Been working away on this all day long, placing plant after plant after plant...
Though it IS extremely tedious doing this, the results definitely pay off when you can specify what plants you want where and at what angle exactly (ignore the bad palm textures in the left-hand image, haven't corrected those yet):
Creating a variety in the roughness and object use in small areas such as the one on the right really make things look more realistic, creating hallows and dirt-covered hills. The bumpy valley to the right of the road is a change in scenery from the lush jungle road between the beach and the Raptor encounter. I have made this area much smoother terrain-wise, but left its rough design using props and TrnObjs instead of the ugly terrain that originally makes it annoyingly difficult to traverse.
I've also moved the first box puzzle forward a bit from its original position, which also allows me to prevent players from seeing the brachiosaurs until they have finished the puzzle. The strangely-placed boxes themselves are also gone, which means that players will need to find a different way to ascend the ledge if they want to continue along the road. When I move on to Jungle Road and the other levels, I'll definitely be removing the strangely stacked and random boxes everywhere, forcing you to be a bit more creative or find an alternate route to pass obstacles along the road. Your motivation to stay on the road is that most of the plants now have collision added to them so that it is a bit more difficult to walk through dense flora, as well as allow me to add "Bouncy" magnets to them ala JPDS to add a bit of realism. I figure that the extreme density of the flora combined with the collision will motivate you to stick to the road once you begin encountering predators as you won't be able to see a Raptor until it's right on top of you.
On the subject of enemies, I do definitely plan to include a few extra dinosaurs that weren't in the original game: compsognathus, gallimimus, and possibly one or two others. I don't want to add too many more dinosaurs as I feel that it could quickly get out of hand, but I really want to do something to break up the constant stream of Raptors everywhere. Overall, the dinosaurs will have much less health (as is realistic); to counter this, there will be far, far, FAR less guns. I want to return to the survival-horror elements that were originally intended for the game, so the jungle itself will definitely get darker, foggier and more full of hostile creatures as it goes on, becoming the most threatening during Plantation House.
That being said: would anyone like to perhaps see time-of-day change a little bit more rapidly over the levels? I'd really like to have Town take place at night to make it feel a bit more like the movie (plus to try out some new lighting effects), and thematically I feel that sunset definitely fits the ending of the game to give a bit of a visual connection to both vanilla and the ending of Jurassic Park. What I'm thinking:
Beach - Early Afternoon (Bright, sunny - welcoming)
Jungle Road - Late Afternoon (Still quite bright, but shadows are a bit deeper and colors more lush)
Plantation House - Sunset (Shadows reach maximum darkness, fog rolls in, a hint of a purplish hue over everything)
Industrial Jungle - Dusk/Early night (Less eerie than PH. Moonlight has not fully lit the island, leaving a bit of darkness)
InGen Town - Midnight (Moon is up, everything is a bit brighter and covered in a dark-blue hue as in TLW's night scenes)
Plains - Early morning/sunrise (Sky is pale blue and fog is beginning to disappear into the distance again)
Pine Valley - Morning (Still a bit less colorful, but overall back to the same brightness as BE and JR)
Laboratory - Midday (Bright and sunny once again, but a bit more cloudy than day one)
Mayan Village - Early Afternoon (Clouds are a bit darker, somewhat rain-like even, and everything is a bit greyer)
Ascent - Late Afternoon (Similar sky as MV, but shadows start to get deeper again)
Summit - Sunset (High contrast, purple sky, very similar to original dramatic AS-SUM sky and atmosphere)
What does everyone think of that timing? Do you like the atmosphere being a bit more spread out and varied, or should it stay the same as it was in the original (first 8 levels are during the day, and the last 3 are during sunset)?