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Aah yes, this is an interesting one I remember reading about years ago (pre-build 96). Just read your post on it as I had not heard the entire story...funny that it was assumed to be placed in Pine Valley when there is actually a "hidden village" in that level. I find the creative thinking empolyed by this community prior to the discovery of the early builds especially worth digging deeper into as there are some really interesting and unique idea going on there, which could definitely do with a revival in future levels.
I wonder what ever became of those old Town models, anyway? Hopefully one day they can be unearthed as they are rather intriguing, like the View Building.

After reading this, I would like to see a post on the early Pine Valley theories that led to some of the "Pine Valley Curse" levels, like Pine Valley Run and elements of the Trespasser Reloaded concept.

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Glad you liked it.

Which old town models are you referring to?


Hmm I should be able to... Elements of the Trespasser Reloaded concept. You'll have to remind me.

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->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

The ones you mentioned in your post and are in the image above - that old, overgrown church and the ruined building next to it.


No worries, I'll spam your inbox.
Also, not sure if this fits in with your blog's idea too much, but I would like to get an in-depth rundown on some of the planned but never realized stuff you had planned for JPDS. I feel that many of those ideas could certainly serve as inspiration, and I would also be interested to hear what kind of thought went into these ideas and the practicality of them (like the train ride).

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Ohh those models okay.


No I meant, that I don't remember my early Tres Reloaded plans too closely. If there are any parts you'd like to see included, you'll have to point them out.

RE: JPDS blog posts. Possibly one day. This blog for now is focused on Trespasser itself, with limited references to fan mods. It does sound appealing.

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

I'm more curious as to what lead to the level selection and layout. I recall the Reloaded version of Industrial Jungle/IT being very strange as it seemed there was something weird going on with the island map, and I think it would be interesting to hear more about why decisions like this were made, what kind of research went into it, etc, as presumably much of this was done based on pre-build 96 guesswork. What I guess I'm most interested in is hearing more about what theories were presented before the discovery of the missing levels and such, like your Hidden Village post.

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

I see. There were a few of those theories around. At the moment I remember some PV ones. I'll have to see what I can dig up.

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

Next blog post. An analysis of the gorge strip from Jungle Road across the builds. The Gorge of Jungle Road.

https://thetrespasserfrontier.tumblr.co ... ungle-road

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

Lovely read!

As for those road objects used in JR. After we got the MAX scene of JR, I personally think the road was used as road-markers. Either for the devs when working on the level, or for the player to guide them. I don't think they were meant to actually act as a road.

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Active project: Trespasser: Isla Sorna - Working on PH2-IT (and experimental BE-IT).

"...there used to be more benches, but InGen's workers removed them during the evacuation in the name of framerate."

Thanks.


Well what do you mean? How would they act or not as a road ingame or for InGen?

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

Do to their position. In the MAX scene, the road follows the path of the monorail position. I think it was guideline for that mainly. Of course it might've meant to be a road that was going along the monorail. But the ones in later builds are so off the path as well as they still seem like waypoints to me. But I guess they were meant to go along the monorail.

_________________
Active project: Trespasser: Isla Sorna - Working on PH2-IT (and experimental BE-IT).

"...there used to be more benches, but InGen's workers removed them during the evacuation in the name of framerate."

By request, today's post is about a PV topic - The PV Tar Pits.

https://thetrespasserfrontier.tumblr.co ... v-tar-pits

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

Been reading all these for some bedtime stuff - keep 'em coming!

The gorge always struck me as something that was butchered in the final rush of development and never really appeared as I think the developers had envisioned in any version. Interestingly as you mentioned it does seem that the gorge texture itself follows along with where they intended to put bottlenecks for puzzles, which are present in the walkthrough but never implemented (although the pieces of them are there). Personally I feel that the early version dirt road (before it ended up as the B96 broken one that climbs the mountains) was meant to be there as such a thing would likely exist for the workers building the monorail, and to act as a guide for the player through the level. The broken-up roads in the final build seem to have been just thrown in without much thought on top of terrain that by this point was so jagged it all ended up looking extremely ugly. You can totally tell where the terrain was hastily raised late in development to close off the majority of JR.
I wonder, do those patchy B96 JR roads match up with any of the earlier terrains? That might give us a clue as to when the terrain was made the way it is in B96, as it's possible those roads were added before the terrain was made so rough.

Never really knew about the tar pits, thanks for posting that one - that was the kind of thing I was hoping to see more of. They definitely look like tar pits to me, though it seems they were never actually implemented into the game anywhere. Funny that they did seem to make all those assets, though...I bet those tar pits exist on some dusty old hard drive somewhere. It seems to me like this scene uses assets that were possibly intended for the game but never made it in, or were replaced by improved versions (as with the skeleton). That "red machine" is an odd thing, for sure...perhaps some kind of early Geo Plant asset, as you suggested, along with the View Building. I find it odd that the developers made these assets but never implemented them, unless of course they're in like Build 005 or something.
I believe the patchy area at the end of PV is simply a byproduct of the developers hastily adding in the mountain to the north of the Geo Plant, as with a lot of the odd jagged terrain that occured by B96. It seems they noticed how poor it looked and tried to disguise it with some sand objects, unlike what JR ended up looking like.

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Glad they are useful. 8 )

For the road irregularness, I'm afraid I can't find the oldest JR Max Scene level (Tatu where did you put it??), but my "JR Unloaded" level used the original road trnobj(s) and an only slightly modified terrain. Below you can see that it goes uninterrupted up along the Final Exam. If you compare it with retail, you'll see the route is the same; the developer has just re-done it using smaller sections.
The terrain at that point in development was extremely flat, but not entirely so. Up closer you can see that even super-early, the JR road goes right over a sheer ridge. What were the dev's thoughts? Maybe they planned to use trnobjs to make it look like a washout. Maybe they just didn't care? There are two paralell logics which are both important but disagree with eachother: "The road must follow the monorail" and "The Player path must be interrupted by puzzles".



These assets seem to be super-early on. In my analysis they predate a development so much that it seems they restarted from scratch sometime afterward, and with lower quality. Not sure why.

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton

Those are good points about the road, I hadn't looked much at that road. Still, it is odd that the roads in this level look nothing like the roads in the final version, which themselves look nothing like any of the roads anywhere else. It seems the early road was meant to be only a temporary asset - I wonder how long this road persisted until later builds? Look at the early PV, its road stayed roughly the same in all versions we have...perhaps JR was worked on later which resulted in a more rushed approach and lack of a proper road model.

_________________
Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Funnily enough, I think the walkthrough mentions that the road is barely visible due to jungle-reclaiming since 1989. Maybe the dev said to himself, "oops", or maybe he was always planning to cover it up with things later.

_________________
->Tres2020 Starter Kit

"Well, as long as you're under there, you can check the breakers," Thorne said. ... "There's a box right behind the front bumper. Over on the left."
"I see it." [said Sarah]
...
"The box is in backward. Flip all the switches the other way. Are you dry?"
"No, Doc. I'm soaking wet, lying in the damn mud."
~Michael Crichton