Virtual Towers Online

General theme park and attraction industry chat, along with the world of theme park gaming.
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Capt.Barnacles
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Some of you already know now that we're planning to expand this project into something bigger. We initially wanted to surprise our followers with a Project Towers advent calendar where we'd show something new off every day, but we don't have quite enough to do that. So instead, we're leaving you with a couple of images now, and we'll reveal the expansion plans much nearer Christmas. Enjoy!

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Aidan Lowe
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Your all doing a phenomenal job. Well done!

A vault sealed for two centuries!
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Liam.W
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Can't wait to find out the future of this AMAZING project! Keep up the great work guys!
Ride count since the beginning of 2015: 2632!
Ride count 2021: 416!
Cred count: 167!

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NemesisRider
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Hex! I'm very excited to see how you do this one!
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Sawboss
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Like the Scarefest lighting on the Towers, and you've definitely captured how dark it can be inside.
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Capt.Barnacles
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A personal update from myself and Coaster-inc, showing off The Smiler's trackwork following the amazing response we got from the old video. This POV was recorded about 4 hours ago so it's the most up to date that it gets. Let me know what you think!

The Smiler POV
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Capt.Barnacles
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Here's some more teasers for our imminent update, enjoy! By now it should be clear what our update involves, but the extent that it goes to may surprise you!

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On top of this, here's another couple of things that myself and Pete have been working on, Alton Towers Hotel's fountain plaza and car parks, and the start of the Gothic Prospect Towers in Forbidden Valley :)

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Capt.Barnacles
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**IMPORTANT PLEASE READ**

The decision has been taken that our update WILL be out TONIGHT! That's right, the wait is over! Tonight we will post a video for all to see, detailing where we're going with Project Towers: NL2! It may not be until after midnight, but whatever happens, you will be able to view this on our Facebook page on Christmas morning! Thank you all so much for the continued support as we continue to expand and work hard, have a very Merry Christmas, and see you all soon!
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Sawboss
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Sweet, awaiting with much interest :) Also, Merry Christmas
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Capt.Barnacles
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And it's here! Presenting to you all:

Virtual Towers Online.

Over the past 6 months all 7 of us (Pete, Boz, Dave, Code, Ben, Janey and I) have been in talks about where to take this project. NoLimits 2 is an incredible engine for visualising parks, but simulating a full park experience to the extent that we want to is too demanding of the engine and graphics. Therefore we have made a decision to begin making a fully interactive game experience within the Unreal Engine. This will be a more powerful, completely free, immersive gaming experience within the Alton Towers Resort, including a multiplayer feature allowing you to play the game with your friends. Ride the rides, play the sideshows, even operate the rides! This is the future of Project Towers NL2. Thank you all for staying with us, and I hope you'll join us as we continue to expand. Merry Christmas TTSP, thank you all.

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Sawboss
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Great stuff, though you've made a gigantic project even giganticerer! I wish you godspeed
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Capt.Barnacles
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In accordance with the changes made to our social media accounts, Lewis has kindly changed the name of this topic to match that, so many thanks there Lewis!

In other news, we have regrouped after a great Christmas holiday and discussed the future, and we have a plan in place for 2016!

What you're going to see over the next year will be heavily focused on Hex and fountain square, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Dark Forest, and The Towers. Our plan, is to get these areas DONE. Completely made, animated, rideable, interactive, and working perfectly! From here, we will release the playable demo for people to enjoy and get an idea of what running Virtual Towers will be like.

Now a treat, for anyone interested in how this has all gone together. Here's the vault from Hex, split into the five main parts we've constructed. The pillars and roof arches, the floor of the vault complete with twisted roots, the framework for the vault drum, the gondola with seats and theming, and the vault room itself that everything goes around. These five segments have been painstakingly worked on by Ben, Pete, Boz, Janey and Dave to get an amazingly detailed working model of the mysterious vault sequence from the ride. Behind the scenes, I've been working on other areas ahead of time to get them ready for us to work on the areas previously mentioned, and Code has been making trains for the coasters, along with providing some advice for working animations in Blender to then be imported into Unreal. Have a Happy new year and I look forward to presenting the next year of work to you all!

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Capt.Barnacles
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Happy New Year TTSP! To celebrate the new year and help people follow our progress better in the future we're debuting a brand new collective YouTube account for Virtual Towers Online. Here you'll be able to see ALL of our videos, past, present and future, though this won't be until we've collected all of them together and uploaded them.

The first video on this channel is a much better quality upload of our Hex debut video, with a few minor tweaks as well. Be sure to subscribe as every video will be here from now on!

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Capt.Barnacles
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Kickstarting 2016 off with a few images from us about what's happened in the lull between Christmas and New Year on top of the YouTube channel.

First off, I'm happy to present Janey's first pieces of work for the project, in the form of some graphics work in Hex's vault!

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Next is something we felt like sharing about the entire project, is the landscape as we currently have it! As you'll see lots is missing, Forbidden Valley, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Mutiny Bay, and this is quite simply down to the fact that we cannot find any good, non-distorted plans for these areas! Hopefully in the future we'll be able to come across some plans and get these areas done :)

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tcw1993
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So so so excited guys!


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i love sub terra. By the looks of it, the only one.
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Sawboss
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Have you had any correspondence with Towers about the project? Sounds like it could be really good for marketing. Also curious about the legalities of recreating the whole park.
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Capt.Barnacles
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We have talked to certain staff within Alton Towers Resort about this and all I can say is they're interested and that we have a plan for developing a future working relationship with the resort that will benefit both parties.
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Sawboss
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Very vague, you could be a PR person yourself :P
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tcw1993
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Hahahahaha ^^^^


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Capt.Barnacles
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Our first blog-style video update is out! Featuring Dave, he talks about some of our work relating to Hex's vault, including the twisted root face in the floor and the fallen branch model that sits on the gondola.

Plus, the FINAL! POV of Air, Dave finished working on the track about a month ago and I'm sure you'll agree the accuracy is stunning! This blog also addresses the response to our switch to Unreal and using NoLimits 2 for videos.

Enjoy, and stay tuned to our channel for future progress videos!

Air and Hex progress blog
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