NL- Best method of building:

I use a combination of Newton, elementary, and handbuilding, using AHG on handbuilt or elementary sections. I don't know how to use FVDs, but I do use some of the Elementary wizards like the hill, straight, corkscrew, and heartline roll wizards, not just HSAK.

[Turbo]

congrats bringing back a half-year old topis

Originally posted by Turbo

congrats bringing back a half-year old topis

Exactly in what way does the fact that all posts but the last are a half year old, make them less useful than they would be if they were written yesterday? Why should one be not allowed to reply, just because during the last half year others didn't bother to? That just doesn't make sense.
Be glad it's bumped, because bumping is better than creating a duplicate topic, right?

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To not stay completely offtopic in my first post here, I'm actually a "purist" handbuilder. I once tried out some tools, but found it too much of a hassle to get them do what I want. This is probably because I don't care too much about accuracy (and therefore don't want predefined elements) or perfection (if a track feels smooth and somewhat realistic (not deadly) when riding it it's usually fine with me), but I do want to go wherever I want with a track. Besides I consider NL as a game (it's actually a software toy) and I think moving about with track nodes feels the most "game-like". That it takes some time to get it right is, to me, "part of the game". To me it delivers more enjoyment than generating tracks by formula.

I also hate those hyper-short track segments in the Editor; they make some last-minute hand editing near impossible to get right.

The only tool I use somewhat extensively is WoodMagic (the built-in auto-support generator), but I don't consider that a trackwork tool and I believe this topic is about trackwork tools. (if you count WoodMagic, you should count the Terraformer too ) I fiddled with AHG before, but it acted weird on airtime hills (I know there is a way around that, I just found it too cumbersome).

But of course, to each his/her own

I have recently become too much of a perfectionist to try going back to hand building. I was just never pleased with the result, no matter how much time I spent hand-smoothing.

For me, starting a new track is a big undertaking, and I usually only feel inspired to complete a track about once a year.

I first hand build a rough sketch of what I want the ride to look like. Then I try to recreate the track shape with FVD's and HSAK. Though it does involve a lot of tedious trial and error to keep sending elements through the purg and AHG, I like the end result much better than anything I could get from hand-building.

I really don't think that a track should have to be heartlined by hand. I'm surprised there hasn't been an update yet to allow building the track around the heartline guide. That's one thing that I really want to see in NL2.