I finally figured out how NoLimits 2 builds its track. Not roughly, exactly: the NURBS from the vertices, the frames along it, the roll between the roll points and the heartline on top. That has been on my list for years, as a side project, and because Coaster Lab has its own curve library and I wanted to know how close I am.

Then it hit me. Back in 2015 I wrote BlenderNoLimitsCSVImporter, a small extension that turns exactly that csv export into a Blender curve. People still use it, and it has one big catch: the csv export only exists in the Professional version of NoLimits 2. With the normal version you were out.

Now I do not need the export anymore, I can read the .nl2park itself. So I retired the old extension and started a new one.

a NoLimits 2 track imported into Blender, center of rails and editor spline as two curves

The track import

  • Pick a park and you get a curve object per track. Coaster and track are selectable in the curve panel.
  • Center of rails or editor spline, the heartline comes from the coaster style or you set your own.
  • Every change rebuilds the curve. Reload reads the file again after you saved in NL2.
  • The csv track spline export still imports, if you have it.
  • The roll near vertical track that the old extension got wrong is fixed.

Installation

The extension is installed from a remote repository, so updates come through Blender itself. The GitHub page has detailed instructions with screenshots, and the zip for a manual install is on the releases page there.

It is still in alpha stage, so feel free to report bugs on GitHub.

What is open

Terrain import is next, maybe supports after that, maybe something else, who knows.