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Recluse

RCF

Strata Poster
My first wooden coaster, a modern day Dinn/Summers creation, named after the poisonous spider, it lurks out in the fog, and jumps on you! Right from the first drop, this coaster will throw you around and make you dizzy from beginning to end! (I know sucky tagline just go with it :p)

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Jj2tEPGKo&hd=1[/youtube]

MediaFire Download can be found here.
 

Xpress

Strata Poster
Well, not bad for a first woodie, but there's so many things wrong with it that I'll just say try to stick with steel coasters ;)

5/10

(if you really want to learn how to build woodies, then send me a PM, I have plenty of references)
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Just downloaded this, but don't have time to give you the pointers right now, I'll do that later. Just so you know...
 

Jer

Strata Poster
Hey Xpress being a dick to people isn't how they get better, give him some ****ing tips.

As for mine I gave you my opinions already on MSN :)
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
^What?! Don't be jackass Xpress, share them here if they're so special.
 

Error

Strata Poster
He's got two contacts already. And, knowing you, you'd wipe out tools.

It's a learning experience, so let him learn.
 

Antinos

Slut for Spinners
Wow(with regard to Xpress)...


Ok, it's a Dinn/Summers ride...it should be burned. Joking aside, you need to work on getting your pullouts the correct size. Almost all of yours are way too small. Another thing is build the lift in three segments: one for the pull in, a second for the straight part(highlight it and push I on the keyboard to straighten it), and a third for the crest.
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
^I basically echo everything Antinos has said above, you need to work on making your transitions smoother and get the pumps out of the track.

When you're building it (and riding it in the sim) just think about how it 'feels'. If it doesn't look like a realistic coaster (in terms of trackwork) then it's probably wrong. You wouldn't want to ride a real coaster with extremely pumpy transitions, so don't make your NL coasters with them.

Obviously, you've got to learn and it's great that you're trying, we are only trying to be constructive. (Except Xpress, ignore him).
 

RCF

Strata Poster
That's not too much :p

Here all, is the wise Xpress's tips for bulding a woodie
Xpress said:
Right, so here's some things you should consider looking into for woodies:

First off, you have to understand the concept of a woodie. Generally it's a good sized layout that is packed with lateral filled turns (the laterals are 100% intentional by designer), lots of sudden moments of floater, and overall a ride that is designed to toss you around in controlled chaos.

Secondly, you have to find what style ride you're trying to replicate. The main designers for woodies nowadays are The Gravity Group, GCI, PTC, Intamin and even Gerstlauer has made a movie on woodies. Each has their own distinctive design styles, and use their own methods of supporting and transitioning.

Gravity group is more for giving a good ride, rather than looking the best. Often times their rides will utilize steel supports rather than wooden ones. Transitions are more sudden and flowing for the mostpart, and often times their layouts will feature 90* banked turns, Voyage even manages 3. A GG ride without a 90* banked turn is like not having icing on your cake!

GCI has a very specific and distinctive design style, and thus, most experienced builders believe them to be the hardest rides to replicate, for the mere fact that the company owner likes his tracks to not only look good, but have controlled force throughout. This is why using extensive design shapes, and possibly even using Newton would provide the best possible GCI layout. GCI also uses a rather complex method of supporting, that not only looks amazing, but is incredibly strong. Basically, everything about GCI is about looking good, looking complex, and giving a great ride, even if the layout may be short.

PTC is probably the easiest ride style to build. PTC bases their rides around mostly geometrical shapes. Nothing complex about that. You can make yourself a good 16 sided circle which will allow you to place a control point at every edge to give you the best amount of control. PTC's are also rather easy to support. The Auto Supporter was designed to emulate PTC structures, so that's all you will need to use, aside from going through the layout and cleaning up supports a bit.

Intamin. Intamin woodies are built similarly to their steel rides. A lot of the banked turns are properly banked to eliminate laterals, however they do toss in a few with some laterals. The first hills on the El Toro style woodies have STRONG verticals, somewhere I even read that the back car can spike to -2.0 going over the drop. The first hills are -1.5 and then -1.3, then they get progressively weaker from there. The pullouts from the drops are also intense, reaching closer to 5.2 in the front car. Intamin makes probably the most forceful woodies out there.

Gerstlauer is more of a cross between GCI and GG, so combine those two and you're good.

The most important thing with a woodie is to know that they aren't about pinning you into your seat, or into your restraints. They are about tossing you around, giving you lots of laterals, plenty of floater (probably safe to assume that most woodies don't go over -1.1) and another aspect is giving plenty of headchoppers, or basically moments where another section of tracks supports cross over giving the sensation that you are going to have your head removed.

Which brings up another important point. Generally, you will want to support your crossover points with steel I beams, like so:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1379/woodsupport.jpg

I always double up mine, because real I beams tend to be the size of double I beams in NL. This provides more support for the crossover point.

Also, another important step to take when designing a realistic ride is to tunnel test. Pretty simple, all you do is highlight the entire track, push G on your keyboard, and check the Tunnel box then click OK and ride in the simulator.

With wooden rides, you will need to change the track type to the Steel Looping ride style. Wooden tunnels are excessively large, and have a tunnel opening that is way to small.

If nothing is inside the tunnel, from the lowest rail up, then you have passed the tunnel test (basically if nothing is within reach of the riders).

That in a nutshell is the basic woodie construction tips. There are TONS and TONS more, however sometimes it's best to discover them yourself.

Oh and one more thing: try to color your rides a real wood color. A good yellow/brown color is the perfect color to use.
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Not bad advice Xpress, but the only thing I would say is that the insane ejector hill on El Toro easily delivers the same amount of airtime (albeit much faster) that the first drop. Well, that's how I remember it feeling anyway. It's ****ing crazy!

The best plan for NL is practice. Once you've got the basics of how to construct a ride properly, then you can start looking at getting inspiration from real coasters. If you can't build in NL, knowing how a certain ride type is isn't really going to help you.
 

Xpress

Strata Poster
RCF said:
That's not too much :p

Here all, is the wise Xpress's tips for bulding a woodie
Xpress said:
Right, so here's some things you should consider looking into for woodies:

First off, you have to understand the concept of a woodie. Generally it's a good sized layout that is packed with lateral filled turns (the laterals are 100% intentional by designer), lots of sudden moments of floater, and overall a ride that is designed to toss you around in controlled chaos.

Secondly, you have to find what style ride you're trying to replicate. The main designers for woodies nowadays are The Gravity Group, GCI, PTC, Intamin and even Gerstlauer has made a movie on woodies. Each has their own distinctive design styles, and use their own methods of supporting and transitioning.

Gravity group is more for giving a good ride, rather than looking the best. Often times their rides will utilize steel supports rather than wooden ones. Transitions are more sudden and flowing for the mostpart, and often times their layouts will feature 90* banked turns, Voyage even manages 3. A GG ride without a 90* banked turn is like not having icing on your cake!

GCI has a very specific and distinctive design style, and thus, most experienced builders believe them to be the hardest rides to replicate, for the mere fact that the company owner likes his tracks to not only look good, but have controlled force throughout. This is why using extensive design shapes, and possibly even using Newton would provide the best possible GCI layout. GCI also uses a rather complex method of supporting, that not only looks amazing, but is incredibly strong. Basically, everything about GCI is about looking good, looking complex, and giving a great ride, even if the layout may be short.

PTC is probably the easiest ride style to build. PTC bases their rides around mostly geometrical shapes. Nothing complex about that. You can make yourself a good 16 sided circle which will allow you to place a control point at every edge to give you the best amount of control. PTC's are also rather easy to support. The Auto Supporter was designed to emulate PTC structures, so that's all you will need to use, aside from going through the layout and cleaning up supports a bit.

Intamin. Intamin woodies are built similarly to their steel rides. A lot of the banked turns are properly banked to eliminate laterals, however they do toss in a few with some laterals. The first hills on the El Toro style woodies have STRONG verticals, somewhere I even read that the back car can spike to -2.0 going over the drop. The first hills are -1.5 and then -1.3, then they get progressively weaker from there. The pullouts from the drops are also intense, reaching closer to 5.2 in the front car. Intamin makes probably the most forceful woodies out there.

Gerstlauer is more of a cross between GCI and GG, so combine those two and you're good.

The most important thing with a woodie is to know that they aren't about pinning you into your seat, or into your restraints. They are about tossing you around, giving you lots of laterals, plenty of floater (probably safe to assume that most woodies don't go over -1.1) and another aspect is giving plenty of headchoppers, or basically moments where another section of tracks supports cross over giving the sensation that you are going to have your head removed.

Which brings up another important point. Generally, you will want to support your crossover points with steel I beams, like so:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1379/woodsupport.jpg

I always double up mine, because real I beams tend to be the size of double I beams in NL. This provides more support for the crossover point.

Also, another important step to take when designing a realistic ride is to tunnel test. Pretty simple, all you do is highlight the entire track, push G on your keyboard, and check the Tunnel box then click OK and ride in the simulator.

With wooden rides, you will need to change the track type to the Steel Looping ride style. Wooden tunnels are excessively large, and have a tunnel opening that is way to small.

If nothing is inside the tunnel, from the lowest rail up, then you have passed the tunnel test (basically if nothing is within reach of the riders).

That in a nutshell is the basic woodie construction tips. There are TONS and TONS more, however sometimes it's best to discover them yourself.

Oh and one more thing: try to color your rides a real wood color. A good yellow/brown color is the perfect color to use.

This is basically the shortened version. I could go over with people for HOURS on actual shaping, style, supporting, and all the likes. Oh yeah, I didn't really go much into detail on supporting, but, unless all your making is a simple out and back PTC, then take the time to make your wooden supports look proper. They take lots of time and patience, but the end result is nothing short of amazing and real. ;)
 

RCF

Strata Poster
well one, I'm not even concerned with this right now because of my new coaster, two, I wasn't having much fun making the woodie as it got very tedious, I just thought I'd try something that departs from the typical woodies out there. So I'm not gonna so much take your advice Xpress, as much as I'm making my own decision. I appreciate the time of putting together the tips and all, but I really couldn't care less right now, and probably won't for awhile. So steel for me!
 

unlimitedcoaster

Mega Poster
Well seeing this to be your first wooden coaster, I should get to the point..

The bad things are, the crest of that lift is awful. You'll have to make it more smooth and not rigid. The overbanked turns look to be approx. 90-95 degrees. You should never bank a wooden coaster more than 80 degrees. 90-95 would only be at high speeds, or else it would kill the rider. Too many tunnels man. For a Curtis D. Summers type of inspiration, you'd need one to two tunnels MAX. Seems like majority of your ride consists of tunnels. And the color looks poor. The supports to make it look more like a Summers type of woodie is by using Steeple. Your drop is too steep for that type of coaster (a Curtis D. Summers inspiration coaster that is).

The good things are, you are learning, you'll need some practice but it's a good thing. It's pretty neat for your first coaster. I'm impressed.

Not bad, if you need any help with a wooden coaster, PM me on my YouTube channel. The link is in my signature.
 
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