new folder and copy or
move the .cvf file into it. Sounds simple. Unfortunately there is
a little more to it. The .cvf file itself will have to be edited. If you have
gotten this far, you CAN do it. We will be using the same path creation lines
that we used above. Below are examples of the .cvf MAIN section and a CONTROL
MAIN SECTIONCONTROL SECTION – NOT ALIASED
CONTROL SECTION – ALIASED
Graphic (
We
will continue using the GP20 locomotive that aliases the GP38 CabView. We have
moved the gp38.cvf file into the Alias folder. By
doing this we have confused MSTS, it is following the stated path, but there is
In
CabViewFile
CabViewWindowFile (
CabViewFile ( GP38Right.ace
CabViewWindowFile (
If you have aliased to a locomotive folder, in this
CabViewFile
