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Half of Magnetic Brake Fins Not Showing
NoLimits Coaster

I'm finishing a project that uses the magnetic brake fin objects (both static and dynamic). For the static fins I made sure to set the names to the length in meters, and for the dynamic brakes I set the names to the speed in MPH. For each type I want to display a pair of parallel fins. However, when I go into the simulator I only see the left fins. The right ones are missing.

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Hagrid's coaster recreation - Help welcome
General

Gosh, that's so helpful, thank you. 😀

I had found some 360º videos which of course were part of my reference set, and of course I had looked back right there to see if I could see something, but all of them had the maintenance door closed. I guess nobody like the house itself to leak those little details.

Now only one question remains about that: how on Earth am I going to do the triple switch there in NoLimits X)
It's an interesting maintenance area. I had never seen such a triple switch, tbh...
If what I'm seeing is correct, there are four tracks. The two on the left (as we look, not as the trains go) connect on a simple two way left-right switch and the merged track from those two and the two on the right merge together in a three way left-straight-right switch. The leftmost one, though seems like it starts further back. I guess all tracks are the same length (one train) but that one goes all the way to the back of the building and the others leave some space at the back for tools and materials. Of course it might be the perspective tricking me, but it appears like so.

Anyway, I might have to get slightly creative unless the NL2 devs add a three way switch track in the close future (or a "build your own special track" thing which would be awesome to have, tbh X) ), so I might change the three way switch for a two way left-straight and split the straight one a bit further with a straight-right, because I have really not many more ideas on how that could be done in NL2...

But if my tutorial was exactly what you needed, rct800, that was exactly what I needed in regards to the maintenance area, so thanks a lot for that!

Edit: and when you thought the video couldn't get any better, I've just had the chance to watch it calmly with headphones, and it has the clean original audio with no noise or screams. The recreation has just gotten significantly better. I'm definitely going to add that onboard audio now! Best thing is I wasn't even looking for that yet! (I probably would have eventually, but not yet, and still there it is 🤷‍♂️)

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Hagrid's coaster recreation - Help welcome
General

If anyone's further interested in how to make the high speed switch tracks like I did here, I've just compiled a small tutorial on how to do the part I don't explain here.
I've mainly done it because there have recently been a couple of forum posts asking about it, but if it's also interesting to anyone here, feel free to check it out.

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custom track switch
Scripting

Hello.
I did this a while ago on a project I posted here and since I've seen several people ask very similar things, I've taken the time to do a small tutorial on how to do it. I hope it helps at least getting started.
If you have any question about it, feel free to ask in that thread so that the rest of people I'm going to point there can also enter the same debate :D
Cheers,
Dragón Groar

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Anyone know how to do a banked entry into a swing launch like Pantheon
NoLimits Coaster

Hello.
I did this a while ago on a project I posted here and since I've seen several people ask very similar things, I've taken the time to do a small tutorial on how to do it. I hope it helps at least getting started.
If you have any question about it, feel free to ask in that thread so that the rest of people I'm going to point there can also enter the same debate :D
Cheers,
Dragón Groar

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Custom switch track tutorial
NoLimits Coaster

Hello everyone!

It's been already a while since I published my work in progress project to recreate Hagrid's coaster in NoLimits 2 (more on that on its own forum topic), and since then, I have seen several topics asking how to make a custom switch track, which I actually had done for that project:

So I'm writing this topic as a tutorial on how to do that.

Coaster part

The "secret" about how to do the coaster part of it is already detailed on Hagrid's coaster topic, but summarizing it, you need a transfer track before (if it's a fork) or after (if it's a merge) the switch. It must have zero separation between axes and minimum transition time (0.1). The last thing missing here is a custom block script.

3D objects part

This is apparently the hardest thing to figure out for most people and I didn't explain it at all in Hagrid's coaster topic, so here I go.
First, you'll need to export the spline of the switch to a csv file. This is done differently with NL2 Standard and NL2 Pro. I only have Standard, so if you have Pro and want to use its own CSV spline export options, I've got to guess you already know how to do that. Otherwise, the NL2 Standard method should also work on Pro.

You first need to generate a cutout of each of the switch's tracks. To do that, you can duplicate the coaster and remove everything except for one of the switch's tracks, then do the same with the other. Keep in mind that you should leave vertices from opposite side to the transfer track until two or three after the switch track actually ends or until the next strict vertex so that the cutout track is still following your original complete design.
For me, as you can see, both tracks had strict vertices quite close, so I stopped at those, and you can also see that both tracks are on different coasters.

Then we'll export each of these tracks separately, thanks to the Light Pattern Creator. With the coaster whose track you want to export selected, open the Light Pattern Creator and select "Generate Object", "T", "B", "L" and "R". In theory, "Width" and "Height" are not important, but I usually set them to 1. Don't forget to use different file prefixes for either track.

The rest of the settings are meaningless for our purposes.
(Small side note: While writing this, I've just seen the new "Start Trigger" and "End Trigger" options, apparently added in update 2.6.2.0. I guess they allow us to skip the paragraphs on coaster duplication, but I haven't tested it at all yet, so feel free to try it out, and if it doesn't work well what I'm telling you are the precise steps I've taken, which I know work.)

If done correctly, in the export folder you should have several files that start with the prefix you chose. The important one is the one with extension .lwo.
You will need to import it in the NLCSV program. I haven't found it in this forum and I can no longer find it on the internet either, so sadly I cannot credit its creator. All I can do is share it here: NLCSV. You will need Java installed in your computer for it to work.
If you already had this program, note that I have fixed a bug in the version I'm sharing with relation to some scientific notation that was enabling by default on values close to 0, and which the next steps didn't take nicely (and thought that 0.01 = 1e-2 was 1, so a position located at 0.01 in some axis appeared later on 1 in that axis, or worse).
Please take into account that other than that small fix, I have not developed the program and I won't take any responsibility on anything about it.
The program has a few instructions in its "?" button, but it's pretty straightforward: in the first path box you select the .lwo file exported from the Light Pattern Creator, in the second one you select where you want your new .csv file to be generated. Hit "Convert" and you're done here.

Next, we'll use blender and the Blender CSV importer by geforcefan (available as well in the Mega Resource Thread). You install the plugin and import the .csv file as explained in the plugin's github page.
Then you should see a line appear in your screen. That's your coaster's spline. You firstly need to rotate that spline 180º in the Z axis to match NL2's orientation (note that this might not be the case using NL2 Pro export spline, I don't know).

Then you need to create your track segment. Don't think it's too hard. I did this one without really knowing anything about 3D modelling, just adding default cylinders and merging them into one object. With a couple of easy Blender tutorials, you're good.

I built it along the X axis, with the object origin in the cross tie and the length of track going towards the negative x direction.

Now you need to go in the Modifiers tab of the segment you've created and add this two modifiers:

Your exact setup will depend on how you modelled the segment itself, so don't be afraid to play a bit with the settings. The relative offset controls how far should each repetition of the track go with respect to the previous. Since our cross ties go out of the rail by a small amount, it can't be 1, but if you've built it difrerently (with the cross tie in the middle of the segment for example), and the end of the rail is the end of the object in both sides, it could be -1. You should also play with this value to get the exact length of track you want (by reducing it, you make the cross ties be closer to each other).
Similarly, the deform axis of the curve modifier will be X if you've built the track segment as I did, but if you didn't, you might need to play around with it a bit.
Last, the Merge options sometimes provide better results, sometimes don't. Play with them a bit.
Then, to make the 3D object start where you want in the spline (if the spline starts before the switch like it will do in a merge), play with the Location X value in the object properties tab of the segment (same place we rotated the spline 180º before, but for the segment.)

Almost finishing: the Start and End caps you see there are two more special track segments that will be put automatically at the start and end of your piece of track.
The end one is easy, do one with two cross ties (the end one without going further than what the rail goes) and the start one depends. If you want to do a slanted cut, it will require some playing with it. I can't give you much more detail because that's how I did it. What I can tell you is that you'd need to do two parts to the cut: the moving one and the fixed one, and later export them separately (the fixed one on its own and the moving one with the rest of the switch track). But the caps are really if you want to go the extra mile, you don't need them for an easy switch if you don't want.
If you add them, though, place them in a different object collection and uncheck it so that the original copy of them doesn't appear in (0,0,0).

Last part, if you want to customize the colors from NoLimits 2, you need to add at least one material to the object. That is done through the materials tab.

You can do it more or less advanced, but all the faces of the objects you have created need to have a material assigned (with whatever settings, they don't matter) to be adjustable in NoLimits 2 (that part I'm not going to explain, since I guess you know how to change scene object materials and properties).

Last, exporting: use Blender's File (top menu bar) -> Export -> Collada (.dae) option and in the right panel don't forget to select "Apply modifiers" or the "Array" and "Curve" modifiers we added will not work on the final exported model (careful: this checkbox is disabled each time you restart Blender, remember to check it again when you come back to your model).

Save it where you want and you're ready to import it to NoLimits 2.
Then you can use Bestdani's attachment tools or any other similar to make it move along a hidden transfer track or switch with the appropriate transition time. which you should add to your coaster script so that it moves just the same as the actual transfer track the train goes through.

Hope this guide puts all of you in the correct track (pun obviously intended) to create these custom switches.

I'll leave you with a screenshot of a different proof of concept I did with this, something I'm aware no park would buy ($$), but that was really fun to think about.
(It's a mechanism to make a regular dueling coaster become möbius and vice-versa.)
(And I know about the floating tracks, I never got to design the lift mechanism for the switch pieces.)

Feel free to ask any questions, and I'll answer as soon as I can, which might not be fast, but I sure will answer them.

Cheers,
Dragón Groar

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