The NoLimits Development Team is proud to show a video of the NoLimits2 engine. Our last news came on April First. I was trying to fool you by saying that we concentrate on flat rides now and leave behind all the coasters. That was not true. Silly and bad joke, I know. However, we are absolutely serious about that the NoLimits2 engine is fully capable of simulating complex fun fair rides. In order to proof that, we created the video below. It features a full blown complex flat ride at a fun fair scene.

Tech Demo Video 'Tango'

Here is an uncomplete list of effects you see in the video.

• Flat ride scene object 'Tango'
• Olympia Looping track imported from NL1
• External ride view for 'Tango' and camera flight
• Invisible coaster track used for path as part of the camera flight
• Various additional lights all over the place, some are casting shadows
• Volumetric fog effect using Z-Feather sprites
• Volumetric light effect
• Halo effect
• Special spot lights with projected textures
• Complex scripting controlling lights, flat ride objects and effects
• Animated light textures created with internal tool
• Dynamic Day/Night cycle
• Motion blur
• Walk mode
• Scripted music (.ogg files)
• The first onride scenes were made using NL1

Hardly any post processing was used to make this video. Except for the video transitions and added text, everything comes directly from the engine. The motion blur effect is a non-realtime special effect part of the new improved AVI/MOV export. It is a professional feature to be used to simulate the shutter and exposure time of a real video camera. All the animations except for the coaster itself and the lights on the coaster loops and lift were made possible using the internal scripting language. Some special effects are a clever combination of special material settings, scripting and 3ds object triangles. Everything is user-land, that means users will be able to create similar rides, as long as they are familiar with scene object modelling (.3ds or .lwo) and have some advanced programming skills in an object oriented language. The engine's scripting language is my own design, it is object oriented and combines a subset of features from Java and C#. The team hopes you enjoy the video. Hopefully the video will make your wait for the final product less annoying. We are about 95% done with it, the ToDo list gets smaller each day. [ol]

There was a longer debate within the team about what to show this year. We had the idea to turn NL into a fun fair simulator with a strong focus on flat rides. We were actually thinking about getting rid of all the coasters, but decided to leave them in. We all got quite distracted with flat ride programming, lately, and our idea is very close to reality by now. I am sorry to disappoint you, if you came to this page expecting any fooling jokes. You can leave this page now, because this time everything shown is meant for real. Enjoy and Happy Easter!

Here is a short list of what you see on the screenshots above.

• Scripted and fully animated Tango flat ride
• Dynamic spot lights
• Volumetric fog effects
• Animated textures on loops
• Dynamic sky at night
• Rain effect
• Station platform with improved gates

The Tango flat ride is not fully finished. It needs more work in light pattern programming, darn this is time consuming, but otherwise it is fully working already. It is scripted using the built-in scripting language and it can be ridden using external ride view. The ride program is pretty close to the real thing. It is a user-land scene-object, which means that everything can be created by users. You only need some talent. The animated light textures used on the loops were generated automatically by a built-in tool. The total animation is about 15 seconds long and contains typical pattern effects. Happy Easter! [ol]

The NoLimits team wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

What you see on the screenshots above: Radius comb in editor before and after hand smoothing, catwalks and rusty track, improved shadows for objects close to viewer, switch tracks for dual stations, 4D track.

The radius comb is a very powerfull tool for hand smoothing out a track, the blue points control the track spline and the green discs are roll points that control the banking. Both points are completely independent from each other and allow very flexible editing. The new catwalks can be added to every piece of track. In NL1, they were limited to brakes, lift and transport sections. The improved shadows are more blurry and look more realistic. The special switch tracks were added to make dual stations, they can also be used for other applications such as storage tracks. The 4D track is quite detailed, please notice that the position of the extra rails that control the 4D rotation will vary along the track depending on the 4D rotation angle. And last but not least: It is done when it is done, it is that simple. There is not much left to do, I am working on the station building right now. I need to transfer a couple of older coaster styles to NL2 yet, and there is some small stuff to be done like creating the manual etc. Since this will be a completely new software product that has not much in common with NL1, basically everything is different, it will not be a simple update. Releasing the product requires more planning, so I cannot give you a release date at this point, even if it would be done right now. [ol]

I was making some good progress working on supports and structures and would like to present some screenshots. Supports will be more advanced in NL2 compared to NL1. There are a lot more options and overall it will be easier and faster to create even complex structures. Let me describe a couple of the new features. First of all there will be a new type of support-node which I call the Beam-Node. Beam-Nodes work similarly to Free-Nodes, but will stay attached to a beam (aka tube). There is also a special Beam-Node which will be rendered as a flange. Adding flanges is as easy as clicking on a beam and moving the added Beam-Node to the right position along the beam. The support rendering is also much smarter. The engine will detect adjacent beams and will create bevels. Another cool feature is copy-and-paste and rotate specially designed for supports. I am also in the progress of adding special track connectors which work similar to NL1's Rail-Nodes. The new connectors are universal support structure primitives. There is a lot of flexibility because the connectors and the beams are separated editable objects.

Supports

The above screenshots were made for demonstrating some of the new features such as the new connectors, flanges and Beam-Nodes. I hope you like them. The next thing I will work on is an improved pre-fab mechanism. I haven't figured out yet how the pre-fabs should work. I would like to make them so that users will be able to create their own pre-fabs, but I need to figure out the details, yet. Smells like lots of work, but should be worth it.

P.S. For all the nitpickers out there who love to complain... Yes, the connecting plates of the support-connectors are not matching the box-spine like in real life. The reason for that is that I do not want to restrict the placement of the support-nodes. The nodes can be freely moved along the track and it is easy to move the connector-node into a more realistic position by hand.

P.S.2 The last news showing the track inspection vehicle was of course an April's Fools Day joke. We are mean, Tom actually modelled the vehicle for this joke, the screenshots were taken directly from the program and were not photoshopped, but we will not add it to the final product. Maybe we will add it later in an update as a gimmick. Sorry for not updating this website more often, we do not want to show or tell too much before the release date gets closer. Hopefully the last April Fools Joke was the last joke we did before NL2 will come out. This software is a huge independent production that will be released "When It's Done", no sooner no later. All the release date requests will be ignored. [ol]

Maintenance checks are very important in the amusement park industry. They guarantee the flawless operation and safety of a roller coaster ride. In reality, the track gets walked by park employees on a regular basis. We already implemented the walk-mode, so that the advanced users will be able to walk the track. Checking every bolt and weld joint of a roller coaster track can be a dangerous job, especially for a twisted and steep layout with possible inversions. Every so often you will find yourself falling off the track. This situation was not acceptable for us. We decided to bring the virtual coaster simulation to the next level and implemented a special maintenance car. We are proud to show the first screenshots of our maintenance car, we call it the Wire-Orb-Track-Inspection-Vehicle (WOTIV).

WOTIV in action

The WOTIV can hold up to two people. It is motorized so that it can travel the track, with full control by the driver inside the orb. There are additional pitch and roll controls so that the orb can get adjusted to the slope and roll of the track. A special brake can be engaged which makes sure that the car will stay locked to the track while the maintenance worker checks the current part of track.[ol]