Custom Scenery Exchange / Render8 Custom Scenery Thread

They seem a bit rough around the edges. You're very close to something good though. 

Hey everyone. I know I've been kinda quiet for a few weeks now, and honestly, I've been trying to keep my posts here down a bit to keep from showing the same ol' crap and boring everyone. I just wanted to take the time and release something I've been experimenting with though for the last week. 

 

I know not many people have needs for actual shops these days, but I thought this turned out to be a pretty fun, but somewhat challenging project and figured I'd share and make it worth the time spent.

 

The one thing I've always wanted to do was some form of an animated shop, but with the obvious limitation of the object editor not being able to animate actual shops, I decided to try and make one as a small scenery object. More just for something fun to look at and add a little kick to a park I suppose.

 

Here's some animation shots I've put together to demonstrate.

 

Bob's Amazin' Blazin' Burgers

 

In-Game

 

 SE_R8BBAR02.gif (50.48KB)
downloads: 7

 

And the scenario editor 4 view.

 

 4_VIEW_R8BBAR02.gif (123.2KB)
downloads: 7

 

I'll update the first post in this thread with the ZIP/DAT for anyone to download.

^That looks amazing! Not sure how useful it'll be in parks [can't see myself using it] but it looks really cool and is definitely a step in the right direction as it almost looks like something RCT would have in-game.

^Wow, thanks so much Stoksy. I know it's probably going to be a challenge finding an actual use for it in majority of peoples parks, but I've got so much good stuff out of working on this, and had a heap of fun, with some headaches along the way, it kind of helps me with future ideas for shops and whatnot. 

 

This idea originally came from looking at some stuff by the Amazing Earl when he made them sim rides, where they were actually scenery and not real rides. When I hit the wall with the editor not being able to do animated shops, I thought, why not try it as scenery. So kudos to AE for the idea.

 

Thanks again!

The animation on that is smoother than any actual RCT assets, good job.

^Thanks Rawrylol. Much appreciated for the words.

Hey everyone. I was kind of wondering if anyone could possibly help me out and point me in a good direction. Right now I'm looking to get back into taking another stab at making custom rides again. My thought is, I want to start with something simple like I did before. Just a basic animated flat ride that could be done in the object editor for now, and then move into the ride maker, once I scrape off the rust from my brain and get a routine going for myself.

 

My big problem is I need some inspiration and ideas for basic spinning type flat rides, and was wondering if anyone knew of any sites that had good references to existing rides like that. Not necessarily to copy real rides, but just to be able to see their layouts, movements, etc. and then see what I could come up. I've done some google searching so far and only turned up a few pics, but no actual sites that have like a database of existing thrill rides. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

 

I think I've had enough practice with the custom scenery lately, and want to take the things I've been practicing on and do another take on a ride for a change just to see what I can come up with. I'm bound and determined I'm going to stick with something this time and try and make it a little more proper, not themed to just one thing.

 

Thanks so much everyone.

I briefly looked for a traveling rides database, but the best I got was this Dutch website: http://fangokermisfo...actie-Database/

It offers a list of traveling rides (current and retired) from The Netherlands, divided into several categories. The website is in Dutch, but with the info next to each picture you should be able to find more specific info on each ride, in case the picture catches your attention.

Most flat rides in RCT have a 3x3 surface, which often looks cramped and cartoony/unrealistic. Do you think it's possble to create your next ride on a 4x4 surface? This would make a proper Octopus ride. Perhaps more basic, RCT needs a proper Break Dance.

I agree with the Breakdance thing.

Also it could be helpful to visit the sites of ride manufactors, they mostly have detailed videos and PDFs on their sites:

 

http://www.hussrides...bout-hussc.html (Breakdance, Topple Tower, Frisbee)

http://www.mack-ride...m/en/index.html

http://www.intaminworldwide.com/

http://www.zamperla.com/en/

http://www.vekoma.com/

http://www.zierer.com/en/topmenu/home/

http://www.kmg.nl/km...me/home_en.html

http://www.mondialrides.com/

 

Just to name a few...

 

"MFG"

^^ Thanks so much Liampie for the great reference. I think at this point I'm more interested in the pics if anything, then I can try and track down videos if need be to study the motions and other little animated things. 

 

I see what you're saying about the 3x3 as the object editor only does 3x3 at most, so I'm assuming I would need to use the Ride maker tool rather than the object editor. I agree how the larger ones look better though, so maybe a 4x4 would be a better starting point. I can see if being a bit of a pain in the ass trying to cram a good ride like the break dance into a 3x3. 

 

I'm gonna ask a stupid question, but I looked up this breakdance ride you mentioned, and I assume this is the ride you're referring to, just to make sure. 

 

 Breakdance-Mueller_Corny_down.jpg (470.67KB)
downloads: 10

 

^5dave - Thanks for the links and idea of manufacturers sites. I'm a little uneducated on all the rides and makers of them out there, so I'll definitely have a look through them links. Much appreciated.

Yes, that ride only I prefer the centred version:



(on the right - six-armed Octopus on the left)

And here's a better picture of a five-armed Octopus:

Ok, been doing some work today trying to get my project in motion. I've decided I'm going to attempt a break dance ride at this time. Going with Liampie's idea of doing it on a 4x4 footprint, I went through the thrill rides in the game trying to match something that had 4x4. So far, unless I missed something, it seems the enterprise is going to be my closest base ride to use for that size.

 

I've been trying to think some things through while reading Amazing Earls notes on his site. It seems the enterprise is extremely fast and has a rather complex animation. The ride itself consists of 196 frames which may work nicely if I can make use of all them and keep the ride at a descent pace without being too fast. The drawback here is the Enterprise doesn't show guests on the ride, just loading, with a door closing animation after they get in, so I may have to figure a way of hiding the guests on the break dance in a similar fashion.

 

I thought it might be an idea to post in things as I make progress. Haven't started any modeling just yet as I've been trying to think things through a bit before I find out I just screwed myself later down the road.

 

I really appreciate the ideas guys.

You can also just have fake peeps on the ride. Amazing Earl didn't like that idea, but it's doable.

^Yeah, I remember seeing him say that, and at first I didn't understand why he disliked it, but after sitting and thinking about why he would, I guess I could kind of see that. I dunno, maybe doing some kind of animating closing doors on the cars would be cool, just not realistic. Decisions, decisions.

Well, this sucks. All the excitement of thinking the enterprise would work, and like an idiot, I overlooked some notes on Amazing Earls site about the animation sequence.

 

Very complex (and FAST!) animation sequence. Animated gates close, four frame sequence for first few rotations, speed increases and animation goes to a 3 frame sequence. Four unique views.

 

That right there screwed me. The ride only does the first four frames, then bounces back to the first one, then later does only three, then goes back to the first one. So that kills the plan of even trying to get a nice rotation on the ride. 

 

Here's a quick knock together tester I did just to get it in the game and see how the frames would run and these are the results.

 

Seems you have to click the image to watch the animation.

 

 custom_ride_1.gif (855.38KB)
downloads: 30

 

As you can see it just causes the whole damn thing to ping pong back and forth without ever making a full rotation. I see no other options looking through Earls notes for anything that would allow me to do a nice smooth, or even a turn of any sort on a 4x4 footprint. At least for a break dancer type ride. I think the object editor is going to be the only way to do this and sucks it's limited to 24 frames and 3x3.

 

I'm still going to keep experimenting with this before giving into this limitation though.

I think it's just a matter of getting the frames all in the right spots. I had some issues with my zipline when they'd be banking the wrong way, or randomly flickering to different directions on certain elements. 

and about the ride itself, it still seems a bit small to me, even though it's on the 4x4. Is it possible to expand it to the edges?

^ I'll definitely keep experimenting with this as you said trying to get the frames in the right places. Maybe it's easier than it looks, I don't know though.

 

As far as the ride size goes, this was just a quick guess on the frame sizes just to get it up and running real quick. once I get this sequence thing figured out, I'll go back, size it better, and start trying to build the ride. Unfortunately, I'm pretty well on my own with this whole ride maker thing other than AE's documentation on his site, so I just want to make sure I get it right before spending boat loads of time building and perfecting an animation only to find it's not gonna work.

Hey everyone, just stoppin' in to show a little bit of an update to the ride. Still got some ways to go but it's progressing pretty smooth.

 

Clicking the image to watch it shows it in it's proper size.

 

 

While the original plan was to lay this out on a 4x4 footprint, I had to opt for the twister as a base ride. I got myself to the point where I finally figured out how the enterprise animations worked, and had a test ride animation built. The biggest problem with the enterprise was it's super fast speeds. While it was working, it was so damn fast that sometimes the ride looked like it was reversing directions at some point, even though it really wasn't. Just the illusion. Needless to say, it looked as if some people were gonna die on it. I tried so many different combinations to try and stretch the rotations out to make it look a bit slower, but I just honestly couldn't make it happen. At least not at this point in time.

 

So anyway, that's what I've got so far. Animations are right about how I want them, number of cars, and now it's down to some other small little features and getting the peeps animated in. 

Its looking really good.

That looks sickening. Do the rides actually have the individual cars rotating fully as well? I'd imagined that they'd float back and forth, rather than constantly spinning like that, but I've never seen one operate, so I dunno.