Ride Blueprints!

I recently got access to the blueprints for the 2nd incarnation of JII, Journey Into Your Imagination (JIYI).  I was both excited and hesitant about this because I wasn't sure how much information would be helpful in recreating what was there before.  When I first looked at them, I knew immediately that they would help me in getting the track path and many of the major walls arranged correctly.  No matter what, this would a good step in the right direction.

And then on closer inspection, I discovered this little gem...

Facility egress path.  Doesn't sound like much but this information is a HUGE find for me.  The egress path is an evacuation walkway that follows the entire ride track.  In JII, it is always located on the right side of the vehicle (where the doors are).  This is a big deal because the egress path is pretty much always at the same elevation as the base of the vehicle.  Since JIYI did not alter any of the track that it uses, this gives me accurate track elevations for almost the entire ride.  And I believe that the deleted sections of track were all level with load and unload (the magic scene being a possible exception TBD).

Some other helpful bits of info in these prints include the vehicle dimensions and track width.  In a few cases, the prints also tell me the height of some of the set platforms from the original ride that were reused.  The rest of these can be figured out from the egress path as well.

As you can see in the screenshot at the top of this post, I have already recreated the track and egress path with the new dimensions.  I am integrating this into the ride model now.  I am going to have to move around several walls and fix the placement and dimensions of some of the sets I've already started building.  So I am taking a few steps back to make this right, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.

This next update may take a bit of time since I am doing this, upgrading to Unity 3.5, and trying to slowly introduce some helpful Unity tips and techniques I recently received from Chris Wallace over at Horizons Resurrected (thank you!).  Should be a nice update when it's done though.