Trespassing - A Trespasser Remake / Re-Telling

[Dragonlord]

You could make it a tempest blew over some heavy trees damaging the fences or causing a back door entrance by laying on the fence (climb along the tree trunk to get in). Or some landslide caused by ground errion damaging the walls or otherwise providing an elevation where you can get in with a bit of box stacking.

[s13n1]

Here's a quick concept for the town layout.

Town Layout.jpg (483.07 KiB) Viewed 11932 times

It's by no means to scale or accurate in details, but it gives you an idea.
I will be altering the landscape a little too, adding some slight variations to the terrain height and shape.
Also note that the buildings aren't actually pointing in the right direction, thy're just icons.

There will be variations on many of the houses that are half constructed, they wont all be just frames like in Trespasser. Some will be half covered in plaster, others will be just a slab, or some will be almost complete but with severe weather damage.

I've included the image in the corner as a reference to some of the town images ive been going off. I liked this design and decided to use it.
I tried to find some full size set photos or concept drawings of the InGen town but i didn't have much luck. I started going through the production photos on the DVD's and found some interested photos that showed some new perspectives, but i haven't been through them all yet.

Remember, this is just a WIP and will most likely change soon. In fact the current version is a little different to the above image anyway.

[s13n1]

A bit off topic, but hey, its my thread.. I can go off topic and double post if i want..

I was going through my gaming mags and found some PC mags from 1997/98 and decided to go through them and check for some Trespasser features.

Well i found a small half page preview which included what i think might be a new screen shot. I don't think I've ever seen it before, has anyone else?

It was only very small, maybe 2" x 1.5", so a high res scan would do little to improve the quality.

2012-01-26 01.40.51.jpg (348.23 KiB) Viewed 11922 times

Edit: Nope, its not new, i just found it in the pre-release gallery..

I've never noticed it before!

I might have to dig really deep, and start going through the boxes under the boxes under those boxes..

[machf]

Scans of the articles would still be interesting, though...

[awesome24712]

A Flash of the Past?

A like the new town layout. It is "refreshed" as you would say it. Although I would like to point out that "Labs Behind Operations Center" that is in JP3 are actually behind an entirely different facility:

http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/InGen_Compound

The InGen compound is the name that is given in Jurassic Park III and Jurassic Park Adventures: Survivor to a massive complex of buildings that InGen has built on Isla Sorna; in both the novels and movies, the buildings of the compound were devoted to the production of Dinosaurs. The InGen compound should not be confused with the InGen Village, which was designated to accommodate the InGen workers.

Scans of the articles would still be interesting, though...

Yep.

[s13n1]

Next time i visit my folks, ill take the mag with me and scan it.

The Town, i know its not exact to the movies or the Novels, but neither was Trespassers.
I'm trying to satisfy everyone by including bits from here and there while making it more accurate.

In The Lost World (movie), Sarah Harding jumps from the generator building to the roof of the bar / hotel, but in Trespasser the water tank is placed in between the two buildings. In the scene where Malcolm is battling the raptor in the petrol/gas station, you can see the generator building is almost opposite. Stuff like this i have tried to fix, and to add some spice and refreshment to the layout, i decided to include some elements from JP3. I forgot to include the Helipad next to the operation building, but it will be there in the final version.

I wanted the village area of the town more open so that large dinos like paras and maybe a steg can be seen in there wandering around, grazing on the long grass. Yet i wanted the operations centre and the surrounding buildings to be a little more secure, with the larger fence that's seen in the image in the top corner.

For my Petrolia map, i had the village and compound as two separate areas, but its a little hard to modify the Trespasser map without doing anything too drastic. I want to keep the geometry as close as i can to the original levels and only really mess with the unseen areas.

I have not started marking Tower locations for the Radio Data Network. Im not sure how many of these there will be, possibly 6 or however many are needed to create a believable line-of-sight network across the island's highest peaks. The towers will look like the tower on the summit, and will have a small structure next to them, much like this image:

control_tower.jpg (23.99 KiB) Viewed 11904 times

I'm not sure yet if each tower should be activated, or they all become active when you reach the summit. I think for realism sake, the player should probably visit each tower/station and activate them, because until the geo-thermal plant is active, they wouldn't have power and be off (although i like the idea of them being solar powered with battery backup). It would also add more gameplay to the game, and promote the re-exploration of areas. Perhaps the player needs to activate some of them by clearing debris and overgrowth off the solar panels o the roof?

I will also be marking locations for cameras, like those that featured in the book. I really like the idea of using cameras for certain puzzles, like for instance: A territorial t-rex is patrolling an area and wont let you pass, so you watch that area on the cameras and when the t-rex passes over a draw bridge or through a gate, you can activate it and block the rex out of that area, allowing you to pass. It would be great for players to look through the cameras and see a location they have never seen before. If that didn't motivate you to explore i don't know what would!

Feel free to post any ideas you have on locations and puzzle ideas. I'm sure there are some good ideas out there!

[Dragonlord]

Definitely make them all switch on individually. Potentially you can add different puzzles to get them on like different obstacles blocking your way or different defuncts of the mechanics/machinary or whatever there is. Maybe a fuse blown here (fixing it like TCIsle) or a mechanical part blocked preventing a machine from working. It would definitely put stress on the exploration part. Maybe a raptor or something took a part out of a machine somehow and hurled it all the way to his nest not knowing what it is and you have to retrieve it. That way the player would have to find a way to lure them away from the nest to retrieve whatever part they nicked.

[s13n1]

Puzzles can't be too complex but not obvious to solve either, there needs to be subtle ways the player can link the less obvious puzzles with the solution.

A few years ago when i started this project, i actually had the idea that a T-Rex has stolen something you need, and has taken it to the nest. A note left somewhere within the vicinity would have a clue that read something like "The t-rex has shown a fondness to the colour yellow, all staff are advised to avoid wearing or using yellow equipment around them". Obviously the note wouldn't be that basic, but it would give the player a hint that the T-rex has stolen the object you need, which happens to be yellow. I actually got this idea because EMU's are attracted to yellow, i thought the whole bird-dinosaur connection was quite good.

Puzzles involving blown fuses need to be considered carefully, because in real life, a blow fuse is fixed by simply replacing the fuse or making one out of foil or something metal. Blown capacitors and other electrical components are a little more complicated, but you have to assume that both Anne and the player wont have any idea about voltage, resistance, amps etc, so the puzzle would need to be almost too simplistic to be do-able. Alao, having the spare parts lying around is kind of unrealistic (unless someone repairing it died halfway through the repair job), and the player (or someone in real life) would normally have to travel to a maintenance area and find the parts needed. I know that if i was faced with a circuit board with a blown component, i wouldn't be able to identify it or fix it easily.

For a blown fuse puzzle, i would like it to be as simple as working out which fuse is blown, then finding a small metal object, like a nail, and shoving in place of the broken fuse. The player can be given a simple hint that the fuse's are the cause of the issue, by having the fuse box open. How they player finds out which fuse is broken is done by selecting one and removing it to check. The fuse can be see-through plastic or glass and have a fairly obvious broken element inside. Anne could say something like "Broken fuse. Great. I need something to complete the circuit..". At that point, anyone with half a brain should think "shove something metal in there" and they should go in search of a small metal object.

I thought about having a simple 'component swapping' puzzle involving a broken computer in one of the towers. The computer would be in an obvious state of repair, with the case open, tools scattered around, and the main board on the desk beside it. The player would be able to pick up the mainboard and insert it back into the computer, and after switching it on, it would spark and smoke a little, signalling it was dead. Anne could say something like "Hmm.. I think that part is broken. Someone was replacing it." Another computer nearby would allow the player to remove the mainboard and try to insert it, but it wouldn't fit, signaling that not just any mainboard will work. The player would need to identify the type of computer by a name or logo on the case and find a matching computer they can take the mainboard out of. A pretty simplistic approach that assumes all computers of a certain brand will have the same mainboard (which can be easily swapped over), but its also believable.

When handling objects for puzzles like this, i want it to be as simple as moving the object close to where it needs to be used/inserted and pressing Mouse1 to Fire/Use it. If its the right object for the puzzle and can be used, it will be inserted straight away. If the object is not right, Anne can say something like "It doesn't look right" / "It doesn't fit" / "That's not going to work".

Simple mechanical puzzles are good, like a metal rod through a wheel that's stopping a series of gears from turning, or a collection of gears on the ground which need to be put back onto the 'machine' in the right order to function.

I've gotta cut this post off early, have a diner thing to go to.
Ill finish it when i get chance.. probably at the diner, while my phones under the table..

[Dragonlord]

The fuse one indeed is not compilcated. Did one like that in my puzzle map for Trespasser. The only problem I had is getting the repaired fuse sticking again to the old place. Can't get the scripts to do what I want them to do. But otherwise I like MacGyver style solutions. After all if you are stranded somewhere either you turn into a little MacGyver or else you turn into a MacBurger :/

[machf]

In theory, the CSocket class should allow you to do right that, the original capacitor puzzle in the Lab level would have used it...I've been experimenting with that, but I still can't get it to work. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't know what...

[Dragonlord]

As far as I figured out magnets can only be broken but never attached again. I guess the solution would be to have a duplicate of the fuse in place located in the basement and teleporting it in while teleporting the held fuse away. That's how I did the 3-stage breakable window (intact window, bruised window, shattered window). I should give this a go once I managed to get Trespasser working again in Wine.

[Andreas Triassicus]

I haven't used this forum in some years now, but a week ago I checked in and I just have to say: WOW!

@s13n1: By the looks of it, you are really pulling off what a lot of people have hoped for! The only thing I want to tell you is please don't quit now! The work you have showed us here in the last time is very, very impressive! A lot of people have tried to resurrect Tres in various ways but usually stopped or failed after a while. You seem like an efficiant and determined person. Keep at it!

I am a huge fan of Trespasser and the whole concept / story and art. I am not a programmer or a graphics wizard (though I do take credit for my avatar! ) but I do make music for a hobby. If the project gets to the stage where you need music / soundtrack I would love to contribute what I can.

I saw mentions of magazine scans, I put up some highres scans from Games Master 1998 earlier, the very preview article that made me aware of trespasser and created expectations in my mind that far exceeded the standards of the actual game. Still love the game though! I reuploaded those scans here, since the original links were long gone:
http://www.filefreak.com/files/863953_s ... Master.zip

[s13n1]

Cool scans Andreas!

These remind me of so many magazines from that period, i just wish i hadn't thrown them all away. I still have many of my mags and i've got quite a few first editions of some well established game magazines, in very good condition too. Might be worth something one day?

I have no intention of quitting. I'm pretty OCD about projects i take on, and although the progress may slow from time to time, my brain NEVER switches off and im always thinking about it in some way. At the moment im working with some new engines and doing more testing. Its a never ending task, but im sure eventually ill find one that's just what im after. I can normally tell within the first 10 minutes if im going to like an engine based on the interface and art pipeline. If an engine proves to be a hassle when tackling the simplest of tasks, i tend to get impatient with it. I'm working on this project by myself at the moment, and i dont have time to study intricate details of an engine if it can be done faster elsewhere.

At the moment im working on a pine tree model, something very high quality that i can set as a project standard for new members. I dont have time to do all the modeling myself, so i want to have some example assets that set the standard im after. I'm not concerned about making things crazy high poly count, just as long as the objects are accurate and have nice high res textures. I'm sick of seeing pine tree's that aren't accurate. They always have too few branches, they're always 2D, and never have a randomness about the branch design and distribution. I'm also sick of looking at trees that grow out of the ground unrealistically with no visible roots or build up of terrain around the base. I plan to make semi 3d decals (for every tree species) that are placed on the terrain under the tree, that has roots and debris that blends the tree trunk into the terrain. The ultimate solution would be a rigged tree with roots that snapped to the terrain surface, only half exposing them. This would overcome any issue where the tree is on a steep slope and a rigid mesh would cause the roots to float in the air. Maybe one day!

I've got the bark texture for the trunk looking really good. I'm going to start on the branches, sub branches and dead branches next. Not sure what to do with the pine needles just yet, photos can only capture so much detail, which is lost when the images are scaled down. I really want to add more volume to the needles without using excess polys, intersecting planes is the best method but i want it to look really good.

Ill post some samples when im done with the bark's bump mapping. It should look pretty cool.

[Dragonlord]

What about ngPlant?

[s13n1]

What about ngPlant?

Yeah tried it and not a fan.

There are some pretty cool tree generators out there, but many of them don't have the fine control needed to add real variation to the branch location.
Its just as easy for me to make it in Lightwave and have absolute control over every vertice. Its also the only way to guarantee precise LOD variations, as automatic LOD steps in programs and engines can often manipulate the mesh so much that the transition between the two models results in some noticeable popping. Most of them require you to create your own branch mesh anyway of you want more volume then a plane can provide.

There is one program called Linda Tree Generator, which i wasn't able to try. It produces some lovely looking trees:
http://pro.bistudio.com/index.php/servi ... llery.html
From what i can tell, its not available to the public, and you need to contact them in regards to licencing.
Who knows what its worth!

Of course there's SpeedTree Cinema which was used in Avatar and produces some nice pine trees as seen in this review:
http://www.3dworldmag.com/2011/08/10/re ... inema-5-2/
It allows absolute control over everything, which would allow for some incredible trees, (which would look better if they were placed a bit more randomly..) but unfortunately i dont have that kind of coin.
In fact, at the moment i have no coin.

I just started making my own individual pine needles in photoshop. I'm going to bunch them, then duplicate them till i have a whole branch made.
Its overkill, but it allows me complete control over the mask and volume of needles. Should make for a more accurate looking branch in the end.

Here's the bark with some displacement mapping:

pinetree_bark.jpg (402.4 KiB) Viewed 11779 times

There is some visible repeating bark, but its on opposite sides of the tree and not noticeable on the model.
It tiles perfectly though with no seams.