DiogoJ42
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Metropolitan Line
My old tutorial, saved for prosperity:
I have had one or two requests for tips on making dark rides, so I thought I would knock this up as a quick guide.
Read on to see how to make a Duel style haunted house ride!
Note: this is not a complete ride, that would take me days. This is just to demonstrate the steps involved.
Step 1: Planning.
So you want to build a dark ride, eh? Well, what kind of ride system will it use? What will the theme be? Will it be scary of light-hearted? How much space do you have to play with?
All these seemingly obvious questions need answering before you even fire up RCT. For our purposes, we have already established that we are building a haunted house. This answers most of those questions. here is the space we have to play with:
The first thing I do is make the ground black... it helps me get into the "dark" ride frame of mind.
Does your ride tell a story, or is it simply a series of scenes that follow each other? It's a good idea to have a "mental story board" of what is going to happen in your ride before you do anything. If it's very complicated, why not sketch out a track plan and divide up the scenes?
Once you know what you want to do, stock up on scenery! Scour the internet for as much custom scenery as you can find that has anything to do with your chosen theme. If you want something specific, it can be hard to find. But often, inspiration can come from finding a new CSO set to play with.
Download everything! Even if you don't use it for this project, you never know when it might come in handy.
Step 2: Building the track.
Select your chosen ride system, in this case a "Haunted Hotel"...
... And start with the station. Set it quite far back from the path... dark rides take up a lot of space.
There needs to be ample room for a themed entrance. Just like Duel. (Keep asking yourself, "What Would Wardley Do?")
Notice the twin stations. They are separated by one square of track. If space is tight, one can be turned 90', and use a curve to separate them. (I did this on The House On The Hill, in Blithering Lodge)
Now, I didn't plan this layout, I just built some nice wiggly track and cracked on with it. But of course, when you do this, you will already know what shape you want your ride to be.
I ended up with this:
We all know that The Haunted House was designed to speed up / slow down at certain points in the ride. But RCT ghost trains are a constant speed. Well, I have a solution! Breaks! If you set the ride speed to 8.45mph (any more is too fast), you can slow the car down using breaks. As a bonus, this means the car will "whip" round corners.
20 cars, dispatching every 5 seconds gives a good spacing, and is as close as you can get to the constantly moving cars of Duel. If you want the cars spaced out further, just increase the time to 10 seconds. Watch the ride run for a minute or two to see how the cars spread out. (remember to do this with the ride open, not on test, so that the timings are in effect).
Step 3: Dividing the scenes.
You will, of course, already know exactly what rooms you want in this ride. I just chopped it up as I went along. Use fences to mark the outline of the rooms for now. I have used red for 'rooms', and green for 'corridors', just to keep things clear.
To make things even easier to see, I have coloured the ground in different textures per room. You don't have to do this, but it helps make the different scenes more obvious.
Step 4: Building the interior.
I have a long straight section of track, so let's crack straight on and build a Trommel Tunnel!
Of course, you could just use the spinning tunnel track piece, but 1) it looks pants, and b) using scenery allows you to place breaks in the tunnel to slow the car down.
Let's start building the walls of each room. A set of pitch plack walls is essential for any dark ride. I shall begin our ride with a dark corridor to set a spooky mood.
Next we can make the first room of the house... Start with the walls and floor...
...Then add some furniture.
Let's build a dining room next. Walls first...
...Add some stuff... Simples!
A dark corridor follows. Dig out those black walls again.
Time for the first scare... a grave bust.
I'm sure you get the idea. I'm not going to build every room, but let's do one more... let's build a large swamp.
You can't have a swamp without mist, so add some particle effects to taste.
Much better!
Oh, don't forget to build a station, whatever you do!
By this point, you should have all the scenes built, complete with scares. Obviously, this example only has a few rooms for demonstration. but here is what we have so far:
Step 5: Lighting.
Kinda goes without saying, you will need a set of lights for this step.
When it comes to lighting, less is more. Pools of light, with dark patches looks much better than flooding the whole ride in light. try to stick to two colours per room max. The colours you choose depend on what is in the scene, obviously. It's hard to go wrong with green and dark blue for a spook ride. But a change of colour is a good way of making a scene different from the last one.
Remember that when in build mode, the game makes things brighter at night so you can see what you are doing. This ruins the lighting!
Simply close the window in the bottom left corner to check your progress.
Much better!
Remember to light any scares you may have in the ride.
Large rooms, such as our swamp, look better with pools of light and shade.
Once you are happy with the lighting, you can put ceilings (or inner roofs) on to your scenes. This is something that most dark rides do not have. But in RCT it is essential. You want your ride to be the best, don't you?
Step 6: Building the exterior.
Clear up the floor. You don't need all the patchwork of different colours any more, so make the whole thing black again. It should all be hidden under scenery by now, but the black is just incase there are any gaps.
Then tidy up the edges. You need to leave one square clearance round the sides of the ride, to make sure no scenery conflicts happen.
First, mark out the perimeter of the building with low brick walls.
Next add the "tin shed" using your favorite metal walls. Make sure they are 1 level taller than the highest point of your inner scenery, otherwise when you add a roof it may poke through into the ride.
Add a roof.
It's a bit plain, so let's add some details. How about some steel girders?
Almost there. A few air con units and fire exits should do the job.
Bingo!
Step 7: Building the front.
This is the bit that guests see. We all know that Duel lives in a warehouse, and that the "Haunted House" we see contains nothing but queue. Here's your chance to go nuts and create an epic, spooky house. The same rules apply to the queueline as the ride. Work from the inside out.
I CBA with that right now, so to make my point I knocked up this simple shack:
Then it's just a matter of putting in all the finishing touches, and hiding as much of the warehouse as possible.
Of course, you can go to town and add a building for the exit path as well. I didn't bother but you get the idea.
And that's it! All you need to know to make an epic dark ride! The only things you need are imagination, and a whole heap of custom scenery.
I hope this has been helpful.
I have had one or two requests for tips on making dark rides, so I thought I would knock this up as a quick guide.
Read on to see how to make a Duel style haunted house ride!
Note: this is not a complete ride, that would take me days. This is just to demonstrate the steps involved.
Step 1: Planning.
So you want to build a dark ride, eh? Well, what kind of ride system will it use? What will the theme be? Will it be scary of light-hearted? How much space do you have to play with?
All these seemingly obvious questions need answering before you even fire up RCT. For our purposes, we have already established that we are building a haunted house. This answers most of those questions. here is the space we have to play with:
The first thing I do is make the ground black... it helps me get into the "dark" ride frame of mind.
Does your ride tell a story, or is it simply a series of scenes that follow each other? It's a good idea to have a "mental story board" of what is going to happen in your ride before you do anything. If it's very complicated, why not sketch out a track plan and divide up the scenes?
Once you know what you want to do, stock up on scenery! Scour the internet for as much custom scenery as you can find that has anything to do with your chosen theme. If you want something specific, it can be hard to find. But often, inspiration can come from finding a new CSO set to play with.
Download everything! Even if you don't use it for this project, you never know when it might come in handy.
Step 2: Building the track.
Select your chosen ride system, in this case a "Haunted Hotel"...
... And start with the station. Set it quite far back from the path... dark rides take up a lot of space.
There needs to be ample room for a themed entrance. Just like Duel. (Keep asking yourself, "What Would Wardley Do?")
Notice the twin stations. They are separated by one square of track. If space is tight, one can be turned 90', and use a curve to separate them. (I did this on The House On The Hill, in Blithering Lodge)
Now, I didn't plan this layout, I just built some nice wiggly track and cracked on with it. But of course, when you do this, you will already know what shape you want your ride to be.
I ended up with this:
We all know that The Haunted House was designed to speed up / slow down at certain points in the ride. But RCT ghost trains are a constant speed. Well, I have a solution! Breaks! If you set the ride speed to 8.45mph (any more is too fast), you can slow the car down using breaks. As a bonus, this means the car will "whip" round corners.
20 cars, dispatching every 5 seconds gives a good spacing, and is as close as you can get to the constantly moving cars of Duel. If you want the cars spaced out further, just increase the time to 10 seconds. Watch the ride run for a minute or two to see how the cars spread out. (remember to do this with the ride open, not on test, so that the timings are in effect).
Step 3: Dividing the scenes.
You will, of course, already know exactly what rooms you want in this ride. I just chopped it up as I went along. Use fences to mark the outline of the rooms for now. I have used red for 'rooms', and green for 'corridors', just to keep things clear.
To make things even easier to see, I have coloured the ground in different textures per room. You don't have to do this, but it helps make the different scenes more obvious.
Step 4: Building the interior.
I have a long straight section of track, so let's crack straight on and build a Trommel Tunnel!
Of course, you could just use the spinning tunnel track piece, but 1) it looks pants, and b) using scenery allows you to place breaks in the tunnel to slow the car down.
Let's start building the walls of each room. A set of pitch plack walls is essential for any dark ride. I shall begin our ride with a dark corridor to set a spooky mood.
Next we can make the first room of the house... Start with the walls and floor...
...Then add some furniture.
Let's build a dining room next. Walls first...
...Add some stuff... Simples!
A dark corridor follows. Dig out those black walls again.
Time for the first scare... a grave bust.
I'm sure you get the idea. I'm not going to build every room, but let's do one more... let's build a large swamp.
You can't have a swamp without mist, so add some particle effects to taste.
Much better!
Oh, don't forget to build a station, whatever you do!
By this point, you should have all the scenes built, complete with scares. Obviously, this example only has a few rooms for demonstration. but here is what we have so far:
Step 5: Lighting.
Kinda goes without saying, you will need a set of lights for this step.
When it comes to lighting, less is more. Pools of light, with dark patches looks much better than flooding the whole ride in light. try to stick to two colours per room max. The colours you choose depend on what is in the scene, obviously. It's hard to go wrong with green and dark blue for a spook ride. But a change of colour is a good way of making a scene different from the last one.
Remember that when in build mode, the game makes things brighter at night so you can see what you are doing. This ruins the lighting!
Simply close the window in the bottom left corner to check your progress.
Much better!
Remember to light any scares you may have in the ride.
Large rooms, such as our swamp, look better with pools of light and shade.
Once you are happy with the lighting, you can put ceilings (or inner roofs) on to your scenes. This is something that most dark rides do not have. But in RCT it is essential. You want your ride to be the best, don't you?
Step 6: Building the exterior.
Clear up the floor. You don't need all the patchwork of different colours any more, so make the whole thing black again. It should all be hidden under scenery by now, but the black is just incase there are any gaps.
Then tidy up the edges. You need to leave one square clearance round the sides of the ride, to make sure no scenery conflicts happen.
First, mark out the perimeter of the building with low brick walls.
Next add the "tin shed" using your favorite metal walls. Make sure they are 1 level taller than the highest point of your inner scenery, otherwise when you add a roof it may poke through into the ride.
Add a roof.
It's a bit plain, so let's add some details. How about some steel girders?
Almost there. A few air con units and fire exits should do the job.
Bingo!
Step 7: Building the front.
This is the bit that guests see. We all know that Duel lives in a warehouse, and that the "Haunted House" we see contains nothing but queue. Here's your chance to go nuts and create an epic, spooky house. The same rules apply to the queueline as the ride. Work from the inside out.
I CBA with that right now, so to make my point I knocked up this simple shack:
Then it's just a matter of putting in all the finishing touches, and hiding as much of the warehouse as possible.
Of course, you can go to town and add a building for the exit path as well. I didn't bother but you get the idea.
And that's it! All you need to know to make an epic dark ride! The only things you need are imagination, and a whole heap of custom scenery.
I hope this has been helpful.
