Mega Roundup 250 - Winners Show Your Glowies!

^ oof

^^ thats the Name

Hey look, it's 10 boxes, each containing a Glowie! All of the trophies for Roundup 250 are here now, ready to immediately ship out to the winners. (Yes, 150 and 200 Wheelies will still happen.)

Got your project in the works?

-Ride_Op

Yeah, but the main question is of it will be completed in time. And then a video needs to be made...
Is a video like this good enough?

A video that's unavailable?

-Ride_Op

It should be available now

^ Take a look at the playlists for the previous competition roundups: 100, 150, 200 for a better idea of what entries might look like

Well, It's gonna be though for me I see

To finish my spam of messages here today, here is a part of the ride that will probably not be featured in the video

The storage

For the final video, you'll want to include music throughout the whole video. Also don't show the entire trip from the station to the top of the lift unless something interesting is happening there. Finally, shorter shots are probably best, depending on the mood and feeling you're going for.

-Ride_Op

7 weeks left! Show us what you got going on!

-Ride_Op

Things are not what they seem

But teasers seem like such a '5 weeks to go' thing.

Oh, we are starting teasers now are we?

^This is it, the post that killed me.

No, those tunnels are not final. They are there to test the clearance with the supports

Also started working on the queue

Hopefully i'll finish it in time...

Hopefully this gets finished before the contest:

An asset for what will hopefully be my entry. A modern tech adaptation on the Huss suspended top spin.

That’s a really nice looking concept

Woah.

Will that be scripted and rideable?

Yes and yes. The scripting is even physics based. It took a while to figure the best way to control it as any physics based script will be framerate dependent but I eventually got there. Each cycle is generally the same but you occasionally get an extra flip or get shortchanged a flip if conditions are just right. Although when recording at constant 30/60fps, it should ride consistently,

JetPulse posted on October 6th, 2018

The scripting is even physics based.

Someone should make a Zipper ride sometime.

Roundup 250 is several weeks away and getting closer daily! We wanted to share some insights into the judging process. There are 3 main aspects we are evaluating for these contests:

Quality of the coaster(s)
Quality of the scenery
Quality of the presentation

For our first installment we'll talk about Quality of the coaster(s).

First and foremost, while the quality of the coaster or coasters you show in your video is very important, we are NOT looking for absolute perfection. We can tell when much care has been put into ensuring the track is free from pumps, sudden harsh radius changes, wobbly transitions, unintentional over/under banking, and other errors in construction.

We're also looking at the quality of the support structure. This encompasses how realistic looking the supports are. Could your coaster survive the forces? Is it adequately supported? Is it over supported? Are there angled supports in the right areas to deal with turns? Would it collapse under it's own weight?

We look at how realistic the coaster is. Note that this does not mean we are looking for purity of any particular manufacturer. Some of our fans on forums like to debate the exact angle of a B&M old school inverted lift hill, but we don't. We only care if what style of coaster you're going for looks realistically represented.

Finally we're looking to see how much fun/how thrilling/how unique the ride experience is. This can bleed over into the scenery column, but generally the pace of the ride experience and the excitement it builds up is purely in control of the coaster's design.

Questions? Ask away! Tomorrow we'll detail what we're looking for in quality of the scenery.

For our next insightful installment we'll explain what we're looking at for Quality of the Scenery.

Building a smooth, properly supported, and operationally sound coaster is only 1/3 of the equation. The surrounding scenery is just as important for your ride experience. NoLimits 2 gives you a square mile of build area. If your coaster is surrounded by empty, flat, plain grass, you need more scenery. And in this contest, trees and rocks alone are not enough.

We're looking at everything riders can see while on the ride. Empty flat terrain (aka green field) is viewed as essentially unfinished or ignored empty space. This does not mean you have to build a city that stretches to the horizon...remember this is all about what you can see while on the ride and what you show during your video. Consider that the back side of Expedition Everest that isn't visible from the park is bare walls. You can't see any of that area from inside the park or while on the ride, so no need to finish that. But, if you can see it, and it's undeveloped, you need more scenery.

Quality of the scenery looks at how well built the scenery is. A poorly made or poorly textured building that has been copied out to infinity won't do well, even if there is no green field. All animating scenery, rides, lights, objects, special effects, and other scripted elements are also evaluated for their quality and impact on the ride experience.

The most overlooked part of the quality of the scenery is story. You have a few minutes to leave your riders with some kind of emotion or impression, and the best rides manage to tell some kind of story through the visuals seen during the ride. Your story concept should come through during the ride. Everything in this category helps tell your story. Most videos featured in Roundups 100, 150, and 200 go well beyond just decorating a coaster to include story or superbly executed theme elements.

Questions? Ask away! Tomorrow we'll discuss quality of the presentation.