When deciding on the overall shape of your car and the number of guests it will carry this is where Andrew comes into his own.

The basic seat models that accompany Andrew are just the right width so that when they're butted one next to the other, guests in your car have sufficient elbow room in addition to there being space to put restraints should you want to add them later. SketchUp's Menu>Edit>Copy, Menu>Edit>Paste, and Array functions are handy for this process. Simply align the corner of one seat against the corner of the next.

We're sure you understand now why the mock-up seat shapes are so basic. After you've aligned the required number of Andrews, he may be arrayed.

Andrew and his seat will array beautifully at exactly 1 meter in distance.

We've chosen to start out with 15 Andrews because we want a larger model car than the basic model with which we earlier worked. We've drawn a 3m x 6m base around our Andrews and we have in mind a monorail-style train so instead of bench seats we're going to opt into backed seats. Our platform represents the base of the first car we're going to make and we anticipate at this time that there will be left entry along with right entry so gamers can decide which side of the cars passengers will board. It's entirely up to you whether you create a single car with entry on both sides or create a car for left entry and another car for entry from the right.

This is the time to consider various seating configurations. Our generously sized base will conveniently permit all sorts of options to be explored. The number of seats will be increased or decreased based on the configuration and that will rely on guests being able to access the seats once they've entered the car.

As you see some of the seating configurations require an entryway near the front of the car while others will need it nearer the middle. Some of the arrangements look like commuter cars while some suggest more of a resort appearance. One configuration in particular lends itself well to specific placement in a car with only left entry, and then mirrored for entry into the car's right side.

We've shown these different configurations on the same sized base. If due to your chosen seating configuration it turns out you need more access space through which guests will enter the car this is the time to adjust and re-scale your car's base.

For the first car in our train we're partial to this configuration.

Because our configuration at this time is only comprised of seat mock-ups we'll take this opportunity to complete our final seat shapes. Luxe seating is required for this unique arrangement of guests and for the custom car that we have in mind. Do be sure of the seating effect you wish to use in your car and confirm that the height of the mock-up seats is at the required height above the floor before beginning work on your finished seating shapes.

During the course of creating cars for CTR Creator we'd want to ensure the restraints are properly set up and are working in a manner that is unobstructed by the remainder of the car model. If restraints are required this is the time to import what you have so far of your custom car, confirm the positions of the seated peeps in the game, and then return to SketchUp to place your restraints. This way you can be sure the movement of your restraints will fit inside the design of your car. You may test the placement of your restraints on the basic seat shapes, or you may design your finished seat shapes and use that as a point of departure for the design of your restraint shapes. In this example our car is a monorail car that will swan sedately around its track so restraints are not required.

For our example, having dispensed with restraints and created our final seating shapes, all that's left at this stage is the design of our car. Depending on the seating configuration you choose you may find you wish to enlarge your car base or make it smaller. We're happy with the size of our car base and with our configuration selection. Adult males are 2m tall so we'll make the car ceiling 2.25m. This will allow enough height for our guests to walk comfortably into our car, and will give plenty of allowance for camerafront to be inside the car.

Our car will be enclosed and have a roof. The console will not originate from the floor so we've dispensed with a separate console anticipating that it will ultimately be an extension of the finished car front wall. To achieve our basic car shape we've created a rectangle 2.25m above the floor of the basic base and to create the sidewalls have simply dragged the edges of the roof down to the base floor.

We'll push and pull our car shape from this, now confident that our chosen guest configuration is suitable for the size of the car, that the car shape gives sufficient room to the guests inside, that the seats are the correct height with our dummy guests sat upon them properly, and with the position of the car base confirmed in RCT3 where it needs to be in relation to the track type that we'll ultimately use.

Giving suggestions on how to push and pull faces in SketchUp is beyond the scope of this article. We have, however, created a fast-track mini tutorial that may be seen here: SketchUp 101

As well as being built below the position of the original base mock-up you'll observe that we've chosen at about the halfway mark during the development of this car's style to taper in the bottom half of the shape our craft. This car design is an excellent example of the original mock-up car base being viewed only as a suggestion and that it is not carved in stone.

RCT3 does not paint two different textures on both sides of a face, rather, all textures 'bleed' through any double-sided faces in the game giving on the back side a reverse of the front side's texture. With these huge swathes of glass on the car sides nothing less will do than to create inner walls inside the car as a complement to the outer walls and you'd want to create your car's inner surfaces and then join the inner surfaces to the outer surfaces before painting on any textures. Gamers downloading your content will not be impressed with your work if they discover the interior walls of your car are the exterior faces flagged as double-sided in the Importer so do yourself and the community a favor and give interior surfaces to your cars as well as an exterior shell.

So that importing the car and making any further adjustments would be more convenient this car would ultimately be tested in a single solid color. However, right after creating our car shape we went ahead and painted with temporary textures to establish some idea of where we were headed with this car's design. At the start, to go with the luxe seating our test textures include plush interior carpeting along with textured walls & ceiling. As you'll see later these temporary textures also aren't carved in stone and we eventually chose a different direction in which to take this car's final textures. It's a matter of personal preference whether you establish texture ideas now, or if you choose to consider them later.

We've decided to put this car on the TrackCTR_XX00Monorail, have selected Peep Seating Effect 33=Sit_ Stadium and, as our test textures suggest, have already confirmed the car height in relation to the monorail track for that particular track type. A car in this width will require SwissCheese's Stations, station CSO's, and possibly CSO track covers. If we were to release our custom car with such a track we'd need to include the required CSO's and a link to SwissCheese's Stations along with our Car & Track upload. If you find yourself in the same situation where you'd need to include with your car design custom stations and station CSO's take a look at our FTA.net's CSO Station Templates For SwissCheese77'S and JG59's Flat Stations Set, the download to which may be found at the end of these sessions. These templates show the location of the peep access splines for each of Swiss Cheese's stations types and give excellent suggestions as to the size & position of station CSO's that should accompany each.

Later on in our session Car Animations we shall make an animated door for this car.

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