Mentioned in other thread by BreezerHog, I thought it worthwhile to have its own topic in case of any developments.
Don't hold your breath though, it's not a game yet, just a walkabout.
Interesting they used Google Sketchup to model the park, and had access to the architectural block plans from the local council. That's cool, if a bit "bedroom development".
I downloaded the demo and it's a basic non-interactive walk-around. Nice detail and sounds. You can hop on one ride and one flat ride, but camera is fixed. It's unexciting and fairly linear.
Unreal engine is capable of glossy graphics these days, but it will have the same challenges of framerate when the dynamic events pile up on each tick, just like any game engine. Honestly I can't see this game getting there, but hope I'm proven wrong.
Here's where it became interesting (for me). Please excuse this deviation from the primary topic. I live in Australia, never heard of Alton Towers, never been to UK. So when I youtubed to compare the accuracy of the park with this demo, all these videos came up about the "crash" and "victims" and "the smiler". Wow... that was truly horrifying. Those people trapped for 4 hours, and the girls who lost their legs... it made me angry to be honest. Engineering should not allow an override switch to slam one train into another. It should be physically impossible to do that.
IMHO they should have at least re-named and modified the Smiler ride's theme. I'm not a fan of worshipping coasters like they're some kind of divine machine. They're nothing but bolts, steel, chains, bearings and bits. Never forget that. Here in Australia, 4 people died 2 years ago at a theme park here, and they dismantled the ride, and the park is on thin ice.
Anyway... The main topic is the Virtual Towers unreal demo. Maybe in a year from now we'll see more interactivity.
https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Virtual_Towers_Online
Don't hold your breath though, it's not a game yet, just a walkabout.
Interesting they used Google Sketchup to model the park, and had access to the architectural block plans from the local council. That's cool, if a bit "bedroom development".
I downloaded the demo and it's a basic non-interactive walk-around. Nice detail and sounds. You can hop on one ride and one flat ride, but camera is fixed. It's unexciting and fairly linear.
Unreal engine is capable of glossy graphics these days, but it will have the same challenges of framerate when the dynamic events pile up on each tick, just like any game engine. Honestly I can't see this game getting there, but hope I'm proven wrong.
Here's where it became interesting (for me). Please excuse this deviation from the primary topic. I live in Australia, never heard of Alton Towers, never been to UK. So when I youtubed to compare the accuracy of the park with this demo, all these videos came up about the "crash" and "victims" and "the smiler". Wow... that was truly horrifying. Those people trapped for 4 hours, and the girls who lost their legs... it made me angry to be honest. Engineering should not allow an override switch to slam one train into another. It should be physically impossible to do that.
IMHO they should have at least re-named and modified the Smiler ride's theme. I'm not a fan of worshipping coasters like they're some kind of divine machine. They're nothing but bolts, steel, chains, bearings and bits. Never forget that. Here in Australia, 4 people died 2 years ago at a theme park here, and they dismantled the ride, and the park is on thin ice.
Anyway... The main topic is the Virtual Towers unreal demo. Maybe in a year from now we'll see more interactivity.
https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Virtual_Towers_Online