TresCom Forums

Going to claim the level now.

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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

Glad to see you Rebel.

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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."

Alright, spent a few hours today and put in some things. Brought in those new terrain textures, used some of them. Put in a TresCom van you may wish to check out. And in the Discord we figured out to import 3 new buildings from TheIdiot's "Trespasser Reborn" mod, two of which are hppav's models. They're not quite physical but they help move things along. It does seem we ought to also work on the town as we go, since it is so large and complex.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/atjywo3p ... 16.7z/file

_________________
->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

Oof, you guys are using my old motel model? That's...not my best work. Was actually the first new building model I ever made, and you can totally tell - it's made of nothing but GMax boxes. Might I suggest a different model in its place? Or if someone wants to touch it up and make it a bit less shoddy, that would work as well. I just don't want something of mine that's so sub-par in the level.
Also, the wooden Town corner building ("saloon") has a better model somewhere with a completed interior and doors from a different version of hppav's Town level. His barracks might have an improved model as well, but I'd have to check. I know the other Ops Center film set buildings all have improved versions.

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Claiming this now, let's see how it goes...

https://www.mediafire.com/file/i5ek0ptu ... y.zip/file

Newest version. Level is becoming unstable, unfortunately :/

TresGuy, I'm reading your changelog and seeing that apparently opening the menu crashes the game now? That's one I've never heard of. This level isn't detailed enough to really seem like it should be unstable already, especially considering the previous Tres20 level and how detailed it became.

I have looked around the level in TresEd as well as run it through GeomAdd trying to work out potential causes for any instability (should also check with GUIApp). The main thing I'm noticing which could likely cause crashes is that there is a lot of unoptimized terrain in these areas:
- Stream leading from bronto skull waterfall
- Valley from town entrance train station -> beach near Aviary road
- Town plateaus (and base of Town valley)
- Area around the incomplete mine
- Entrance/exit to underground bunker
- Minor: the new mountain behind the town could also use a bit of optimization

I highly recommend these areas of terrain be optimized, either by their original designers or someone who is willing to do a pass on that, in order to maintain stability. Additionally, the triggers I used for the weather set-up could probably be tweaked a bit to reduce view distance and terrain rendering detail if the issue remains once the terrain has been optimized (I have tested these values extensively in the past however and have determined them to be okay, provided the terrain is optimized as well as possible).

The only other thing I noticed which could lead to trouble is the Palette Count, which is currently at 80 out of 98. It might be a good idea to combine some redundant palettes and use the CE HD texture function to replace any textures which lose too much colour.

Also, TresGuy - how did you determine that hppav's buildings were causing crashes? I've never noticed them causing trouble in other past levels.

On a side note, the newest changes look good. The adjusted mountains feel a lot better, makes things seem less overly-huge. Thanks for removing that crappy motel of mine...we can always bring it back if it's popular enough, provided we can't come up with a replacement. I am sad that hppav's buildings had to go and hope the optimization of the level improves so they can return.

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

An interesting part of level fine-tuning I haven't explored before. In JPDS it did begin to crash the level, and I had to keep the rivers and construction site terrain detail down to a minimum. I can have a look at that in this level later; I must admit I'm a bit inexperienced in recent Tres craft at this particular size/complexity of map.


Could you go into detail here? I have zero experience tweaking those values. I might even as if you could do a pass at the level, and just do that part on it.


Palette count is actually being well-maintained by J7 and myself. We're using the JPDS .PAL file selection released with Tres Twilight/Millennium, only rarely creating new ones. So the high number you see stems from the total selected of that group, or close to it. As well the upper limit I learned is 128 rather than 98. At each new import he and I re-do texture's palettes using Wally.

TrespasserGuy, I like the terrain mod. Def. should help us hone in on the remaining areas during development.

_________________
->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

Okay, I'm just gonna claim the level for now. I'll try and get the terrain optimized...got plenty of experience in that from the Isla Sorna project.

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

_________________
->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

Alright, here's my quick fix for now. Optimized the terrain a lot around the towns, added some simple occlusion objects in the most completed areas, slightly reduced terrain rendering quality (not noticable). Hopefully this improves performance and stops the crashing.
I also replaced the parasaur and ankylosaurs with my new ones...the anky could probably use a better-rigged version of that model, though, as its jaw looks broken when it eats (I used a different one from what we had before, if someone wants to restore it with the new skin and naming convention). I couldn't get the baryonyx to look right so I left Draco's.
And finally, I added my Trespasser billboard to the level at the start as well.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/mc35ihkr ... t.zip/file

If all current developers could give the level a quick flythrough/walkthrough to make sure it's stable and report if any trouble is encountered, I would appreciate it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I gave the level a proper mod folder set-up. All of the TexHW stuff that wasn't added in this update needs to be added to said mod folder.

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

TI I'm glad to see you finally do a version. Have you done one before? I forget.

Looking in TresEd, I don't notice the terrain detail difference. Could indicate my not paying enough attention to that aspect. Looking now I feel more quad-combining is possible.

Did actually get to see the normalmap on the Anky by watching the one who is eating ingame. Looks great! And his colors stand at more as well.

That billboard looks great. I'm starting to feel we could have a number of neat things slotted there at the start of the level.

I'm afraid I can't give a stability report, as this level doesn't really crash for me.

Hmmm ohhh you mean the textures in \map\ need to be put in \map\TresCom20. Will do.

And, here is the new base files folder (which contains all non-level files unlike the version releases):
https://www.mediafire.com/file/mamom7pu ... 22.7z/file

_________________
->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 game crashes before fully loading the level on my end :/

Yeah, I'm the one who added the lake area with the serpent skeletons and the giant rock formations around the starting ocean area.


That's the idea. I avoided combining quads if it would damage the structure of the terrain itself, hence why there are still several areas that are higher-detail.


Thanks, did you check the parasaurs as well? They also got new textures. The anky skin is based on one from and old JPOG mod, and then I added details from the JP3 film over it.


I guess we could, the actual sign part is its own Unlit model so it could be animated.


That sounds like a stability report to me.


Huh. Very strange. Does it get to the end of the load bar and then immediately crash? I've seen plenty of levels with much higher detail (some of which you've made yourself) which haven't caused trouble. Might have something to do with your trespasser.ini again.
I can try forcing normal detail settings in this level's .ini to ensure it isn't running at excessively high quality. I honestly don't like that CE by default comes with excessively high rendering settings which override the optimization work we might have done manually in our levels (vial Culling, CacheDist, etc) as it can lead to stability problems like that if the settings are too high.

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Current Project: Cloning Facility | My Release Thread

Didn't quite see those one's normalmaps while looking in the basement. I'm notoriously bad at being able to see them.


Oh neat!

Maybe we can put in a sign thing which lets people know that there is a town somewhere in the level. Thinking of the BE sign, but a lot smaller of course.

_________________
->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