Tsar - gouldy

dude, if you could somehow correct the pacing of the cobra, it would be amazing. The cobra alone almost gave me the big "O". The rest of the ride looks great too!

OK Someone tell me how in the hell you get NL coasters to look and feel so nice! I do all my stuff by hand, point, click, edit, Ctrl-G for smooth, next track piece, and all my supports are hand made, and all my coasters end up being pumpy or jerky and they take FOREVER to make! And I can never do any 3'Ds!

[gouldy]

Ctrl+G for smoothing? Do you honestly use that? Try not using that and I promise your coasters will "look and feel so nice" [;)]

Oh yeah, by the way, I would go ahead and kinda ignore those layout pictures I posted yesterday, just a small edit... I sort of deleted everything after the first two elements . Don't get me wrong, it was a great ride, but it wasn't perfect. The flow of the whole thing was just wrong.

I am glad that I have done it though because I've just added in a different third element and it works so well, really well in fact!

^You don't use the auto smoother?
You know, it can be really useful at times, you just need to smooth the right vertex/segment, and have the track separated into small enough segments...

Anyway, I really like the element, and I liked your layout, but if you think it could've been better, than I'm glad you deleted it!

So just have a billion segments?

I really want to see the new layout. I love your tracks, they are amazing.

[gouldy]

There isn't a new layout for me to show you yet. There is one other element (other than the first two shown at the start of this topic) added at this time, it's not really a layout like the previous two screenshots .

The first layout that I built up, I built pretty quickly as it was directly from a layout I'd already drawn up on paper. This how I have built nearly all of my coasters. Although this usually works to pretty good effect, sometimes it can be difficult when drawing the layout to put yourself in the perspective of the rider and feel exactly what your body would naturally want to do next, as such when you build it, the flow and overall feel of the ride can be off. Hence with this one, complete and total overhaul! [:D]

it looked fun, but if it didn't feel right then you should have done what you did, i personally build a segment from the top view and then go down into side or front to edit height and after that 3D to check if it feels right and it's the way i wantd it to look. What's wrong with ctrl+G anyway? i find it really useful, but i guess its a matter of opinion.

my god that is a tight layout (tight as in compact), seems like those lats are gonna go nuts, but who knows. Once this coaster is posted, you will get a 10 for originality every rate, i can tell you that much. If testing is needed, lemme know!

lets take a look at this NEW layout then!

jackson, you dont need a million sections, ask lewis, he'll tell you how little segments i use. as for the auto smoother, dont use it to fix huge a$$ jerks, just minors ones, like almost unnoticeable ones. i fix most of my track in 3D view personally. any questions, PM me.

ALSO, track looks great gouldy!

Haha that looks nuts, but again since you didn't answer before, is this going to be hand-built?

[gouldy]

it is indeed hand-built.

I think anyone who builds by hand would build in a similar way, placing the track node in the plan or side/front views, then swapping to another to move it into a position somewhere near where it's gonna end up, then perfecting in 3D view.

The thing with using ctrl+G for me, is that at least for me, it seems to add jerks rather than remove them. Certainly when I've tried to use it, I've ridden it in the editor and pressed ctrl+Z straight away!

^That depends HOW you build. If you tend to build with segments that are more evenly split up, thus avoiding any conrol jerks, you will find Ctrol-G to work more than 90% of the time. Ive always had good results with it but I tend to build with 15-20ft segments. Never making one more than 5ft longer or shorter than the ones around it.

[gouldy]

You know, I've never really thought about building in specifically sized segments like that. I might just try it and see how it works out for me, but the way I've always built is to put in a length of track as it's needed, like you're gonna need to put in smaller segments in a helix with a radius of 5m than in a helix of radius 15m or something.

The bezier curve system works best with segments in which they are spaced similar distances apart. It really helped me with conrol issues and in general, whenever I used a smoothing agent my results were 100 times better. Plus you will have more control over the shaping doing it this way.

Try it out. It takes a bit to get used too but its got its advantages.

[gouldy]

I've put an NLDC page up for this one now, although there is only one picture that you haven't seen before, but still, check it out:

http://www.nolimitsdevcenter.net/p5365

Omg, that pic is like amazing.

OMG, looking extremely sexy!
And, yeah, it's just how Real said...
I usually use smaller segments, I guess somwhere between 3.5 and 7m...
Though, I never go directly from 3.5 to 7, I do it gradually throughout the ride.
Also, i usually make a long piece of track, like half the helix or something, than shape it with my own hands, and divide it into smaller segments, and smooth it with the smoother... (or, with helices, you just need to make the handles on both vertexes, and make them exactly the same lenghth, and just CTRL + G it...)

[gouldy]

If you look at the supports in the second picture (obviously! There being no supports in the first ), more precisely, the base of the supports; there is a small section of the support that is a different colour to the rest of the stanchion, a 'foot' I guess. What do you think of it? I have done this before on an X-Car coaster where the supports were a dark grey, almost black and the 'foot' was the same colour as the track, a deep and dark red colour. It really suited the X-Car, the way the track looks and how much lower to the ground it was in general. But I'm not so sure it suits this, which is a shame because I like the novelty of the idea. But I may just have to release the X-Car instead huh?

But yeah anyway, thoughts on that specifically would be good. Like a colour change maybe? I've tried a few and I can't get it to look as good as it does on the X-Car I made.


EDIT: Also, after thinking about what Real has said, I've just looked at my segments of track in the editor and weirdly, on average, the segments are pretty close in terms of the length of them, certainly not changing by more than about 5ft from track section to track section. Purely by accident I guess.

It looks odd but i like it, if you wanna release the X-car then do it, but it's your choice.

I like the support style but if you're planning on running your supports through the auto-flanger make sure you don't color them until you do because they will turn black. You'll have to do it all twice which would be a mongo waste of time.

Gouldy, I think for a B&M you need to have the entire support the same color. I can't think of any instances where that isn't the case.

^ correction, look at diamondback, they have like yellow ish gold for the lift supports, but then after that it goes to like grey ish white. Odd. Also, very nice coaster indeed, very twisted, gonna be craaaaazzzaaaay. Wonder what the coaster would be like as a sitdown... I miss the sitdown... (cries).

I was hoping that everyone would understand exactly what I meant, but I guess that didn't happen. Yes, there are a few B&M's that have differently colored lift supports than the supports for the rest of the ride, but there are none that have a differently colored base like Gouldy has in his screens. The entire support from top to bottom should be one color.