Coaster Smoothness

[LN]

Ive done plenty of debudding myself in my life, I know how it goes. [tongue]

What strikes me as odd is that the actual coaster smoothness issue doesnt look like a bug at all. It's just simple non-continuous banking that is the issue. Compare it to NoLimits 1 without continuous-roll enabled. You get the same exact results.

Well. I think it is safe to say they know the issue but dont know how to implement it. We can all look at NL and see they nailed it.

But maybe we should not expect that the devs instantly know how to fix it or how to do it (althought its been a while now). I still hope so of course

 

[Chems]

Of course, I am just interested in these kinds of things so I was more thinking out loud.

 

[breezerHOG1]

I've said this before but, I really don't see coaster smoothing as such a big issue, I mean sure things could be easier and the coaster tools are a lot more difficult to use than in RCT3, but when I watch videos of coaster PoVs I see really smooth rides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wurCOwRHNhI

The coaster in this^ video is smoother than any wooden coaster I have ever been on in real life, in the video he discusses how the back of the train is a bit bumpier than the front and to me that seems realistic

 

[tyczj]

I've said this before but, I really don't see coaster smoothing as such a big issue, I mean sure things could be easier and the coaster tools are a lot more difficult to use than in RCT3, but when I watch videos of coaster PoVs I see really smooth rides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wurCOwRHNhI

The coaster in this^ video is smoother than any wooden coaster I have ever been on in real life, in the video he discusses how the back of the train is a bit bumpier than the front and to me that seems realistic

While that is a pretty smooth coaster you can see on the twists and turns a small jitter in the camera, also the coaster is going pretty fast and its a little harder to see the jerky camera at higher speeds. Compare that to a coaster built in No Limits and you can the difference. it probably took a lot of time and effort to smooth the track as it is where as no limits it appears to be much easier to achieve smooth tracks (never really played the game I just watched videos)

 

[breezerHOG1]

My point being, it doesnt make the game unbearable, visually speaking the coaster is smoother than most real life coaster that I've been on. Compared to other issues the game needs, I'd say coasters are pretty good for now. Maybe the tools can be improved, but so could many other things

 

[tyczj]

My point being, it doesnt make the game unbearable, visually speaking the coaster is smoother than most real life coaster that I've been on. Compared to other issues the game needs, I'd say coasters are pretty good for now. Maybe the tools can be improved, but so could many other things

I dont think anyone is saying its unbearable (at least I am not) it just looks bad when you compare it with other games

 

[Chems]

While that is a pretty smooth coaster (for PC), the problem is to get to this result where the banking still feels very forced and unnatural, you have to smooth for an extremely long time, and if you make a tiny mistake during the process and you have to start all over again basically. Also, the coaster is extremely smoothed out in the sense that it loses almost all track details like small s bends and proper banking transitions. Not to mention the banking still has a very obvious jitter to it. It just doesn't feel like a natural coaster at all.

Is it game breaking? No, but getting smooth coasters should be a basic functionality of the game, and for those who really like coasters, the current state is unacceptable (because making a smooth spline isn't difficult).

 

[ojonas]

I dont think anyone is saying its unbearable (at least I am not) it just looks bad when you compare it with other games

Which other theme park simulation games does have coasters that look better than PlanCo?

There can be improvements here but I think there are other items that should have priority compared to this "issue".

 

[tyczj]

Which other theme park simulation games does have coasters that look better than PlanCo?

There can be improvements here but I think there are other items that should have priority compared to this "issue".

its been said 1000x, no limits has much smoother coasters than PC and you can see it in their videos, roll transitions are so nice and cannot be achieved in PC.

Its also your opinion that other things need to be address first just like its my opinion that this should also be addressed before other "issues"

 

[Chems]

Which other theme park simulation games does have coasters that look better than PlanCo?

There can be improvements here but I think there are other items that should have priority compared to this "issue".

It has been said by me and many others many times that the coaster assets themselves looks and sound extremely good, it's the actual lack of options in the coaster builder that is causing the issue. If you want examples, in RCTW you can achieve smoother coasters, in Roblox you can achieve smoother coaster. even in RCT3 you can get perfect coasters imported from NL1, and of course NoLimits 1 and 2 themselves. Although they are simulators, Click here to see a better coaster editor which has been made by one amateur programmer in his spare time between classes., so a good spline system really shouldn't be a problem.

 

[breezerHOG1]

Click here

Maybe I just dont know enough about real life coaster construction, but that video does not look any better than coasters I've seen in PC. If you want to say these tools are lacking thats fine, or that it takes a lot of work, but its not impossible to get smooth coasters in PC, that game Ultimate Coaster X looks confusing and probably not as fun for casuals, not to mention it lacks scenery and other rides

 

[ojonas]

its been said 1000x, no limits has much smoother coasters than PC and you can see it in their videos, roll transitions are so nice and cannot be achieved in PC.

Its also your opinion that other things need to be address first just like its my opinion that this should also be addressed before other "issues"

It would be horrible for the No Limit crew if they did not have a superior coaster editor. That is the only thing that program does. I call it a program because it is not a game. If we are going to discuss this we at least need to compare apples to apples. That is sort of like saying that GTA (any game in the series) is crappy because it has very bad driving physics compared to let say Forza Motorsport or Grand Tourismo which both are dedicated driving simulators and GTA is not. PlanCo was never intended to be a true to the world coaster editor/design program. If people bought the game with the expectations it would be at least as good as No Limits 2 then they had the wrong expectations or did not understand what they bought.

You are fully entitled to have you opinion on what you think should be tweaked first, just as myself and everyone else does. Never questioned that part. But if you read on the forums here and at other places the majority of the discussions are about other things than coaster smoothness. Frontier should (and probably will) concentrate on items that are realistic to get resolved in a timely manner that will please the majority of the customers. My personal opinion is that that is not coaster smoothness.

Afterall, Planet Coaster is a game, not a simulator for real life coasters.

 

[tyczj]

They should probably change the name of the game then to planet scenery if coasters are not the focus of the game.

Funny everywhere I read people always complain about how coasters need to be fixed

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

The way some of you describe this game's coasters it's as if you've never seen a single good coaster on the workshop or on youtube and all of them are absolutely terrible.

 

[LN]

You are fully entitled to have you opinion on what you think should be tweaked first, just as myself and everyone else does. Never questioned that part. But if you read on the forums here and at other places the majority of the discussions are about other things than coaster smoothness. Frontier should (and probably will) concentrate on items that are realistic to get resolved in a timely manner that will please the majority of the customers. My personal opinion is that that is not coaster smoothness.

This is the only thread that does not derail to other subjects. It's also a thread that is constantly at top of the Forums.
This way all complaints are bundled in one thread that expands over 19 pages.

All other issues are scattered all over the forum.

You might as well say this is the topic where the forum is the least divided in.

 

[Chems]

The way some of you describe this game's coasters it's as if you've never seen a single good coaster on the workshop or on youtube and all of them are absolutely terrible.

Depends on how you define 'good coaster'. In the terms of how coasters should flow, then yes, I have never seen a good coaster in Planet Coaster. All I need to change my opinion is if you could provide a coaster with proper banking that doesn't jerk, feels stiff and forced. Of course, many coasters have great layouts, and some people try to make their coasters as realistic as possible, but none of the coasters are 'good coasters' simply because the game just doesn't support it.

 

[LN]

Depends on how you define 'good coaster'. In the terms of how coasters should flow, then yes, I have never seen a good coaster in Planet Coaster. All I need to change my opinion is if you could provide a coaster with proper banking that doesn't jerk, feels stiff and forced. Of course, many coasters have great layouts, and some people try to make their coasters as realistic as possible, but none of the coasters are 'good coasters' simply because the game just doesn't support it.

The way some of you describe this game's coasters it's as if you've never seen a single good coaster on the workshop or on youtube and all of them are absolutely terrible.

I'll say it in another way:

I wonder what my chiropractor would say if I would ride ANY of the coasters build in PC.

There's your definition of a good coaster. S M O O T H

 

[ojonas]

I'll say it in another way:

I wonder what my chiropractor would say if I would ride ANY of the coasters build in PC.

There's your definition of a good coaster. S M O O T H

So that would pretty much disqualify every RCT3 coaster. I know it is a 10+ years old game but people seems to use it as an example on how good smooth coasters should look like.

I wonder if this is not a camera issue rather than a smooth track issue. Most coasters looks and runs very smooth while in 3rd person view but when you do the on ride camera it jumps around some (doesn't bother me necessarily but I seen the "issue"). Maybe the camera needs smoothing and not the coaster itself?

 

[Chems]

RCT3 uses a piece by piece system so you really can't compare it to PCs builder. RCT3 does allow smoother coasters than PC, however, because it is possible to import NoLimits coaster nowadays but this is thanks to modding and not an official feature.

It's fairly easy to notice the unsmoothness in 3rd person view tho. The problem is the game doesn't allow us to make continuous rolls. So each track piece has its own curve that determines rolling so multiple curves in a row have rough transitions.

 

[LN]

So that would pretty much disqualify every RCT3 coaster. I know it is a 10+ years old game but people seems to use it as an example on how good smooth coasters should look like.

I wonder if this is not a camera issue rather than a smooth track issue. Most coasters looks and runs very smooth while in 3rd person view but when you do the on ride camera it jumps around some (doesn't bother me necessarily but I seen the "issue"). Maybe the camera needs smoothing and not the coaster itself?

For a game built in 2004 it's fairly good, but its easy as well like Chems says the game uses a piece by piece system.

In PC every kink you notice in a pov can also be seen when you only look at the track.

If we would pretend they are all Chinese knock-offs you would say it's fine, but if you want to represent a quality coaster like B&M or Intamin this is not the quality to deliver.

There still must be some sort of quality standard you want to achieve as a artist/designer/programmer?