First I wonder, based on the non-profile views in two windows of the PL scene, what the dev was last doing with this file. Making the streambed, maybe. Or showing it to a colleague. And too bad those two heightmap images are missing from the file. As well I notice for the first time that the Block House is inside a Max-specific grouping called shedGroup01. Didn't know the devs made selection easier by such means, that must have helped a lot. Too bad almost all of those group names have been lost to time. I wonder what general naming schemes they had. ...What the Hell is this "Box01" sitting around? Fairly large and thin vertical-wise... I've just remembered I saw the same box, with the same name, in the b55 LAB level. What on Sorna was it used for? Possibly to mark the start of the level. I note, that the level contains base objects for dirt roads, but none have been implemented in the play area... I wonder, where they would have gone, had this version of the level included them. How varied would they have been? Around to various places, like the block house? Or just straight from Burroughs out towards the dam and PV?
Moving on, we come to the early JR Max files. This level was split into several separate files, probably to keep their computers from stalling with all the scene content. Hmmm... 29 tableau objects! What was this for?.. Retail levels have, what, 6 or 8 in the basement? And the actual numbers for base instances on these go even higher. Nuts...
Exploring further, it's pretty interesting to see a whole, original level terrain mesh in Max. Duh, this is cool - there is some called Line01 by the beach, evidently intended to be turned into the local ocean object. I might go fetch this in future levels, as I sometimes create new content along this beach.
Mmm - the area of increased terrain detail, next to the spot where you ascend to the higher-up Mayan Plaza, has rocks in it, in this Max scene. Evidently it WAS intended as a climb spot, that's cool. Though, it looks like they hadn't finished setting up this puzzle..
Duhh, huhh! I just went and rendered some of the scenes... Turns out a bunch of those texture images in the files are in fact applied to objects. I'd always thought they were early attempts at terrain textures that never actually got used. Well hot damn, I'll have to put these in a level somewhere. Huh interesting, originally the padlock was two objects, so that.. when you broke it off.. it'd actually look broken. Meh it's small enough I'm not really planning to use this object. Also... It seems guide objects of somekind were used inside the Max scenes for foliage placement. They might just be for eyeball reference, or possibly they were linked to the auto-foliage-generators. There are some interesting ones. Also, the terrain objects beyond the beach... "DeepWater", were clearly intended for the CWaterEntity-as-ocean. Still find that interesting.
That was preeeetty interesting. Next up is "IJVegMasters", the new hit TV show. ... ... No? No takers? Well, it sounds like a TV show. In fact it's some sort of base foliage file of jungle trees, stumps, trnobjs etc. It's uh, it's very well organized, beautiful in its own way, got lots of different things in it... However it is, sadly, incomplete. Retail Trespasser includes several very notable foliage models which are not present in this file. That is why, it makes me very sad. It could have been used as a jungle level template, to replace the somewhat-well-made TresBase~Jungle level I made years ago. This IJVegMasters has nice meshes on the floor with word titles for each area of models. It just... I can't. It's incomplete. Suckssss.
Well, on to build22. The uhh.. odd thing here is that b22 has a JR terrain, but none of its other files. Who knows why. It has new development of a few areas, in some cases simply to add terrain detail and unevenness. The uh, first area beyond the Terminus now has a 3-way-split along what will eventually become the retail path. Each route seems to have a different puzzle being set up.. unclear at this stage what it's supposed to be. Also Tatu has noticed that the hill off to the North of these routes has more detail on it. In fact it seems to have a specifically inaccessible top, probably gotten through some sort of puzzle. He reports that VH15 is located here in one build, which talks about the view from Isla Sorna. I wonder what was up with this spot.
On to IJ22. Aside from the obviously very different terrain textures and foliage dispersal, the entire starting route through this streambed is uh, well its a different shape! I'd expect different heights and details of the same essential shape, but nope. Seems at some point along the way they saw fit to redesign the direction of the path. Interesting.
Hmmm. Apparently several of the rocks in this level have non-connected physics, which with seemly 1 exception were not cloned into the ingame areas. Meaning, they would be non-tangible ingame. Huh.
Oh gods. This spot is.. pretty funny. You might notice that retail Trespasser doesn't like to stick things under the terrain, least of all rocks and foliage, due to shadow errors. Well I guess at this point they didn't know that, and some dev cloned a giant version of a smaller rock, stuck it partially underground, and used it as part of a prop to get up a ridge. Complete with haphazardly-placed swamp planks that probably won't actually intersect with the physics of the small rock model, this entire scene is very much more like fan mods which came years later than an official Tres construction.. haha. Hmmm damn... This is the entire script for the Trike in IJ22:
Code: Select all
group Trike = {
int AIType = 10
bool AI = true
bool ActSnarl = true
bool ActHelp = true
bool ActMoveToward = true
bool ActFlee = true
bool ActLookAt = true
bool ActRam = true
string Type = "Trike"
int PVA = 4001
int NumJoints = 29
string Class = "CAnimal"
}
Hmmm. Very interesting. The PV ambient music is summoned here at the IJ2 waterfall. I wonder what idea this was, when they still planned to include PV? Interesting to note that there's this painting from PV with the brown raptors, that looks pretty similar - Tatu reminds me that PH has a ton of music triggers that don't belong there. Likely, the devs wanted to showcase music in the levels when test builds were released for exhibition. As well at this point we're wondering, what about all the versions of levels that didn't make it into the -builds- of Tres as they were developing? All kinds of versions of levels, not ready for the engine, lost to time. Maybe some of them are still sneaking around somewhere. I suppose the IT max scenes count as one of these, tho strictly speaking they didn't come to us in level-form..
Hah, it's that one gun from the retail JR basement! The colt. Tatu said it works as well in b22 as the one in the retail basement.. but uh.. then neither of us could remember how well that one worked, haha. I'm gonna test this thing out in Drac~Test later, I like the classic muzzle flash.
Ah-hem. IJ22 contains "Trig_MusicIJ06-00", playing the "MUSIC - CRASHED HELICOPTER" music sample, but not in the gorge/swamp area of IJ2... Here, it's in IJ3, where the Monolith will eventually be. Fascinating; good evidence that the BioSyn heli was going to be at this spot, a while ago.
Also an important note, theeee Smuggler's Plane is nowhere to be seen. Seeing as they were definitely still going to use it... My suspicion is that it was, around this time, inside a version of PL that we do not have access to. Well shit, I wonder what it looked like.
...aaaand upon coming to coordinate 0,0,0, and a new splash of tool shed and random supplies, it's time for me to call it quits on the re-exploration for today. Pick it up again tomorrow where we left off.
Tell them to get back in the cars.
Ladies and gentlemen, the shuttle for the dock leaves in approximately... 5 minutes. Drop what you're doing and leave now.
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To Be Continued
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