Deep Earth Exploration
9 kb Location: MGM Grand Adventures - Las Vegas
(ATTRACTION NOW CLOSED)
Venue: Cabin
Motion Base: Intamin 3-DOF
Programming Software: Triad
Film Production: Midland Productions
A trip into the...um...deep into the earth, anyway.

Although the new Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland got a lot of attention for being a combination of simulator and dark-ride, MGM's Deep Earth Exploration utilized a similar concept over a year earlier.

The story of Deep Earth involved an underground mining operation at a former nuclear test site. The ride began with the "Gopher Shuttle" departing the loading platform and promptly becoming lost in an underground maze where nuclear blasts had created a variety of strange underground environments - a jewel cave, a lava field, an ice cave, and so on. Passengers watched the ridefilm (made by Midland, creators of the also-excellent Smash Factory) while the cabin rocked and rolled. At various intervals, the film depicted a new environment and the windows of the cabin opened to reveal the same scene.

Timing the attraction was a complicated affair. Because each car traveled through the attraction independently of the others, every cabin played the ridefilm (and motion program) from its own on-board laserdisc player. Each moving cabin had to reach the next environment at the same time as the environment appeared in the film - or the windows would open to reveal the wrong scene! At the same time, each car had to be aware of the car ahead to avoid collisions - and if any car slowed down or stopped, all the cars behind it would miss their next cue. A complex automated switching system was devised to keep the cars cycling through the attraction.

Programming the simulators themselves was no picnic either. The simulators were a bit top-heavy for the traveling platforms - too much simulator motion caused the undercarriage to start hopping like a demented two-ton frog. The laserdiscs also tended to skip when the platforms bounced. (This problem was finally solved by moving the disc players to little trailers towed behind each platform.)

Many of these technical issues weren't resolved by the time I delivered my simulator program, so changes were made to the motion after I left the project. I'm not sure how much of my programming was used in the final product - so I can't take any credit or blame for the end result. (How's that for passing the buck?)

Videos:
The "lava field" sequence from Deep Earth Exploration appears on the SIGGRAPH Video Review #99 tape, available by mail order.