Fantasmic - The Ride
Welcome to the
Back-Lot Tour

Figure 1

As you can see, for this portion of the ride, I only needed to build the staging area.
Many of you wondered how I lit the building.  In Haunted Hill, I noticed that the side of the church and the skulls changed color because of the haunted Ferris wheel and carousel in the haunted carnival area.  I knew I wanted to do that in Fantasmic.  In Fig 2 you can see where I placed the wheels.  Remember, I didn't care if this was a functioning park.  I just wanted it to look good on "tape."
I also knew that I wanted the mirror theme on the ride so I placed the house of mirrors behind. Fig 3.  Notice that the back of the building isn't complete.  I didn't have to!  Fig 4 shows this scene without water.
Figure 2                Figure 3                Figure 4
       
Here is a video from behind the scenes of this section. Clip 1.
Clip1.wmv

I experimented and found that if you click to make it day and then click to return to night, the time resets to 8:30PM.  If I started a firework show at 8:40PM and then clicked to ride the coaster, It basically timed out so that the firework show would start as soon as the coaster started moving.  I was able to time everything from there.  I played each section of audio and jotted down the time that each specific audio event took place.  From there I knew how many seconds I had in between each event.  An event could be as simple as the sound entering a crescendo or as obvious as the canon blasting for the naval battle scene.  I had lots of pages of notes and data showing times, etc.  This method was necessary for I had so many pyrotechnic events.  If you only have a few, I would suggest following Milkduds directions.  It is listed in my thread and is a great tutorial.  Thanks Milkdud!
The fireworks are relatively easy.  But they are tedious!!!  A lot of trial and error, and clicking, and clicking and clicking...
There is a slight defect with RCT3 in that if you do any building and you re-enter the fireworks editor that has a song attached to it, you have to press play on your park screen and let it skip through the song.  It does this at a high rate of speed though.  Otherwise, it will screw up your sound when you try to access coaster cam and the firework show tries to start.  That and it won't let you scroll through the firework editor either.  You can hear and see what I mean in Clip 2.
Clip2.wmv

Here is the second part of the ride.  Once it starts moving I needed a long portion to finish out the first audio section and prepare for the second audio section. Fig 5. All I did was adjust the block brakes so that the ride didn't stop in front of the ride building but was able to reach the accelerated block ahead of it.  I then simply sliced this section over the first reel and created the effect of starting from a standstill.
Figure 5

At the end of this section, I needed to transition from this sandbox to the next.  I built a building to ride through Fig 6 and rebuilt it at the start of the next sandbox Fig 7.  I had to make the coaster make a curve so that you didn't see any of the changes outside.  The first reel is filmed at night.  The second at day.  Overlapping these in Microsoft Movie Maker creates a gentle transition from both night to day and from sandbox 1 to sandbox 2. 
Figure 6                Figure 7
   
I was surprised that many people thought the entire ride was in one sandbox.  I guess that's good on my part.  However, one sandbox would have never been able to handle this entire ride, no matter how big the dimensions.  In actuality, I made Fantasmic in over 10 sandboxes and transitioned them together on video!

SECTION 2

After entering sandbox 2, it starts to get a bit tricky.  I loaded the new firework display and timed it so that it started correctly.  I again jotted down all the different timing events.  I knew going in that I didn't want the ride to be the same thing for 30 minutes so I tried to theme each section very differently.  In this section, I wanted to time everything, the fireworks and the coaster.  I hope everyone noticed.  After strolling through the park type area it enters the coaster section over the water.  The entire coaster twists and turns to the music... or it's supposed too.  This took a lot of trial and error.  I pulled out my trusty stop watch.  yep... that's right... a stop watch!  I timed how long it took the coaster to reach each curve and hill and matched it to my audio time events.  I added the fireworks as I built the track.  The ones in the water could only be submerged a few thirds down or it wouldn't allow you to place them.  I had many, many notes of data showing all my times.
At the end of this section, I needed another building to transition to the next sandbox.  Fig 13.  This building was rebuilt in sandbox 3 enough so that you don't see a difference on film.  Fig 14.
Figure 8                Figure 9                Figure 10
       
Figure 11               Figure 12             Figure 13
       

SECTION 3

I always pictured section 2 above the water because of all the watery sounds used during that portion of the audio.  I pictured section 3 leaving the lake and traveling down a twisty river with Indians on the coast, a mining town and then emptying into the ocean where the naval battle would commence. Fig 15 is the beginnings stages of the river.
Figure 14               Figure 15
   
Fig 16 is an overview of the river map.  Fig 17 - 19 show what the naval fort looks like from behind.  Again, it did not matter what it looked like except from the point of view of the ride.  In order for my canon fire to be angled just right so it appears to be coming from the canon on the castle, I used a mortar launcher and lowered it into the earth until it was just right.  Fig 20 - 26 show the map without water.  You can see where I set up the mortars and explosive launchers.  Did you see John Smith Fig 27?  It's kind of fast in the video!
Figure 16             Figure 17            Figure 18            Figure 19
           
Figure 20             Figure 21            Figure 22            Figure 23
           
Figure 24             Figure 25            Figure 26            Figure 27
           
Figure 28               Figure 29
   
As I built Fantasmic, I was learning lots of things along the way.  One thing I realized is that you can make even better transitions using the smoke effect.  On this map, I created smoke in the last building.  In sandbox 4 I began with smoke Fig 30.  When I went to splice the two in the movie editor, I put them together right when the smoke grayed almost the entire screen.  The transition is almost flawless here.  Tip...Your transitions will be even smoother if you set the coasters using block brakes to the same speed.  If you want, clip 3 is a video overview of the section.
Clip3.wmv

SECTION 4

Figure 30

Fig 31 - 32 show this sandbox from above.
Figure 31               Figure 32
   
When I got to the "Under the Sea" melody, I planned on making the coaster dip in and out of the water using the technique found in Fig 33-34.  Unfortunately, it was too much of a pain and the effect wasn't worth the effort.  It does look cool from the shots below but on the ride, it's not as noticeable.  Out of all the sections in Fantasmic - The Ride, this was the most boring one in my opinion.  I just couldn't think of anything special to do here.  The timing felt rushed as well.
Figure 33               Figure 34
   
I was also excited to finally get to the dark areas of the ride.  I had already spent numerous hours creating the beginning.  I now felt I was half way done and that it was all downhill from here.  I was also excited to start adding real video to the ride.  The mirror worked out pretty good, even though the video quality on the mirror's first appearance was a little grainy.  Heck, it was taped from a live show where it was captured from the image off a water spray!  I was a little disappointed at the lowering of the mirror.  It wasn't as smooth as I thought it would be.  But I guess people liked it anyway. I took several screenshots, lowering the mirror maze building by 1/3 each time.  
Figure 35               Figure 36             Figure 37
       

SECTION 5

For the Cave of Wonders, I used a similar technique that I did for The Spelunker.  I dug almost as deep as you could, built everything I needed, and then built the mountains as high as they could go surrounding it.  Fig 38 shows an overview of this.  Fig 39 shows the beginning drop that I spliced into the home video.  I loved this transition.  It really looks like he's pointing at you as you fall into the cave.  Timing was essential in this section and it took a lot of trial and error to get it just right.  I wanted the ride to bank when Mickey says "hold on" and for it to loop for the first time as Mickey yells.  I also had to time it so you go into the loop right at that precise moment in the audio track where Mickey says, "woooo."  and drop right when he screams as if he is falling.  Fig 40 - 41. It was tricky to get this right without the coaster being jerky.  Again, my stop watch was vital.  By the way, once I thought that the timing was correct, I would refresh the day and ride the coaster.  One of the benefits to having so many pyrotechnic displays is that you can hear the audio from the mortars as long as they are being used.  I could then gauge if I was hitting all the right spots in sync with the audio.  Sometimes though, RCT3 didn't want to cooperate and you couldn't hear the audio.  I would cancel, refresh everything... including going into the fireworks editor, pressing play on the game screen, letting it zip through, stopping the firework editor, refreshing the day again, resetting the start of the coaster, and finally entering the coaster cam again.  Wheew...
Figure 38             Figure 39            Figure 40            Figure 41
           
I had imagined this part of the cave for awhile.  I knew I wanted the snake theme using the snake slide as well as "snaking" the track.  It matched up to the audio perfectly! Fig 42.  However, I needed a way to get out of the cave and onto flat land for my next scene.  I was hesitant at first to use a lift chain.  The block brakes wouldn't have had enough speed at 67 MPH to launch the coaster out.  But then I decided the lift chain actually fit with the music.  I didn't want it to be boring though so I added the fireworks.  It turned out to be mighty successful. Fig 43 - 45
Figure 42             Figure 43            Figure 44            Figure 45
           

SECTION 6

I used the smoke effect transition again to enter this sandbox.  The transition matched up with the music as well.  I knew I wanted a snowy section and this was the perfect opportunity.  I was hoping I wouldn't have any problems running my coaster through such a heavy particle element such as the pyrotechnic snow.  No problems though with that.  The only problem I did have was that I had to add a ton of "firework" snow to achieve the effect.  My carpal tunnel was really starting to kick in at this point.  This was the first time I was to use the home video superimposed over the ride as well.  I thought that the flying ghosts definitely added a different effect.  I liked how Mike Yee did it on Bald Mountain.  Overall the track design was very simple.  The elements were tricky but I finished this section the fastest. 
Figure 46             Figure 47            Figure 48            Figure 49
           
Figure 50               Figure 51             Figure 52
       
 I added an overview video.  Clip 4.  It's funny to see the snow from above.
Clip4.wmv

SECTION 7

I always knew what I wanted to do at the end.  Ever since Haunted Hill, heck... even Ski Jump!, I wanted to do something like this.  I wanted everyone to know that the track ended and every spin of the wheel on the coaster got you closer to doom.  I was ecstatic when I found lava at RCTPyro.  Listening to the soundtrack in the car, I always pictured the track rebuilding itself on those 5 strong beats.  The volcano was a pain to do though.  There are 100's of fireworks just for the eruptions.  You can see this in Clip 6.  There were so many that I split it up into 3 different displays: Smoke, Fire and Lava.  The fourth is the small display after the track rebuilds itself.
Figure 53               Figure 54             Figure 55
       
Clip5.wmv
Clip6.wmv

This was the first time I was going to use the game Cam.  It took awhile to get used to it.  This is definitely something I will have to work on.  Bitter Jeweler, Mike Yee and Simbolism, among others, have truly mastered it. (Thanks TikiTiki for posting that tutorial screenshot awhile back, and thanks to Vodhin and Klinn for their tutorials!)
Figure 56               Figure 57
   
Changing everything to green was relatively easy.  I just created a route, filmed it dark, then painted everything green and replaced the dead trees with live ones, and then filmed using the same route. I loved how the dead trees seemed to blossom.

DELETED SCENE

When I was creating Fantasmic, I had tons of video clips and pics I was loading into Movie Maker.  Unfortunately, I was almost done with piecing the video together when I ran into a major problem.  Movie Maker would not render the video anymore.  It just got too complicated for it.  To correct this problem, I had to split the movie in two, render both parts and then load the rendered version back into another Movie Maker project and splice them together.  In doing so, the death to the bad guys scene got messed up and I could not fix it without taking a lot of time to do so.  I was just too excited to publish the video and I had promised I would get it out by the end of that night.  The final video is OK but here is what was supposed to happen.  The clip includes the deleted scene and shows how the climatic deaths was to transition to the "greening" of the volcano.
DeletedScene.wmv

ALTERNATE ENDING 1

Did you know?
If you look at Fig 57, you will see where the coaster was originally supposed to go.  It does not however, follow this path in the video.  I had filmed the ride coming off the volcano and curving around and heading straight back to the other side of the sandbox.  However, I felt that the coaster picked up way to much speed off the hill and I had no room to control it.  And it still took forever to get all the way back to the other side of the map.  I had already filmed everything up to that point, and my deadline of posting the video in March was closing in fast.  Fig 58-59 show it.
Figure 58               Figure 59
   
I instead decided to extend it to the next sandbox by using my smoke/fog filled transition effect.  Fig 60-61 show where you enter this transition.  Notice that the track does NOT connect.  I knew that when I continued the track on the next sandbox, I could easily make it come off the hill a lot slower and anyone watching wouldn't even notice.
Figure 60               Figure 61
   

ALTERNATE ENDING 2

Coming out of the drop from the volcano, I was originally going to transition back in to the 2nd sandbox/section at the beginning of the ride.  See Fig 62-64.  I knew this meant having to re-film this scene so that the track was there in the background.  I decided to do it anyway.  The problem though was that I had trouble figuring out where I was going to have the coaster sit before it would go backward.
Figure 62               Figure 63             Figure 64
       
By the way... JMAinAZ, how is it that you make your coaster go backwards???
It's actually quite simple.  But it requires a little bit of time.  Take a look at Fig 64.  I know this part is not in the video, but we will use it anyway.  I placed block brakes so that the coaster would come to a complete stop as it shows in the screen shot.  I filmed this.  Now I take the track in front of  the coaster, where the coaster is, directly behind it, and the temporary switch section below it, and delete it.  Then I build another coaster, this time using Reverse Launch as its starting method.  I rebuild the track in the same way but make it so it connects where the switch track (new path is).  This is all shown in Fig 64.  You can see where I originally was going to back the train down the hill and connect to the track on the ground.  Of course, there is no way in RCT3 to connect two different coasters, so I have to rebuild everything.  In Fig 64, I put the reverse launch station around the other side, out of view so that you couldn't see the station.  Now you just film the coaster going backward and splice the video together.  More in the next section.

SECTION 8

Not only did I have a problem figuring out where I was going to connect the track, I ended up being a 1/3 too high when I built it, and so I could never connect the track unless I started all over with the transition hill.  (Note to those who don't know, RCT3 uses mostly thirds when it comes to height.  Each track is mostly 3/3 tall so if you start 4 "clicks" high, you can never have the coaster track run on the ground.  There are minor exceptions to this rule though).  Here is what I ended up doing.  In Fig 67, you can see the new transition I built.  In Fig 65, I had the coaster slow to a stop right in front of the wall.  In Fig 66, I rebuilt the track with a reverse launch coaster. I had to rebuild the track all the way back to the original staging area, making sure that it stayed on the same shape patch as in the beginning.  You can see how in Fig 66, the new reverse launch station is on the other side of the wall and out of sight of the rider.  Glad that coasters can go through walls!  I now film this and make sure to slice the video right where the 2 films match up before the wall.  The first clip the coaster is at a stand still.  The second clip it is moving.  The effect it that the coaster starts up from not moving to moving backward.  It's that easy!
Figure 65               Figure 66
   
Fig 68-69 show the final ending.
Figure 67               Figure 68             Figure 69
       

And that's it!  Hope this helped.  If you have any other question, or if I was not clear on something, please let me know and I would be more than happy to help.

Thanks again for all your support!

Deep in your mind,
It's magic you'll find,
When out of the night,
Dark forces ignite,
To blind you with frightening schemes;
You use your might,
To brighten the light,
Creating a night of wondrous dreams...
Mysteries and magic,
Visions fantastic,
Leading to strange and wondrous dreams.

But beware -- nothing is more powerful than the imagination.
For it can also expand your greatest fears into an overwhelming nightmare!

Are the powers of your incredible imagination strong enough, and bright enough, to withstand the evil forces that invade it's dreams?
You are about to find out.

Experience Fantasmic - The Ride