The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

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JohnDecodes
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by JohnDecodes »

So, I’ve still been trudging along with the project and I found out why everything looked so washed out. Importing the textures as the original BMP files washed out the colour when creating the material, so I had to convert them all to JPEG to make it match the original game. Had to manually reimport all textures and reapply, so it took ages. There were 4,300 images to convert, so I almost gave up on the project lol.

I’ve been adding the voice over to their locations, and been focusing on the Lab and its buildings and interiors. InGen Town & the Summit have the most man-made furnishings placed, the Lab is getting there, and the Beach is almost blocked out, whilst Jungle Road is a void.

I’ve been looking for modern models of the flora on the island. Once I have enough I plan to use Unreal’s landscaping tools to paint them onto the island.

I’m thinking of using dinosaur assets from the Unreal store, if the project progresses enough. And possibly having a first person shooter set-up, with a Half-Life 2 style object pick-up system. But not sure yet. But If I can code Anne’s arm to be controllable, and magnet grab objects, maybe the guns wouldn’t be too hard to do, because they don’t need reload animations or ammo pickups. Just a line trace fired from the barrel with an occasional muzzle flash.

Just seen the news of wohoyefe’s HD remake, I’ll have to give a go and get inspired again, because I’m feeling burnt out lol.

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tatu
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by tatu »

Neat! Nice to see projects like this still going on. Take your time and do it as long as you find it enjoyable. :)
Active project: Trespasser: Isla Sorna
Status:
BE-PH1: Released
PH2-IT: Pre-released
PL-SUM: In production

"...there used to be more benches, but InGen's workers removed them during the evacuation in the name of framerate."
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Draconisaurus
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by Draconisaurus »

I was thinking, Tatu uses gradual jobs like foliage fixing as a de-stress activity. Might work with textures? If you set aside timeline goals and just do the work as you feel it, it may help a lot. It's not like the forum is about to disappear.

That lighting, I see the washout you mean. Are you sure there is no way to decrease the lighting intensity? Maybe it's just the way that game does outdoor settings, idk.
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TheIdiot
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by TheIdiot »

Beautiful looking thusfar, really looks like Tres but of course with much-superior lighting. Is this all one level or are they broken-up into the game's sequence?

For the flora - one thing I've noted is that evidently a number of the plants in Trespasser do not match their CInstance names. I've never been able to find those tall, green shrubs that appear similar to an elephant-ear plant, for example...if you're able to work out which is which, I would really appreciate if you were able to take a moment to give us a short list of which plant is which. :wink:
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by Draconisaurus »

Trespasser plant identification sounds fairly nice. I would enjoy knowing if any particular species much resembles the appearance of the "canopy" trees found in the jungle biome. Also TI is right; there are willows in Trespasser but they don't seem very.. willow-y.
JohnDecodes
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by JohnDecodes »

Thanks, the levels are broken-up into the retail game’s sequences, but theoretically it should be possible to combine them all.

The plant identification sounds pretty relaxing, have to give it a go.
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by JohnDecodes »

Hello, thought I’d just give a little update for anyone following this project. After realising the limitations of the project as it stood, I decided to start over from scratch. Currently most of the Beach done, and the InGen Town itself, with some vegetation sprinkled in.

The new version has the following enhancements:

- Some singular building models are split into a few pieces in blender and imported as individual models. E.g. shelves imported separately instead of being attached to house walls by default, meaning pre-set building decorations can be hand placed and moved. This means when copy and pasting Technician Bungalows each can have a more unique interior instead of all being the same pre-set.

- Trespasser models that have gaps or transparent holes in them, created either accidentally or in the name of performance, have had the gaps filled with duplicated texture faces.

- Any physics objects can be picked up and held directly in front of the player. However this control scheme can now be used to open physics-based doors that can be clicked and dragged to open, or be walked into. This is also used for shelf doors and has allowed for physics-based seesaws, like the Beach’s wooden ramp.

- A new sound queue system has been created, so if the player walks into a VO trigger, it will place the sound in the queue and check to make sure no other VO is playing, to stop audio tracks overlapping.

- VO will stop playing if Anne’s health reaches zero.

- If Anne walks too far into the ocean, the player’s controls lock and the screen fades to black as an Ichthyosaur call plays with the sound of splashing water.

- Two new sound systems for spherical vs non-spherical physics objects, to check if the object is impacting fast enough with a surface for a collision sound to be played, to help combat audio spamming with stuck objects.

- Super basic weapon system, walking over a gun will place it in Anne’s right hand where it can be fired or dropped. Physics objects can still be picked up whilst holding a gun.


* As a reflection I’d love to emulate the arm system from the original game, even if it’s just the arm meeting where the objects held. Also for guns to be treated like regular physics objects but can be fired, instead of having a separate control system. However that’s out of my wheelhouse for now.

However this project as a whole has given me a much larger appreciation for this game, and all the subsystems in it, like raptors with physic-based movement and an array of behaviour types, to the game recognising when you’re dragging an object and playing a drag SFX instead of a simple collision bump SFX, to holstering weapons onto Anne’s person. Such an impressive achievement, especially in 1998. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how they got this stuff working as well as they did.

It seems such a shame this tech started in 1998 but hasn’t had any modern incarnations from game studios looking to improve the tech. It wasn’t until I tried to emulate it, that I realised just how much lightning they’d caught in a bottle. That being said, I am very excited for any update on s13n1’s Trespasser VR, because it looks incredible and gives me hope.
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by Draconisaurus »

It's nice to hear someone in the modern day discover in-depth the uniqueness of Tres. Very unusual game.

I see Muldoon's name plaque! I never thought to put it above the door, but that could easily be where it would've gone...
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by spinaxoraptor »

It looks great and something I'd spend my monies on If this launches as a game :lol:
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tatu
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by tatu »

Too bad there hasn't been any updates since August :(
Active project: Trespasser: Isla Sorna
Status:
BE-PH1: Released
PH2-IT: Pre-released
PL-SUM: In production

"...there used to be more benches, but InGen's workers removed them during the evacuation in the name of framerate."
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spinaxoraptor
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Re: The Beach level exported into Unreal 4

Post by spinaxoraptor »

tatu wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:11 pm Too bad there hasn't been any updates since August :(
Yea I actually planned doing trespasser in roblox by spending time on combining textures because they are multiple textures and was so exhausting.
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