The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Hogsmeade (Orlando): Part 2

[Justin]

Dome Pictures looks legit -

At first glance I thought those were light filters for big film lights, but you pointed out things that prove me wrong. I like your pictures... Smaller than I thought, or maybe just from really far away..

Nice!!

 

[Descendo]

Do the shots from Scream Scape rusted or is that just an illusion?

--- Update ---

Edit:
Do the shots from Scream Scape LOOK rusted or is that just an illusion?

 

[just some dude]

I had actually been wondering about this. From an engineering perspective, a large mass (bench+people) at the end of a long arm (20' - more???) changing direction suddenly brings up a whole slew of issues. Torque is certainly one of them - you wouldn't want the arm overshooting any target positions because the Kuka isn't powerful enough to accelerate the mass in time. The designers are going to make sure that it is not possible for the passengers to move outside of some safety envelope. Another issue is stability and traction. All the forces have to be transferred to the floor; most robotic arms are bolted down. While I'm sure the base is HEAVY, there exists some magnitude of force that will cause the whole thing to tilt and/or slip (unless they have some sort of up-stops on these things). Something to keep in mind is that the critical case is probably not normal operation - the ride needs to be safe during an e-stop at the point of maximum height and/or speed.

All these issues are magnified by the safety factor added to the calculations. My (admittedly wild) guess is that the factor of safety will be at least 3 (this is a relatively new application for Kuka's and failure could kill someone). That means that if they want 1400lbs of passenger to be safe (4 350lb people), then the ride must be capable of handling at least 4200lb by design.

I think it might almost be necessary that the base of the vehicles have some built in vehicle stabilizers, similar to a roller coaster. Here's a very crude sketch of what I mean - imagine that this is a cross section of the base of a vehicle:

This is all just personal speculation - no inside photos or info.

 

[Raylene]

Have we heard anything on TM previews yet?? Does anyone know if they are still trying to get final touch up work done? IMO this are the longest lasting final touchups of the CENTURY! lol

 

[pankthesnake]

Do the shots from Scream Scape rusted or is that just an illusion?

--- Update ---

Edit:
Do the shots from Scream Scape LOOK rusted or is that just an illusion?

That just looks like a poor quality photo, probably taken with a phone

 

[tribbleorlfl]

I'm reasonably sure wone of the Potter Fansite writeups of the 3B a week or two ago mentioned inside the restaurant, Butterbeer would be served in a plastic mug that said "Butterbeer" (like a brewer logo). They said it was a heavy duty plastic mug, not flimsy/disposable. Apparantly they are not to keep, they will be returned alogn with the tray, but we will have the option of ordering in a souvenir mug that had the WW logo on it. I don't recall if they described the look of the souvenir mug at all (ie, silver plastic or metal).

Anyways, they better be prepared for A LOT of shrinkage on the plastic mugs; I wouldn't be surprised if Universal builds in a partial mug into the recipe and food cost, which means because people have sticky fingers, we'll all be paying more for our Butterbeer.

 

[benji]

The domes look really cool. This is going to be a unique dark ride. I was thinking how different or better can Uni make FJ than Spider man. I guess the facts are starting to show ,but we'll just have to ride to see how much better than Spider man it is. If Uni can pull this off, Disney needs to start thinking of something fast. Disney is the King of dark rides but when I rode Spider man for the first time it blew my mind, nothing like Disney had ever done for me in terms of dark ride technology.

 

[just some dude]

Just compare the size of the screen to the cherry picker, the cherry picker base is about 8 ft high, maybe more. Big!

It appears to be a JLG 600A articulating boom lift. According to their website, the height from the ground to the top of the orange part of the body is approximately 6.5 feet. Using that as a base for measurement, and taking into account the fact that the cherry picker is slightly closer to the camera than the screens, I've estimated the height of the dome screens at around 14 feet or a little bit under.

 

[zbob1992]

Shellemonster when were those taken?

 

[ScottInNY]

Haven't read back and caught up yet. Sorry, that I've disappeared for a bit.

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from Universal's legal department. They are concerned about my posts and have asked that I stop posting them. They accused me of being "very disrespectful to the hundreds of people who have worked tirelessly to make The Wizarding World of Harry Potter a reality..." It has never been my intentions to hurt, disrespect or be inappropriate in any fashion. So, I am going to stop. Not for any legal reasons, but because I wish to support Universal in ALL it's efforts and they believe my posts are detrimental.

Note to Universal... You have a very heavy hand. A simple, introduction and a "please stop" would have sufficed. The tone of your message was way off base. You have a true fan here, someone who would much rather be a part of the team than someone you believe is hurting the team. A first message could have been written to sense me out and see where I stood. There was no need for implied accusations and scare tactics.

 

[Claire-Bear]

That's a shame Scott, you've always been pleasant and clear you're passionate about US, so they really needn't have put it that way. You haven't exactly given much away that people hadn't already guessed anyway

I can't wait for the day someone posts, hyperventilating at the time most likely, that they soft opened FJ and they tried it out!

 

[mebweb]

I was thinking about the 7.5 minute ride duration that SAS posted here (not that anything he said is fact) and the info that Uni released stating the entire experience would take about one hour. One thing I haven't seen discussed here much is the vertical element to this ride. Because of the range of motion on the Kuka's, I can envision that there could be physical show elements placed almost on top of each other. The Kuka's can travel close together with one vehicle in a scene above and another down below. This makes it possible to have multiple Kuka's in the same physical scene at the same time. This, combined with multiple carousel screens, could provide a much longer ride duration without sacrificing capacity. Thoughts?

---My point is that the vertical movement of the Kuka makes available space that would not be available on another dark ride. The ride duration is no longer limited by the amount of horizontal floor space---

 

[honeybee8200]

I've been sick and have missed a week of updates. Anyone want to do a quick catch up for me? I'm still sick but figured I needed to pop on to see what's happening.

I did see Ellen's show and the apprentice. Has there been any discussion on chocolate frogs? Hollow or not? They looked pretty big on Apprentice.

Also, has mugglenet or one of the fansites released the 3rd of their 3 reports?

 

[just some dude]

I was thinking about the 7.5 minute ride duration that SAS posted here (not that anything he said is fact) and the info that Uni released stating the entire experience would take about one hour. One thing I haven't seen discussed here much is the vertical element to this ride. Because of the range of motion on the Kuka's, I can envision that there could be physical show elements placed almost on top of each other. The Kuka's can travel close together with one vehicle in a scene above and another down below. This makes it possible to have multiple Kuka's in the same physical scene at the same time. This, combined with multiple carousel screens, could provide a much longer ride duration without sacrificing capacity. Thoughts?

---My point is that the vertical movement of the Kuka makes available space that would not be available on another dark ride. The ride duration is no longer limited by the amount of horizontal floor space---

Unfortunately this is incorrect, as the robotic arms are attached to a base unit that moves along the same track as other units. There must always be a safety buffer between the bases of adjacent vehicles, and the "next" vehicle in line can't ever get too close to the previous one without destroying very important safety tolerances. Especially with very mobile and powerful equipment like what FJ uses, this buffer between vehicles is critical, and would most definitely preclude the passenger portions of the vehicles from being anywhere near each other - including above or below the other.

It will still be possible, however, to have show scenes at various heights, and probably an unprecedented range of motion to "explore" very tall set pieces, where in the past vehicles were predominantly "nailed" to the ground during exploration of show scenes and sets.

I believe this is what you're suggesting:

The obvious safety issue here is that the passenger carriages could potentially hit each other in the event of a malfunction. They would never allow two passenger carriages to occupy nearby vertical space in such a manner.

 

[mebweb]

Unfortunately this is incorrect, as the robotic arms are attached to a base unit that moves along the same track as other units. There must always be a safety buffer between the bases of adjacent vehicles, and the "next" vehicle in line can't ever get too close to the previous one without destroying very important safety tolerances. Especially with very mobile and powerful equipment like what FJ uses, this buffer between vehicles is critical, and would most definitely preclude the passenger portions of the vehicles from being anywhere near each other - including above or below the other.

It will still be possible, however, to have show scenes at various heights, and probably an unprecedented range of motion to "explore" very tall set pieces, where in the past vehicles were predominantly "nailed" to the ground during exploration of show scenes and sets.

Agreed. My thought assumed maintaining a minimum safe distance between vehicles. But to expand on what you said, just the fact that the vehicles can move up and down within a show scene can extend the duration of the ride if there are multiple scenes where this occurs. Each vehicle spends more time in each scene while still maintaining a horizontal pace along the track to maximize capacity.

 

[just some dude]

Agreed. My thought assumed maintaining a minimum safe distance between vehicles. But to expand on what you said, just the fact that the vehicles can move up and down within a show scene can extend the duration of the ride if there are multiple scenes where this occurs. Each vehicle spends more time in each scene while still maintaining a horizontal pace along the track to maximize capacity.

Yes, I see what you're saying. The fact that the passenger seating area can seem to "pause" in a particular show scene while the base continues to move will vastly improve the experience. Additionally, the carousel screens will, as you mentioned, allow for the attraction's duration to be much greater, because the vehicles need not move along the track at great speed. This takes better advantage of the space within the attraction.

Basically, the range of movement of the arms allows for a more thrilling experience to be packed into a smaller space, whereas a vehicle with less mobility needs much longer distances of track to accomplish the same amount of "thrilling movement."

Here's a rather crude example (imagine this is a side view as the ride vehicle travels from left to right along the black arrow):

The top half of the image is a robotic arm type attraction, whereas the bottom half is a standard move-along-a-track attraction. The black circles represent different set/show elements, the black arrow is the direction of travel of the ride vehicle's base, and the red arrows are the direction of travel of the ride vehicle's passenger seating area. You can see how basically the top attraction's passenger carriage can not only travel a more exciting and lengthy path, but it also allows more show elements into the same horizontal distance. This allows the base of the vehicle to move slower, while providing additional "show scenes" in less space. It also simultaneously provides a more exciting experience due to the sudden drops and elevation changes that don't happen in a standard ride vehicle. You get better face-to-face encounters with show scenes due to the flexibility of the arm vehicles.

 

[mebweb]

Yes, exactly. And I don't think this would be limited to just the same scene. Going back to my original thought, I think you could have different scenes stacked very close together. To throw out an example (not based on any knowledge of story or actual ride flow)...lets say you enter a "room" with the Kuka in a very low position (maybe inside a cave) moving left to right. Suddenly, the arm thrusts you upward into a new scene with the Acromantula attacking you from above. This scene is above, but somewhat offset to the right, from the cave scene below. The area of the Acromantula AA could theoretically extend over the scene below it. To accomplish the same thing with a standard dark ride with no vertical motion would take a much greater amount of space. In additon, the next ride vehicle could enter the scene below while your Kuka is still in the scene above while still maintaining safe distances.

 

[just some dude]

Haven't read back and caught up yet. Sorry, that I've disappeared for a bit.

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from Universal's legal department. They are concerned about my posts and have asked that I stop posting them. They accused me of being "very disrespectful to the hundreds of people who have worked tirelessly to make The Wizarding World of Harry Potter a reality..." It has never been my intentions to hurt, disrespect or being inappropriate in any fashion. So, I am going to stop. Not for any legal reasons, but because I wish to support Universal in ALL it's efforts and they believe my posts are detrimental.

Note to Universal... You have a very heavy hand. A simple, introduction and a "please stop" would have sufficed. The tone of your message was way off base. You have a true fan here, someone who would much rather be a part of the team than someone you believe is hurting the team. A first message could have been written to sense me out and see where I stood. There was no need for implied accusations and scare tactics.

If true, and I'm not doubting you, simply doubting the source of the e-mail (my guess is that it could be an employee who spread some insider info around and is now trying to cover their back-side for fear of repercussions), but if that is actually true, then that's ridiculous. As you say, at the very least they could have politely asked you to keep quiet about things you might know. But even so, Universal is the one who allowed the models of Aragog, the Whomping Willow, etc to be filmed in HDTV, and that's what a large portion of recent speculation as been based on. They're also the ones who are depending on all of US, the FANS to hype their attractions up and buy tickets (there's no better advertising right now than word-of-mouth, especially with the help of the internet). The reality is that we're the ones who pay their salaries, and they owe us a debt of gratitude for that.

Am I saying we should be allowed to spoil their secrets or give away proprietary ride operating details? Of course not. However, a little bit of respect for the people who are so enthusiastic about what they are doing at WWoHP shouldn't be too much to ask. And just because many of us occasionally "hit the nail on the head" with how the attraction might work, doesn't mean it's because someone spilled secrets. Sometimes, just maybe, it's the fact that there are many brilliant engineering and technical minds here that can come up with a solution or two to the methods by which certain things can be accomplished.

I'm not really sure what they're afraid of when it comes to all this secrecy, especially when it comes to the scenes and elements you'll see on the ride. The first day that there's a soft opening there's going to be video, pictures, and detailed reports of every last little bit of the attraction and how it operates. We live in a society where information travels fast. While I can understand they want to keep things mysterious, Disney has seen that public hype of "behind the scenes" stuff can be a good thing. Walt Disney filmed several "behind the scenes" and "making of" features on Wonderful World of Color back in the 60s that showed how animatronics work and how they were programmed and things like that. Disney was providing state of the art, unprecedented theme park attractions like Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean at that time, and revealing details about what you'd see inside those attractions and how the mechanics worked hasn't seemed to diminish the staying power and popularity of those rides.

To me, one of the few reasons you'd want things to be kept so hush hush is if you were afraid of your attractions and creations being a let down. Since it appears this won't be the case with WWoHP and FJ, I'm not sure why their release of information is so secretive and calculated. If you're confident in the form of entertainment you've created, then let people hype it. We're not exactly dealing with an issue of national security here - learn from what Disney is doing with the DCA expansion... embrace the fan community's enthusiasm for the technical side of what you're doing in addition to the creative side.

That being said, if Universal legal wasn't the actual source of a ill-toned e-mail, then obviously what I've said should be disregarded. My post is intended as a "what if" scenario and should not be taken as an attack on Universal based simply on hear-say. I would suggest that everyone make their own judgments based on what they personally have heard or seen from Universal, and make your own call.

Scott - I would suggest you send an e-mail to the return address of the message, IF it is an @universal (or one of it's corporate divisions) address (or alternatively find the contact info for Universal's legal department), quoting their message and ask them to confirm its validity, and tell them that you intend to comply if the message is indeed valid. This should clear up any doubts as to whether the reply-to address was faked.

Sorry for that long-winded rambling! Carry on!

--- Update ---

Yes, exactly. And I don't think this would be limited to just the same scene. Going back to my original thought, I think you could have different scenes stacked very close together. To throw out an example (not based on any knowledge of story or actual ride flow)...lets say you enter a "room" with the Kuka in a very low position (maybe inside a cave) moving left to right. Suddenly, the arm thrusts you upward into a new scene with the Acromantula attacking you from above. This scene is above, but somewhat offset to the right, from the cave scene below. The area of the Acromantula AA could theoretically extend over the scene below it. To accomplish the same thing with a standard dark ride with no vertical motion would take a much greater amount of space. In additon, the next ride vehicle could enter the scene below while your Kuka is still in the scene above while still maintaining safe distances.

Yeah, I can just imagine Aragog dangling from its web ABOVE the ride vehicle while we're essentially lying on our backs looking up at it. That would be nuts.

 

[gannonsmovieworld]

If Uni really wanted ScottInNY to keep everything quiet, don't you think they would have called him. Also, how did they find out your email scott? Do you have an acount on their website, I do. Maybe they are all watching our compter screens. Anyway, I would do what Just some dude said, Clarify it. See if the message was a fake.

Also, I don't think we would be lying on our backs looking up at Aragog He will most likely crawl towards you and say something to you but, you never know what's inside that showbuilding!

 

[Claire-Bear]

I'm interested to see how the two elements -actual scenery and the projection domes, will work together. I don't doubt that they will produce a smooth transition from one to the other, but I wonder how our senses will interpret going from a domed projection to actual elements and vica versa.