Samples of 3D coasters, & what to look for in Big Thunder Mountain recreation

[CrashNet]

Yeah thats true

I did forget to mention that they tend to mess up in Windows 98. I use Windows 2000 Professional and they run great. Now... that computer must book! Dual P3?! Amazing. I would love to have a computer like that. So obviously, I have to ask to make sure: the company is xeon, right? And if its not too much to ask, how much mulla did you have to trade for that little miracle?

 

[tenchu]

And how much did your bank balance complain about it afterwards? :lol:

 

[NowInc]

Re: Yeah thats true

Originally posted by cac2889
I did forget to mention that they tend to mess up in Windows 98. I use Windows 2000 Professional and they run great. Now... that computer must book! Dual P3?! Amazing. I would love to have a computer like that. So obviously, I have to ask to make sure: the company is xeon, right? And if its not too much to ask, how much mulla did you have to trade for that little miracle?

Actually a "xeon" is a different type of intel chip..packs more of a "kick" over the standard P3. They are mostly used for the 3D and programming community. Back when I got this machine (and back when i was WORKING a 9 to 5) it cost me 5 grand just for the motherboard and processor. It was worth it for multithreaded rendering...i went from having a render time of 9 hours for an animation to less than 3..really impressive. Now that I do network rendering...I can render that originally 9 hour long animation in just under an hour.

...so someone please tell me why it still takes me a full month to render out my animations? I really need to optimize my scenes one of these days

 

[wanabeimagineer]

Wow all of this looks incredible! Goodjob everyone. I love designing coasters but unfortunately I cant get any more advanced than Roller Coaster Tycoon and Ultimate Ride I would like to try No Limits Coaster so I can start getting a little more advanced, can anyone tell me where to get No Limits and how much it costs? Thanks in advance!

 

[Justin149]

Originally posted by wanabeimagineer
Wow all of this looks incredible! Goodjob everyone. I love designing coasters but unfortunately I cant get any more advanced than Roller Coaster Tycoon and Ultimate Ride I would like to try No Limits Coaster so I can start getting a little more advanced, can anyone tell me where to get No Limits and how much it costs? Thanks in advance!

go to www.nolimitscoaster.de or www.nolimitscoaster.com their you can find a link to buy it and download it. It costs 25 dollars. Really fun program.

-justin

 

[Disney4648]

Isnt the 1st picture (green) of BTM a model of the Hulk??

 

[WDW/SFOG_freak]

[BLOWING A FUSE]
DON'T EVER CALL IT BTM! ITS B&M!
[BLOWING A FUSE/]

Sorry, I just HATE it when people do that...I am a MAJOR coaster design addict, and know every coaster company out there...and I know that they have PROPER names that ARE NOT hard to learn...I learned ALL of them in less than a week (I think...).

Anyways, NowInc. will you put these MASIVE plugins up on the site for download (ESPECIALLY the one you just showed us, THAT WOULD BE SOOOOOOOOOOOO great, especially if you made it so that they could run in 3DSM4.2.6.

Again, sorrry for the first thing, I just had to blow that fuse.

 

[NowInc]

Originally posted by WDW/SFOG_freak

Anyways, NowInc. will you put these MASIVE plugins up on the site for download (ESPECIALLY the one you just showed us, THAT WOULD BE SOOOOOOOOOOOO great, especially if you made it so that they could run in 3DSM4.2.6.

Well..the main development is going to be for Maya 4.5...but I am planning on porting it over to XSI, Lightwave, and LASTLY 3DSMax (why?...because MAX is a really horrible program..and the warez kiddies love it)

I plan on selling it when they are done...however..be warned..I am part of an ongoing project that will make the plug-in disabled unless you are using LEGAL copies of the software...so no dongle/legit floating licence on max or maya...no coaster plug in for you Sorry...I spend the cash on this stuff...no free rides

...and for those of you who say "Hey..I can't afford it!"..well..then go to college and learn them.....and for those of you who say "I'm too young for college!"..well then..uh...tough I was young once too...and i found LEGAL ways to do the 3D stuff....

Anyway...I god a LOT done this weekend..expect some really interesting updates in the next few days

 

[CrashNet]

Cool

Looking forward to it Now! I'm reading up on Maya and getting better and better at it everyday. Unfortunately the copy I own is Maya 4 (recently fixed; put my version of Max here instead!), and for obvious reasons I can't go out and buy the next version. Oh well. My biggest project right now doesn't involve rollercoasters anyway! And you're right about that script. I have been reading up on how it works and it seems to me not to be much harder than coding the Windows Media Skins, which I learned on my own. Keep up the good work Now! Lookin' forward to seeing more screenshots of both yours and Coasterking1's work!

 

[NowInc]

Yeah...the hardest part of MEL is the pre-planning..the code itself is easy. What i do is I gather an "archive" of all the code I write and re-use it when necessary (for example..for the coaster program i am using a physics engine that i wrote a year ago..and the "connection" code was yanked from another project of mine..saved me a good 5 hours of work easy)...once you get the hang of it..you'll see what I mean

 

[spagmoid]

WDW/SFOG_freak you need to relax, noone here wants to read your "fuse blowing". You have already gone off on people a couple times for pointless things like that and it's getting old.

 

[orlandoparks]

Originally posted by Disney4648
Isnt the 1st picture (green) of BTM a model of the Hulk??

It does look like the hulk........:veryconfu

 

[wanabeimagineer]

Originally posted by spagmoid
WDW/SFOG_freak you need to relax, noone here wants to read your "fuse blowing". You have already gone off on people a couple times for pointless things like that and it's getting old.

Right, and besides I think by "BTM" he meant Big Thunder Mountain, not Bolliger & Mabillard (sp?).

 

[Rider]

I dont visit this often.

Yes I am the Rider from CF.

Yes, I know what this project is about. I was only making fun.

 

[Main Street USA]

Freak, not only was your fuse blowing not necessary if they WERE talking about a particular coaster company, but since BTM is "Big Thunder Mountain" it really didn't make any sense either.

 

[NowInc]

Update! Yaaaaay!

Ok..so heres whats going on:

I am no longer a 1 man team on this thing. I got together with an old teacher of mine who is probobly the most experienced scripter I have ever met...and he glady jumped on the project with me. So I sent him the code I have so far, and 2 days later he sends me it back...only its twice the size and has like 90 new things on it.

He fixed the interface issues I was having (where i would add track peices and the more i would add..the longer it would take)

He finalized the integration of my physics engine...working quite nicely I might add...

A ton of other "small" features here and there...

and the BEST thing...which will probobly make no sense to anyone who isnt in computer animation....he added a fake HDRI/GI engine! So...you are wondering.."What the **** is HDRI/GI"...let me explain...or at least try to.

First...GI..or "Global Illumination" is a feature that calculates how light bounces from one object to another based on its luminosity, specularity, color, diffuse...etc etc. What that does for animation is...when enabled...it renders out accuratly how things would look if they were in real life. Now...this takes a LONG time to calculate..normally. As any Maya user can tell you...sadly...Maya has no GI engine. So what HE did was found a way to fake it...pretty quickly too. So now when we make a coaster..it has "real life" lighting...pretty neat...so what is HDRI??

HDRI is a bit more complicated...imagine it as being able to light an entire CG scene without using any lights. Instead, the lighting information comes from an image thats wrapped on the inside of a 3d "dome"...this also takes a LONG time to calculate..and again...Maya doesnt have this feature. I dont ask HOW he did it, but he integrated a HDRI engine into Maya...that runs damn fast.

...ok..confused? maybe visuals will help Below is a test image we rendered out today using his fake GI/HDRI engine. We didnt raytrace (thus why there are no reflections from the other objects), and excuse the jagged edges..we didnt turn up the anti-aliasing to save time. This scene has 0 lights and was done in the standard Maya render engine using his attachments::

 

[Main Street USA]

Thats real sweet, Now!!! Who the heck is this guy? Geez!

 

[Irrawaddy Erik]

(picks jaw off the keyboard) that is awsome Now the sphere reminds me of Escher

 

[Bdis86]

I need to get in to CGI beyond photoshop! lol

 

[NowInc]

Emmy (the guy im working with) is insane...he was working for Alias|Wavefront R&D (guys who make Maya) in their Santa Barbera office before they closed it a few months ago...so he has chunks of code laying around that he never uses...Hell..his name is even in the help files and manual..he wrote half of the damn thing..lol.

He is also the same guy who called me crazy when I told him i was going to write a new physics/dynamics engine from scratch a few years ago...well..when i finished it...he quickly respected me and was eager to team up with me on a project...and this is the one he chose

He is moving back to South Florida in a month or so...when he does we will go into "full development" mode...right now its just us dabbling with code that we have already written and stuff...so its still FAR FAR from even a BETA.