In this tutorial, I will show you how to use the Helix: Swiss Army Knife and Redunzelizer’s Purgatorium along with a few other tools such as the straight segment wizard and the Automatic Heartline Generator to build a coaster. I’ll be making a simple hyper coaster so you can follow along and get the basics down.
I chose this type of coaster to show you the power of building with tools. A coaster of the size we will be dealing with here would be very difficult to build by hand. However, with the use of tools it becomes much easier.
Step1: A simple pre-lift
The first thing we’ll do is start off with a simple station. Load up elementary and go to file, new wizard, and click on Straight. Make the straight 18meters long and make the slope 0*. Save that in a place easily accessible later.
Next thing we’re going to do is a classic B&M turn around before the lift such as those seen on Nitro. Go up to file, then new wizard once again in elementary, but this time select the Helix: Swiss Army Knife. I’m going to set the radius to 8meters, the total turning angle to 185*, both the lead-in and lead-out values will be 25*, the height difference will be –0.5 to ensure there are no chances of a roll-back, both the slope of the entrance and exit will be 0*, I won’t be messing with the B&M drop value (most of the time I ignore this figure anyway,) I’m going to lower the middle of the helix by –2meters, and finally, the rest of the figures won’t be touched in this tutorial so don’t worry about them. When you hit next on the 13th value you’re element will be completed.
Whoah! The middle of that turn is way too low. We’re going to have to go back into the formula and fix that. To do this, go up to Advanced and select Formula Input. Most of this is going to look like Chinese, so focus on the top-most section. You’ll notice most of the values are conveniently name: height, radius, slopea, slopeb, etc. If you scroll down a little ways you’ll find “;Amplitudes.” These are the values that are affecting the dip in the middle. Ampa should almost always be set to zero, if it’s not, fix that. Version 1.1 does have a bug. The dip in the middle is going to be caused by ampb, not ampa. So scroll down to ampb and enter in a –1 instead of –2. It should look like this:
;Amplitudes
ampa = 0
ampb = -1 ;values for Amplitude B are used the same way as Amplitude A values
ampbpos = 0
ampbpk = 0.2
ampc = 0 ;values for Amplitude C are used the same way as Amplitude A values
ampcpos = 0
ampcpk = 0
And if ampa = 0 is in there three times, don’t worry about it, just be sure they are the same value or delete two of them. There is a bug in the formula, but it’s easily fixable.
Next thing we’re going to do is add a small transport section before the lift begins. You know how to make a straight segment, so get to it! Just make it 5meters long and angle it at 0*. You may think it would be easier to just make the straight in the editor and that this is a waste of time. Well, look back at what we’ve put for our pre-lift turn. 185*, so we are now five degrees off the grid, so elementary is going to be the most accurate way of creating this straight segment.
Now go into the editor and raise the first vertex to exactly 10meters above the ground. Then we can safely add all of what we have. Here’s what it should look like: http://www.nolimitsdevcenter.net/i28039
Didn’t think a pre-lift could get so complicated, did ya?
Step2: The lift
For the lift, we are going to need to get out the Purgatorium as well as the H: SAK.
The first thing we’re going to need is a piece of track going from level to 26*. So we are going to create a flat helix that turns 26* with a radius of 10meters. We need a lead-in and lead-out of 8*, and the height difference must be 0meters. Everything else will be 0. This will give us a very simple turn. Save this so we can find it later and fire up the Purgatorium.
Go to File, Open Initial, and open your element. You’ll see it displayed in the four views on the right side of the program. What we’re going to be focusing on is the section labeled Rotation. In order to get this beemer off the ground and climbing the lift, we have to rotate it 90* along the Z-axis. To do this, we’ll need to input this value so that it looks like this: http://www.nolimitsdevcenter.net/i28040
After you put these values in, hit “Purgatorium!” at the bottom and you’re element should rotate 90*.
Be sure to always check only the axis you want affected. Also be sure that you are using the right column with the “d” next to it, this is the degrees column. When saving your element, the Purgatorium automatically saves your file with _prp attached to the end for your convenience.
Now we need a straight to get us up to about 50meters. You can use your trig skills to work this out or you can just create a straight segment 25meters in length and add and split this in the editor to get the desired distance. In either case, for this tutorial you’re going to need the top vertex set to 50meters or as close to it as you can get it. The straight will be approximately 100meters long.
Now for the trickier part of the lift. We’re going to create a pullover that flattens out such as that on Apollo’s Chariot. We’re going to want to go from 26* to –25* so we simply find the distance between those values and that is what our turn is going to have to be. In this case our turn before Purg is going to be set to 51*. You create the turn before entering it in the Purgatorium in the same manner as before with the only value that has changed being the turning amount. It may also be wise to up the lead-ins and lead-outs to 16 as our turning angle has double.
Open this element in the Purg again. Instead of starting at zero degrees, our piece of track has to start off at 26* because that’s what we’ve set our lift hill straight piece to. In order to do this, we simply change the X-axis to 26* in the Purg. We also want the track to start heading downward, so the Z-axis value needs to be negative this time. It should look like this now: http://www.nolimitsdevcenter.net/i28042
Through all of this you must keep track of the direction of your track. At this point, our track is headed –25* off of the X-axis. So, in order to get back to level we need to make another turn at 25*. Create this in the same manner as before but make the turn angle 25* and the lead-ins and lead-outs need to go back down to 8*. Open this element in the Purg again, but instead of having a positive X-axis value, we are going to have to have a negative value. The Z-axis values will be reversed as well. So the Purg should look like this before hitting “Purgatorium!”: http://www.nolimitsdevcenter.net/i28044
Now we can put all of these together in the editor. I didn’t like the size of the last element we created, the one going from –25* to 0*, so when I put it in I set the size to 75%. Then I added that transport piece that is 5meters long for a final touch.
We’re going to get into some slightly more complicated methods for this next part. But don’t worry! You can do it.
Open up elementary and the purgatorium. We’re going to start with the H:SAK here. I want my piece of track to go from horizontal to –60* down. So, just make a flat helix with a turning radius of 60*.
But wait. That looks like crap. We’re going to want something a little bit more like a beemer. We’ll start off with a radius of 10 (we can always resize it in the editor,) our turning angle is of course going to be 60*. Now is where it gets tricky. We want to top of our drop to be quick and snappy and the bottom to slope down to –60* smoothly. We’re going to set a low lead-in and a high lead-out. I’m going to put in 10* and 50* respectively. Be sure the rest of the inputs are 0. This may look strange at the moment, but it will look better once we flip it over. And to do that, we’re going to need to save it and load it into the purg. Just like before, load up your element and change the rotation settings just like we have before.
Now we just need a small straight segment set to 15meters long and –60*.
Step 4: The Pull-Up and Air-Time Hill
Now for a pull-up. In this section I’ll teach you a few neat tricks.
We want to start with a pull-up much like that seen on Goliath, starts at –60* and rises up to 60* while turning 25*. Not an easy task to do by hand, but is made very easy with these tools.
Load up the H:SAK once more. Lets set the radius to 10 and the.. wait… how the hell are we gonna get it to go up to the right angle we want?!? Easy. Just add the downward angle you are starting with the angle you are going to end with and you get the total change. In this case we have 120. So set your turning angle to 120*. I’m going to set my lead-ins at 30* for a more comfortable ride. Change the height to 0, leave the entry slope at zero, but here is where the change is; make the exit slope 25*. This may seem odd, but if you think a few steps ahead, this is changing the horizontal movement. Leave the rest of the values at zero. Now we are going to save and then load that element into the purg. We want to set the Z-axis to 90* and the X-axis to –60*. Our element is starting at –60, that is why our X-axis must move 60*.
Here is the purg shot: http://www.nolimitsdevcenter.net/i28649
Save this element, toss it all back into the editor in the order we have created and aw at the amazement you’ve created. Oh wow! That is way too small. Oh well, no need to redo anything. Just simply hit undo and toss it back in at 200% resize. That should be perfect.
Now we want a nice floater air hill. Before the hill, we’ll put a 5meter straight in. One will also go in after the hill. Open the H:SAK again. A 15meter radius will do fine for now, we’ll most likely be resizing that, we want to go from 60* to –60* again so our turning angle is going to 120* once again, to get that beemer feel we’re going to go with a fairly high lead-in and lead-out, 40* should do well for both, the rest will be zero to ensure our hill doesn’t move left to right. Now we can load it up in the purg and flip it right side up. We need it to start a 60* so the X-axis will be 60* and the Z-axis will be set to 90*. Here’s the purg shot for you: http://www.nolimitsdevcenter.net/i28650
Add in the straight, the hill, and the straight in the editor to see what we’ve accomplished. Whoop, that hill was a bit too big, lets resize it to 80%. Now we can take a short test ride.
But wait, what the? I was sure I put in all of the correct numbers… Well, to tell you the truth, we did put in everything correctly. The problem is with the H:SAK. The slope-B we used to turn our pull-up changed our turning radius. Very much of an annoyance, but there is something we can do about it. And this is where the AHG comes in handy. Simply take out the two straight pieces and our hill and save that track. Now fire up the AHG and load our track. After that don’t touch anything! We only need the value under “slope” and next to “out.” It seems our pull-up has lost almost 10*! Now we can go back into our H:SAK where we were making the air hill and change the values a bit. Our initial upward slope has changed so our total turning angle is going to have to change. We still want to end with –60* so we’ll just add our new angle (52*, I’ve rounded it off) on to the 60* which will give us 112* as a new total turning angle. All of the other values will remain the same. Now when we put this through the purg we’re going to have to have an X-axis change of 52* instead of 60*, everything else will remain the same. Save this element, create a new straight at 52* to go before our hill, add in the hill and downward straight of 60* and our air hill will be as good as new!
And We’re Done!
Well, this tutorial is over, but you still have a coaster to finish! I hope this tutorial has shed some light on the use of tools, both showing that it is not the easy way out and what a powerful tool they can become when used correctly. Anybody can do it, it just takes time, patience, and some logical thinking.
Disclaimers:
1. This is not the perfect way to construct a B&M hyper coaster but rather a tutorial to get people used to tools.
2. The forces have not been tested for these exact inputs, to make a realistic coaster, you may have to tweak what I have put in.
