Need Help Realizing a Concept

Hello everyone. I'm quite new to this, but am fascinated by the concept of the program. While I'm not overly good with designing the coasters themselves yet, I am decent with the terrain. Having said that, I've got an idea for a coaster that I'd really like help with. I can either discuss it here in detail or I'd almost rather someone e-mail me or if they have the time available to help me realize my idea over the next several days or weeks. It's been firmly in my head for weeks now but every time I go to design the coaster, I mess up. I admit I'm just not that great at it. I mentioned it to friends and they all thought the idea was a cool one, and some theme park would likely eat it up. I'm going to continue to try by making smaller projects in the meanwhile, but I fear my talent in making the actual coasters just isn't there sadly. I appreciate anyone even reading this, but would love it if someone could help make my idea a reality. I'd obviously give credit where it was due as long as whoever helped would do the same in return.

[afro85]

Can you describe your coaster idea so that maybe someone will get interested ??!!

I will do my best to convey the idea to anyone who might be interested. I could even show pictures of what I've managed to do with the program if it'd help. But, here goes anyway...

The theme is 2 sets of dueling coasters, steel vs. wood with a Tron Theme (A total of 4 coasters).

The terrain would be a raised plateau in the middle of the map that would be a near perfect square, called "The Grid". The wooden coaster would be called "The Grid's Edge" and have the two wooden coasters riding the edge of the plateau. Color scheme would be White and with Blue Tron accents and Black with Blue Tron accents for the two trains. On both sides of the plateau to the east and west would be large lakes going to the border and to the north and south, it would be land. The steel coasters (Stand Up or a Flyer would be ideal) would traverse the sides up and back, preferably with tunnels through the plateau at one point. All four coasters would have points where you could see them in action. For the steel coaster, the color scheme would be black and yellow (or black and red as "the villain") for one train and black and Tron Blue for the other, and be called "Tron's Revenge". Custom terrain textures would be interesting if it could be made to look like "The Grid", but not a requirement. My thought was to have the trains on the steel coaster go up the lift so that the top of the lift is just beyond the edge of the sides with the two dueling tracks going North and South respectively and then go out over the lakes / land, and come back. All tracks would criss-cross among one another at various points (mostly on the plateau as the steel ones go back and forth. EDIT: I should point out all four stations would be on the top of the plateau as well. I know multiple coasters usually dispatch at the same time in a given park, so I don't think any special script would have to be done to make the stations dispatch times identical, but probably would help if it could be done. Also, I'd want at least one brake section involved for both sides so multiple trains could run. This is more a "fantasy" coaster than the real deal, but I'm certain it could be achieved either way.

The hard part is timing elements so that all four coasters would return to their stations at the same time (roughly, of course) and have interesting meet up points where all four are near one another at at least one point in the ride. I'm not overly picky about what elements are included, but I think with the details I've given, whoever took this on would have enough details now to make it work.

Again, if anyone would help take this on, I'd be grateful. I really want to see it come to life somehow. Even a queue for it could be fun to do for the right person. I really think this would be an awesome ride and one that would have 4 totally unique experiences depending on which coaster you chose. (DOUBLE EDIT: I'm sure I'm leaving out details, and if anyone needs clarification on anything, please ask. I realize this would be a large coaster that would likely take up most of the map, if not all of it and that's how I'd want it)

[Turbo]

post updates here (preferably with pics) if you have questions most people are friendly and willing to help I think this sounds like a really cool idea and I'd love to see you start on it

Thank you Turbo. I saw Nightwind's YT page and think he might have interest in this project since he seems to be a Tron fan. I know I don't have the skills to do this on my own, I wish I did. I absolutely will post pictures of what I managed to do with the terrain though to give an idea of a starting point. If someone wanted to do custom textures to make it appear more like "The Grid" (I'm guessing some kind of black gloss), that would be awesome (especially with the right background). I'm more than willing to help by giving more specific details when someone shows interest in helping. In the meanwhile, I'll work on getting some of those photos uploaded.

[TheArchitect]

So you are using two wooden coasters to create the backdrop of the grid, while having two steel coasters do the battling in the grid? I like the idea. The only issue is that in reality, the ride would be a) a massive, high cost undertaking and b) outside in open air, where lovely sunny days would kill the Tron/Grid feel. Which is why Tron has always been an indoor concept up until this point. I do think it can be pulled off though, with decent station buildings, lighting, and theming throughout the ride.

I can most certainly help.

TheArchitect wrote:

So you are using two wooden coasters to create the backdrop of the grid, while having two steel coasters do the battling in the grid? I like the idea. The only issue is that in reality, the ride would be a) a massive, high cost undertaking and b) outside in open air, where lovely sunny days would kill the Tron/Grid feel. Which is why Tron has always been an indoor concept up until this point. I do think it can be pulled off though, with decent station buildings, lighting, and theming throughout the ride.

I can most certainly help.

I would appreciate any help, and thanks for the interest. Yeah, I totally know it should be an indoor theme ideally, but I think with the right terrain texture it would work, but it would have to be flat. I'm not sure if the generate background would work if all textures aside from water for the ground were a glossy or matted black, or even if custom backgrounds would work combined with a night only ride. I said before, I recognize it's just a fantasy coaster and wouldn't be ideal for the real world at all for all of the reasons you mentioned. I'm just no good with building anything, but I did kind of get a decent terrain setting down, but really it's not that hard. Raise a 4 square by 4 square section of land in the middle with 3 squares riding along the west and east sides being water (technically 3 and a half since the full map is 14 1/2 by 14 1/2) and to the north /south land. You mostly landed the concept right, but the "main grid" and "beyond the grid" (still looks mostly the same as in the recent film, but slightly different) are different. I'd want the wooden coasters to either traverse the "Main grid" which is the center square and the steel ones to go everywhere including on the plateau and down the four sides (One going north / south on land, one going east / west over the water). All coasters would start on the plateau and end there. The wooden ones would almost have to circle (more like square) in on themselves for it to work due to the length the steel ones would be traveling to make it all work. The idea I came up with for that would be to use the inside of the plateau to make tunnels for the wooden ones to give them more room to work with if you get what I mean. (EDIT: I'm not sure how good wooden coasters can use tunnels thinking about this. If it had to be all steel, so be it, but that's not the ideal concept. Again, if you or anyone else needs clarification, I can certainly try to fill you in).

[TTD03]

Well this certainly is interesting, can't wait to hear/see more about this park!

I'm hard at work on it and have actually made decent progress!! I've watched every online tutorial there is from all the creators on this site, and I've learned a lot. I'm even using Google Sketchup for custom terrain! It's going to take time, but I have a grand plan here. I may need advice from time to time or flat out help, but I will be posting updates. This thing SHALL live.

[TTD03]

Fantastic!

[mkingy]

Is using sketch up wise for custom terrain? I mean the editor is pretty powerful and I imagine far more optimised than using 3DS files? I could be wrong though...?

The diea does sound very awesome - just like a fantasy coaster should be!

mkingy wrote:

Is using sketch up wise for custom terrain? I mean the editor is pretty powerful and I imagine far more optimised than using 3DS files? I could be wrong though...?

The diea does sound very awesome - just like a fantasy coaster should be!

The way I see it, if it works out, great. If it doesn't work, I'll stick with just using the terrain paint tools. No sense in not trying though. I've seen others have made use of Sketchup and had it work for them with No Limits, so I figure I might as well give it a go.

This sounds like a huge undertaking of a project that if done right, will pay off immensely. I'm in the middle of two projects myself (a fantasy and realistic), but I can do my best to help out with tips, and maybe some other work, from now and then. So don't be afraid to ask for help!

RCT3rox wrote:

This sounds like a huge undertaking of a project that if done right, will pay off immensely. I'm in the middle of two projects myself (a fantasy and realistic), but I can do my best to help out with tips, and maybe some other work, from now and then. So don't be afraid to ask for help!

I appreciate the offer RCT. If I need any assistance, I will post it here. Right now, I'm working on getting the stations right and also working on the terrain floors. I will be posting my first pictures later today of the initial terrain layout. It isn't much yet, but I have indeed started and that's at least something!

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to give an update. I'm still working on this. I will be posting pictures, but I decided to be smart and get some graph paper and map it all out beforehand. All those years of mechanical drawing and plane geometry will pay off somehow, lol. This is going to take me roughly a month to do I figure, but will be worth the wait if I do it right. One thing I know I could use help with is supports for the steel coasters. I'm not good with those at all. Another thing that I'd be interested in someone helping with would be a queue for the ride when I'm done. I'll try to leave enough room for a building to house the queue. I don't know if there is a way to import logos into Sketchup or not (like from Photoshop or Illustrator), and if I'd have to use some text tool to create the fonts I need (which I have). I'm still learning a lot about this.

They are called photo textures in sketch up and use standard image files like JPEG and PNG. You just have to scale it to fit whatever you are adding a logo to.