Friday 19 August 2011

Sunday 10 July 2011

Silent Shout

I glimpse into the latest project "Silent Shout", another joint project between myself and CrazyCoaster Design. It will hopefully be released this summer.


And here's a few images of the development of the trackwork.



Saturday 2 July 2011

Rita's Next Top Model

Earlier in the year me and my friend decided to pop down to Alton Towers and try out a little amateur modelling, haha, enjoy. I'm on the right on both the photos.


I also decided, Sonic Spinball is probably one of my favourite rides there. It's gotten so violent over the years!





The Red Dragon Story

Here's a little look back at probably one of my favorite creations. It was made when after I moved away from home to the city of Liverpool for a few years. I would often miss the country and my parents house, which is in a small valley in North Wales, with a ruined castle over looking it. When I was younger I always envisioned building a coaster in one of the fields (haha). So after picking up Newton 2 for the first time and developing an interest in the out-and-back B&M hypers, Apollo's Chariot in BGW, Behemoth in Canada and (at the time) the newly constructed Intimidator in Carowinds I realized the perfect opportunity to actually show what I always visualized when I was younger.

I first started with a few layouts, it had to be a big ride, with a nice hammerhead. That was my first goal. Here's one of the many layouts I tried out.


It initially had a predrop like Raging Bull, but it wasn't modern enough. I struggled to get the transition right between the lift and the force based multizones, and actually I never really found a way to get that right on this ride! As a few helpful members on NoLimits-Exchange and CoasterCrazy pointed out. Sadly when it was pointed out, it was a little too late to change. Fortunately not everyone noticed.

So I changed all that layout, managed to get a first drop, first hill, hammerhead and second hill I was happy with! But I was stuck with what to do next, I initially had the ride going right and following the lift back, but it was abit messy, I turned to my close friend Andre (CrazyCoaster to the NL Comumunity) and he suggested and went off the the left and create a Y/T shaped layout. With this advice I reached that great moment when you're designing of thinking "ok, I'm going to finish this".


The next part of the ride I'd been watching too many POVs of Apollos Chariot and decided I need that helix It took a while to do and my version had abit more punch with it's forces (maybe a little too much). I also loved how on Behemoth and Diamondback they had this upward helix, then a dive out of it near the end of their rides. I decided to do a bigger version of it, to complete my little helix medly, with a MCBR to break them both up.

Images taken from www.rcdb.com

The rest of the ride fell into place fairly easily, with a need for some air-time after the helices and then a finale inspired by a hybrid of the end of Apollo's Chariot and Silverstar (which imo, are the best finales on all the B&M hypers). The layout was complete! I started colouring the ride with the colours of Wales, white, red and green.





The ride logo and theme was always in the back of my mind for this, and fairly quickly came to fruitation on this ride. Usually all that gets sorted after most the ride is supported. It was starting to come together and liked how it looked, but it needed something extra, with it taking up most the NL Editor space, I needed something to break it up a bit. This is when I turned to Andre again, he had some free time and agreed to help out.

Me and Andre have always had different styles with NL, he loves Disney and complete theming immersion. He could probably create a whole country to put his ride in! haha. It works well though and I appreciate his work he's an artist in what he does, it's just different to what I go out to achieve. I like my rides to be in the foreground, have theming where it matters, get an atmosphere. But I like letting the ride boldly standout in the skyline. It may not be the most popular way of working, but it's what I enjoy.

Anyway, for this reason we never really worked together until now. Consistently helped each other out though. He got to work, with a few crude paint sketches I sent him.



He built an amazing station for me. I told him I wanted a ruined castle, similar to the one near my childhood home, but made to look like it's been ruined a long time, with modern wooden platforms like The National Trust have come along to allow people to see it. In the story of "The Red Dragon" this castle and the tower would've been the castles that King Vortigern tried to build, that collapsed due to the dragons sleeping beneath it.




So the ride was almost complete. Andre added him own flare to the ride by adding his own touch, of a mist filled tunnel before the MCBR, ending up as probably being my favourite part of the ride. Then with a video, some car textures and all the final touches, the ride was finally ready to be released.




So here's the finished product, enjoy your ride. You can also download it for your own viewing at the Nolimits-Exchange and CoasterCrazy.com


The music from the POV comes from Laura Marling's album I Speak Because I Can. I listened to it ALOT when doing this ride <3.

Sunday 3 April 2011

Afanc Online!

I need to update this more often...But! you can download my latest ride, Afanc from the Nolimits-Exchange, Crazycoaster.com, the Coasterforce Forums and the TPR Game Exchange.

Friday 8 October 2010

Hunter Story!

Here is Hunter, I designed this ride towards the end of 2009, and it survived my entire computer getting wiped! It wasn't as well received on the forums as I'd hoped but I still think it's one of my favourite creations. It takes inspiration from B&M dive machines such as SheiKra, Griffon and their Chinese counterparts. Here's a little story of how the ride was created.


The first element I made on the ride when I decided I needed to finish it. 



Here's an early screen of one of the first layouts, I liked the way it looked but there were too many right turns and it had major pacing and clearance issues.

I changed the layout here by mirroring some parts. I thought the immelmen under the first drop was messy. That massive vertical drop needed it's own space.


I finally got the layout I wanted, but slightly extending the top corner and having the first drop swoop under the lift, it moved the whole ride round to a position that looked great and rode great.


I began supporting the ride and establishing it's image. I wanted it to be abit tribal and foresty.


The ride had a logo! And with Buster's Forester environment things start coming together.


And now with a new cartexture the ride was complete.

Enjoy your ride on Hunter.



Tuesday 21 September 2010

Welcome to the RLRides blog!

As this is my first post here I shall give you a short description of who I am and what I do. My name's Richard Lerwill, I am 21 and I have been using NoLimits RollerCoaster Simulation since I was 14. My first ride was posted 7 years ago, a completely un-serious aubergine themed ride! It wasn't very good, I may even post it someday. Since then I've taken my designs more seriously and take great pleasure in creating rides that people actually enjoy. Taking inspiration from music film, art, places I visit and real rides I intend of creating a real virtual experience.

With this blog I'll keep you updated on current projects, download updated versions of previous rides and see what things inspired certain aspects.