[NL] The darkest Ride (+ video)

[VsEuro]

Hello unknown people from the planet earth,

 

Years ago i started to build a NL coaster with 3ds elements and a lot of custom supports. It looked like a great coaster but due to work and other private things i did not complete it. One month ago on a bored evening i decided to pick up where i left and finish the darkest ride. Beneath you can see a few teaser screens i made 5 years ago.

 

The story:

 

You are visiting a dark castle from the middle ages. There is a small train running trough the castle and guiding you through different towers, chambers, a chapel, secret passageways, ... and offcourse the torture room. But once you reached the top of the first tower, the ride fails and starts to run completely out of control ... You quickly fly trough the rooms and other places. Luckily the ride control is restored just in time and you all can leave safely in the station .

 

The building:

 

I used a rather unique way of building. Almost the entire castle is builded with walkways of a wooden coaster. Only a few roofs, a cave and smaller 3ds objects are made with anim8or and a few other programs. But to be honest, i really don't advise anybody to build something the way i made this coaster. It really takes ages to finish.

 

The environment:

 

This dark ages coaster has offcourse it's own environment and should not be run in any other. The name of the environment is VsEuroCastleScape. This environment is a night environment with other lightning than the default night mode. This to allow the usage of Lightning effects and ... It's also a special environment because the wooden boards of the walkways are replaced with more concrete looking boards.

 

I have a second environment that creates a wooden castle in a snow environment that uses daylight. This was created for a previous coaster of me. I don't advise to use this, but it does allow to have a closer look at the castle witouth having really strange textures on it .

 

Enough blablabla now ... have fun, the download(s) should be somewhere on this page ... I'm very curious of what you all think of this coaster.

Snowscape.zip

The snowscape environment (for those who are afraid in the dark)

DarkestRide.nlpack

The darkest ride track package (including also the environment and 3ds objects)

Preview 5

Preview 4

Preview 3 (photoshoped green)

Preview 2 (photoshoped green)

Preview 1 (photoshoped green)

[Steffen_Dk]

That was the most spectacular ride I've ridden!

 

The scenery was fantastic; I think I've spend about 15 minutes just maneuvering around looking at it - I'm especially in love with the church. It's very "castle-ish" that you've chosen to build in behind the walls of the castle, I actually think that you have inspired me to do some alike (with RCT3).

Again the scenery - perfect! Can't say it enough times..

 

The coaster - well that was really good too. It was smooth, had nice G's and such, but it wasn't a coaster of which you think: WOW that was stunning. It wasn't intense, it wasn't extremely wild, but just good. Maybe the scenery was so amazingly good that I barely noticed how to coaster was

[Kalepi_Konei]

Wanna make a video for us people who don't have NL...pl0x?

[dr.gumbo]

Fantastic ride, possible the best I've ridden in ages.

 

What I liked

-The scenery was, in a word, staggering. I loved how you used the supports to their full potential and the environment / 3ds were great.

-I liked the Disney-inspired layout, it gave the ride a very family feel to it. Not many people do that (mostly because they don't have the scenery skills to use it to its potential).

-Just generally very fun ride, you maintained the pacing which was good but I do have a few issues with it at times (I'll explain below).

-I love some of the idea's you had i.e. the spiral lift.

 

What could be improved

-While I felt a lot of the track was smooth, it isn't more that above average. The transitions weren't very fluent between the helix's and to be honest, little of the layout actually 'challenged' your track building skills.

-I did not like the frequent use of transports throughout the ride, especially during the church part. They seemed to be partial cheating as far as pacing's concerned.

-I wasn't too fond of the ending, I felt you could have done something a bit more 'spectacular' an less abrupt.

-The name is very un-inventive and more importantly, misleading. I though I was going to get some Coastb2-type ride, boy I was wrong.

 

My verdict

Gorgeous scenery and superb creativity shine bright in this superb ride.

 

9/10

[VsEuro]

I'm glad you all like it this much ... keep the comments comming.

 

I will release a movie when time has passed ... but first i want people to be surprised by what they see when they download it.

 

The transports in the church are indeed not needed if you run the coaster normally. I placed them in the church to be able to run 3 trains. The weels don't make al lot of speed difference. The only use is for an emergency stop, the coaster just comes a very little bit of power short to make it otherwise. That is why i placed them overthere. If i remove the transport and brake wheels around the church only 2 trains are allowed instead of 3.

 

Normally this mid section brake and transport should never be used. The coaster is designed in such a way that all 3 trains fit into the line for the station. It only needs a special ride computer and that's what i can't make in NL.

[VsEuro]

It seems nobody is commenting anymore ... that means it is time for a video ...

DarkestRide01.wmv

onride in the raw ... no editing has been done to it

[Koolkid]

OMG! I see what everyone has been talking about , how did you do that!! :O

 

I have no limits but how do I open .nlpack files?

 

Thanks for any help

[dr.gumbo]

^ You need the Track packager which can be downloaded at a number of places.

[Koolkid]

thank you very much