A NoLimits Screen-Saver update is available for MacOS X. It fixes a compatibility problem with 10.6 (Snow Leopard). For older MacOS X versions such as Leopard, Tiger or Panther, this update is not required and I do not recommend that you install it unless you are using Snow Leopard. You can download the update at nolimitcoaster.com. The installer will copy a newer version of the screen-saver launcher into the NoLimits installation folder. It will then try to open it which will install it into the system.

Warning: Developer's frustration following...
The OS X screen-saver programming interface is designed badly by Apple. Under OS X, screen-savers are dynamic libraries instead of applications. This means that they are running inside another process started by the system such as the System Preferences app. This is just terrible, because the screen-saver must be machine and environment compatible with the process that loads it. The System Preferences turned into a 64bit application from Snow Leopard on and this broke all third party screensavers compiled as 32bit. They also turned on Objective-C garbage collection which took me almost a day to figure out, because of lack of any useful documentation. Apple, thanks for wasting my time and money.
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I started a RSS Feed today, for informing people more easily about news.
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The NL team wishes Happy Holidays to all NoLimits users. The team is back from our meeting, we had some great days in the United States. Among some amusement park visits on the west coast we went to the IAAPA trade show. I wished I could have stayed longer. Vegas is a fun place and the convention was definitely worth it. It was nice to visit the booths of various manufacturers and check out their new inventions.

I am quite excited about working on NL2 right now. I reached a point where a lot of the groundwork I spent lots of time on finally pays off. If I continue working hard like I do right now and if avoid too many interruptions, NL2 will be finished in late 2010. I lately finished most of the background and environment. The terrain on the background shown on the screenshot above is fully 3d and generated automatically. It is based on a couple of fractal parameters and textures. Its setup is included into the environment and can be customized with a simple environment editor inside NL2. Playing around with the fractal parameters is fun, users will be able to quickly change the appearance of the background terrain with a couple of edits. Also scene objects can be included into the environment. I added a couple of wind energy stations that can be seen on the screenshot. Thanks to Buster for all the models. The snow particle effect is new, too. The snow intensity can be changed inside the simulator at run time using a simple weather panel. I got influenced by the movie The Truman Show. If you have seen the movie, you might remember a console they used to changed the weather. The weather panel looks and works very similar in the NL2 sim. Right now I am back working on the rendering of the new track. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to show a decent screenshot of the new textured rails before Christmas. A lot of the textures and models are only of temporary nature and need to be replaced by better ones later. I am looking forward to show some new steel coaster track with textures in early 2010 which will look much better than in NL1.x.
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The NL core team (Tom, Kevin and I) will be lingering around on the IAAPA Attraction Expo trade show in Las Vegas this year. We will be in town for a couple of days and will try to meet our professional customers. I am quite excited about that because it is my first stay in Vegas and my first IAAPA visit ever. We might have our own booth there some day.

I made some good progress on NL2 meanwhile. The integrated Force Vector Design tool is finished and works perfectly. Right now the FVD tool uses the old NL1 physics engine but will later use the same physics engine that the simulator in NL2 will use as soon it is finished. The FVD tool is very simple to use and allows even the not so far experienced track builders to create decent results. I am also almost done with the switching track code. NL2 will have switch and storage tracks that are highly customizable. At least 3 types of switch tracks will be available, e.g. there will be switches for dual stations, normal switches for storage tracks and transfer tracks. Also there will be different kind of modes for the switches, e.g. shifting or rotating switches. Depending on the coaster-style, even horizontally and vertically switching tracks can be chosen. [ol]

A new NoLimits community site, including a track exchange section, was launched. The website was created and is being maintained by Mathew Davies and others. Please visit nolimits-exchange.com and register to become a member of a growing community. Lots of users who used to be active on the by now closed CoasterSims.com site have already registered. Please note that the NoLimits team is highly appreciating this project but is neither responsible for it nor maintaining it. In my downloads you can find the NoLimits Track Packager Tools (© Gravimetric Studios) you may need to be able to extract NLPack files. [ol]