Jumped into this project for a bit more work:
While looking at the original terrain, it seemed there was some sort of streambed or ditch on the far side of the foundations from where you start, so I decided to do a bit more with that and make it a full-out dried stream. Coincidentally, my tree placement created this awesome view down to the beach.
You can also see that I have changed to fog to the same blue color as the sky to make it look more realistic when blending in the distance - still tweaking it, though I think it's good for now. Just want to make everything a bit brighter, as the old walkthrough says that the jungle immediately after the beach is still rather bright. It's not until PH that things get really foggy and dark.
Looks awesome, I'll try running it on my Voodoo 5 soon. Any idea if the CE will break GLIDE? I haven't downloaded it yet cuz I'm not switching to DX9.
Can't say, but I'm pretty sure you can disable the DX9 rendering in CE. I somehow doubt that this beast will run on such an old card, but I'd love to see you give it a go.
TI, this looks great! The lack of perceptible difference between terrain and models in CE looks rather a lot like newer games. That cliffline is sweet.
Yeah, I've tried to cover the entire blank terrain in some sort of groundcover to prevent the terrain looking out-of-place, though in the more open areas it will be blank (don't worry, it still works). Might also go create a custom mesh for the cliff, too, though that's not priority.
At first while I was watching this, I wasn't digging the use of TC foliage in an original Tres level but it's grown on me, while reading the thread, to the point that I love it.
I actually tried this first using the original foliage, but ditched it in the end. It looked sort of messy and some of the models are quite obviously low-poly, plus I wanted to make it look more like the Isla Sorna seen in the movies with darker colors. Think of this as more of a "re-imagining".
About the sunrays. I'm afraid that, yes, OpacityChannel only goes up/down in increments. However, you could use 24-bit textures on always-face models to achieve a dither affect.. Not 100% sure it would look right but you could test (and post screens even if it doesn't look right
).
Crap. Well, I guess dithering could work, though I'm not certain what you have in mind...maybe a mock-up screenshot to clarify? I'm also trying to avoid the use of always-face models since they look sort of goofy rotating with you (even the billboard trees in this level are rotated by hand to face the right way).
Ah, now eventually you do plan to have dinosaurs on your, on your dinosaur tour, right?
...I really hate this man.
But yes, I'll be including all of the dinosaurs originally in this level, with better-quality models and all, plus perhaps a couple of extras to spice things up a bit. So far, I've tweaked and imported one of the Barrel-Full-O-Raptors skins for the TC~Isle Raptor, though it seems that I'll have to make my own JPOG brachiosaur skin. I found one from an old JPOG Trespasser project, but I'm not sure I like it too much. Additionally, from what I have read, the developers may have intended to include gallimimus and compsognathus as well, so I might throw in a couple of compies somewhere for good measure.