GP4: 1995 Ferrari 412T2 WIP 4

In today's WIP update, I wanted to show you the cockpit area. As those who have been modding or plays with mods in GP4 will know, the in cockpit view is a generic shape with a 2D steering wheel with no arms, and that the outboard steering wheels are also 2D as well as 2D driver arms with no good views. So it limits what you can model and play with a little. It's an area I notice on other games that have come on a long way from when I was heavily involved in GP4 modding, so I have included a much more detailed cockpit even though it may not be as well appreciated in-game, at least in this blog there is an outlet to show it to you.

GP4 1995 Mod

Back when the 1995 mod was in development, there were a lot of shared parts, the cockpit being one of them and it allowed cars to be produced much quicker. I think the 1995 generic cockpit is on over 50% of the cars in that mod. The surroundings of the cockpit was also very simple, with a token driver body model.

RR3 (in cockpit)

In looking at the Real Racing 3 files, they too have a more detailed cockpit shape (pictured) and a less detailed, low poly version for the main car. Interestingly, the mirrors are much larger on the in-cockpit view model than on the outside of the car. The dashboard is incredibly detailed, and there is the driver model from the waist down. There is a nice steering wheel though it's not pictured. The cockpit surrounds has this horse-shoe shaped lip across the front of the sidepod, but the inside of the cockpit seems like a little random to me, but the main car has a better modelled seat.

F1 2017

The first thing that jumped out to me about the Codemasters car was the giant mirrors, they are quite exaggerated. The dash is neat and tidy and very detailed, but there's an incredible amount of detail on the steering wheel mount. The seat is much more defined and a proper attempt at the inside of the cockpit compared with the RR3 car.

WIP

GP4 is perhaps not the game to put lots of detail in the cockpit, but with GP4Tweaker, it is possible to get a reasonable cockpit view by amending one of the onboard cameras, but its a little tricky.
The dash is very similar to the 412T1B which I did for GP4, and actually quite a bit of that I used photos for this car as an additional reference. But I decided not to recycle any of those parts and create it from new. Dials and buttons are red to highlight them. The steering wheel mount is a simplified version of the F1 2017 car. From the pictures I've seen, the right side under the dash was a little different from the Codies car, so that is unique to my car. The mirrors are also resized and I think more realistic to the pictures I've seen - they are more rectangular and deeper.

Incidentally since taking this screenshot, I noticed that the top of the monocoque from this angle and also from the T-cam view did not look particularly smooth, so I've since tweaked my poly placement.

Also I tried my generic driver body model and it did not fit in this car. Interestingly in Jean Alesi's interview on the F1 podcast, he mentioned that his unique way of holding the steering wheel at 10 and 2 o'clock positions was a way to fit his arms in the car more than anything else. I was looking to do a new driver body model for my stunted 1994 Williams, so I may do that with this car but lose the upper arms which I have modelled in the past. Anyway, I think I need to put some attention to making the cockpit a little wider.


Moving onto the rear head protection and the seat and airbox area of the cockpit...

GP4 1995 Mod

 Again this is very basic stuff in GP4. There's a generic visor, but the rest of the cockpit is very basic. The cockpit itself doesn't have any detail with a generic low poly driver body. The airbox again is very basic.

Real Racing 3

The Real Racing car has a good cockpit detail, with a nicely detailed head protection, cockpit sides and airbox. The seat is also pretty reasonable too. You can also see the small horizontal triangle where the side of the cockpit narrows into the engine cover.

F1 2017

The Codies car is has more polys than the RR3 version, but contains the same amount of detail, perhaps with a bit more on the seat.

WIP

My car then follows the RR3 structure and shape very closely. I put a bit more detail into the seat to make it more inline with the F1 2017 car.