I have researched this version for about a week now and read the Prima Guide for RCT3(which someone got me as a gift from amazon.com) so I have lots of information as I am getting ready to build Six Flags Great America in RCT3 after much testing. I have created SFGAM in the other 2 versions (but lost most of them to a computer virus). Here is some info that I have discovered so far that will hopefully help us all with Great America(or any other real park recreations).
1) Getting Started: Obviously the way to do this is in Sandbox mode. In the Scenerio Editor you can set the maximum park land to 254x254 so do that first and save it with a different filename in the appropriate directory. Since the prebuilt entrance doesn't look very much like a Six Flags entrance(I am not sure if you can change it) use the bottom few rows(where the entrance will move to when you expand) as the parking lot by filling in that part of the land with the grey asphalt texture and that should help(and gives it a nice look). Build a matching color path in the parking lot so that the peeps can follow it uniformly to another entrance that you custom build(feel free to make the parking lot larger if you want to add to it later on). The majority of SFGAM is West of the entrance so plan on left-justifying the entire park layout when you start(unless you can move the entrance through a trainer or workbench which I am researching). A nice touch is to add the small lake East of Superman since you should have room for this also.
2) Map It! -There are great SFGAM maps on this site to use(or use one that you got from the park) when re-creating the park initially. This is better than trying to use photos or other aerial pics of the park since the map is in a simple animated(just like the game) format . Use a ruler over the map as you constuct it and place the rides and scenery that fall into view as you move the ruler up. As soon as part of a ride, coaster or shop shows up in the view, place it RIGHT AWAY rather than trying to build the land around it first(building the coasters first in the coaster editor and saving them helps with this method). You can always use photographs(or memory if you go there as much as I do) later on for close-up detail.
3) Moving Forward by Going Backwards: The biggest problem I've had in all 3 verisons is trying to get the coasters as accurate as possible(mostly the height/length ratios). Since most coaster layouts are complex in the final portions, I either run out of room or distort the overall look with final elements and wind up squeezing them in. First build the station platform(raised to a certain height depending on the coaster) and then build your coasters starting from the finale, it's alot easier to focus on the smaller elements that most coasters end with first and that way you get the shapes of your hills and turns just the way they need to look. Finishing off with the larger elements and lifts are easier to do(remember to do all of this in the coaster editor through). For example, the overbanked hills for the hyper twister coaster are exactly like the second and forth inclined loops in Raging Bull but you need to build backwards to get the sizes of these hills accurate since the size decreases. Please ask if you need any clarification on this since I think I made it sound confusing.
4) Bigger Is Not Always Better: I am probably the worst person at making coasters(and mabey too picky with detail) but am slowly learning how to make them look and run with better ratings. Since this game is mostly "snap on" pre-shaped pieces of track, it is difficult to get the size, ratios and elements to match the actual roller coasters. For example, when rebuilding the Demon, I noticed that making the first drop 90 feet(which it is in real life) made it look too big with the loops and the corkscrew so the ride looked "off" and the ratings were not great since the train flew too quickly through the elements (same with Deja Vu). Through lots of calculation, I found that if you make the coaster heights to about 2/3 the actual size at the most(i'm still trying to calculate this), they look and run more like the real thing and will also give you more room for a better detailed park later. The flat rides still looked ok and not oversized next to them by doing this. Plus, when you are at the peeps level with the camera view they still look amazing and just as huge! (FYI: The "actual" loop size on the real Demon is 70' and the RCT loop on the corkscrew coaster is 65'. Pretty close in size but still not sure why they looked much smaller in the game.) Since the best addition to RCT3 is to view the park from the peeps perspective(and camera view) making coasters smaller doesn't hurt the quality of the ride(it actually makes it easier to view from ground level) and it looks just as intense when you are on the coaster cam.
5) The H20 Flow: When trying to make both Ice Mountain Splash and Loggers Run, I found that using the Dingy Water Slides instead of the log flume one worked much better. This way you can make both of them inter-twine better and look nearly identical. The boats have a generic enough shape so that if you color them brown, they look like a log flume car. I also noticed that the log flume in the earlier versions ran WAY too slow and took forever to get through the entire course. Older designs of the log flume from RCT 1 and 2 also didn't look and run as good when I imported them into this version. If you want to make these even more realistic, build an incomplete drop portion(separate track and ride) next to the working drops to make the 2 split drops that Ice Mountain and Logger's have. Again, let me know if that doesn't make sense because I wasn't sure how to explain it.
6) Placement of the American Eagle: When I looked at other SFGAM recreations in RCT, I noticed that the AM was usually placed running straight along the back wall of the park layout. I know that it's "somewhat" accurate(due to the small width in the back of SFGAM and its proximity to Iron Wolf) but it just looks strange to me and throws off distance portions of the other rides in County Fair. Placing the Eagle is always a debate since RCT doesn't allow you to place rides at an angle. If you look at the American Eagle from a peep view in the game (and in the park in real life) you will notice that it "almost" looks like it runs parallel to Raging Bull and would run into the Viper if extended. So..if you build the Eagle running parallel to the west edge of the park, it works really well as long as you space it far enough from Southwest Territory. This should be easy to do since the queue line for the Eagle extends pretty far from the entrance to the boarding station. Also, by expanding the park land size to the 254x254 limit and keeping the "building smaller" method in mind, this should work. Oh, when building the mid-course helix, I found that by not banking the blue train track, it is much easier to keep it from running into the red side when building the blue and red tracks racing next to each other. Besides, if you look carefully at any detailed photos of the Eagle you will notice that it is not a perfectly shaped helix like how the game's coaster constructor makes it. Placing the Eagle this way will still allow space for future modifications (such as adding Hurricane Harbor) in the future without having to rebuild the whole park scenerio(at least until RCT makes another upgrade).
7) Keeping it Real: As difficult as I have found it to make things "perfectly" accurate in this game to the real park, there are aspects that are awesome in RCT3 that should really help work around these issues for now. First of all, the ability to import your own music for rides is so cool. I have saved tracks of the Superman and Batman themes to go with the coasters(plus Batman sountrack songs) and TONS of Darude remixes for the Frightfest version of the teacup ride(I keep forgetting the name). I am also in the process of converting some audio files from video I took at the park so that I can replace sounds in the RCT directories for a "real-park" feel. One of these will be replacing the music file for Roaring Rapids to the "Please keep your hands inside the raft..." announcement that they loop in the station for RR. Also, one thing I noticed in the Prima guide is the wonderful "Shift" option where you can raise objects and platforms to place in virtual spots not on the ground(since the terrain raising and lowering feature in RCT3 is frustrating and cannot be reversed if you make a mistake). This helped when I tested the double carousel(which I got to work by stacking 2 carousels on top of each other) and I also used this feature to put the blue platform caps on the Deja Vu towers using the platform slabs from the custom building pieces. You can also use this to build walls around the shops and restaurants to make them look more real. Also, you should use this to put paths adjacent to the boarding station tracks on the coasters and use fences as gates to build up the stations for a real effect(which looks amazing in close-up views).
8 ) No Game is Ever Perfect: As much as I tried, there are some things that are just not possible with the intitial version of RCT3(hopefully the expansion packs may improve some of this). I was so sad to see that RCT3 got rid of the great spiral lifthill feature that made the Whizzer re-creations look amazing(I tried to import the track from RCT2 but couldn't modify the file extention to make it work). Also, the track crossover for Deja Vu just isn't going to happen(I swear I was able to do it by accident when I overbanked part of the batwing but then the second tower was WAYYY out of place). In addition, the twisting spike for V2 is too vertical and you can't make it a wider spiral. I also have no clue how to keep the cars from spinning on the spinning mouse coaster when you want it to run stationary for Ragin Cajun(it even spins on the lifthill and doesn't allow you to prevent spinning there). No clue how to even re-create anything that looks like Big Easy Balloons. I also noticed that the paths are too wide in this game so it makes the queue-line switchbacks look awful and too big. Another thing I am trying to figure out is how to make the train cross over the foot path going under the Demon so that it is ground level(like in the real park). Some of the flat rides from SFGAM are also not included (but some of them are close enough to use). The only thing I can think of to get around these issues for now is to make structures that closely resemble rides or coaster elements in these cases and just not have them running, but that depends on how picky you want to be.
There are many more things I want to mention but this is really getting too long and I don't want to bore anyone too much with rambling on and on, lol. I also appologize in advance for any spelling/grammar errors since I am too tired to proof read this right now.
I, in no way claim to be an expert in RCT or making parks/coasters but I thought some of this might help us from running into any major roadblocks when building a park to the point where you have to trash the whole scenario and rebuild(which I have done many times).
Please feel free to ask questions or offer any advice/criticism for any incorrect information or details I might have left or left out(as long as the feedback isn't rude or obnoxious). After all, the point of a forum is to learn from each other(sorry if that sounded Sesame Street'ish).
Oh, I noticed alot of complaints about how slow this version is running for some of you (if it even runs at all). I have a High End Radeon ATI card that came built into my laptop and am running it with Windows XP SP2 a 2.66 Mhz P4 processor and 512 MB RAM, Direct X 9 and it runs great! However, the full parks that I have downloaded run AWFUL(although some of them had too much detail) so I know that eventually I will get frustrated by the speed as my park progresses. The thing to keep in mind is the RAM! I am looking to upgrade the memory in my PC since I am already starting to notice issues as I build. This is the one major factor that affects the game from all the different systems I tested it on. So hopefully more of you will notice a difference with that since I know that so many of you got this game for X-mas and are dying to play it. If you need a good ATI RADEON graphics card upgrade, I saw tons of them for a pretty good price at places like Best Buy and Circuit City(if you live in the Milwaukee area like me). Ebay also has them really cheap(but I am sort or warry about going that route).
Now I will shut up and start building so I can show you all my progress with my SFGAM recreation(so far, the only thing I have "finished" is Deja Vu which turned out great). I will post screenshots when I can remember my Photobucket password to host it, hee.)
I will continue to put any updates in this thread.
ps: great job to alot of you for your recreation progress in RCT so far, I have seen some awesome ones in these posts!
