Let the Right One In

This was a team project for CoasterSims’ Three Blind Mice challenge back in January 2009. The rules of the challenge were people would sign up to build either the trackwork, supports or themeing on a project, each player having a week or two to do their part of the work before passing it along to the next member. The catch was no one knew who their teammates were until after the project. In this case I was responsible for the theme of the ride, and needless to say I wanted to do something memorable with this so I could try to claim this project as my own. The results speak for themselves. Fortunately I had two great teammates who also went above and beyond what was expected of them, so I think the end result of our combined efforts is quite impressive and something we all can be proud of. Not coincidentely, we won the overall challenge up against some stiff competition; what I think we did best that put us over the top was the fact that there was no weak spot in the design and our work complemented the others perfectly.

Responsible for the trackwork was Gale RazorWind, who I believe used mostly Newton 1 to design the track. What he created was a very ambitious Intamin giga-coaster. The technique seen in the track itself wasn’t the most advanced ever; flawlessly smooth and controlled, but mathematically a bit on the simpler side. However, the sprawling, multi-part layout gave plenty of opportunities to make a coaster that almost feels like undertaking an epic story, each part slightly distinct from the last with it’s own charms, and spread all over the NL map with a lengthy ride time. Supports were in the care of one Griffonluv, who did a very respectable job accurately re-creating the Intamin giga style with plenty of attention to detail, an nary an autosupport in sight. His contribution to the final product was actually greater than it might appear in the sim. Since only the themer can make any terraforming modifications, if the supporter wanted terrain under their ride they’d have to use free nodes where they believe the terrain should go, and then the themer, not able to make supports of their own, would have to design the terrain to fit with those supports. I’m assuming because he wasn’t responsible for any terrain Griffonluv decided to get some giggles in by leaving me with some impossibly ludicrus terrain requirements, including a sharp 160 ft. airtime hill with supports suggesting it will be stradling a hill just as dramatic, with the valley of another track dive laying just a few feet off to the side. Har har.

I’m glad to say I didn’t back down from the challenge Griffonluv presented me, having to come up with some unique excavated cliffside terrain to solve that one problem, and fitting in a whole slew of other rolling hills, rivers and trenches as well. Because it was made in January, I wanted to give the ride an atmosphere that fit with the mood of the season, i.e. icy cold death. Well, there was more to my thematic decisions than that, but a nighttime coaster in the snowy woods was something I always wanted to try out, and it works quite well. The problem with night scenes in NL is the lighting engine always illuminates the ground too much, but with it covered in snow, it now looks somewhat realistic as the snow really does reflect the moonlight like that (at least it does where I live in northern Michigan when we get a full moon on the fresh snow). It also won the award for best individual themeing contribution, which I am proud of but I think is well deserved. In terms of 3D scene objects it’s actually very simple, most of what’s in the ride is envirnoment tweaks with the 3Ds limited to 2D planes and rocks, mostly. It just goes to show how much one can accomplish with a scene with very little, and you don’t need a 5000 polygon count to elevate your NoLimits creation.

By the way, the environment is very dark. If you have a lot of lights on it might be very difficult to see anything on the screen. The environment was tested with all the lights in the room off, and the result was extra creepy. I recommend if you can to try the same.

Now, if you’ve been wondering where the strange name came from…

Click on the image below to download and ride Let the Right One In. If you do, as a courtesy please leave a comment below after you’ve ridden it letting me know if you liked it or not and why. Thank you, and enjoy!

Back to NoLimits Projects