custom rides tutorial

[jessicajones]

Hi

Can anybody who created custom rides write a tutorial here how this can be done?

Including the (compiled) tools ready to download and maybe an example?

 

I want to try it but for a beginner here is nothing to start with.

[X7123M3-256]

A full tutorial is probably out of scope of a forum post, so I'd suggest asking more specific questions, starting with what ride you have in mind. SpaceK has written a brief introduction focused on my ride generator program, but because that program was designed to abstract away the actual rendering process as much as possible, it is not of much use unless you intend to use that program (my recommendation is that you don't, but it is what SpaceK uses and he's by far the most active custom ride creator at the moment).

The only comprehensive introduction to the topic is Amazing Earl's tutorial. It is worth a read, as it outlines the basic process, but it has some bad info and I don't recommend actually creating rides the way he describes because it is incredibly tedious. I would read that first and then ask more specific questions. Your options for custom ride creation tools at the moment are:
 

• Buggy's Ridemaker - This is by far the oldest, and probably the only one which could be considered finished. However, all it does is take an existing ride and swap out the sprites - so it is very limited in what it can do. You can't change the number of riders per car, or the spacing between cars, or the arrangement of vehicles in the train, so it only works if your ride is quite similar to an existing one (Amazing Earl will tell you that it's not possible to change these things, but he is wrong).
   
• My ride generator - I wrote this tool to automate the ride creation process. Unlike Buggy's ridemaker (which requires you to create all the sprites yourself), this tool allows you to load a 3D model and it handles the rendering process automatically. It is also a lot less limited than Buggy's tool because it creates the ride from scratch instead of swapping out existing sprites. However, the quality of the output is poor, and there are a lot of bugs - this program was never properly finished and I eventually abandoned it.
   
• Oli414's Blender addon - This is an extension for Blender that automates the rendering of sprites for RCT2. It includes a premade lighting and camera setup, and a Python script which can automatically generate the hundreds (sometimes thousands) of sprites required for a custom ride. It's pretty easy to install and use, couldn't be considered finished but is a lot more stable than my tool, and I think it's your best bet. A big limitation is that it cannot actually generate a DAT file - it only handles the rendering of the sprites. However, if you use OpenRCT2 it is not strictly necessary to do this, as OpenRCT2 now has a JSON based object format that you can use instead. This could also be used in conjunction with Buggy's ridemaker to create a DAT, but you would then be subject to the limitations that that tool has.

 

[jessicajones]

what about making a tool INSIDE openrct2?

I don't know if it's possible but it could allow you to glue together parts of all existing rides loaded in the game, including those from custom rides

So not really making modelz but placing this train on that model and choose colors and sprites and maybe some scaling and simple things.

In this way each user can make something and save it. openrct2 should save it in correct format.

 

It's just an idea but I don't know if it's possible

[X7123M3-256]

It depends what is really meant by a custom ride creation tool. Do you mean a tool that would just take sprites and wrap them up into a DAT (similar to Buggy's tool)? I don't think that would be a terrible idea (OpenRCT2 already has built in functionality for building g2.dat which could be adapted), but the JSON object format would likely make it obsolete pretty soon. Or do you mean a tool that automates the entire rendering process like mine does? I think that's well outside the scope of what should be included with the game and should remain a separate tool. It would share very little code with the rest of OpenRCT2 and likely introduce additional dependencies.

I am not sure what you mean by "glue together parts of existing rides". Do you mean a train that is made up of vehicles from different ride types? You can actually do that without creating a custom ride - and in fact, it's more flexible that way, as the trains I show in those screenshots cannot be made as a custom ride (you have a maximum of four vehicles per DAT file and can't specify an arbitrary arrangement - this hack circumvents that restriction). However, this isn't an easy hack to pull off.

Edited February 16, 2020 by X7123M3-256

[jessicajones]

I mean exactly your screenshot and/or other things that could be taken from other rides and put in the current one

[X7123M3-256]

Those screenshots don't show custom rides - that's a hack that lets you use vehicles from multiple different rides in one train.

While it's possible to do that kind of thing to a limited extent using custom rides, I don't see the point since it is not necessary. A tool to make the hack easier would be much more useful than a tool that makes custom rides which would in most cases only be useful for one specific park and would just clutter up people's object selection. Also, as I said, the trains shown in those pictures can't be made using a custom ride - you're much more limited if you do it that way.

Edited February 17, 2020 by X7123M3-256