Top Thrill Dragster - The Finale

Ive been fighting with it for awhile behind the scenes. After the release of NL (I believe 1.5) that rendered my newer version at CS useless due to all the blocking changes, I knew I wanted to redo it.

Plus, given its simplicity, I knew I could in the very least Elementary the entire ride and get as close to perfect as I could see fit. A "Finale" if you will.


Basically Ive wanted to close this chapter for awhile. I knew my 2003 Edition wasnt going to be final since the heartline wasnt perfect and alot of people complained about it being at night (so much better at night but whatever).


I will say that at 1:51 I perfected the top hat today. The rest, well I have no clue. But given I have all the objects that I can still import into 3d max and start editing it will make finishing it ALOT quicker.

Also for this project, Im not the sweetest with environments. One of the more beautiful times is sunset on the lake. Anyone whos got the skills to create a very realistic sunset scape that would fit the Lake Erie look - go right ahead. Ill take any help I can get as long as the final product will be up to my standards.



Pictures in a few minutes with comparisons.


And yes, that means that WWS will see the absolute final version.

Good grief ... talk about a perfectionist my friend. Wow ... I amazed at your ability to continue being focused.

^LOL If you only knew my unfocusedness lately...I just cant leave such a simple track the way it was.

Comparison picture
Few things to note: Heartlines, Angle of track entering and exiting top hat and obviously, the accuracy of the track.


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Looks to be pretty awesome.

What happened to the perfect Maverick recreation?

Alot more complicated than this. Perfect? That ride is a beast on technicality. Let me worry about this for now.

[:)]

Excellent to see you are redoing this real.

And it is also excellent to see your launch and breaks aren't parallel [:P]

Expect e-mail in an hour or so with a nice pretty sunset.

Hmm... What formula did you use for the curves?

I used hsak for all of it. There was really no reason to do it any other way. I was more worried about getting the curves to be specific sizes and heights. Plus the G read outs look spot on. Around 4.5 to 4.7g's in front car up hill and cresting with decent speed at around -1.2 in the back seat.

Sent to your gmail account.

[A7]

Yes!! I never got to ride your old one with 3ds (download doesn't work) but it looks amazing. Hope this one turns out. It would stay in my collection for ever. Heartline on the tower is looking awesome.

Sweet, great to see you adding more detail!

Few things to fix: (IMO)

Heartline on tophat
3ds on launch and brakes
Appropriate trains with correct blocking
3ds queue fix (with canopys)
3ds exit station
Supports on brakes
Cartexture
Finer detail on rocks
Appropriate color on going up the tophat

Another question, is it possible (at all) to get the color (of the white color) from the transfer track onto the real track? Real, is that possible with bump mapping or whatever you use?

One would assume with the dedication that Real is putting towards this track that any problems with the old version would be corrected.

Good luck on the update Real and thanks for taking the time to update an already wonderful track.

Also, what about Talon (long ago?)?

I never felt my colors were off. Infact, I even counted and sized them up so I had the correct number of them in the correct places. However, if you havent downloaded my 2003 then maybe thats what you mean. I dont even remember my first one really.

Im not answering questions about other rides. Kind of pointless.

Fairly certain track is finalized. 2800.64ft long (I may try to get rid of that .64ft in the purg...not too sure) and my only complaint Im going to have is the blocking and the fact that I have to use brake segments to launch...but then Ill have those ridiculous side mounted brakes. Yuck.

[A7]

Wow, very close. I would definitely try to get rid of the .64 feet. Just so when it comes to the facts, your exact. I do know one thing you could try to do to make this recreation better. I don't remember how it worked though. I rode an xcelerator recreation, not on WWS, and the guy managed to get the train to roll back before launching. I wish I kept it.

Good luck with this. I'm surprised you're getting good shaping for the pullover with hsak...I've tried KK just for fun and was having some problems getting the right leadin/leadout lengths. But yeah good luck, and if you need someone to test your trackwork then you know where to find me.

Edit-after a quick test, hsak does seem like it might work well. So yeah I take that back.

For the launch you can make every single segment a few feet, so the transport settings do not show up. However, it kills the fps by about 10 or so.

I checked the Real's original version and it is .37 ft away from the real version.

Real, maybe rcdb.com just rounds down to the nearest ten on the length, because I do not think the actual length is *exactly* 2800 ft.

Pretty sure if you do that now ragan, the crossties don't show up either, as I've had that problem. If you use a lift with cable texture, then your acceleration will be messed up most likely. Best solution may be to use wheels and model crossties, but I'm not sure. I'm guessing with some experimentation he'll find the best solution for his situation.

EElover2, you're probably correct, however 2800 is the value that's given, so since one doesn't know if it's actually longer or shorter, the most correct solution is to hit 2800 exactly IMO.

Wow never thought it would happen! Sweet! I'll be awaiting the release for sure.

Originally posted by Real

Fairly certain track is finalized. 2800.64ft long (I may try to get rid of that .64ft in the purg...not too sure) and my only complaint Im going to have is the blocking and the fact that I have to use brake segments to launch...but then Ill have those ridiculous side mounted brakes. Yuck.

You can make it only show transports if that helps, I'm pretty sure you already know about this, but maybe you just spaced or something.

^Remember, I have to use a brake segment to use the launch function. Ill be using LIM for launch and using tires then 3ds'd over so thats not the issue.

Its the fact that I believe no matter how small your brake segment is, the brakes still show. You cannot get rid of them because if you change it too LIMS those are basically fixed brakes. So they are still there.

I dont think getting rid of the .64 will be hard - just going to be painful estimating with the purg those micro feet adjustments.


Dcs- I actually get accurate G values over the top. Shaping looks fairly good and I pretty much eyed it up with pictures and how I know it should feel.


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I lied. On my third purg resize at 0.9998 I got it exact. I like when things work out.

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Looks perfect! Great job Real! Maybe having a NLDC page?