http://www.geekissues.org/sohcahtoa/motobike.avi (4.10 megs, DivX 6)
http://www.geekissues.org/sohcahtoa/motobike.m1v (5.42 megs, MPEG1)

Hurray!  Support structures!  It really adds a lot to the ride, IMO. 
Oh, and the reason it starts fast is that this is a launched coaster. 
It has no lift hill, but rather uses LIMs to launch the train.  I 
haven't implemented acceleration due to launches, so I just made it 
start at the end of the track at high speed.

I'm pretty sure I'm using the wrong radii for the cylinders/spheres 
creating the supports though (Remember, my project isn't a roller 
coaster itself, but rather, a program to convert tracks from No Limits 
(http://www.nolimitscoaster.de) to POV-Ray!).  No Limits also doesn't 
make the cylinders attach directly to the track, but rather, it has all 
the cool hardware that makes the connection.

I'm also experimenting with the finishes and lighting, because the whole 
pitch-black shadow thing was bugging me.  I tried using a dim shadowless 
light, but I didn't like the result.  In this animation, everything has 
an ambient of 0.35, diffuse 0.8, and the light color is 0.75.  To me, 
the track has the very flat-looking "obviously computer rendered" look 
that makes me think of old computer graphics demos from the late 
80s/early 90s.  The supports also look extremely flat.

I messed around with putting a sun in the sky_sphere using a cylindrical 
pattern with an extremely bright center, but to get it to look good, I 
had to have an extremely low error_bound, and it was going to take hours 
for a single frame, and that's just not acceptable when I need to make 
an animation.

Any ideas on getting good lighting?

-DJ

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