Tower of Terror effects status watch

[Rodj]

Yep, Bravo has been infected by the bright window projection as well. Interestingly it doesn't have the changed 5th Dimension transfer BGM like Charlie does, its still the correct one. In this stream the drop shaft speakers in Echo did play the drop sequence track as well.
Its still pretty ironic to me how back in early 2019, Foxtrot had loud everything compared to Echo, but now it is literally the opposite.

 

[Magicart87]

Yep, Bravo has been infected by the bright window projection as well. Interestingly it doesn't have the changed 5th Dimension transfer BGM like Charlie does, its still the correct one. In this stream the drop shaft speakers in Echo did play the drop sequence track as well.
Its still pretty ironic to me how back in early 2019, Foxtrot had loud everything compared to Echo, but now it is literally the opposite.

Wow! Projection looks terrible. Nothing an A.V. club student (or really anyone) couldn't fix in under an hour. Shame at the state of this attraction.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Not to mention it has had issues with the audio being too quiet and out of sync since 2008. It’s absolutely ridiculous and lazy.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Whoever is in charge of the show quality of this attraction: I hope you read this, because you are unfathomably unfit for your job. Literal high school students could do it better. You are a joke. Imagine how many people would LOVE to work on the show for Tower of Terror and would get it right in a few nights at most, but instead it's been an absolute joke for over a decade.

 

[Rodj]

More audio/speaker shenanigans/experiments from a stream today on Foxtrot.
The 5th Dimension BGM and starfield door SFX/narration track is now completely wonky and not synchronized by one second with each other when the doors open, it's kind of hard to explain. The SFX for the starfield doors is present in both tracks, and usually when the starfield doors open with the SFX track starting, the BGM track skips ahead to the proper point so they play in combination. Now that isn't happening, so now you hear both play one second off of each other making a messy sounding mix. The speaker(s) directly behind the starfield doors also sound a bit muffled.

The profile they got was profile 4, which back in 2003-2004, the sign strobes also had a spark SFX track for that profile(I am unsure if it had one for any other profile, but it is definately audible in some older videos of profile 4). In the stream, I could kind of make out something that sounds suspiciously similar to that SFX at the same point it would of played back then, but because of people screaming and the profile motion being delayed by a few seconds, its hard to tell. I could be wrong and what I am hearing is actually just a mechanical sound the shaft is making.

When the AGV starting pulling up to the unload doors, all of the sudden the lightning SFX(normally plays entering the drop shaft) played out of one of the speakers close to the drop shaft doors(could of been inside the drop shaft too), but it was only the second half of the audio, not the full audio)

I do hope that this is just them trying to figure out how to work on the sound system, and will be fixed up soon(Though keep the spark SFX if that is what I am hearing)

Video:

 

[DoleWhipDrea]

Visited ToT yesterday. First, I was surprised to hear the little girl's recording, "It's raining, it's pouring" a few times while we were in the pre-show room (if this has been the norm for a while please forgive, I just haven't heard it there before.) It seemed to have the desired effect - it creeped out all of the guests and the room was dead quiet, so much so that when the pre-show recording was done a lady laughed and said, "It's so quiet! I'm used to this room being much noisier!" The group chuckled and someone else responded, "Everyone's too scared!"

Took a ride on Charlie and I was pleased to see a lot of the lighting plussed up in the show scene where the ride vehicle is moving through the 5th dimension. Even the eye had the image of the elevator of guests! Finally, during the drop sequence, there was a bright lightning effect on the left side of the elevator which I don't ever recall seeing either.

There's probably more that I missed, but I figured it was worth sharing what I remembered here!

 

[Rodj]

Visited ToT yesterday. First, I was surprised to hear the little girl's recording, "It's raining, it's pouring" a few times while we were in the pre-show room (if this has been the norm for a while please forgive, I just haven't heard it there before.) It seemed to have the desired effect - it creeped out all of the guests and the room was dead quiet, so much so that when the pre-show recording was done a lady laughed and said, "It's so quiet! I'm used to this room being much noisier!" The group chuckled and someone else responded, "Everyone's too scared!"

Took a ride on Charlie and I was pleased to see a lot of the lighting plussed up in the show scene where the ride vehicle is moving through the 5th dimension. Even the eye had the image of the elevator of guests! Finally, during the drop sequence, there was a bright lightning effect on the left side of the elevator which I don't ever recall seeing either.

There's probably more that I missed, but I figured it was worth sharing what I remembered here!

I do know they added additional sounds in the boiler room such as the radio loop from the DCA/WDSP version, but never heard that one yet in a stream.

The last stream I saw 2 days ago on Echo still had the 1994 “white shirt group” shown on the eye, wonder if it is only on Foxtrot side. Do you remember at the hallway scene if the 2 strobes behind the wall lights were active? The purpose of them was for the eye photo but I wonder if Disney got a low light camera that doesn’t require the strobes.

When you say on the left side of the elevator, are you saying on the left wall or on the left side of the front which is the wall of the drop shaft? The lightning effect on the front of the drop shaft has always been there since 1999, however it has been on and off throughout the years, and it is seen longer on some drop sequences vs others.

I do like the changes, I just wish they could fix some of the actual problems that are still going on.

 

[DoleWhipDrea]

I do know they added additional sounds in the boiler room such as the radio loop from the DCA/WDSP version, but never heard that one yet in a stream.

The last stream I saw 2 days ago on Echo still had the 1994 “white shirt group” shown on the eye, wonder if it is only on Foxtrot side. Do you remember at the hallway scene if the 2 strobes behind the wall lights were active? The purpose of them was for the eye photo but I wonder if Disney got a low light camera that doesn’t require the strobes.

When you say on the left side of the elevator, are you saying on the left wall or on the left side of the front which is the wall of the drop shaft? The lightning effect on the front of the drop shaft has always been there since 1999, however it has been on and off throughout the years, and it is seen longer on some drop sequences vs others.

I do like the changes, I just wish they could fix some of the actual problems that are still going on.

I don't remember seeing any strobes in the hallway - I do actually remember thinking that it was a little weird that it was just bright the whole time (not house lights, of course.) The picture wasn't from our ride vehicle or anytime recently because (amongst other things) no one in that picture was wearing a mask, and tbh looked like a photo taken from the 90s. I think I remember hearing that the eye showed a default picture for most of the time it was shown before the image was removed from the attraction for a long time?

For the lightning effect, it was the left front (wall of the drop shaft) - that's wild, both my husband and I had no memory of seeing that effect before. It made quite an impact!

Details like these fascinate me - so many individual effects and details make up an attraction and work together to make something special. It's unfortunate when they're not maintained over time. I hope they keep cleaning things up for ToT!

 

[Rodj]

I don't remember seeing any strobes in the hallway - I do actually remember thinking that it was a little weird that it was just bright the whole time (not house lights, of course.) The picture wasn't from our ride vehicle or anytime recently because (amongst other things) no one in that picture was wearing a mask, and tbh looked like a photo taken from the 90s. I think I remember hearing that the eye showed a default picture for most of the time it was shown before the image was removed from the attraction for a long time?

Your earlier post made it seem like it shown your ride vehicle. For a few years now it has always been the 1994 stock photo.

 

[Tom Morrow]

That stock photo is so incredibly stupid and lazy. It would be better for it to just remain an eyeball if it's not actually going to show your image.

 

[TrojanUSC]

That stock photo is so incredibly stupid and lazy. It would be better for it to just remain an eyeball if it's not actually going to show your image.

One of the issues with the eyeball photo is that there was no CM to review the photos (as there has always been for the ride photos), so guests were flashing the camera and doing other shenanigans which would then appear in the eyeball. That said, the replacement option is truly lazy.

 

[DoleWhipDrea]

One of the issues with the eyeball photo is that there was no CM to review the photos (as there has always been for the ride photos), so guests were flashing the camera and doing other shenanigans which would then appear in the eyeball. That said, the replacement option is truly lazy.

That's really interesting that they didn't have someone checking the photos by 1994 for ToT - Splash Mountain opened in 1989 at DL and quickly garnered the nickname, "Flash Mountain."

After all of the work that was done to link photos to Magicbands and MDE, one would think Disney would have updated all of this at the same time.

 

[TrojanUSC]

That's really interesting that they didn't have someone checking the photos by 1994 for ToT - Splash Mountain opened in 1989 at DL and quickly garnered the nickname, "Flash Mountain."

After all of the work that was done to link photos to Magicbands and MDE, one would think Disney would have updated all of this at the same time.

Sorry - to be clear - there WAS a CM checking the merchandise/PhotoPass photos (which are taken at the top of the drop shafts), but the HALLWAY photos, which would then appear in the eyeball in the 5th dimension, is what was left unmonitored.

At some point there was some discussion of adding a "delete" photo button for the CMs in the tower control room, but this was abandoned at some point and they just went with the current option. Weirdly it has been activated a few times over the years, always to be killed again in a few months.

 

[Tom Morrow]

I never thought of that as a reason for not doing the photo. I always assumed it was broken and they were too lazy to fix it. That's really interesting. But if that's the case, the eyeball should really just stay an eyeball rather than showing us an image from 1994.

 

[Rodj]

Just as I thought, nothing changed in terms of the effects for the 50th. It’s been exactly the same since my last post. Memory Maker lights are already dying out again.

 

[Tom Morrow]

It's had embarrassing show quality for over a decade, I expected nothing more.

 

[Rodj]

The starfield doors are completely screwed up on Echo side now. The shrink effect never starts, the stars just go blank right before the doors open, no strobe, and the "line light" only appears on one side. Tower is literally falling apart in front of our eyes, how much longer is Disney going to let the Tower sit in this messy state? This is honestly on course to being the worst era of the Tower by far. I would take the 2018 or earlier 2021 era over this hot mess.

 

[BuschFlagsTowers]

I am currently in line and as far as i can tell, echos hortons are working but foxtrots aren’t opening at all. it may be under refurb but i don’t know for sure. will update after riding.

 

[BuschFlagsTowers]

Ok i just got off charlie (tower 4) and here’s what i noticed: audio was mostly synced up except for 5th dimension scene (rods speech before the drop shaft was a few seconds early as was the ding when you enter. That said the audio throughout was very well mixed and everything was crystal clear. In the drop shaft, the hortons didn’t seem to be opening when they should have and when they did they were a bit late, the ghost figures were not light up and no air was blasted, the lightning effects weren’t present except for a bit at the end, & the left memory maker light was completely broken. As for other show scenes, the ghost reflection in the hallway was really strong and the window screen was WAY too bright. Also I didn’t ride in foxtrot but there was no renovation all of the hortons are just fully closed for whatever reason. Overall, a few minor improvements but a whole lot of ugh. Do better Disney.

 

[Rodj]

Ok i just got off charlie (tower 4) and here’s what i noticed: audio was mostly synced up except for 5th dimension scene (rods speech before the drop shaft was a few seconds early as was the ding when you enter. That said the audio throughout was very well mixed and everything was crystal clear. In the drop shaft, the hortons didn’t seem to be opening when they should have and when they did they were a bit late, the ghost figures were not light up and no air was blasted, the lightning effects weren’t present except for a bit at the end, & the left memory maker light was completely broken. As for other show scenes, the ghost reflection in the hallway was really strong and the window screen was WAY too bright. Also I didn’t ride in foxtrot but there was no renovation all of the hortons are just fully closed for whatever reason. Overall, a few minor improvements but a whole lot of ugh. Do better Disney.

I’m a bit confused. Charlie is on Foxtrot side. In the boiler room facing the elevators, Charlie is the 3rd one from the left.