"How To" (Invisible River Rapids) RCT2

Hi everyone, while my ObjData folder is in shambles I figured why not do the step-by-step "how to" mentioned by hydra so here it is. 30 pictures with specific instruction along with each one explaining everything.

To do the Invisible River Rapid w/Single Rail Coaster bumpers you will need to have the most current 8cars trainer available (version 132) on page 13 in the RCT2 help thread and as an option that I will explain when the time comes you may want to have the SOB (Son Of Beast) trainer as well.

FYI - There is no MERGING of any kind to do this trick. But you must follow these instructions or you may crash your game. So save often and under different names. There is a MERGING version of River Rapids, it is very difficult and aggravating to try but it allows for the use of large curves on rides like this. I will have a "How To" on this one of these days.

OK, here we go.

PS... A download of this little park is available. So grab a copy and use to practice what was shown in this "How To". Always better to practice before you take something like this in a park that really matters to you. Just for fun I opened the park and put in a few Stock Coaster and Food and included a cool little park map dispenser I came across the other day. What better way to see the River Rapids working than with guest on it. Enjoy.

In this first picture we have the area where the rapids will go fully landscaped to fit the ride and the ride is in place. Note the steps at the rides drop areas, they are for the water fall slope senery pieces.

Second we have the senery items in place and are ready to put the water in around the ride.

OK, this is how we get the water around the ride, first open the 8cars trainer and select the MISILANIOUS tab at the far right. Select 0 Clearances and then ABSOLUTE. Go back the game and raise the water to the proper level.

Now we are going to put in the parts of the River Rapids ride that will NOT be invisible when the ride is complete. Since we already 0 Clearance the game for the water there is no need to do it again (unless you went back out and restored them). Put a starter piece 10 game feet above the under water ride. In my case it was at 15 because the other is at 5. Make sure that BOTH rides are going in the same direction!

Now that you have the second River Rapids going, follow the old track. You don't have to follow it piece for piece just so long as you get to where you need to be and are still going in the same direction as the original ride. The four sections of track in this case that are important are circled in the picture.

After you get the sections you need remove all the other track from the game and you should be left with what is pictured.

Just for fun we are going to do each down slop differently. One will have the in-game track sections for the down and the other will use water fall scenery. In this shot you will notice that the water fall scenery is in place but the track above has not been removed yet. To get the scenery placed on top of the track should not have been an issue since we are still at 0 clearances... RIGHT!?! If not you will need to go back out of the game to 8cars and hit 0 clearance ABSOLUTE again.

Now remove the section of track you no longer will be using and you are left with this. If you plan on always using senery items for the down slopes on River Rapids rides you never need to put the track piece in over top. Like I said before I am just showing you how to do both. Now the fun begins.

The installation of the rails that keep the rafts from going off course. In the game that will never happen it is just for looks. Even when the track is invisible the rafts will follow it as if it was not. Go to the coaster menu and open the Single Rail Coaster. Start the track anywhere you want. Keep it just outside the course of the ride or if you prefer make the path wider in places to add scenery in places like fountains. In this picture we have made landfall with coaster track and can go no further.

To make the track look like it went into the ground, raise the land and make a tunnel. Now build the track like usual. At this point your game should still be 0 clearance right? RIGHT. Well that doesn't matter any more, exit back to 8cars and 0 clearance ABSOLUTE again.

With the fresh O clearance done you can lower the land over the track and replace the water. For those who don't know, when you build something (anything) while in either 0 clearance mode the newly built item is not affected so you must 0 clearance again.

We need to get the track across to the other side, so find a good spot and remove a few sections. Cross over and stop once you get a start on the other side. Now delete the track you used to cross over with back to where came from.

You should have a section of track on one side of the ride and the rest on the other. Reconnect the original track and click on the piece that was left alone on the other side, once we get this side ended where the other one did a few pictures back we will be building both sides at the same time.

This time the track ends in a curve. To make this work we need to lift up all four blocks and make the same kind of tunnel we made for the other side.

And here is what it should look like, put in the track piece and exit back to 8cars, I know were are already at 0 clearance but like I said before we have to do it again.

When your done pulling the land back down and bringing the water up this is what you get. Now take both sides of the Single Rail Coaster track and follow you River Rapids ride all along it's course until you hit a lift section again or run into land and need to repeat the process.

In this picture we have both sections of Single Rail Coaster already in tunnels and are ready to 0 clearance it yet again.

All better and now we need to get the coaster track down the hill and back to the start of the ride, in the case of this River Rapids it was done by just lowering the land one notch and going down the hill on each side, your park will be different just get it down there somehow. What you want to avoid is having to start another Single Rail Coaster for each elevation. You are only allowed so many rides in the park so don't waste them by being lazy. Use the same one over and over if you can.

Here we are at the little area where the ride starts and where the first lift is. We just came down the hill and using the same raise land tunnel technique we made four more. This time all at once. When you get confident in what your doing you can save all the 0 clearances to the end and lower all the land back down at one time. All this was just to help get you on your way. So in the next shot all will be back to normal and we will be DONE with the Single Rail Coaster.

At this point you can exit out to 8cars and RESTORE CLEARANCES. We will no longer need to use that funtion for the rest of the build. In this picture you will see the two down slope areas one with the River Rapids over it and one with nothing over it. You can also see I have highlighted the staiton area. WHY? Things are about to get bad and then GET WORSE.

FOLLOW THESE INSTUCTIONS! Exit out to 8cars and if you haven't done it yet RESTORE clearances. Find the RIDES tab. In the rides time you will need to find the ride you are wanting to work on In this case it is the origanl River Rapids Ride. Depending on how may rides/stalls you have in the park this may be easy or hard to do. They are listed in the order they were built in the park and if you named them then the name you gave will show up if not sometimes it is blank or says coaster1 or pizza stall4. If you deleted a ride/stall at some point after building many others, the latest one put in the park will fill the now empty spot so let me give you an example. You have 75 attractions in your park right now. The 18Th ride/stall you put in you no longer want. So you remove it. Now there is a blank space at the number 18 spot. The next attraction you put in the park will not be number 76 it will be an new 18. So keep that in mind when searching for your ride. ---------- OK step one after you find your River Rapids ride is to change the "TRACK TYPE" to "CROOKED HOUSE or CIRCUS SHOW". If you want the ride to have music you must use Crooked House. Circus Show does not allow music and as you know guests love music. Step two put a "CHECK MARK" in the box that says "Make Invisible" and hit Apply. Go back to your game and this is what you get. Do you see a problem? I do the station went away and now I have a huge problem. Even though it looks empty it is not the ride is still there. So here is one solution...

while the non invisible track is still raised ad several sections of normal straight track pieces. DO NOT USE STATION SECTIONS! Station sections will not raise or lower so don't do it! Once you have the track section in place it is time to lower the track(s) down to ride level. Step One - Exit back to 8cars and select the RIDES tab again. This time find the "OTHER" River Rapids ride. Step 2 - Set "COLOR SCHEME" to MAIN (unless you colored the track sections some other color). Step 3 - Height Offset, set it at -2 (negative two). That is the height difference I told you to use many pictures ago when the second River Rapid Ride was placed above the first. If you went with something different you will need to make that adjustment yourself. Step Four - CHECK MARK "RAISE or LOWER" and If by chance "MAKE INVISIBLE" is still checked you will need to UN-CHECK it. Hit Apply

If all when well you should be looking at something similar to the picture above. The main track should be invisible, the single rail coaster should be unharmed and the sections that should be seen are lowered to the proper height. All is good right? LET'S TURN IT ON TEST!

WHAT THE... Why are the rafts under water? Well here's the deal. You had to have noticed that the River Rapids ride is the only ride in the game that when at ground level is really 5 feet off the ground, by that I mean the track for the rafts sits on the ground but the rafts are really 5 feet up. So how did they end up under water, simple really when we switched the rides track to CROOKED HOUSE it lowered the rafts down 5 feet. So how do we fix this. Get ready to roll you eyes. We have to reverse everything we just did! Step One - Exit back to 8cars and find the second River Rapids ride again. Step Two - COLOR SCHEME set to Main again. Step Three - Height Offset raise it up to +2 (not "0", but POSITIVE 2) Step Four - Check Mark Raise/Lower once again and hit Apply. That should raise the visible sections back up. Go back to the game and make sure it happened. If not try it again. After you get the track raised back up we need to make the invisible track VISIBAL again. The trainer says it's can't be done but it most certainly can. Step One - Change the track type back from Crooked House to River Rapids. Step 2 if Raise/Lower is still checked, un-check it and if "MAKE INVISIBLE" is checked, un-check it also. Hit Apply and go back to your game. Everything should be back as though nothing happened. WARNING!!!!!! NEVER TRY TO CONSTRUCT A RIDE THAT IS INVISBLE YOU WILL CRASH YOUR GAME! You must always make it visible before you can alter it in any way. Also if you have any track laying on top of invisible track you MUST raise it back up before you make the invisible visible again, not doing so may also crash your game. I know it sounds like a lot of work but once you do it a few times it really is easy and fast to do.

Now what we need to do is raise the original River Rapids track up 5 feet. We can do this two ways. One way is to just click on it and start construction again. To do this you will need to 0 clearance ABSOLUTE again. Once you remove a section raise it up 5 feet and remove and replace the entire ride until it looks like the picture above. The track should be sitting on top of the water!, and right below the raised sections. Option Two and by far the best way and fastest way. Remove the station area of the ride only. Angle up from one end and replace the station 5 feet higher than the rest of the ride. Replace the angle up section with the normal section. Now you should have a station that is 5 feet higher than the rest of the ride. Exit out to 8cars. Find the origanl River Rapids ride. Set Color Scheme to main and Height Offset to +5 (positive 5). Put a Check Mark in Raise/Lower and hit Apply. Go back to the game it should look like the picture.

Just an up close look of what you should be seeing if you did everything right. If this is what you see go get a cookie and take a break!

Here we go again. Exit back to 8cars and Set Track Type to CROOKED HOUSE, Put a check mark in MAKE INVISIBLE. Make sure Raise/Lower DOES NOT have a check mark and hit Apply. It should look like it did the first time we did this. Note this time I filled in the area where the station was with water. It really is your choice as to what you do with this area. I suspect most of you will build a station around it and it really won't matter what it looks like because no one will see it.

Now lets lower those other sections back down. Exit back to 8cars and find the River Rapids #2 and Set your color scheme to main (or whatever you used). Height Offset to -2 (negative two), Check Mark Raise/Lower (if Make Invisible is checked, UN-CHECK IT). Hit Apply. Once done go back to the game and this is what you should see when you turn on the ride. Rafts on top of the water instead of under it. You will notice that I circled one of the rafts. Well to be honest it is not just one raft it is 5 all piled up on each other and they are no longer called rafts they are Buildings! This is the Crooked House part of the trick. When rides are set to Crooked House they will pile up at the station and when in test mode will all leave at once. It will not hurt anything. Just let it go. You will also notice that no matter how exiting the ride should be it's ratings suck! That's because the ride now has the ratings of a Crooked House. Once the ride is open and you set the dispatch times the rafts will separate but the ratings will still stink. In order to fix this you need the SOB trainer. Here is how it's done. Exit out and open SOB. Give it a few seconds it loads slow! Once you are able to get it working hit the RIDES tab. Then MODIFY RIDE OPTIONS. Next find your ride. Once again they are in the order you placed them in the park just like it was with 8cars. However SOB does not always follow the fill in the gap rule like 8cars does. Once you find the ride you will see it's ratings at the bottom. Should be something like 2.15/Excitment, 0.62/Intesity and 0.34/Nausea. Change them to what ever you want and check mark FREEZE for each one you changed. Leave the trainer running and go back to your game. After the game runs for a while save it and your made up stats should be set permanently. Now you can exit out and close SOB.

These next 2 pictures are just me showing you a other way to make the lift and drop sections of the River Rapids look a little better. It is just a matter of angling the sections so they go down into the water rather than just being there. If you decide to do this after you have made the ride you can. I did it while it was running. Raising the sections back up will not affect the ride or any guest on it. The ride will continue under the raised areas as if floating in space. Once you change the angles you simply lower them back down.

This is the finished look with the sections angled down. It is a much cleaner appearance when compared to what it looked like up a few pictures. Hope you have enjoyed this installment of "HOW TO"!

Just a little something I picked up a French RCT site the other day. It is the best non obstructive Map dispenser I have ever seen. LOVE IT!

River Rapids (invisible).SV6

Invisible River Rapids

Thanks so much. Thats pretty pimp. I will test that out this afternoon. So...how do you do the awesome Heartline coaster lift hill.

NOTE: If anyone is going to do this and they prepare the land so that it is ready to go before they build the Rapids Ride and then build ride on top of the water in the first place they can of course skip the hole rafts underwater problem and get right to the finished product. However the raft underwater issue is a GREAT learning experience for all.

^ You are referring to the Water Coaster from Pirate Bay, correct? If so I can do that "How To" next. Well not next but second to next. A basic part of the ride construction requires instruction for a normal water slide first. So I think I will do that "How To" before I do the Water Coaster just to make understanding the construction of the Water Coaster easier.

Awesome thread! Can you show us how to create the animated cars with invisible track? I am about to start on a new ride concept(BTW, for those wondering my box with the game came yesterday, so I will be back soon) which is a demolition derby racing/dueling concept. On 2 occasions I want to make the cars appear to colide using zero clearences, and each collision will trigger special effects. I am also trying to time the colissions as one of the effects is an accident that spins the car (mini coaster) into a reverser roller coaster (using track merge) to try to make it look like it spins out.

it can be done WAY easier and that how I did it in TPP for dragon river....

Its very easy, just build your rapids and just put on zero-clearance and build water over the tiles and voila

^Correct me if I am wrong but what your talking about is what is located on my 3rd picture. Just the normal River Rapids with the water pulled up over it.

That is not what this "How To" is about. It is about getting rid of the River Rapids track altogether and making it so the rafts seem to float on the water without any track at all.

Yes it is a long way of doing things but that is only because I wanted to show what would happen if you did it wrong before you did right and the cause of the problem. That is how I got the picture of the rafts underwater. Fixing the problem is part of the learning experience.

Whatever happened to that park anyway it looked so nice?

^^ Yes I was planning on doing a "How To" for traffic also. How to merge multiple types of cars onto the same track and make it look like they are just driving around. Your ideas are great and should work up to a point. I don't know how you can time an effect to go along with the traffic or make them crash into each other and cause an effect, but I do like the use of reverser to simulate an out of control vehicle

^^ Yes I was planning on doing a "How To" for traffic also. How to merge multiple types of cars onto the same track and make it look like they are just driving around.

Do enough "how to's" and perhaps we'll name it something fancy and sticky it!

Do enough "how to's" and perhaps we'll name it something fancy and sticky it!

That would be very nice, so far there are at least 3 more being asked for so we will see how far this goes.

Just to make clear to everyone... there is always going to be another way of doing things, the way I may do it is not always going to be the best way or the only way to get it done, it is just the way "I" know how "I" do it. No one showed me how to do what I showed you in this thread, I had to figure it out on my own. The lack of people willing to share information about things like this is why I decided to make this topic in the first place. I want anyone who wants to be able to do even the smallest of hacks to be able to see how it can be done.

it can be done WAY easier and that how I did it in TPP for dragon river....

Then show it.

I keep getting an error when I try and lower the second rapids ride. Closes out 8cars. Any suggestions?

NM...fixed it. Was not using newest update of 8cars. Got my test rapids ride working. Awesome man. It makes sense now. I feel like a NE pro now. lol...not quite

Cool, am so happy it worked for you. Wasn't too hard to do after all was it?, of course the more you do it the faster it goes and less you really have to think about what your doing. Please hold on to that older 8cars trainer, the older one(s) can come in handy for things. Just put it somewhere safe.

If you get a chance would you mind putting up a few pictures of your test rapids for everyone to see and also were there any points where my directions got confusing and need to be adjusted? Did you try the underwater version first or go straight for the proper/finished way?

Anyway, thanks for the update, you made my day.

...mcjaco (if you see this), is there a problem with the meter that tells how many times a download has been done, for example the small park I have posted in this topic says it "has yet to be downloaded" and I have noticed in other threads I have downloaded items from also say "has yet to be downloaded" when I know someone did, that someone being me. No big deal was just wondering.

Here is my test rapids. Going to try it in one of my older parks now. Didnt have any waterfall scenery. The instructions were great! Would have had no hang up if I had been using the right 8cars.

That looks good hydra. The only thing is, there doesn't seem to be any track for the boats to go on. I mean, like the single rail that dmaxsba2408 used, something that makes it seem that the boats will be guided.

Wow it does look good, well done, goes to show that you really don't need the waterfall scenery if you plan it out so the drops are a single lane wide.

Now the only thing you need to work on is angling the ends of your lifts and drops so you don't get the block look when they start and end. It's just a matter of continuing the slop instead of leveling off and at the top of the hill/lift angling it back down. Then it will look seamless in the water. The other way to do it just raise the land up at an angle to hide the ends of the rapids track.

If anyone else out there is giving this a try it would be great to see how it turned out for you. Please post some pictures and if your having any problems please don't hesitate to ask here in the thread. I will try to help you as soon as I see your post about it or I'm sure anyone else (like hydra) that now has it figured out sees your question they can help you also.

Is there any way that we can make a tutorial thread of some sort, and have any hacks or merging tricks in one place. Or was that what you were suggesting mcjaco?

BTW, GREAT tutorial, hope you can put something like it in our park *hint, hint*

Just a side note:

Make sure you test these kinds of hacks out before putting them in a full scale park, get aquainted with the "how-to" of it, and remember to save often!

...mcjaco (if you see this), is there a problem with the meter that tells how many times a download has been done, for example the small park I have posted in this topic says it "has yet to be downloaded" and I have noticed in other threads I have downloaded items from also say "has yet to be downloaded" when I know someone did, that someone being me. No big deal was just wondering.

I haven't noticed. I'm not sure it works all that well anyway. Direct me to the thread, and I'll take a look at it this weekend.

Just as a side note, Robb and I are working on making a significant change to the Game Forum that will make organizing, posting parks, tracks, scenery files, etc. much easier. It's a ways off, but it is being discussed and worked on.

Hi this is my first Time writing on this Forum

soooo I know that this game is really old now but I hope you can still help me because I would like to make a invisible raft thing

my problem is that when I try to lower the track 8cars crashes and I dont know what to do I tried to download the latest version of 8cars (I have v 1.32) if this isn't the latest version then I don't know

I would be very thankfull if someone could still help me

Hi this is my first Time writing on this Forum

soooo I know that this game is really old now but I hope you can still help me because I would like to make a invisible raft thing

 

my problem is that when I try to lower the track 8cars crashes and I dont know what to do I tried to download the latest version of 8cars (I have v 1.32) if this isn't the latest version then I don't know

 

I would be very thankfull if someone could still help me

Two things, make sure your 8cars.exe has the correct compatibility settings. Set it to Windows XP service pack 2 and reduced color mode.

Also, use 8cars 1.302 whenever your doing something other than editing rides or making invisible huts. You can find these downloads on NewElement. If you have other issue you can probabably find answers with google searches.