Drac's Pencil Mods

Creating new content for Trespasser!

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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by Draconisaurus »

Thanks! More coming soon.
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by Draconisaurus »

Alright, after some breathing room, here is the next pencil mod. Not quite as pretty IMO, but hopefully still mod-inspiring.

Stone Pass 1
Description in image. The trees used here are the brown-colored models from machf's Greenhouse. Terrain textures left to the imagination.
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by TheIdiot »

Draco inspired me to do something similar, so I just sort of doodled in Paint for a while and eventually ended up forming my own level sketch. Feel free to recreate it or take ideas from it in your own levels! I deliberately designed it in such a way that it could easily be broken down into small levels ala Trespasser Guy's Palm Gate levels. Description of everything is in the spoiler. :)
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(Click on thumbnail for full size)
Image
"Jurassic Valleys"
Spoiler: show
1. Anne begins in her crashed plane, up in a tree. She must imbalance the plane so that the rear part reaches down low enough that she can jump to the branches below, from which point she can descend to the ground.
2. Finding herself in a misty jungle valley, Anne traverses the dense foliage, passing a small pond in which a lone herbivore wades before coming to a fork. The left fork will take her through a narrow pass, which leads into a smaller valley where, hidden amongst the rocks and foliage, is the entrance to a large cave. More on that later. The right path leads past a ruined vehicle (weapon?) uphill to the top of a short plateau, upon which is a small wooden shack as well as a little, dug-out area where workers appear to have been excavating amber. Inside of the shed can be found some general digging junk, as well as the pickaxe, which Anne will need for the next segment.
3. Inside of the cave, the ground descends roughly until it reaches what appears to be a dead-end - a pile of large boulders have blocked the cave up ahead, but there is clearly more to see beyond these boulders. Using the pick axe on the boulders will dislodge them and open the way further into the caverns.
4. The cavern opens up and a shaft of light carries through the celing here. Stalagmites and stalagtites line the walls, and a wooden walkway traverses up and over a pile of ancient boulders. As Anne follows the walkway, it rounds a bottomless pit on the left, over which is a precarious section of walkway teetering above the darkness, which creaks if she steps on it but does not drop (or, alternately, perhaps part of it drops away inches in front of her feet?). At the end of the walkway, the cavern goes deeper, and Anne passes the ominous skeleton of some long-dead dinosaur on her way.
5. Beyond the pit, the cavern passes through a narrow section and becomes darker before it opens up again, this time at the edge of a small underground lake. Heading down to the water's edge, Anne discovers a little boat (or raft) on the shore. She can climb aboard (ASA animations or CEntityAttached) and sail out into the dark lake. As soon as she does so, however, a lone large aquatic carnivore makes is presence known, and Anne must fend it off as she crosses the lake (maybe you have a tranq gun with limited ammo, or when it is shot it descends below the black water for a few seconds by killing/resurrecting and then teleporting elsewhere?). Once she is on the other side, she can proceed up a very narrow passage which the carnivore cannot follow through, where the cavern brightens up before opening up again to the outside.
6. Anne exits the cave and finds herself at the bottom of a rocky incline, at the top of which is a loud, snorting sound. She must use various logs and other terrain features in order to make her way to the top. This becomes more difficult about halfway up when the occasional object is suddenly thrown over the top of the incline at dangerous speeds; she must avoid these as she climbs to the top. When she makes it there, she finds the source of the thrown objects to be a lone aggressive herbivore, which is currently fending off a pair of small carnivores - the source of the noise.
7. Passing or assisting the dino-battle, Anne finds a trail through the jungle which ends at a tall, metal gate, built into a concrete wall. There is not clear way inside at the moment as the switch which would open the gate is non-functional. However, the trail leads off in a different direction through some rough, dense jungle, which soon runs past a distinct, black cable on the ground. Though the trail is heavily overgrown, Anne can follow the cable until she bumps into a chain-link fence.
8. The fence at the end of the trail surrounds a small compound in the jungle. The gate is open, and Anne can head inside and explore what seems to be a generator station, made up of two buildings and some transformers. The smaller building is a simple storage structure, perhaps with something good inside, and the larger building is the generator control shed itself. At the rear of the building, behind another chain-link fence (this time locked - she can break the lock with a hammer from the storage building or shoot it off), is the breaker box, which she can re-activate in order to enable the power. As soon as she does so, though, a Raptor leaps out from some boxes behind her (or comes through the roof, maybe?), and another Raptor makes itself known on the trail outside, while the herbivore and the other combatants, if still standing, are removed at this point (to prevent the player from leading the Raptors to the herbivore).
9. With the power enabled, Anne can flip the switch at the gate and access the large compound beyond. To her immediate left is a small security building which would normally operate the gate; clockwise from that is an electrical building of some sort which isn't especially interesting; following that is a small parking lot with a couple of jeeps; then, across a VC-style pond, the large lab building, next to which is another gate which is the exit to this area; and finally, to her right, is a low bunkhouse. The compound is devoid of dinosaurs for the moment.
10. To get through the final gate, Anne needs to do something in each building: first, she must obtain the electrical building key from the Security Chief's room in the security building. Second, she must disable the breaker for the bunkhouse in the electrical building, which unlocks the keycarded doors to the interior rooms (turn off their lights or do something else obvious to make this clear). Once she does this, however, an alarm will sound - it seems this time InGen was prepared for industrial sabotauge - and after a time it is answered by a distant large carnivore's roar. Soon after, a lone tyrannosaurus batters down the northern wall and enters the compound (perhaps it can flip some Moveable cars or damage other things? Knock down trees? Smash holes in buildings?), making things more difficult. Anne now must find the access code to the lab building inside of the bunkhouse, or perhaps do something else in the bunkhouse to get into the Lab. Finally, she can access the lab building, where on the second floor she will find something with which she can get break the lock/control panel for the exit gate (maybe a laser? Jar of acid? Plastic explosive?). She can avoid the tyrannosaur and flip the final switch, which opens the exit gate. The Rex cannot follow through the gate, and the road ahead rounds a bend, ending the level.
EDIT: Oh, just noticed your Stone Pass post! Looks really cool, Drac. I hope someone brings it to life as well as I really liked how your Palm Gate levels were adapted.
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by Draconisaurus »

Oh, just noticed your Stone Pass post! Looks really cool, Drac. I hope someone brings it to life as well as I really liked how your Palm Gate levels were adapted.
Thanks TI. I am interested to see that sort of more-precarious rock jumping puzzle in a level.

Rather nice pencil mod you've made! Does it have a name yet? I'm glad this is becoming a thing.

The tipping plane sounds quite cool if it can be carried off. Reminds me of the Island Express bus I made to be moveable. I also appreciate the variety of settings compared to Palm Gate. This might make it take longer to make, but seems like a great level. Your level does seem more full of "stop and figure out what to do next" moments.

I give it an 8 out of 10.
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by TheIdiot »

Thanks TI. I am interested to see that sort of more-precarious rock jumping puzzle in a level.
I was immediately reminded of the Blighted Forest area from the walkthrough, with the rough platforming across a gorge via logs and rocks.
Rather nice pencil mod you've made! Does it have a name yet? I'm glad this is becoming a thing.
Ah, yes, I forgot - it was tentatively called "Jurassic Valleys". I enjoy conceptualizing levels this was as I find that even if the level is never made, it puts ideas out there that could be useful elsewhere.
The tipping plane sounds quite cool if it can be carried off. Reminds me of the Island Express bus I made to be moveable.
Yeah, I think it can definitely be done. Just use a simplified physics-version of the Smuggler Plane and reduce the Mass.
I also appreciate the variety of settings compared to Palm Gate. This might make it take longer to make, but seems like a great level. Your level does seem more full of "stop and figure out what to do next" moments.
It's definitely larger, but like I said you could probably break it up into smaller levels as with Palm Gate. I designed it so that there are sort of four main areas which could be made seperately - the valley with the parasaur/crashed plane-the cave, the caverns/underground lake, the second valley/power station, and finally the main facility. I was considering making at least the first valley myself but don't want to distract from my other projects.
I give it an 8 out of 10.
:D Thanks!
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by Draconisaurus »

I enjoy conceptualizing levels this was as I find that even if the level is never made, it puts ideas out there that could be useful elsewhere.
Right. The act of creating these pencil mod maps is a sort of modding all its own.

I should make some more, myself...
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by Second Illiteration »

You know, these have me thinking I might have a go at something like this. I definitely don't have the time to create levels...or even get the game running and play it. But I always still have the urge to contribute something
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by machf »

Hey, S.I., how's it going?
Second Illiteration wrote:But I always still have the urge to contribute something
Hmmm... how about some skins based on those Atrociousaurs from Dominion?
Visit The Carnivores Saga - a forum devoted to modding Action Forms' Carnivores, Carnivores 2 and Carnivores: Ice Age games
Tres WIP: updated T-Script Reference and File Formats documents
Sound name listings for the Demo (build 117), Retail (build 116), Beta 103, Beta 99, Beta 97, Beta 96, Build 55, PC Gamer Alpha (build 32) and E3 1998 Alpha (build 22) TPA files
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by Draconisaurus »

New Pencil Mod. Thanks again to TheIdiot for the concept of doing these.

This one's called "Jungle Outpost", 1 through 4. Similar to the previous, they all actually go in the same level, so it's similar to IJ1/2/3 this way. I got to thinking some days back, that there's already some amount of Tres presence of people trying to get at InGen's data and bring it back with them. Maybe it's not overdone yet, but it seemed pretty unoriginal as I was thinking about it. So then I remembered this line of Hammond's:

I can picture them, moving cautiously through the dusty rooms in bulky biohazard gear, clutching rifles, poring over our records, reading our files...

So some of the thievery target might be physical documents. Thus, the "Outdate Document Library" was conceived of, where InGen kept all its documents that were no longer needed at whatever space they were originally stored in. Infiltrating it is the goal of this level.
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This time around, I decided to do actual sketches of the ingame content. As with Palm Gate, a rendered version of this level need not follow the pencil/pen exactly. Some buildings are put together using building-blocks, while the Outdate Document Library is a dark retexture of the retail Admin building from LAB.
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PencilMods_JO_CrobarValley.png
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by TheIdiot »

Liking the concept there, looks pretty straightforward. If I were doing that level in TresEd, I'd probably focus heavily on detail and making the level look good since it seems relatively small from what I can see. I like the variety in scenery as well, and the detail on your drawings is quite impressive as well - it's very clear what you're going for here without the key, even. And the concept art is great as well, really helps to clarify what we're looking at...it's also obvious what exactly these buildings would look like before they're even assembled properly! My only suggestion is to perhaps lighten up on the pencil strokes when it comes to the dense grass on your grid paper as it does distract a bit from the other things in the negative space. :)
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by tatu »

Really nice concept. I wonder if Trespasser ever got this much :P
Active project: Trespasser: Isla Sorna
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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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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by Draconisaurus »

Thanks TI!
Yeah the level is only slightly larger than how big TrespasserGuy made PalmGate. I also had in mind that anyone who recreates this could add their own details.
Huh, yeah the grass detail did get a bit thick in the pencil strokes. As I went, I couldn't remember how I'd made them appear softer, so I didn't sweat it and kept going...
Really nice concept. I wonder if Trespasser ever got this much :P
Thanks. Hmmm well maybe some areas?.. There is an aspect of making a map like this, where it takes a bit out of the artistic freedom when going to make the actual level. I do quite wonder what pencil/pen maps they may have used that we've never seen. Certainly something was done up for planning the voiceover scripts.
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by Draconisaurus »

Alright, time to post my next pencil mod. This one was especially fun, and differs significantly in the up-down aspect which is missing from a top-down view. "Mountain Top" (MT) is another small mod with some admittedly simple puzzles that takes Anne up the side of a Sorna mountain somewhere, where an observation outpost watches over the slope.
PencilMods_MT_Intro.png
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Once Anne reaches the observation outpost itself, there aren't any designed puzzles. You can use the telescope to look out over the valley if you feel like it (it uses the FOV settings such as the scoped rifle in TC Isle). Inside the "hangar" are 3 glider packs, inspired by TLW concept art. You fly one of these to safety, perhaps via ASA animation.
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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by tatu »

Neeat! Now this is something for someone to recreate as an actual level ;)
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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Re: Drac's Pencil Mods

Post by Draconisaurus »

Thanks Tatu. :statue: Most of the areas aren't so complex.
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