RuptureFarms Questions Answered | Forums

[rlmergeuser]

Not sure if this is the right place for this so moderators feel free to move it.

Hi everyone

Alot of people have messaged me to ask how I achieved some of the things in my track RuptureFarms and I'm happy to lift it's skirt and show you its knickers so to speak.

1. The little green accent lights on the platform
This is the one i've been asked about the most and is very simple to do.
I used the bottom of the small drinks can to get the small round concave shape and took advantage of its reflective surface. I then placed a point light in front of it (coloured green) with a low radius, just enough to fill the bottom of the can and highlight a little of the surrounding environment. I then tied its intensity to a Sine wave (Data Source/Linear/Sine) that starts at 20 and ends at 200 and set it to a period of 4 seconds and to loop. And thats it, simple but effective and remember you can control as many lights as you like with one Sine wave so no need to have a Sine for each light.

2. Barrel Lids
Most people would be able to figure this one out without explanation but for those who don't know its just a Prime (disk) with a chrome ball topped off with the wheel hub of the mine cart wheels.

3. Barrel Conveyer
I'm pretty sure there are already tutorials for this kind of thing already so I wont go into too much detail about this unless someone specifically asks me to. Basically the conveyers are constructed in small duplicated sections (you only need to make one small section then place duplicates one after the other to the desired length) Usual OPE stuff (dummy abjects etc.) It's important to note though that your end position must be slightly before the start position of the section that preceeded it or you will get a duplicated 'frame' which will make it look like your conveyer stops and starts for a split second (although the slower your conveyer the less apparent this effect is). Getting the end position right takes a little trial and error but is worth it to get a silky smooth continuous movement.

4. Bots
Again this is the usual OPE stuff but with Quadratic EaseIn/Out to get that nice movement that make it look like the bot has real weight. The rotation was controlled with the Yaw option of the OPE tied to a Sine wave (-20 to 20) and set to run over 10 seconds (looping). I also used a very handy trick to move the bot along the track with OPEs (activated by triggers) so I only need to have one bot in the track which saved me quite a bit of complexity. I also used the same trick to move only two land mines that are in the track to give the
impression that there a far more, again saved me alot of complexity.

5. Trap Doors
This one is harder to explain but basically the trap door has a physics joint (hinge 90 degrees) with an area trigger just above it. when the trigger activates is starts the lights (3 lights 2 impulse delays) then on the third light an impulse is sent to a physics event tied to the trapdoor. There is a little more logic in there to make the trapdoor close and reset the whole thing but as I sit here typing I can't remember how it goes. If anyone want to know then ask and i'll check and detail it here.

That's pretty much it, if anyone would like to know how I did anything else feel free to ask and i'll do my best to explain it.

Thanks for playing and happy building!

[Fernanjoe]

Hi. Really enjoy your tracks, great deco. Nice of you to share your tips so cheers.

[rlmergeuser]

Thanks for posting. It's VEGAS TRASH. We spoke on xbla briefly. How did you get the rider to appear way back in the distance? Nice use of the depth of field there.
I'm guessing it was the teleport tool, but am not sure. Also, how are you laying the drive line to do this?

[rlmergeuser]

Hi Vegas

Yeah I used portals to transport the rider along the drive line and the drive line was shaped to go into the background, the shape of the drive line was (if your looking at it from above) shaped a bit like a this __T__ so when you go through the first door the line doubles back on itself then goes into the background, goes forward again (when you come out of the second door in the background) continues going straight until you enter the the third door then doubles back and comes back into the foreground for when you come out of the last door.

Hope I explained it ok, if not let me know and i'll try to be clearer.

[rlmergeuser]

I'll have to look at the track again, but it appeared you drew a lower dash, T, the lower dash. I would think you'd draw say a small say oval, then a bigger one(giving you the far perspective), the a third oval( retracing the main drive line) to put the rider back in the main drive line.
I used ovals because of the straight portion...much like a track for running.
Then on the check points, you just place a few in order, but use the portal at the end of the section, which kicks the rider to the next checkpoint?

I'm pretty sure that's what you meant, but the T drawing of the driveline threw me.


Last, for the Redlynx television...is that just a random data source tied to the light's brightness value/mixed with toggling the light on/off?

Thanks brother.

[rlmergeuser]

Sorry, I didn't explain that well did I

Here is a crude top down pic which hopefully will show it better:




The Redlynx screen has a point light in front of it (green) and it just has its intensity tied to a Sine wave (values 0 - 40) that loops over about half a second if memory serves, it doesn't toggle on and off. There is also another pane of glass that passes back and forth (run by a simple OPE) to give a slight pulsing effect and the Redlynx sign has two visibility toggles running to make it flicker randomly (although yeah I could have used a random data source).

[rlmergeuser]

Thanks for the detailed response. Now implementing it with great design is a task.

[rlmergeuser]

Great map.
I rarely play straight up trials because I suck at it, but it was a joy.

[rlmergeuser]

No probs vegas, looking forward to see what you come up with

Also thanks P4INKiller and Fernanjoe (sorry, didn't see your post and thank you sooner and thanks for the RLP nom).