FXWars! RollerCoaster!: Sir_Vulcan

#21

Ok, I finished my coaster. Now I just have to let it render for about a day. All the physics ended up working great. There are some things I would do differn’t if I have to to this again. But for my first FX-Wars Challenge, I think I did ok.

It may not look the best, spent very little time on the eviroment. But thats not the point, the simulation works. I would like to add more, but not enough time to work on it.:sad:

Final Specs for the coaster:
Length- 1,983’ 11" (604.722m)
Height- 112’ (from lowest point to highest point)
Time- about 1 minute from start to finish

Physics setup:
Used Max6 with Reactor 2. (and one stressed out computer)
Each train car was bound to the track by 6 wheels, Two on top, Two inside, Two on bottom. All the wheels are constrained to their car with wheel constraints. Each car was coupled to the car before it using a point constraint. The lead car uses a hinge constraint to allow it to bend around the track.

Simulation time- about 2 hours for 1550 frames, with 15 sub-steps per frame.

I am planning on rendering it 3 times.

  • On the coaster with enviroment
  • On the coaster with no enviroment(wireframe)
  • Stationary sky cam.

Ill be posting pictures and movies the next few days as I get things rendered, so Check back and LEAVE A COMMENT (whats good or what needs to be fixed), so I can do better next time.

It was a lot of fun and a GREAT learning experience. (I am self-taught, about 2 years worth). Good luck to everyone else :thumbsup:

#22

Looking really good!
I am very impressed! using reactor for that whole thing must have been a super pain!

#23

Twisted Tunnels
Roller Coaster
By
Sir_Vulcan
[left] [/left]

#24

Car setup (What I used with Reactor for simulation) I know the car frame is complicated, but reactor doesnt really care because it used for weight and as a parent for the wheels. I didnt use it for collisions.

#25

Some on board cam shots

#26

Ok, here is one of the Final Movies. This one is On board the train with the enviroment. Ill post the wireframe one soon(just the coater and the track)

It took me many hours to make and many more waiting for things to calculate. I started it a few days after the competition started and worked on it a few hours a day until yesterday.

This one took 23 hours to render on my poor computer and the compression pretty much wasted the texturing. But it’s still cool to watch.

Its 640x480 and filesize is 14.8 Mb
http://www.uni-weimar.de/~rehberg/vulcan/SirVuclan-FXW-RollerCoaster-Mov01.mov

#27

If you like seeing the wireframe part of an animation, then this one is for you. It only show the peices I used in reactor for the simulation and theres no mesh smoothing or anything like that. Its exactly what was used for calculations.
Heres the link:
http://www.uni-weimar.de/~rehberg/vulcan/Sir_Vuclan-FXW-RollerCoaster-Wire.mov

For those that are interested, I’ll post the number of polys for each piece
Each train car - - 2280 faces
Each Wheel - - 2090 faces
Total for the Track - 167264 faces

#28

Wow! that is really cool!

Great job!

#29

looks great, I would never have thought about using reactor for such an animation…

btw. nice to see some folks from weimar here :bounce:

#30

Hey Vulcan, I really like your setup. As I said before it somehow “feels” right. Maybe just a little too smooth in some sections, but very convincing anyway. I’m pretty impressed that reactor can simulate collisions of so many wheels with so many polys without errors and in a “reasonable” time. (But I guess tweaking it was very time-consuming … )
You really rebuild the workings of a coaster, without simplifying or faking things. Did you also use correct weights and sizes? How do you get it up the first hill?

The interpenetration of the cars spoils the look a little, but I guess those curves are just to hard. I’d expect to see some broken necks in a real coaster in those. The ride through the waterfall is nice, but that bend afterwards is pretty sick. :argh:

Anyway, congratulations. :applause:

#31

Hi, Thanks for the comments

ernest - Reactor worked great, I was really impress with it. I have used it before but not to this extent.

colt - Tweaking reactor wasn’t to hard once I figured out what to tweak. It handles the polys pretty well. There were too many polys for the real-time previewer, but I didnt use that a lot. The key to getting the simulation time down is setting the collision pairs. If I didnt set it up and left it at default where everything collides with everything, it would take many more hours to calculate.
ya, the cars do interpenetrate each other in a few places, but thats because I added them after I simulated the train using the frame part. Guess I’ll have to remember to think that through next time and build the cars before.

The weight of each car is about what it would be in real life.
The size is close to the real things too. The cars are a little shorter(height) then should be, it made the coaster look more streamline and faster.

You can see the two places where I pulled the coaster up hill in the wireframe movie. There are two boxes that grab a hook on the bottom of the front car and pull it up. Those boxes just follow a spline. I tried a motor and pulley system with reactor but it was giving me trouble.

The bend right before you go back into the waterfall is really tight, I was going to fix it but forgot to. The coaster barley stays on around that bend.

#32

Yay, we started voting, go vote for me :thumbsup:

#33

wooooooooooooaawwwwwwwww!! incredible work !!
so u really do that with reactor Wheel??? I m interested in your wheel settings because discreet give a poor ridiculous example and setting the Wheel is not really easy. So I never try because of the lack of references.
bravo !!

!)

#34

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