Crystal Coaster
ITP - Amusement Park Prototyping
During the Spring of 2022 I took a course in which we had an assignment involving a stewart platform. Over the course of several weeks I haddeveloped a roller coaster using Unreal that I ultimately wanted to simulate on the platform. The rollercoaster was built using a marketplace content pack designed for building track layouts and it works by using splines as the path for the train to follow and then spawns a static mesh that follows the spline.
Once I had the track built I had to attach a coaster train to the track. I then set the speed and even added some triggers to change the speed throughout the track. With the coaster moving how it should, the next step was to get Unreal to send data to the Stewart platform. In order to send the data to the platform I setup th
e coaster vehicle to output data via OSC. A computer attached to the platform that was also running Max to receive OSC then sent instructions to the motion base. Along the way I ran into a few issues, but the main issue was that the values being sent to each actuator did not seem to be correct, but after some tinkering I got it working correctly!
I decided not to use sequencer when building this coaster because this track system allows for more interactive rides to be created. For example, with this track system I’m thinking of building a ride with multiple different paths so that each time someone rides the experience will be different.
Once I had the track built I had to attach a coaster train to the track. I then set the speed and even added some triggers to change the speed throughout the track. With the coaster moving how it should, the next step was to get Unreal to send data to the Stewart platform. In order to send the data to the platform I setup th
e coaster vehicle to output data via OSC. A computer attached to the platform that was also running Max to receive OSC then sent instructions to the motion base. Along the way I ran into a few issues, but the main issue was that the values being sent to each actuator did not seem to be correct, but after some tinkering I got it working correctly!
I decided not to use sequencer when building this coaster because this track system allows for more interactive rides to be created. For example, with this track system I’m thinking of building a ride with multiple different paths so that each time someone rides the experience will be different.