RCT Discussion / Odds and Ends

Well, I'd like to show, for those who aren't in the Discord, some of the things I've made. Some of them got a good reception, others not so much. First are my three submissions to the weekly Building Challenges for the month of October.

 

Last is an experiment in perspective which, while not entirely new, gives a slightly new spin on some old ideas. I apparently highlighted some of the wrong ones. The four angles idea with the covered up sides isn't new but I did manage to put a new spin on it. FK and Walto have done ideas with some similarity too, and there's also Fred and Jappy in The Diamonds of Antwerp with the comics page, and Cocoa's micro, Better Left Unseen, but from the examples I've seen, my version is slightly different.

 

Well, hope you get some enjoyment out of these experiments. I've been rather preoccupied this last year and dealing with a short attention span. The other two things I've made this year, also small, but big enough to get released, are in my parks page. One is my MM 2023 micro and the other is just a silly idea I whipped up before that out of boredom and eventually finished later in the year. I was hoping for a festive release for Nano Room but I guess this will have to do. If you feel like it, you can open it on Festivus, December 23rd.

 

 

Cool stuff. I like the (window) lighting and shadow effects in Nano Room

I'm releasing my second Quad Painting here, Flight of the Ghosts. This time it's a silhouetted night time scene of ghouls and such. Since this is different from the first quad painting, I'll explain what a quad painting is. A quad painting is a scene, viewed from head on from four different angles but which is a four angled illusion instead of a real scene, using scenery to give a view that exploits the different angles. Nano Room, the first quad painting I released, is the purest form. It is fully different from all four views and each angle is covered up from the other three views. Before making Flight of the Ghosts, I tried to make an illusion of a coaster going up and down a hill using coordinated roto drops. That didn't work out well. Flight of the Ghost is the best compromise I could work out with a silhouetted scene where each angle disappears when you shift the view. I have two more ideas for simple quad paintings and once I've done those, I've talked to an admin and that'll be enough content to release them all as a set.

 

I don't want to bore you with any more details. Here it is, Flight of the Ghosts. But be wary of potential surprises.  Flight of the Ghosts Ge_Ride.zip (2.29MB)
downloads: 63

it certainly is one of the more unusual rct parks i've seen. I like the concept of playing with angles for storytelling and I got a chuckle out of the poem and the little # spider which tbh i find more cute than scary.

 

I like that you're playing with rct and doing unconventional things. I'd love to see you attempt something that really takes a long time and exudes effort. I think if you filled a large map with abstract shapes and optical illusions and these kind of things you seem to gravitate towards, the effect can end up being much greater than the sum of its parts. A splotch of color, on a really grand scale, can suddenly become a remarkable artwork. So I suggest you really dig into a huge park (fuck it, why not make the first 999x999 park??) and just fill the whole thing with shapes and colors and weird shit. It could end up being really really cool. and choose some good music to accompany it next time too!

Thank you both for the comments. Even if it wasn't the greatest RCT work, I did put some effort into FotG to figure out how to have it work from all the different angles. I hope to make one more quad painting and then do another larger solo project. If anybody's interested, I could provide the park I made for the Macro Madness building challenge so you can see the custom trees and transport coaster at a closer zoom level.

Alright. I have been mostly working on building challenges, one which I spun out into an unsuccessful design submission. Most of you have probably seen that. Just in case something happens to Discord or my computer and all my efforts are erased, I want to upload them here so people remember.

 

First up is a miniature contest, April Week 1 where you had to make something of 36 tiles.

 

Then is the April Week 2 No Shift Challenge where you had to make something without using the shift key.

 

April Week 3: Pattern Challenge. I made an expanding spiral of shapes with consecutively more sides, going from a triangle, to a square, hexagon, then octagon.

 

April Week 4: Macro Madness. You had to make a screen of an H2h sized park. I didn't do very well this round, but I had fun. I made a set of three towns with different colored bodies of water connected by paths and a wooden transport roller coaster, with custom scenery trees and wildflowers.

 

May Week 1: Layout Flash Challenge. Just went for something simple since I figured I wouldn't perform very well after my best idea(in my mind anyway), the shape spiral didn't do very well. Since this round was simple to execute, a few more people, G Force, and CC9 joined in and got the top spots.

 

May Week 2: Ride Interaction. Make something that interacts with itself, other rides, or the landscape. I made a coaster that barely qualified, interacting with the landscape. It was a coaster that I wanted to submit for design. It got third place but enough first place medals that I decided to submit it anyway. I added a sign and some path and it became Jostler. Lowest scoring work yet, but I learned a little bit about good coaster design and other people's tastes.

 

May Week 3: Botany Challenge. I made a sort of hydroponic-esque corner tree garden. I'd just figured out how to use the Tile Inspector.

 

May Week 4: Emotion Challenge. I was surprised with this one. Lilith didn't enter for the first time and I just made a simple screen of one peep away from all the others, expressing loneliness. And I won. I've never won anything in RCT before so it was quite a shock. I learned that some of my ideas resonate, just not necessarily the ones that I expect.

 

May Week 5: Goblin Mode Challenge. Build something with a monochrome or two color palette. I made a stone goblin miniature library. It wasn't anything too special but it did get me back into making sculptures. Gustav Goblin and others contributed and got high scores.

 

June Week 1: Sculpture Challenge. Did a decent sculpture with a person jump roping over two people with a shared hair braid, based on one of my old drawings.

 

June Week 2: Framing Challenge. I didn't know what to make, so I made a sculpture of a draftsman pondering all the things that they could make with them listed around them in the void. I got the idea for the added text from my Flight of the Ghosts quad painting which is available for download right here. It got me a surprise first place and Lilith made an entry based on one of my ideas. It was yet another nice surprise, one that I may never equal again.

 

June Week 3: Symmetry Challenge. I made an asymmetrical spiderlike creature. It was fun to make, and I think it's one of my better sculptures, but there were better entries. First round that had to be extended.

 

Jump to July. July Week 1: Hot Challenge. I made a walking trail resting just above the surface of a star. I tied with Lurker for 2nd place with his creative entry about a planet around a rapidly warming star.

 

July Week 2: Negative Space. I made a series of circles and partial circles inside of each other. It was fun to make, not especially creative.

 

Time got the better of everyone and next up was the round called Summer Week 3. Macro Madness Finals Edition. That will be due on Sunday, August 5th. I will post my entry on here for that round after it is over and I may be retiring from building challenges as a regular thing after that. I had fun and tried some new ideas and if you're interested in doing a challenge, join the NE Discord and try one out.