Magnum/Titan V/ Desperado inspired hyper

No explanation necessary

All these left transitions show the outside rail moving up, and the inside rail curving to the right. I find if funny how all of these pictures ended up being left transitions tho.

I actually think you're right..... maybe Demon just banks so little that it's hard to notice

I'm not so sure the Canyon blaster one moves up on the outside but the left does go down and in. This is the opposite of what Kyle's pic shows. The Hong Kong one also kicks out on the outside and I still think angles are at play throwing you off on the inner rail. In your second pic I'd agree with you, up and in. Loch Ness I still say has a straight inner rail. The outter might kick out a bit to compensate for the bank as you said (looks like the tube bends around the second tie).

In any case none of this is heartlining nor is it how NL banks track.

Let's all stop and think about this, without looking at pictures or arguing about who's crazy and who's not.

The key invariant over the course of any roller coaster's track is that the rails are exactly the same distance apart. Suppose, then, that one of these rails is straight; that is, if you're looking at it head-on it's a point. Then the other rail, in order to maintain its distance from the straight rail must bend along the cylinder parallel to the axis of the straight rail. That's one possibility, and would make Freddie right.

The second possibility is that the outside rail does not, in fact, run along the cylinder, but rather along a vertical plane next to the inside rail. In this case, assuming the transition is completely linear, which it isn't, the inner rail cannot maintain a straight path. To figure out what sort of path it *can* take, suppose that the track is to start at 0* and end at 90*. If the outer rail rises vertically from its starting point, and the inner rail slides horizontally from its starting point, the two rails would be closer at their midpoint than they are at either end of the transition. Thus, this is an impossibility with a strictly linear transition (or, really, any shared monotonic transition the rails may follow while maintaining their positions on the planes). The only option, in this case, is for the inner rail to follow a cylindrical path, thus leaving its original plane and rendering Kyle's argument false (or at least how I understand his argument).

A third option, however, is that the inner rail does follow a slightly cylcindrical path, though not enough to keep the outside rail in its plane, and requiring *it* to follow a cylindrical path. If this is the case, no matter what the transition function, as long as it's monotonic, the rails should be able to maintain their distance exactly.

This leaves us with 2 possiblities: 1) the inner rail is straight, and the outer rail follows a cylindrical path around that rail, or 2) the inner and outer rails both follow cylindrical paths, with the centers of their respective cylinders identical in all cases, and moving between the two rails.

Your pick. The point of this is to show that there is no possible way that both rails can lie in a single plane. There must be some 3-dimensional bending involved on at least one of the rails. My gut tells me that the easiest way to do this is to keep one of the rails (the inner rail) straight and bend the outer rail around the cylinder I mentioned, which would in turn lead me to believe that this is what Arrow did.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Originally posted by Kyle Sloane
Seriously speak up everyone else who thinks im making a valid point and not out of my mind.

Drawing straight lines on an an oblique picture you're stealing bandwidth from RCDB to display is useless to everyone including yourself and doesn't prove anything. That's a good idea. There is no magical shaping conspiracy, and nothing is "lightly heartlined" or whatever so get over it.

^Great comparison. I know they cant both lie in a single plane. They would have some variance throughout the transition, but the basic movement of the rails is outside moving upwards inside moving in, with slight movement off of those planes to maintain distance.

So looking at 1)




I made the inner rail as straight as i could. So this is what it would look like If the inner rail was straight and the outer rail moved around it.

Instead of moving up almost vertically, notice how the the rail veers over to the right as it rises in order to maintain the distance from the other rail.

2)



This shows what im talking about. Compared to this-



This is probably not a great example, but i think that justifies the 2nd one...

All my transitions are basically like the second one.

[Coasterkidmwm]

The reference picture isn't straight on as mentioned before, you're wrong and Freddie is right. Additionally, you've still failed to constrain a time period. Stop leeching bandwidth from RCDB to try and prove a point you don't have with bad examples.

Top-

Right-

Iso-

Comparison-



Mine is almost the same as the real examples. Notice how in the editor, the right rail is nearly straight in the top view, and the left rail is nearly straight in the right view. This is how i think the transitions are basically made. Freddie, its easy to get confused, because notice how in my isometric it really doesnt seem like the rail is moving inwards, it looks straight. However, its just very slight when the transition is only banking to about 30 degrees. Im not basing all these theories off of photos btw. Im trying to support them with photos, but i have actually seen it in real life on the arrows i have been on. I have intentionally ridden front seat on arrows multiple times just to see exactly how their transitions work.

I think it's close enough. Slight heartlining seems to work well, if not very accurate, so I'd stick to that instead of trashing what you got.

Alright thanks i got really worried i would have to. Nice to have some reassurance.

Arrow doesn't use a heartline? Not even the slightest bit? I would be surprised if that was a fact because track in these pictures look to have a tad bit of a ''kick-out.'' I don't know if heart-lining is the exact accurate term but it's the same idea. No need to split hairs.

*See the Excalibur shot, that's a good example showing that Arrow did heartline. It is not the typical straight-away banking, it's actually curved. You have to have ridden it to understand. There are no pictures.


(Idk if they purposefully displaced the spine like that, but the spine definitely tilts away to the right.)

Plus I'm sure most of you haven't been on Excalibur at VFair which has a prominent heartline in the lead-in to the first turn-around.


Hard to see with this picture, but you can detect what I mean down there

Yeah thats the effect of the inner rail kicking in-

And btw, i remember what coaster i rode in the front and saw the theory that im talking about first-



You cant argue that the outer rail rotates around a straight inner rail. It just doesnt happen. Update in like 5 mins btw. Finished layout.

Well that last picture rotates about the outer rail. It's still the same principle.

It's not that Arrow heartlines, that's not the question. It's whether Kyle's build technique works. So far, this is daggone close to being an Arrow. Obviously this isn't how Arrow designed, but did Arrow design with bezier nodes? Didn't think so. He's just recreating the look with Newton, and it's shaping out well for him (lawl pun).

[AyTrane]

Excalibur at ValleyFair had a few sections of track replaced in the late nineties. The section of track leading up into the turn-around was all replaced (hence the spine and "modern" track ties).

Well even if it does, its hard to tell from the angle, it still shows that the inner rail is rarely a straight line on an arrow transition. It either rotates around the outside rail, the outside rail raises, and the inside rail shifts. Other transition types are more rare on arrows. But nobody is wrong or right becuase im sure i could find an example of any type of transition on an arrow. They are just not very predictable in general, and do not have any real universal transition style. Now onto my ride-

It may look like it is too smooth on parts and like something that arrow wouldnt do, but i spent about an hour on each of these turns making them feel awkward and have banking changes and jerks in all the right places. The banked turns are inspired from shaping on anaconda and titan v.

Looks good! You seem to have captured the awkward shaping of arrow

Thanks! Anyone care to take a test run just for trackwork reassurance and basic tests? Ill probably need about 2 people..

sorry I felt this thread needed even more pictures

^^ I will test it!

Originally posted by Kyle Sloane



sorry I felt this thread needed even more pictures

That picture shows nothing.



This picture proves my point. Banked around the outter rail.



Outter rail.

Your NL pics prove nothing as Arrows actual track construction is vastly different than how NL shapes track as I've been saying all along. It is incredibly difficult if not impossible to accurately shape track like Arrow did with the way NL works. You can get close, which you seem to have in most of your pictures (a few are off), but unless you have a very good understanding of how it's actually shaped and how to approach that shaping in NL (which I have no idea how to) then you aren't going to get it 100%. I believe in most of your pictures the way the cross ties bank (and turn around the rail, with the rail staying in the same spot) is giving the illusion of the rail kicking in when it actually does not. In addition, most of these pics are taken from the right seat when we're looking at the left rail which obviously isn't ideal and will also add to this illusion. If anything, if it has to kick to compensate, it's the outside rail (when banking around the inner; oppisite would be true if it was banked around the outside rail).



Thanks to A113 for finding that, that perfectly describes what I am saying. Pic one is how Arrow did it, pic 2 is how NL does it (albeit I think the centerline when NOT paying attention to the heartline is lower).

Noted

Originally posted by Kyle Sloane



sorry I felt this thread needed even more pictures

That is the most painful f***ing ride I've ever been on. Besides Mean Streak of course.

OT: Looks good, I would have to say that you're right about the banking of the outer rails. I can't find a single example where they don't do that.