i didn't actually think i was going to do anything with this idea because it seemed kind of.. daunting.. i had only learned blender (enough to make a single low-poly model and rig it. kind of) a few months before and i had no idea how to model an environment or animate in 3d or make a camera move naturally. but i could not stop thinking about it and the only way to exorcise a project that haunts me is to do SOMETHING for it.
a little history: when i was smaller my parents would take me to CHESSINGTON WORLD OF ADVENTURES, in which i would often go on a ride by the name of bubbleworks. in my time it was a cheap sponsored re-theme of a ride that had previously had a lot of love put into it, and i think because of that it had gained a.. weird atmosphere. (it was also very loud) it's gone now, but that ride has always stuck with me, and it was a big influence for the general feel and ride design of this project. straight down to the decision to make it a water dark ride.
though i'd like to mention that the "quiz time" hallway of mesmerider was heavily inspired by the "BATH TIME" section of toyland tours at alton towers.
anyway. over winter break, i - having found my (previously lost) script with my crude ride layout on the back - decide to open rollercoaster tycoon 3 and.. humor myself, i guess?
(this layout is a lot closer to the end product than i remembered)
the very, very first pass at the track layout. this entire version got scrapped because it was messy. but it was a good learning experience.
^ various concept pieces i put together (quickly) after my first blender draft. i already had a pretty clear idea of what i wanted in my head but this was to see if it was, like, feasible or not. i spent a lot of time early on not actually thinking i was going to finish this project! i was basically just having fun playing in blender :)
this is also a good time to mention that everything i modeled was extremely derivative of channels art from the original PV. as in, i drew basically nothing for this project and modeled straight from screenshots and (for the chorus models) the official reference sheets. i want to be super transparent about this because, even though i don't think this is necessarily a problem(?) i would feel bad about it if i wasn't.
the only thing i officially DREW (not incl. textures) for this project were these things i was going to use for the final lift hill. but they never went further than this sketch.
texture sheets for miku. i'll share these only because i think it's funny that you can kind of tell the difference between the textures i worked on in a real art program, and the ones i did straight in blenders texture editor. (left was for her 3d model, right was used for the "cutout" style models at the beginning)
teto and miku t-poses. i finished teto waaaay after i finished miku, i found her lot harder to model for some reason..? (also: tetos model actually has missing faces on her hair that i never fixed. you can still see these in the final video. i shant say where though!)
something i thought about but never committed to was adding akita neru in the final chorus somewhere. likely in that big empty space on the other side of the track, across from miku and teto. it would have been a cute easter egg, but for various reasons i just never really got around to it.
finally, the last thing i did for this project was model this exterior that i planned to use in the thumbnail. i did, but.. well. not very much of it, LOL
...and i think that's about it! thanks for reading, if you got this far. i don't know what's in store for me next... but i had a lot of fun working on this project, and i learned a lot in the process. see you next time!