No Limits Help

[cadboy]

Hi all, I have just got a couple of questions reguarding No Limits. To make an inversion do you have to hand craft it or can you get a pre built one? Hoow do you constuct a custom support frame? Thanks for your help

[Gazza]

The help files in the game can probably explain this better than I can, but here goes. There are premade elements. Click File, and go down to Insert Element. The game comes with a whole bunch of premade elements you can use. The folder named Elementpack 2 is probably the most useful. Pick an element file then open it. In then brings up a little box where you can adjust the scale of the elements (one of the ones you can use is a 30m high loop, if say you want it to be 45m high, then you'd move the slider to 150%. You can also mirror the element. When you are learning these elements are useful, you can easily make layouts and see what works, without spending ages building everything yourself. You can also look at how the element was done so you can do your own in the future. When you get more confident you can set about building your own inversions. Things like loops are easy to start off with, just switch to side view and make the the loop shape. If you want to do a custom support structure, you have to place nodes. these are on the far left side of the toolbar (red dots) A fundament node is a footer, so it is a concrete block that connects supports to the ground, these can only be placed on the ground. A free node you can place anywhere, but ill get to them in a second. A track node connects supports to the track, and these can only be placed on the track. If you were doing a simple A frame support like the one the side of this loop: http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/search/hulk/1,5,1932-Loop.html you would put a track node on the track, then switch to top view and put fundament nodes on the ground either side. Now, to put in actual support tubes, you first pick a beam type. These icons are next to the ones for the nodes, and look like cylinders. you just drag a line between nodes, and it makes a support connect them. So for that loop example, you would drag a line between the fundament node on one side to the track node, and then a line from the track node to the other fundament node. It is important to use the top, front, back, left and right views to your advantage so you can see what you are doing. You cant place nodes in 3D view, but you can drag in the tubes, so use this view too. Now, the other node type i didnt talk about yet was free nodes. These can be put anywhere in the building area, and if you need to do something more complex then these are necessary. You'll need to use all views to make sure you get it them the right spot. An example of the way you could use them is like with the bent supports on the motocoaster. http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/AU/Gold_Coas...otocoaster.html Youd put a fundament node on the ground to the side of the track, then a track node on the track, then a free node directly above the fundament, and then join the fundament node to the free node, and the the free node to the track node. A couple of other points to do with supports. -You cant connect a fundament node directly to another fundament node, which makes sense because what would be the point of a support running along the ground. -You can connect an unlimited amount of tubes to a node, so if you need to make complex supports like this http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/US/Orlando/I...-Near_Miss.html where a lot of tubes join together then you are free too.

[cadboy]

Wow Gazza, Fantastic explinations are natural for you arent they. Thanks for your in depth help.

Edited April 16, 2008 by cadboy

[ads086]

If you need any more help, or have a specific problem, don't be shy, there's a few of us who use NoLimits on here who I'm sure would be more than helpful for you

[cadboy]

Thanks Ads086 In future I will.

[cadboy]

How do you enclose track with a tunnel?

[Gazza]

Double click on a segment of track, and that will bring up the track settings menu (Eg colour, speed settings if it is a brake, acceleration settings if its a transport etc) then just tick the tunnel check box. Just remember, the tunnel will only show up when you are riding the ride in the simulator, it wont show up in the editor.

[cadboy]

got it Thanks

[ads086]

Also worth noting, is the keyboard shortcut for Track Settings is "G". If you hold Control+G, it will "Smooth" the track. Pressing "I" will straighten the track, and "Y" will split the segment. If you want to cut a straight panel in half, press I then Y, and you will get a roughly equal split.

Edited April 19, 2008 by ads086

[cadboy]

I made my first complete no limits coaster thismorning.

[Gazza]

But it wasn't very good?

[cadboy]

Well compared to the ones you guys make it probably was pretty average, but it was my personal best.

[Gazza]

I say upload it (You need to zip it first). We could give you a fair bit of feedback now on how to improve things, so you can start good habits early. Plus, it will be interesting down the track when you look back at this and see how far you have come.

[cadboy]

Probably 10 pages of feed back I will try and put up some screen shots soon. How can you take a movie of the actual ride?

Edited April 19, 2008 by cadboy

[Gazza]

You can take a video in the simulator by pressing 0 on the number pad, and then press it a second time to stop recording. BUT, before you actually run the ride in the simulator, go into setup from the main menu, then go into graphics, then set the resolution down as low as it will go which I think is about 400X300. When the simulator is running it will look all pixelated, but the final AVI file created (which will normally be located in \Program Files\NoLimits Coasters v1.6\screenshots ) will have the same screen size as a normal Youtube video. Of course, you can run the sim at the normal high resolution, but then you will end up with a massive file size. As a guide, a 400X300 video in NL comes out at around 320MB/min. Of course, the best thing to do is just zip the track file up and upload that instead, so that way people can see the ride at full res, and can fly around the track environment....that and the fact track files are really small.

[cadboy]

I tried pressing 0 to start and stop the recording however when I went to \Program Files\NoLimits Coasters v1.6\screenshots I couldn't find it. When I pressed the 0 nothing happened should a message come up saying recording started or something to that effect. Also How do you switch to manual despatch mode? Here are some screenshots taken. I know there are not much help but they will do for the time being Sorry about the poor quality, I had low Resolution on. Gets some better one soon.

Hawk_080419172911000.bmp

Hawk_080419172929005.bmp

Edited April 19, 2008 by cadboy

[Gazza]

It should give a little indication, remember it needs to be the zero over on the number pad you press, not the zero that is shared with the ")" symbol that is in the top row. Also, you can always do a search on your computer for the video file...just search for the name of the ride. Do that just in case it's not going to the right folder. I cant remember the key to do manual dispatch, but if you just press "h" in the simulator it brings up all the keyboard shortcuts, so you can find them there whenever you need them. Can you post the track file?

Edited April 19, 2008 by Gazza

[cadboy]

I tried pressing the 0 on the key pad but it is not working. I did a computer seach but it only found the screenshots of the ride How do I put up the track file?

[Gazza]

I dont know then. One thing to do is to go into the NL folder, and click on the red AVI Setup icon, you can set the file save location there, so at least they will go where you want. The main way you know the AVI is recording is that the game slows down a lot whilst recording. The only way I can think of your number pad zero not working is if you are working on a lap top that doesn't have a separate number pad , in which case you'd need to press Fn first to activate those keys. But it absolutely must be that ^ Zero you are pressing, not the other. I cant think of any other reason why it wouldn't be working. As for uploading a track file, well, that's the easy bit. -Go to Program Files\NoLimits Coasters v1.6\tracks -Then right click on the track you want, pick Send To, and then pick Compressed (Zipped) Folder. -A new folder will be created which has the zipped up track file -Upload this zipped file on the forum.

Edited April 19, 2008 by Gazza

[cadboy]

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Its not working I cant even Upload the track file. I mean I get it then click up load but it doesn't

[ads086]

Within the Simulator, you press F11 to change to manual dispatch mode. F9 toggles the restraints, F10 toggles the loading gates. Use Enter to launch the train. Pressing E you can toggle between Fly Mode, Target Mode (camera follows train from a fixed point), or Tracking Mode (camera moves around with the train). Q will toggle you in the many train views. Press C to change which car of the train you wish to follow and get the stats on, and pressing V will change seats within that car. If you are on a laptop, you need to find the NumLk key, usually written in the same colour as the Fn key. Hold the Fn key and tap the NumLk key (on my laptop it is F11). Then find the 0 button written in said colour (mine has it on M). I found that with recording from NoLimits that the video never kept up with the audio, although I'm going to try again on the lowest resolution as Gazza suggested. You should have no problem uploading the ZIP file. The BMP files that you uploaded in your previous post were larger than the ZIP file should be. Also, if you are going to post screenshots on here, open them up in Paint, choose File->Save As, then change the File Type (the lower box of the two long ones) to "JPEG" or "JPG", then save the file. Post up the JPG files, because they are much smaller and you can actually use them within your posts.

[cadboy]

Cool Thanks. Can you add music to your rides?

[cadboy]

Your help is appreciated

[Gazza]

The only way to have music with rides is when you are using NL as a screensaver....Go into the the bit of Windows control panel where you can change screensavers, pick NL1.6 as your screensaver, then in the screensaver settings you can play around with the music that goes with it. Then preview the screensaver (or wait however long it takes to start) and there it will be. In the normal game, the only way you can really do it is to run Itunes/Media Player at the same time in the background with music playing, as there is no inbuilt music setting.

[ads086]

If you want to add music to a recorded video of your ride, use Windows Movie Maker (comes with most recent editions of Windows). Import your AVI files from NL into WMM, add your song, arrange your video components and transitions and the song should play from start to finish.