Torgon's Ride Builder

Introduction

Torgon’s Ride Builder is a system that enables you to build your very own roller coasters and other path type rides using no-lag keyframing.

FULL VERSION: You can have hundreds of waypoints to make your path as detailed as you like.

DEMO VERSION: You can have up to 10 waypoints.

Let’s take a look at the basics and how it works. Then we’ll look at the Menu.

 

Quickstart

Below, we first take a short tour through the basics, before the manual gets to a description of all menu options.

Setup

What’s in the box?

  • Torgon’s Ride Builder (This is the system controller and will be
    called the controller in this text.)

Rez the controller.

  • Pick a spot you want to be the starting point of your ride and rez the controller.
  • It controls the rest of the building process
  • The direction of the red arrow is the initial direction of the ride movement.
  • If you need to move or rotate it, edit it and move it with the SL edit tools.
  • Any keyframe movement is relative to the controller. If you move it later,
    you won’t just move the controller, but the full path your ride vehicle is taking!

First Test

  1. After rezzing the controller, click it to get its menu.
  2. Select “Rez mover”, which brings up a simple two seater vehicle.
  3. Sit on the vehicle.
    • It’ll take you around an invisible path and then back to the start.
    • The controller comes preconfigured with a very simple path.

How does it know where to go?

If you look closely, you can see a translucent green arrow under the ride vehicle. This green arrow is always centered on the controller and contains the main movement scripts.

When you build out your ride in the future, the arrow will follow the waypoints you lay out and is basically the part that keeps your ride “on track”. In a finished ride, you should make the green arrow invisible.

Returning to starting point and queueing

Near the end of the ride the vehicle:

  1. slowed down
  2. stopped and unseated you
  3. returned to starting point

That was to show two features:

  • How the ride always returns to the starting point even if you don’t lay
    out the last waypoints
  • You can configure a queueing system and a drop-off point.

Its all about the waypoints!

So you have a moving ride now, but you don’t see anything at all. How does it know what track to use?

Making waypoints visible:

  1. Click the controller to get the menu.
  2. Choose Tools -> Rez points. The controller will rez the 7 waypoints used to create the circle path you took.

The last waypoint

  • You can see that the last waypoint is a bit “behind” the controller.
  • That is the waypoint where the ride slowed down a lot, to its default speed
    of 2 meters/second, to travel to the drop-off point.
  • Please note: The drop-off point is not visible, but calculated, based
    on a distance you can change in the settings “Queue meter”

Create your own path

Now that the first waypoints are rezzed, you can play with them to see what happens:

  1. Move and rotate them around a bit using the SL edit tools.
  2. Speed: The initial speed for all waypoints is initially set to 10.
    1. Via menu (on the waypoint): Click Menu -> Speed -> Select a number.
      (PLEASE NOTE, changes via menu affect ONLY the current waypoint
      and no others.)
    2. Via number buttons: Click a number on the waypoint to speed up or slow down
      current speed using the following modes:
      • FROM HERE: All waypoints from here going forward.
      • JUST THIS: Just this waypoint.
  3. When finished editing the waypoints, click the controller again and select “Detect.”
  4. The controller will then check and recalculate all waypoints and transfer
    the updated path to your ride vehicle. (This process takes a few seconds.)

If you build your own roller coaster, these waypoints should be aligned with your track. the closer to it the better. For now, just play with them.

You can find an “Add after” button on the waypoints, thats the way you add more points for a more detailed track. The system can handle hundreds, so don’t be stingy. (The DEMO only goes up to 10 waypoints.)

You can also swap waypoints via the menu.

Waypoints, or no waypoints? Cleanup

The waypoints are not required for your ride to run and follow the path you set up. Your edited path stays in the controller’s memory once you selected “Detect.”

This helps with keeping the LI count of your ride to a minimum.

To get rid of the waypoints:

  1. Click the controller for the menu.
  2. Choose Tools -> Unrez.

To get the waypoints back:

  1. Click the controller for the menu.
  2. Choose Tools -> Rez points.

NOTE: If you happen to use Tools -> Reset, it will clean the controller’s memory and you
won’t be able to get your waypoints back.

If LI count is not an issue, or you just want to hide the waypoints but keep them out for future editing, you can simple “hide” them.

  1. Click the controller to get the menu.
  2. Select Tools -> Hide. (to hide them)
  3. Or Tools -> Show. (to show them)

Waypoint controls

Make it ready for sale

(Full version only, this does not apply to the Demo version.)

  1. Once you are done laying out your track you should take a copy of the controller for future editing.
  2. Click the controller for the menu.
  3. Select Tools -> Finalize. This tells the controller to clean itself up:
    • Removes the building scripts
    • Leaves the transferable runtime script.

NOTE: The ride vehicle is transferable, however, it contains no-transfer poses for waving! So it will not show as transferable until you remove or replace those.

Generally, its best if you replace the vehicle and 2nd seat and add your own by first unlinking the ride vehicle, removing everything but the green arrow, and adding your own vehicle and seat scripting.

Main Menu

The Main Menu is the first menu that shows when you click the controller, and it’ll help you with several options to configure and build your ride.

The Main Menu

This is the main menu as you will see it when you get the Ride Builder. Below, you’ll learn what each menu option means.

The Main Menu – after a reset

If you should reset the Controller using the Tools Reset option it’ll clear out all waypoints, after which the menu looks slightly different, with one more option that is explained below.

Website

This button simply opens the website with the manual for the Ride Builder

Manual

The Controller contains the Ride Builder Manual as a notecard too, this button will give you a copy of that notecard.

Settings

Opens the Settings Menu, please see the different options below.

Rez First

Only if you have a completely “empty” Ride Builder Controller, that means no stored waypoints, this option shows to allow you to quickly rez your first waypoint.

To get such an empty controller and remove the default waypoints that were initially loaded use the “Tools” – “Reset” function

On click, the controller will rez a first waypoint, two meters (or whatever distance you defined in the settings menu) from itself in arrow direction. After that, the menu option will disappear.

Rez Mover

This menu option rezzes the moving part of the Ride Builder, either the default one included, or one you made yourself. After rezzing, it’ll automatically update the Mover with the latest set of waypoints stored in the controller.

Detect

This option lets the Ride Builder detect and recalculate all the waypoints you placed into a path for the mover.

After clicking, you see a couple of messages similar to the following:

[13:16] Torgon’s Ride Builder v.3.0.2: Detecting route points, please wait 15 seconds to finish
[13:16] Torgon’s Ride Builder v.3.0.2: Detection completed
[13:16] Torgon’s Ride Builder v.3.0.2: Detected 7 Waypoints
[13:16] Torgon’s Ride Builder v.3.0.2: Transferring route points
[13:16] Torgon’s Ride Builder v.3.0.2: Transferring completed, ready to run

After the first line, there is a delay of 15 seconds during which the controller is busy with the waypoints, please wait.

As you can see the controller then, at the end, transmits the detected waypoints to any movers nearby, updating their paths for the next run.

Transmit

This isn’t needed when you detect your waypoints, but if you change your settings, this button re-transmits updates to all nearby movers.

Tools

This opens the Tools menu, with more functions to manipulate the ride system.

Settings Menu

The Settings Menu contains options to configure your ride’s behavior, e.g. distances and rezzing behavior

Tools Menu

The Tools Menu contains a number of helper functions for the Ride Builder

Troubleshooting

The trouble with troubleshooting starts when the trouble shoots back…