Rollercoaster
 

How do you build a rollercoaster in maya and what should i use to animate it, i also want it to have real life simulation. thanks

Thats quite a big project.

What I would do is

create curves for the track and then extrude them.

For the animation I would attach the car to a motion path then bake the keys then adjust the keys to make it look like its reacting under dynamics.

Theres probably a way to do it with constriants and rigid bodies but i've not had a think about how to do it.

I would just key frame animate the whole thing. Constrain you cars to the tack and have at it.

The hardest part about a roller coaster shot is finding the right camera angles. The camera angles will be what defines how well the viewer can sense the amount of g-force generated for each hill, valley, and turn.

VD

Doing it with rigid bodies...would be very rewarding, but extremely difficult; real-life rollercoasters have some serious calculations put into them before they are built (you can't have cars flying off the track, killing dozens of people).

I second gster's method of curves, motion paths, etc...

thanks all for posting i tried rigid bodies before and yes the carts go flying of the tracks so i am most likly going to use the motion path. thank you all

this sounds like it would be fun and challenging to create..i think i may try it over the summer...lemme know if ur actually ganna give it a try too

Take GSters option. Have a look into rigid bodies and dynamics. DO NOT KEYFRAME Only. It will be beyond a nightmare to do this and will extend the project far beyond the time anyone will want to spend.

well what i will prolly do is just do a motion path attach the car to that and then parent a camera to it...then just key frame the cameras 'rocking' movement...well depending on what type of coaster

that is what i started to do "motion path" it is the easy way out the more fun way is dynamics what dose take longer but soooooo fun

Your post really got me tinking tbh. So I wenat haead and tried both ways. The issue I saw with motion paths was that you will really need to play about with the keys and timing to make it look real. THis may take a little more time to do, but will geive a good bedding in Keyframe animation and the use of motion paths.

I then tried it with active and rigid body dynamics, and got pretty good results, but has issues with the friction. But once that was sorted then I would say its far better and more realistic to use it in that manner and will ave a lot of work in the long run. Although it will take sometime to set up and will require mre testing, than motion paths.

R@nsid do you think you can post an image of the rollercoaster you made. i dont care how terrible it looks i just whant to see what you did if thats ok with you, thanks.

Yeah NP robbie...

There is a lot of work to be done, to get it to work correctly but its a start.

Here is a test blast of the action :p

Coaster Blast (848k) - DivX

thats a good coaster but i think your having the same problem as me the cart gets stuck at certain points on the track. its very anoying. oh and also what did you do to create your track and cart. i use diffrent curve tools.

Created a EP Curve in the shape I wanted and then used a poly cube and did an extrude from one face, then increased the divisions to 50. set the track as a passive rigid body and the cart to an active rigid body. Added Gravity to the cart and adjusted the Center or Mass then finally put initial velocity Z to 1.

I did say theres a lot of tweaking to be done to get ths right, but dynamics will work bettter then motion paths. good luck