The perfect airtime hill

Okay guys I need your help. Ive been building No Limits for about two years now and have been running into this problem sence day one. I cant build an airtime hill unless I do it by hand using two segments. I noticed that most of you can build PERFECT hills using NL tools, but I just cant seem to figure out how to do that. Ive been using Elementary and AHG for some time now (not that the AHG has anything to do with it) but using Elementary I cant figure out how to make a perfect airtime hill. I dont like the "curve upwards, straight section, parabolic curve, straight section, curve downwards" method, I want a hill that produces floater/ejector air after the initial curve. So to sum it up I want a B&M esque hill rather then a Arrow type hill. So what should I do? What do you do? Is there something I need to use like the Purg? How would I use the Purg to get what I want? I really appreciate it guys, and I apologize if this topic has already happened. Thanks again!

Colin C

keep building by hand.

in terms of force on the hill, thats somethin you gotta do yourself. once you're good enough, you can just eyeball it and you can see before you even load the sim what kinda forces it'll give. Once you're to that point, the best thing to do is just use guess check and revise.

you CAN do it in the purg, but its hard. I dunno I'm probly just missin somethin. besides, I never took the time to read that whole thing on it anyway.

Its not so much force on the hill as it is getting the parabolic curve perfect as in no pumping and a consistant radius. Exapmple, the turns in the Elementary are perfectly round and do not pump at all, so the train "locks in place" so to speak, as in it doesnt move at all in the whole turn. I want that in a hill on all parabolic curves and still give floater/ejector airtime all the way after the slope up. Ill try to show you what I mean tomorrow.

Colin C

I know what you mean. that's just skill. you gotta work to get that..... or you can take the "easy route" and use the elementary and the purg. however, later down the road once you realize that the purg and the elementary can't do EVERYthing you want it to and end up with some crappy tracks when you try to build by hand.
And, I'm not sure if you got this impression or not, but the AHG doesn't do much of anything for form, IE, a pumpy hill won't become un-pumpy just cause you applied the AHG to it.

purg and the elementary can't do EVERYthing you want it to

I sure haven't run into that problem. In fact, I think I can do more now with elementary because I am not worried about every imperfection in the track. But lets not turn this thread into a tool vs hand built thread. [;)]

thatonekid, have you tried using any of Redunzelizer's (sp? :/) new formulas? In particular, the parhat one?

Like Canadmos said, Redunzelizer's bowfu_parhat formula is exactly what you are looking for. It creates a perfect parabolic hill, with specified airtime G forces based on the speed at the top. It also features leadins and leadouts, so you don't have to worry about the transition.

Originally posted by SMer


And, I'm not sure if you got this impression or not, but the AHG doesn't do much of anything for form, IE, a pumpy hill won't become un-pumpy just cause you applied the AHG to it.

Because that's not what the AHG was designed to do. Obviously it was designed to add a percise heartline to a track, no depumping. Only the smoother in the registered construction kit has any kind of depumping in it.

Also, quoted straight from the description, "Also note (as mentioned earlier) that the input track needs to be as "perfect" as possible. Every tiny bump or pump will be magnified. Since the tool is calculating all the forces around the track, a bump would result in a quick change of forces and therefor a quick rotation around the heartline. You usually don't want that. "

Back to the topic. Red's formula is good for that. You might also want to consider the parabola formula in the synthsize section of the purg. Those, when the speed is correct, give perfectly sustained -Gs over the top of the hill. The only draw back with those is that you have to make your own lead-in and lead-out.

I beleave that Elementary Parhat is what Im looking for! The standard one in the Elementary isnt it is it? The problem with that is I cant tell whe the lead in and lead out angles are in order to make the hill smooth. Does anybody have a link to this elementary addon? I searched but couldent find it. And no, the whole AHG comment really had nothing to do with anything, just wanted to express my level of skill with No Limits. And a side note, Im seeing all these images of the Elementary elements that are pre banked, when I do it, it comes out flat and I adjust the bank in the actuial construction. Am I missing something here? Thanks again guys!

Colin

Most of the formulas simply don't include banking with them, since a majority of the time (except for heartline rolls/zero-g rolls) the AHG will be better at banking an element, because it's fully heartlined and often more accurate,with filters and other options much to complicated to be made in a formula.

Two notes on "perfect airtime hills":

1.) A parabola will *only* serve for perfect floater. When wanting any certain ammount of negative G's aka "ejector" you would want to use either quasi-elliptic, or numerically integrated (forcewise) shapes. I've experimented a lot with both of the latter, but don't expect anything of that stuff to get publically available. There also is a chance of modelling nice "ejector kicks" (in opposite to "sustained") with clothoids. Again, the parabola will not be able deliver such a particular "kick".

2.) My public Elementary formulas are currently not up, but as soon as these will be available again, you'll see a quick note in the "Elementary Soup"-thread.

redunzelizer

^Well to me, ejector air is anything about -1.0 G's. And floater is sustained 0.0 G's to me, and I'd be perfectly happy with just floater air! So is this ParHat wizard for the entire hill including lead in and lead out slopes? If so, thats the greatest idea Ive ever heard of for the Elementary! Also, on my H:SAK update, I cant make turns that I raise the middle in, it instead raises the whol track, am I missing something here or is that a bug of some sort. Well Ill try to not get off topic, but Ill be looking forward for the wizards!

Colin

Ejector air starts on -0.5 for me already. I think there are few coasters to actually pull more than -1.0 g's... Also, it's new to me that a parabola delivering enough negative g's will not count as ejector... Yeah it's not as sudden of a pullup as on a continous hill top for example, but I thought it does eject you. I know what you mean though.

Originally posted by Pad

Also, it's new to me that a parabola delivering enough negative g's will not count as ejector... Yeah it's not as sudden of a pullup as on a continous hill top for example, but I thought it does eject you. I know what you mean though.

Of course a parabola is capable of delivering as many negative Gs as you want it to. But in terms of "airtime economics" it will be the worser choice in comparison to any "true sustaining" or "true kicking" shapes. Now this thread's title was asking for "The perfect airtime hill", didn't it?

But in the end it will depend on *your* decicion on how letting your riders experience *your* idea of airtime.

Originally posted by redunzelizer


2.) My public Elementary formulas are currently not up, but as soon as these will be available again, you'll see a quick note in the "Elementary Soup"-thread.

Any chance of some other formulas being made availble at this time, like the clothoid, middle part of cobra, or that "explicite radius control within YL-space" one? Maybe those QPQs and QBQs?

EDIT: Sorry for going off topic.

Yeah, the YL radius control would be really great to have. I wouldn't have to bother with making loads of cutom made H:SAK sinewave formulas.

Originally posted by SMer

I know what you mean. that's just skill. you gotta work to get that..... or you can take the "easy route" and use the elementary and the purg. however, later down the road once you realize that the purg and the elementary can't do EVERYthing you want it to and end up with some crappy tracks when you try to build by hand.

If it's so "easy" then why can't you understand it? If it's so easy, then why can't you build a track with it? Huh? I bet you haven't even tried to use it to make a track.

One day, I'd like to see all the people who diss on elementary and say it's the easy way make us (elementary users) a track. Then you'd see how easy it is.

I agree, the elementary was difficult for me to learn how to use, but once I started doing it right, my tracks have REALLY improved. You might notice I dont post a whole lot of tracks here, but its mostly because I only post the best tracks that I have, and so far, I havent even finished one of my better tracks yet! The whole reason Im asking for the perfect airtime hill is because I like building hyper/giga/wooden coasters more then multi inversion coasters. I hope that all makes sence, and thanks for all your help!

Colin

Originally posted by SMer

I know what you mean. that's just skill. you gotta work to get that..... or you can take the "easy route" and use the elementary and the purg. however, later down the road once you realize that the purg and the elementary can't do EVERYthing you want it to and end up with some crappy tracks when you try to build by hand.

And, I'm not sure if you got this impression or not, but the AHG doesn't do much of anything for form, IE, a pumpy hill won't become un-pumpy just cause you applied the AHG to it.

I know what you mean. that's just stoopidity. you gotta think to get that..... or you can take the "easy route" and bash the elementary and the purg. however, later down the road once you realize that the purg and the elementary can do EVERYthing you want it to and end up with some crappy excuses when you try to build by hand.

And, I'm not sure if you got this impression or not, but the SMer doesn't do much of anything for contributing, IE, a pumpy argument won't become un-pumpy just cause he applied his reasoning to it.