[The Smiler] Construction Updates / Ride Speculation Part 2 *SPOILER FREE*

[rightbackgranty]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

The station is looking a bit bland at the moment but I doubt its finished. Having seen them mark out the "Smile" for the maintenance shed I'm imagining that the other decals from the game will make it onto the station.

It certainly wont be any Notre Dame, but it doesnt need to be. The yellow piping and paint will break it up nicely, and really lets the ride itself take centre stage.

 

[Tuggerz]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

Impressed with how the Marmalade thing looks now

That really made me giggle!


I personally don't feel that the station will be left as a concrete box, there's a lot of pipework going up, which I reckon will be closely linked to 'The Giggler', I remember the game having laughing gas/mist just before leaving the Station, Not sure how accurately we can trust the game in relation to the real thing though.

Plus we have this white tape everywhere, obviously giving a nod towards some paint work being done, most likely with Spirals everywhere. Something tells me that's not everything though, It's just a hunch, but I can't see it being a 'That's it' situation. They want this to beat Nemesis, I would assume that means theming wise too, and to be fair, The Marmaliser doesn't really beat the Nemesis Atmosphere.

 

[Tap the world and listen]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

The oblivion station reminds me of "high tech" architecture, with its covered joints suggesting a structure, its technology theming, its less blockish form and more human scaled approach, to me at least suggested hi-tech rather than the colder brutalism, however it remains imposing due to the scale of the drop.

The pipe theming on the facade of The Smiler station, reminded me of the Pompidou centre, (an extreme example of "high tech" architecture) with made me think, it might have been a nice idea to have brought the vertical circulation outside much like the Pompidou centre. (not over kill though, so the concrete ect is more of a feature linking in with X-Sector) This could have broken down the brutalist facade, and offered a more interesting approach because it would have offered some interesting views and interactions with The Smiler, further to this, the raw concrete's inevitable staining would have been broken down to a more tactile scale which wouldn't too bad.

In addition the Marmaliser has a visible structure, with its technology (bins/pipes/wires) on the outside, rather than clad over, which would link in.

Interestingly (at least, to me) the Pompidou centre in its development stage featured screens on the facade which would have displayed information, however, and im not 100% certain on this, they were removed from the design when the question on who would control the information on the screens became political. This reminded me of the screens on the Marmaliser.

I think its a bad idea for a design to try manipulate the totalitarian atmosphere that brutalist architecture gives, because in my opinion, without trying to make this mind numbing post any longer, it has too many affiliations with the idea of cheap, lazy and dull. I think the scale of the station, the track and the spider would already make an imposing impression.

Finally, I thought I might add, I don't even like "high tech" architecture, i think it looks awful, but it could have been a stronger concept for the station.

 

[CoasterCrazyChris]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

I think it's obvious that the brutalist shape of the station is down to laziness rather than intention.

Thankfully it's not the focal point of the ride, that will be the marmaliser which will hopefully be good when finished.

 

[electricBlll]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

Yes, it's just another missed opportunity really. And the painted smiley logos/spirals will inevitably look so crass. I guess some budgets were cut, oh well, these rides are expensive.

The X Sector theme is only really carried out through the architecture. Almost none of the buildings have any corners at all (except for the arcade, which was a pre-existing building to which they added a new exterior). Concentric circles are also a very significant design feature, along with in-built lamps and embossed graphics, for example. Alton Towers pretty much created their own unique architectural style for Oblivion, which you can recognise straight away and every structure adds up to a coherent 'coolly sinister' atmosphere. At least they were supposed to.

It's a shame they have made no attempt to use or even reference that style, otherwise The Smiler's station could have been a visual feature in itself. Imagine a rounded exterior with large black vents and a brushed metallic finish; something like that would look more effective as the dark headquarters of this unknown organisation. And the queue could have entered the building at the upper level, via ramps and bridges like Oblivion, instead of using steep interior stairs...

Blah blah

At least they didn't go with that ugly industrial dungeon idea.

 

[Poisson]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

X-Sector has both the circular designs and the square edged buildings and rides.

Fried Chicken and X-Ripoff are of square design and Submission is rather square edged but Oblivion, Rehydrator and Enterprise are circular designs. It has both really

*Runs before he is shredded*

 

[CoasterCrazyChris]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

The X Sector theme is only really carried out through the architecture.

This.

Not something that is achieved by sticking plastic pipes on a concrete box. At least the yellow creates a nice contrast. There really is nothing more to say about it.

 

[Rose Of Dawn]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

It's a shame about the station being so drab. Whilst I'm sure it'll be nice inside, on the outside it just looks lazy as hell when compared to the other SW stations. Yellow tags and pipes won't be enough to make a plain grey block look interesting.

Something else I've noticed in the game, and not sure anyone else has yet, is the entrance to the queues:

I believe some pictures have been taken that shows queue construction inside the ride area, and going by this it looks like this is where the entrance will be. Again, not sure whether this is relevant or not, I just thought it might be of interest to someone.

 

[Jordan]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

The unfortunate problem with brutalist architecture is just how badly it stains with rain.

But budgets are budgets and, unlike Thirteen, you can actually see where the money's been spent this time ;-)

 

[Jon]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

I think it's a shame that designers have not come up with a station that is completely cohesive with the rest of X-Sector, mainly because the station is a large structure and therefore would have helped a lot in propagating the visual/architectural theme.

Having said that, I don't think it is entirely disastrous. It is still cohesive with X-Sector, just not in the most obvious way. It is ugly, and perhaps a little lazy, but nevertheless I think it is effective both for the ride and for the area.

 

[Andrew]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

Picture from Trumans Fones

The last piece of the inverted drop is going in! It looks absolutely fantastic!

EDIT: The piece does not fit properly...

 

[Plastic Person]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

EDIT: The piece does not fit properly...

 

[James]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

That was bound to happen. Hopefully it's just a matter of shuffling a few supports to get them linked.

 

[Johno]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

TTF have a picture of the drop being completed properly.

 

[BigDave]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

Yeah it's why they dont concrete them down until the end. This ride will fit as the vast majority of it would have already been built somewhere, tested and then shipped to the UK to be rebuilt.

 

[TheMan]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

The last piece of the inverted drop is going in! It looks absolutely fantastic!

EDIT: The piece does not fit properly...

That proper made me LOL!

I know it will fit, it's like building anything that needs to create a circuit - it's like extreme Scalextric (ahhh, Scalextric :*)

Still though, the edit had me rolling around!

 

[Dar]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

Yeah it's why they dont concrete them down until the end. This ride will fit as the vast majority of it would have already been built somewhere, tested and then shipped to the UK to be rebuilt.

I doubt this has been constructed before. It's far too time consuming to build a rollercoaster and take it apart again. They build the pieces and then ship them to the site, as seen in the Vekoma GIB documentary.

As for the drop not fitting, have you ever built some k'nex or lego? The last bit never fits! Don't forget the pieces will have gravity acting on them to bring them together a few millimetres!

 

[Johno]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

Yeah it's why they dont concrete them down until the end. This ride will fit as the vast majority of it would have already been built somewhere, tested and then shipped to the UK to be rebuilt.

Built somewhere, tested and rebuilt?

What?

 

[DiogoJ42]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

I'll have you know Lego always fits perfectly when I build it.

I'm a tad worried by this whole "leaving room to play with in the footers so we can get the track to fit" method. No other company does it, and it seems to be a major contributer to Gerstache.

 

[cotda]

Re: [The Smiler] Construction Updates and Ride Speculation Part 2

Which rides actually have gerstache? I've ridden saw and just felt it to be forceless, with no 'gerstache' if it rides like saw did on my run sw7 will be fine in that department!