haux

If you read the description, it's not even a piranha. It's a goliath tigerfish, which is an African fish. If you want real terror, check out the alligator gar.

I've wandered around Cedar Point numerous times with a pocket-sized and full-sized tripod, so I know it's not an issue there.

Big Coaster and Hornet at Wonderland don't have ride signs, so you won't get those.

The ride still bumps around like crazy. Using the smoother won't fix everything, as you can see. It just takes time to learn how to smooth. You've still got a G spike in that camelback in the back seat. It hits minus 2 G's for a split second, and it's sustained at minus 1.8 for a bit longer. You also still need to work on your supports. Some are pretty weird. You have almost no lateral support, and your supports in some turns are angled with no vertical support. Terrain's still weird too.

That turn looks pretty painful. Edit: OK. So it wasn't too bad. You're right about the supports. You need to work on those. The supports in the corkscrew are especially weird. The only real flaws are the supports, bumpiness and terrain. You can feel every single control point. You should work on your smoothing. Your terrain's just weird. That pointy peak at the beginning of the ride isn't too realistic. You can smooth terrain fairly realistically with the Terraformer. Your magnetic brakes at the end act as a block. Magnetic brakes can't completely stop a train. You need tires or a brake segment to act as the block. Magnets can only slow a train. But the layout's pretty good, and it's a pretty fun coaster. Edit2: After riding it a few times, I've noticed more. There are some bad G spikes in the back seat. Your airtime hill and the hill over the station go to negative-2 G's, which is way too much. There's also a lateral spike in a turn of about 2 G's. E-stop also fails if you stop the train in the launch. It clears the launch but not the hill, so it rolls back. The block is clear, so the other train leaves the station, and the two crash in the launch segment. Maybe don't make that a block segment.

Does anyone remember the arguments back in 2000 and 2001 that on really warm/humid days, when everything was just right, Millennium Force would top 100 mph? Those were hilarious. That includes the extensive theming too. I'm sure that mountain, the trains and the other theming was the main part of the cost.

I guess I missed the part about new trains. Any idea what they'll be? PTC steel trains? Those are roomier than the wooden trains.

NoLimits came out about 10 years ago. People should have faster computers by now.

^ Are you shooting during the day or at night? At night, a tripod. During the day, I suppose you could take a monopod, but you can probably just do everything hand held.

^ Incredible Hulk? Go for it! That looks pretty cool. Good use of wooden catwalks. But what's with the brakes after the lift and in the loop?

That's sad. I just rode his first roller coaster on Saturday.

Wow. The bolts cast shadows! This level of detail is almost too much.

You really, really need to work on your terrain. Supports too. The supports on that block brake are a little inadequate.

I'd like to be a judge.

Isn't there a known problem with .nlpack files and Macs?

You should have spent more than an hour on it. The supports won't hold it up, and you hit top speed 500 feet before the end of the launch track. The return run slows it down way too fast but then not enough because it crashes at the end in the station. Maybe you should have ridden it more. The concept is fairly interesting, but you need to spend more time instead of just whipping it up.

Ride in the back seat. You can see every little bump. The first drop is odd. You can see each time you hit a control point because it suddenly gets a little steeper. Riding your coasters in the back seat helps you see where you need smoothing.

Your turns, your first drop, the bottom of the second drop and your camelbacks. Ride in the back seat. Watch the train jerk around. I'm not saying the transitions are like on Arrow coasters. But they are awkward, especially the last turn into the brakes. The track just rises up and banks. That's not how real coasters do it. It's hard to describe, but real coasters are more fluid. That last turn is awkward. Coasters generally don't bank and have the riders go up sideways. There's some vertical force holding them in their seats. Yours has lateral forces. The bottom of the second drop is more awkward. Riders are on their sides without that force holding them in.

No, they weren't. Your station was still too long, your transitions are still jerky, your airtime's too much, you have support hits, your brakes are curved, your supports in turns are still funny. I think the only things you fixed in the second version were the hidden brakes and transport sections, and you used the smoothing tool over a lot of the track.

You wanted the detailed critique. You've got it! First, I think you should examine real coasters. Don't just go from memory. Look at pictures of Diamondback and Apollo's Chariot and other B&M hypercoasters. That way you can at least get a look at the supports and compare them to similar parts of your ride. Look at the lift hill, the bottoms of drops, high turns and helix turns. A big problem you have is supports. The supports at the bottom of your drop are funky. There's no need for the lateral supports there. They don't serve any purpose the way you have them. You also have numerous support hits, where the train crashes into a support. You have your lateral supports connect at the node touching the track and extending to the footer. That makes the support come through the track. Look at your supports at that last turn into the brakes. They're all kinds of crazy. If you want lateral supports, try starting the lateral portion a bit lower below the track. You don't need the lateral supports on your brake segment immediately before the station. That's just weird. There's no lateral movement there. There are a lot of bumps and jerks and pumps in the track. You can just fix those with experimentation and playing with the program. It's difficult to explain how to fix those. It just takes time to learn. You've got all those hidden brakes and transport segments. Get rid of those. Let gravity do the work. Brakes and transport segments can't be on curves or banked track. They're typically on straight sections of track. Yes, Intamins have wheels in curves, but look at where they're located. B&Ms can't do that because the portion under the train that the wheels and brakes hit is big. In the curve out of the station, that portion goes through parts of the kicker wheels. Make the beginning of the lift hill lower than the exit to the station so gravity will get the train there. Look at real brake segments. Block brakes are on straight segments (select the segment and push "I"). The brakes have to be able to engage the brake fins without ripping them off or breaking broken. Your brake segments destroy the brakes and undercarriages of the trains. And later, we might go into blocks that use only tires or only brakes. Gasp. That's a bit advanced (but it's realistic). Don't forget: Brakes have to be angled downward so gravity can work if you don't have any other means of moving the train (tires or LIMS). Your station is too long. Try to make it only a little longer than the train. Have you been in a station that's 90 feet longer than the train? No. You only run one train. You should have had another one. And when you learn how blocks work, you can run three or more! The layout's pretty bland. A few short hills with too much airtime. A couple of turns. There's nothing interesting about it. But better layouts come with time. You've got to work on the basics now. That's all I've got for now. This is judged off your first upload. The second one wasn't much different, except the airtime was more severe because you got rid of those odd brakes and stuff. Using the smoother tool isn't a fix-all either. But you'll learn how to get around that in time. Keep working on it!

Yeah. That's the only thing I really can nitpick, though. You did a spectacular job on the ride. But you should have made the brakes a brake segment, not transport. When you E-stop, it crashes.

I can give you a quick rundown of why I didn't like it, or I can give you a detailed, helpful critique that can help with your next coasters. Which do you prefer?

Did you hide some brakes in that final turn? What happened? You've got some support hits in that turnaround and final turn. You should correct that. The supports in those turns are funny too. No B&M is like that. Maybe an Arrow, but not B&M. There are some funky transitions, and your camelbacks look a little awkward. I think you can feel the control points. At least it looked like it in the video. Speaking of the video, you should have chosen a better spot for the camera. The second hill was completely hidden by supports.

Are you going to support it? What kind of scary things will there be? So far, I just see trees.

You're asking for a simple answer that we just can't give. That's how it is. I'm sorry you don't want to read your manual and learn how to use your camera. Reading the manual will only overload you if you read the entire thing in one sitting. Look at the beginning of the manual where it points to every button and dial on the camera. Then go to the index and look up what those arrows point to. The manual's going to be vague on shooting subjects. It's just going to suggest how to shoot a portrait from 7 feet away. It's going so say what you might want when shooting a close picture of a flower. If you want the manual to give exactly what you want to snap a picture of the female white tiger at the zoo, you're out of luck. A lot of the great shots you see are from people who have taken a long time to become familiar with their cameras. You can't just jump right in and take amazing photos. You have to learn how to use them before you even get halfway decent with them. Henri Cartier-Bresson, a famous French photographer, said that your first 10,000 photos are your worst. Ten thousand! Yes, it's true. You have to shoot a lot and then some before you can be a decent photographer. It's all trial and error. But if you want to be stubborn and not read your manual and just get pictures without learning, go ahead. I'll give you some information. A fast roller coaster in direct sunlight should be shot at f/16, 1/3000, ISO 100 at any distance.