Creating a Roller Coaster in Blender 2.5 - Part 3 (Animating the Camera)

Hello, everyone!  This is the 3rd and final part of my roller coaster tutorial series; you can find the previous parts here:

Part 1: http://ssimpossible.blogspot.com/2010/09/creating-roller-coaster-in-blender-25.html
Part 2: http://ssimpossible.blogspot.com/2010/09/creating-roller-coaster-in-blender-25_08.html

*NOTICE* This tutorial will not work in 2.55 beta, as there is a bug where the camera won't move when using the Follow Curve constraint.  You will need to either download blender 2.54 beta, 2.53 beta, or download a patch for this bug, which I can't currently find, but I've seen it somewhere before.  Sorry about this, and I suspect this will be fixed in 2.56

In this tutorial I will be teaching you how to animate a camera on the tracks.  Let's start by first deleting the camera (X).  Now select your curve (Right-Click) and center the cursor on the starting point of the curve (Shift S - Cursor to Selected), then add a camera (Shift A - Camera).  Now click on the Constraints button:

And add a 'Follow Path' constraint.  Click on the orange cube in the new panel that just appeared, and select the name of your curve.  Next, select the 'Follow Curve' option, then rotate the camera 280 degrees along the Y axis (R - Y - 280), and move the camera up the Z axis (G - Z - 0.3).  If you go into camera view now (0), and press Alt A, you should move along the roller coaster track as if you were actually in the roller coaster.  There are probably some rotation problems, like riding along the side of the track as shown below:

But at the time I'm not sure how to fix this; sorry if this disappoints you, and in the mean time I'll try to figure out how to solve this problem.

As far as the actual ride goes, you'll probably realize you're moving extremely fast (though this will depend on the size of your roller coaster).  Select your Curve, and click on the Object Data button.

Under the panel named 'Path Animation', change the number from 100 to whatever number you want.  The higher the number, the slower the roller coaster will go.  Whatever number you change it to, you have to do the same to the number underneath the timeline at the bottom.

As shown above, I've changed mine to 500.

You may have noticed that the camera is moving at a constant speed; real roller coaster cars don't do that, so we'll take a look at how to change that.

Start by going to frame number 0.  The frame number is to the right of the End frame as shown in the image above.  Next (making sure you have your curve selected) move your mouse over the option that says 'Evaluation Time', and press I on your keyboard.  If you did it correctly, the box should now have turned yellow.

Now go to the frame where you want there to be a change in speed.  In my case, it's frame number 30, where I want there to be a slight drop in speed as the camera is moving up.  Type in that frame number, then type in the same number in the evaluation time box and press I again.  For time's sake, I'm only going to do these frames, since I'm only giving a demonstration.  Now split the window by clicking and dragging to the left the button shown below:

Change the window type to the Graph Editor by clicking the gray cube in the lower left corner of the new window, and selecting the option from the menu.  You should see something like this in the center (you'll probably need to zoom out some to see all of it):

This is an animation curve; we can control the speed of the camera by editing it.  Select the top orange handle by right clicking it, move it over to the right some (G - X), and that slows down the camera!  The farther to the right you move the curve, the slower it gets, and the farther left, the faster it gets.

That's all for this tutorial; congrats on completing it!  If you have any questions, comments, or problems, post them in the comments below.  Thanks for reading, and as soon as I figure out how to solve the rotation problem, I'll make a post about it.

Creating a Roller Coaster in Blender 2.5 - Part 2 (Creating the Actual Ride)

In this part of the tutorial, I will be showing you how to extend the track and create all of the loops, twists, and turns that make a roller coaster a ride instead of just a flat track.  


This is the finished result of this tutorial:

First, let's add a Path Curve (Shift A - Curve - Path).  Now go into Edit Mode (Tab), and move the vertices over to the right a little bit (G - X - 2).  Tab back into Object Mode, and select the roller coaster track piece (Right Click).  Scale it down (S - 0.25), and click on the Modifiers button on the right.

Select 'Add Modifier' and choose 'Array' from the drop-down menu.  Under 'Relative Offset' set the X value to 0, and the Z value to 1.  You'll now notice that if you raise the 'Count' number, the track will get longer.  This is what we want, but right now the mesh won't deform with the path curve.  To fix this, add a Curve Modifier on your track.  Under 'Object', type in the name of your curve (or click on the box, and select your curve from the drop-down menu).  Your Modifier setup should now look like this:

Now if we select our path curve (Right Click the Curve), go into Edit Mode (Tab), right click one of the vertices to select it, and move it around (G), the track should follow it.  You can mess around with it for a little while, but don't stretch it too far, or it will mess up the mesh.

Now modify your path Curve to create the track.  Remember, Right Click to select, G to move, R to rotate, E to extrude.  Don't just move it around in the top view (7); make sure you view it from the front (1) and side views (3) as well.  Keep in mind that we're working with 3 dimensions, not 2.  Once you're finished, simply raise the Count on the Array Modifier until you have enough track pieces on.  You may need to resize the track pieces a little in order for them to fit well on the track.

And that's all for this part of the tutorial!  Congrats on completing it, and I hope you'll read the rest of the series when the other parts come out.  If you have any questions, comments, or problems, post them in the comments below.  Thanks for reading!

Creating a Roller Coaster in Blender 2.5 - Part 1 (Modeling the Track)

Hello, everyone!  Sorry it took a few days for me to get around to writing this, but here it is.

This is the final result of this tutorial:

Before reading this tutorial, be sure to deselect this button:

Start by deleting the default cube (X) and add a circle (Shift A - Circle), and on the left, change the number of vertices from 32 to 8.  We need a lower poly count in order for the roller coaster to run up to speed in the viewport.  Press 7 then 5 on your number pad to go into top orthographic view.  With the circle selected, press R - Y - 90 to rotate it 90 degrees along the Y axis.

Scale it down (S - 0.25), and go into Edit Mode (Tab).  Now extrude it 5 units along the X axis (E - X - 5).  Press Ctrl + to select the rest of the tube and press Shift D to duplicate it, and now right click to prevent it from moving away from it's starting point.  Now press G - Y - 1 to move it up along the Y axis.  Now scale it down on the Y and Z axes (S - Shift X - 0.6).  

Now duplicate it and move it the opposite direction (Shift D - Y - -2).  Press B and drag a box around the tube on top to select it.  

Press 1 on your number pad to go into front view, then move the selection up along the Z axis (G - Z - 0.5).  Now we'll go back to top view (numpad 7), and we'll add some loop cuts to each tube (Ctrl R).  It's up to you how many to add; the more you add the smoother your roller coaster will look, but the slower it will run in the viewport and the longer it will take to render.  I'm going to add 3 loop cuts to each tube.

Go back into Object Mode (Tab) and on the panel on the left, select Smooth under 'Shading'.  Now tab back into Edit Mode, select everything (A) and Press Ctrl N to recalculate the normals.  Now duplicate (Shift D) the top tube (select it by pressing B and dragging a box around it).  Rotate it along the Z axis 90 degrees (R - Z - 90) and move it along the Y axis (G - Y - -1).  Now scale it down (S - 0.4).

Press G - X - -2 to move it along the X axis near the end.  Duplicate this and move it along the X axis again (Shift D - X - 1).  Repeat this duplicating and moving it until you have something like this:

Now go into side view (press 3 on your number pad), and select the middle loop by pressing B and dragging a box around it.

Move the selection down along the Z axis (G - Z - -0.5).  Now deselect your current selection, and select the two loops around it.  Now press G - Z - -0.3 to move it down along the Z axis again, but not as much.  If you tab back into Object Mode now and rotate your view around some, you should see this:

Go back into top view (numpad 7), and let's give it a material now.  On the right, click on the Materials button (the checkered ball) and add a new material.  Under 'Diffuse' change the color to whatever color you want your roller coaster to be.  I'll make mine blue.

Great job!  You've completed this part of the Roller Coaster creation tutorial!  In the next part, we'll be covering how to actually make the track longer and have all the twists, turns and drops that a roller coaster should have.  If you have any questions, comments, or problems, post them in the comments below.  Thanks for reading!

Next Tutorial will be about...

Creating this (sorry for the poor quality):

Yep, the next multi-parted tutorial will be on creating a roller coaster, and animating a camera on the tracks to create the above.  First part will be out in a day or so; remember, feel free to request tutorials in the comments on any of my posts, and I'll see what I can do.  Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll stick around to read these upcoming tutorials!