Triple Play - Looping Roller Coaster

[altgamer]

For my 3rd algodoo roller coaster I decided to go all out to make a highly detailed and semi-realistic roller coaster. What resulted is probably one of the most detailed looping roller coasters in algodoo at the date of posting.

I was going to do ragdoll's, however the scene itself is heavily demanding, running at just 10-15fps.. adding even a single ragdoll brought that down to 4fps.. and loading the scene with no maxundo's in config, uses approx. 1.4GB of memory, for these reasons I probably won't be uploading the scene. I was also going to make it longer, but it seems if the scene is much bigger, algodoo starts getting out of memory errors, even with 0 maxundo's.

The train and track are Intamin style and starts out in a station, features a launched uphill lift (like Maverick), underground parts, working trim brake sections, etc... and has not 1, not 2... but 3 vertical loops (not just a circle, but an actual teardrop shape as seen on real roller coasters), in addition an ending water splash area into a smooth braking section.. the whole track is gravity based, and needs no additional boosts, etc.. the train is very reliable, having not missed a single run yet in over a dozen trys.

As a side note, this will probably be my last roller coaster in algodoo, there doesn't seem to be much interest for them.

Screenshots are below, click on the thumbnails for a larger pic..







And the video is right below, just click the thumbnail..



Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

[kilebantick]

Fluffing amazing, the amount of work you put into this is mammoth, great job!
I'll redownload and rate when i get home, as this laptop i'm on at the moment is far from powerful

[Rideg]

This looks sooooooooooo good :O Looks fun I MUST try it.

[Dare]

Epic! So much better than mine! Did you use the same scripting as me to make the loop?

[Rrobba]

Amazing! Great job, you can really tell the effort that has been put into this! Bravo !

[altgamer]

Sooo... decided I'll be uploading this scene and one other in the next week or so after I make a few tweaks, so keep an eye out as I'll be updating the post again once it's uploaded. In the mean time, feel free to leave a comment, suggestion, etc..

Fair warning ahead of time though, this scene is heavily demanding and odds are older systems may not be able to run it reliably.

[davidz40]

Really great looking rollercoaster! How much that lag? It seems to require very strong cpu, but maybe I'm wrong.

[altgamer]

Went to post the roller coasters, and after the first one this one doesn't seem to want to work, I have tried over a dozen times now but every time I try I get.. "Server Error The website encountered an error while retrieving http://www.algodoo.com/algobox/upload.php?try=true. It may be down for maintenance or configured incorrectly."..

Have tried in Chrome, Firefox, etc, along with from a laptop. Anyone have any ideas as to why a scene would cause a server error, or any way to troubleshoot this? If I can't get it uploaded to algobox I'll just post them on my own site instead.

[Chronos]

The site is probably just down again. Try it again in a few hours.

[altgamer]

Well, decided to try uploading it again, along with some alterations and I've come to the conclusion the scene itself is causing it. I can upload other test scenes fine, but no matter how hard I try this scene just won't upload, causes a server error every time.

Only thing I can figure is the upload script is reading the files causing it, if an admin could look into this or assist or something I'd appreciate it, was hoping to post this for download but apparently algobox doesn't like the scene.

[altgamer]

Well, as much as I want to post this on algobox, quite frankly it seems impossible.

I have now tried probably over 100 times to upload this, along with changes, different names, etc.. even getting a friend to try it, everything I can think of and every time without fail, It just shows a server error. Therefor I am to believe algobox's poor programming leads to this, there is absolutely no reason why it should fail, let alone every single time on this file.

I've tried messaging admins, emailing admins, emailing support, etc.. I have yet to get a reply from anyone from Algodoo/Agoryx and have no answers or help on this. I don't want to sound like one of those people, but as of right now I am done with algodoo, going through this has made me not want to continue anything as I could spend weeks on something and theres a 50/50 shot it'd even upload.

Sooo.... unless anyone has any ideas or knows a for sure way to contact support and get a reply out of them, I'm out of ideas.

[RicH]

Just upload it to a different site for the mean time. Try box.net

[Someone Else]

Try removing textures and water. It seems unlikely that the water has much effect on the coaster, its just to splash passengers.
If I am wrong, Dare has a scene demonstrating fake water without the lag:

Floating Boat Demo

Dare

Rating:
Filesize: 366.56 kB
Comments: 3
Ratings: 5

The scene may not be more than 15 megabytes in size, but close enough to overload the servers. I really don't know.
But, try removing the textures and water. The file might just be too big, compounded by a possible server problem.

[altgamer]

Try removing textures and water. It seems unlikely that the water has much effect on the coaster, its just to splash passengers.
If I am wrong, Dare has a scene demonstrating fake water without the lag:
The scene may not be more than 15 megabytes in size, but close enough to overload the servers. I really don't know.
But, try removing the textures and water. The file might just be too big, compounded by a possible server problem.

The textures are what make the scene, as far as water I took that out for release as it makes it far too laggy. The scene is no where near 15MB, in fact it's just 860KB, not even 1MB. The file I did manage to get uploaded was with a different train, the filesize though is actually larger at 982KB.

Either way, I have made dozens of upload scripts in php, etc.. ranging from single uploads, multiple uploads, whole form uploads with screenshots, video uploads (in hundreds of megabytes), etc... that have no such issues that algobox experiences.

I can say this as an experienced php programmer, there is simply no reason for algobox to have these issues aside from either a poorly configured server or a poorly done upload script. No offense to the team that made algobox.

[Chronos]

The thing is, it wasn't a team who made Algobox. It was one person. A person who doesn't come here anymore.

You're sure it's not a problem on your end? Can you upload other scenes?

[electronicboy]

to be honest, the problems seams to have been only affecting you, so it could be your network/computer setup.

And as chronos has said, algobox was created by one man, which is alot better that a full team doing it (mistakes are less likely to be made)

There has been a few servers transfers but we have never seen any problems caused by it (except for downtime during transfer)

[altgamer]

You're sure it's not a problem on your end? Can you upload other scenes?

I can upload every other scene I have without fail, every time. It is only this one scene that refuses to upload and always results in a server error, yet it plays perfectly on 4 different computers and a macbook pro laptop.

to be honest, the problems seams to have been only affecting you, so it could be your network/computer setup.
And as chronos has said, algobox was created by one man, which is alot better that a full team doing it (mistakes are less likely to be made)
There has been a few servers transfers but we have never seen any problems caused by it (except for downtime during transfer)

Yes, it's affecting only me, specifically it's only affecting one scene, one scene that i've spent over a week of work on, which makes no sense what so ever. It is not network/computer related, I have tried uploading it from 4 different computers and my macbook pro. In addition I have had 3 friends of mine (one in FL, NJ and CA) try uploading the scene for me, and without fail it does a server error for them as well, every time.

As far as one person, I mostly agree, though small competent teams can usually manage with little to no mistakes. Mistakes with larger teams, etc.. then yes mistakes are far more likely.

After searching before I found several threads on here and google regarding a server error message that occurs, though I believe unrelated to my issue, as the one time was a database problem and the rest appeared to be just the server being overloaded or such.


In any light, it makes no sense as to why the scene refuses to upload and always results in a server error, the upload script should simply upload it, which means more is going on that isn't seen. To me, it appears to either be a server configuration or upload script problem.

And all attempts to contact support or an admin for algodoo/algobox have proven to be pointless, as I have pm'd, e-mailed, tried contacting support for the domain via lookup even.... nothing, glad to see a paid program has such excellent customer support.

[Chronos]

If you want, I could try to upload it and remove it afterwards, just to see if the scene has a problem with anyone.

[Emanuel]

Went to post the roller coasters, and after the first one this one doesn't seem to want to work, I have tried over a dozen times now but every time I try I get.. "Server Error The website encountered an error while retrieving http://www.algodoo.com/algobox/upload.php?try=true. It may be down for maintenance or configured incorrectly."..

Have tried in Chrome, Firefox, etc, along with from a laptop. Anyone have any ideas as to why a scene would cause a server error, or any way to troubleshoot this? If I can't get it uploaded to algobox I'll just post them on my own site instead.

Did you ever manage to upload the scene?
If not, could you please send me the scene so that I can look into it?

/ Emanuel

[altgamer]

Did you ever manage to upload the scene?
If not, could you please send me the scene so that I can look into it?
/ Emanuel

I contacted algodoo support on dec 10th, didnt get a reply till jan 14th. I said all the things I've tried in uploading it and sent the file, I didn't get a reply back until Jan 26th, which simply stated..
"Hi again.
I have tried to upload and it fails for me too.
I will have the tech-team take a look at it."

I have heard nothing back since and have simply given up. If you really want the scene, toss me an email at alt@rivalflame.com or if you'd rather I can attach it to a post or upload it on my site and post a link.

[Under Ground]

I am Currently experiencing the same problem