Drac's Tres Re-Exploration

[Draconisaurus]

Soooo back in my early Trespasser years, I spent lengthy amounts of time scouring the retail levels for things, up and down and in and out. The basements were always particularly interesting, like the vehicle area in IJ. But yes, since then several beta and alpha versions of the game have come out, and I've explored them no where near as thoroughly as what time I gave to the retail game. I uhhh, will be skipping build 117, of course. But yes, beginning with the Plains MAX file, my exploratory adventure begins...

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.

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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.

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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"
}

There's this, and some joints. My how complex they became later.

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 -

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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.

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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.

---
To Be Continued
---

[Draconisaurus]

Aaaaand we're back. Continuing the tour today, where we left off, just like Muldoon said. Heh!

Moving on from 0,0,0 in IJ22... Final detail for the level, the ridge at the end. It uh, well I didn't expect it to be there. Previous analysis of levels indicated that a version of IJ this old would have had no ridge there, just a clear shot into IT. But apparently that's not the case. It even seems possible that the ridge was one of the oldest design plans, put in place as a natural part of the level transition barriers.
Oh, also, there are some interesting Plains terrain objects over to the side... "TrnObjB_base4a04-00" and such. Could be useful at some point.

Now in the basement... I notice THIS thing again.

swampplanks01.png (83.42 KiB) Viewed 9465 times

This is still in the retail IJ basement, looking exactly the same. Which means it's even older than b22. I used to think it was a small part of some larger array of swamp planks, but looking at it here, I suspect it was part of a micro demo of what they wanted it to look like ingame. They don't seem to have actually used it much...

Hmmm, an interesting trigger, floating above the foliage in the basement:

Code: Select all

group Trig_AI0-00 = {
    float Attenuation = 0.000000
    bool Split = false
    bool Merge = false
    bool Wrap = false
    bool PlayerEnterTrigger = true
    string Sample = "AI TRIGGER TEMP"
    int ActionType = 0
    int AlphaChannel = 0
    int FireCount = 1
    string Class = "CLocationTrigger"
}

It plays a Stream sound called "AI TRIGGER TEMP"? Perhaps they created a work-around where the engine detects the playing of this sound and activates AI in the area. Huh. I wonder what it sounded like. Possibly we've heard it, in the actual engine of b22... I don't remember when, and am not installing those things at this time.

On to PV22! First I notice that.. again.. the player is buried under the ground near 0,0,0 instead of where the level is supposed to start. Huh. Also the doors at the start appear to be openable, that's neat. Hmm the entrance trnobj, as seen in demo and lab, has arrows on it, here... presumably to indicate the motion of the gates. Why did they remove them? Not sure.

Huh right near the start is a version of the grey-blue dead tree log, with separate models for the branches! Bizarre. It also carries on the tradition from the rocks of IJ22, basement environment models which have in-map separate physics present. Even funnier since some of those physics go to the detachable branches but can't move...

PVlogsupplemental01.png (414.64 KiB) Viewed 9465 times

Duhhh! Vhorizpine00-01, the really long grey-green fallen tree from PV, has a ton of branches in this version. Neat.

Hmmm. The Mayan PreColonial Village is a little different, with model-versions of parts that were later turned into terrain details. I think they worked a lot better as models - you can barely see them in the terrain version. Guess they wanted to remove raptor-killing rocks... Huh and the Quake symbol is inside the cubby-hole, that's cute.

The raptor nest area, has no raptors or nest, or bones, but it does have Raptor Chase music. So, plan was around, just not worked on yet...

I notice the interstitial path, the one between the Mayan area and the main road, with a bunch of sand trnobjs, has no ground foliage... yet there is a detailed streambed terrain leading up to it, even in this build. It's like a sort of half-extant level area, heh, hmm.

Theee first bridge puzzle, does not yet have the broken versions of the bridge pieces... And, the spinning thing is not there yet. I wonder if this version is meant only to be temporary, or if they had a different version of the puzzle in mind, or what. Ah, and the humvee is present, in this earliest build. That's fun... sadly it's the same already-wrecked version from b55.

Aha! The area of sand trnobjs close to the geo plant, which was speculated as the location of the tar pits, seems originally to have been the location of the road split. I guess the sand was most likely about that. It also has the PV Ambient music trigger, instead of at the gate. Interesting. I guess they wanted it to go with the reveal of the plant? Kind of odd ambience for that... And uh, I love how the power pylons in this level are numbered. We have a lot more of those pylon number textures now. Later I'll see what the total range is...

PVcrossroads01.png (607.02 KiB) Viewed 9465 times

And of course, the added ridge is not in this build, and so the streams follow their original course. Awesome. Hmmmm... There is a KM marker out in the middle of nowhere. Next to where that pump usually goes outside the plant. Perhaps a path once went there? You'd expect that if a KM marker was placed...

Hmmmm! Neat. At one point you were to use a Mac10 to shoot down the draw bridge. It still has magnets and things. I'm not sure what this was like if you tried to do it in the b22 engine, anyone remember?

PVmac10bridge01.png (571.8 KiB) Viewed 9465 times

Oh cool! My favorite texture from Lab, from the CRAY vault, is on the side of this beam here. And it appears that some sort of lever was intended.

PVlever01.png (363.12 KiB) Viewed 9465 times

Uhhh hmmm. Been staring at this. It's a pair of tiny, invisible, tangible, moveable physics objects that are not connected to anything. I got this funny theory, that in the early physics days, they thought that perhaps by having a little moveable physics obj above and below the bridge, they would bump it if it went wild, up or down, and stop it from spazzing. Like, if it goes too high it'll bump the object and go back down.. etc.. I uh just find this hilarious XD

PVdummy01.png (576.53 KiB) Viewed 9465 times

Aha! The missing turbine door. I tried rotating it by its magnet in TresEd and it gets extremely close to the physics of the turbine itself inside. Thinking in Tres physics it was TOO close, and might cause the hinge to go wacky. So I'm thinking that's why it was removed.

PVgendoor01.png (189.4 KiB) Viewed 9465 times

Durr, and there were a ton of little details we noticed in the geo plant. The transformer thingies are incomplete/different... The cooling tower appears to have pieces that would have been shot off, or maybe they'd fall off while you walked on them. Also the system indicator in the control room has the correct logos on each position, but apparently b96 has the wrong logo in the lower-right corner. Odd.

That's all for today!

Next time, it'll be flawless.

---
To Be Continued
---

[Draconisaurus]

Yayyy, part 3! Here we go.

Moving out from the control room... I notice the first streambed has no bridge, hmm. The second one has, get this, the same bridge as the plant itself! Instead of the one from later builds, which is only a flat bridge. Pretty interesting. It's unclear how the puzzle for this one was to work, tho, as there don't appear to be any ways to manipulate the bridge and a dead log goes across the streambed anyway. Hmm. Alsoo... a little ways after this, the road suddenly ends. Just ends! And it's capped with a PV trnobj, too, so it appears to be intentional. Why would the road end?? Hmm. Oh there's a giant terrain-island in the ocean, looks neat, a single tree on it.. Hmmm the fence. It's uh, well it's floating, and on one side is the OLD texture scheme with actual fencing textures... But if you look around on the back, it's got what appears to be the later, all-brown version?? How odd. And of course, the bus stop is missing. And no power pylons came out this way. Ah well. Hmmm the basement... It uh, actually has almost nothing of interest in it. Not even the little area of geo plant interior decore stuff. What little of that there is is in the geo plant itself. Seems in b22 there was a certain frequency of base instances being put directly in the ingame areas. Little messy. Oh - the billboards are a different texture set. I'll have to look at those closer when I export the textures.

Okay! TestScene22. Yay black-shirt Anne. Hmmm it's uh, a little sparser than the final version. A grand total of 1 gun.. Those rear gun/obj areas are entirely missing. That big deep pit is gone... The dominoes haven't been delivered yet. There's a neat raptor who ran off the trail. Aaaand.. nothing in the basement but a start trigger and TheSky. Did uh, did the CWaterEntity in this level used to fit perfectly with the trnobj shape, in where it sticks above the terrain? Don't remember.

Aaaand now, in chronological order, the next file is the IT Max Scenes, made within days of each other. It's unclear exactly how they line up with the build-versions of levels, since the various early builds don't contain various levels, and sometimes a build-level didn't change between builds, when perhaps its Max version did... But, so. This level terrain area is very small. Possibly they were going to have an actual tiny WTD for the released version of IT, at one point. Sounds cool. The basement of this IT has the arranged vegetation of IJVegMasters, as well as an organized crate area describing all the different crate types.. pretty neat. Other notable things.. The basement actually has the parent mesh of the manager's bungalow. That would have been nice in retail. In retail the bungalow base-instances and their physics-base-instances are in different parts of the map, makes it annoying. I fixed it up for an empty level once but lost the files. The Winter Template level has the Xmas-converted versions tho.. Anyway. The bus in here is split up into a bunch of separate meshes.. I guess they wanted the seats to be able to come out? Throw one at a raptor or something... And well, the items within the basement, in these versions, are pretty close together, compared to retail IT. Must be nice.

And so I've decided to go into the TresEd version of these files, for the play area exploration, as that is just not going to work well in Max without textures. First thing I noticed: Hammond's door was originally going to be a sliding mechanism, held in by bolts. Looks neat! I wonder what the puzzle for this would have been.

ITdoor01.png (327.1 KiB) Viewed 9447 times

Hmmm, the rocks in Hammond's back yard don't yet make a big dipper. They are close.. maybe the dev made it, then forgot the shape it was supposed to be and moved some rocks... Hmmm. There is a textureless mesh inside called "PHammondDinTabl00-00", with legs. I've never heard or seen of this model before, I wonder wtf it looked like The closet downstairs has the circuit breakers, tho I discovered these years ago when Tatu passed the level files to me... Ah, the InGeneral Store has actual cases and shelves now! Neat, tho of course is not going to agree well with interior raptors... Hmmm the Generator Building has a texture-missing grating on the floor, some sort of reference to its scene in TLW. Oh and there are 2 jeeps by the Ops Center, including one of the undamaged ones for some reason... How odd. And uh, by now everyone should know that this version of the level has the South Gate over on one side. Next to it are also two lonely physics objects for some kind of bridge, presumably something to do with PL... Also, in this area is a trapezoidal plane called "!Level Ends", instead of at the East Gate. Unusual. Oh and finally, the pipe at the start of the level has a great now, with physics, fun stuff.

Erm. A note - the basement has more interesting things. Unused keycards, keys, card readers... Wish I knew what all this stuff was.

Code: Select all

"PSecrtyCrdRRm-00"
"PtkeycardTM00-00"
"PManagersOfficePass-00"
"PtkeycardASec00-00"
"PSectyTryRRoom-00"
"POfficeBuildingKey-00"
"PNGENCard01-00"
"PtkeycardHB00-00"
"PHammondKey00-00"
"PtkeycardHG00-00"
"PtkeycardSec00-00"
"PtkeycardHS00-00"
"Ptkeycard1Mn00-00"
"PtkeycardSG00-00"

Moving on to Build 32! PCGamer.
JR32 is... pretty bare. In terms of foliage, all that which was placed in the JR Max Scene is just gone. Nada. Kinda sucks. However there are a lot of additional ingame placements, such as monorail towers, the wood shack, barrels, voiceovers. And some interesting terrain objects. There is an interesting minimal-version of the phone in retail, with just a PUSH button... this one can be found in the Mystery Models, also. Oh, that dark green jeep that's in JR retail... In retail, the interior floor texture is half-black, some kind of BMP export error. But uh, in this version, at least two of the other textures also have this... I guess for some reason they missed the interior one for release.

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Over on the beach... Not only is the plane wheel from b96 AND the tail from various builds here, but there's yet another piece of the plane - the prop. Neat. Interesting that it was apparently intended to be underwater, as well that Anne could/would go into the water to investigate it and activate the voiceover beside it.

JRplaneparts01.png (352.64 KiB) Viewed 9447 times

The basement... Nothing really much interesting. Like the last IT, its basement is much more close-together. Possibly the devs actually learned to spread out their basements in order to make Max run better when textures were being displayed. Other than a square plywood piece I don't remember seeing before, and a slightly different scaffolding model, not much to report on in this area. Final note... this version of JR has a number of rocks and dead tree trunks/sticks, but... absolutely no foliage. I'm not sure why such a specific thing is the case, here. Maybe a broad removal sweep to make the level stable enough to play.

Now on to PH32! Which is, of course, the only PH we have... As such it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to go on about its details, since anyone who knows PH knows it by this version anyway. I will go over some things... lol for one I forgot there were oars on Cathy's beach. We don't only have the ones from TC~Isle. Good to know. Hmm there are small, flat, square invisible instances named "a", "b", "c", and possibly "d". I was only able to find "c", as well as one called "jr", as it's difficult to find them with the Search function. Besides obviously some sort of area layout, I wonder how all they influenced design.

...that's all the time I have for today, folks! It's been more fun. Soon we'll do part 3. I do think my memory of the overall game content is improving.

---
To Be Continued
---

[Draconisaurus]

Aaaaand back again. Very notable that, both here on the forum and in the Discord, discussion of early Trespasser materials has been on the rise. Not completely sure why, I guess we're in the mood for it. Maybe Corvid-19 has us all in the mood for revisiting old stuff. At any rate, I'm still in the mood, so here we go.

We're in PH32... and, I need to make a minor correction. Between myself and Tatu, the only ones of those small square dummy-texture invisible objects we were able to find were "c", "b", "p", "jr", and "ph". "c" might stand for Construction, "b" could stand for Beach, "p" possibly for Path... we're not sure what JR means here. Might be a mistake and was meant to be "IJ" and refer to the level transition closeby. "ph" clearly refers to the house itself.

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Oh a note for modders. The CampStove object in this level is more "official" than the one that was going around before. The one released in JPDS and making its way to other mods was taken from the mystery models and put into the game from there. From PH (at least) we know that the camp stove was actually put ingame along the line of development. The cliff transitions in the area leading to IJ are interesting. Apparently the actual start of IJ at this point in production was even further jammed inside PH playable area, closer to the streambed. Wonder why that got so mixed up. Perhaps rumblings from the future that the two levels would not ultimately connect in b116... Minor note, various areas of PH are accessible on foot, yet covered in billboards rather than standard foliage and without bakers which seem to have been a late addition to the game. I wonder what went through their heads - maybe they thought invisible walls in player-accessible locations was going to be a big thing. Even the crude slicing that is the start of IJ demonstrates this. Another interesting note about PH is its, sprawling areas that were more or less removed from all but IT in the retail game. They look cool but might have been part of what doomed PH from the start. Interesting note... the music for Cathy's Beach is located at a DIFFERENT beach from where all the picnic objects are... you'll miss the music trigger if you go straight to her beach, in fact. Guess that means it was going to be at a different spot, originally. Hum and final note, off on the far edge of the PH map, I can't help but notice that the trnobjs go waaayyy off course from the ingame playable area. Including, the beach sand goes far to the South, in areas which in our version are actually cliffsides... I wonder what an even bigger PH would have looked like. This actually makes me want to do a mod where the full trnobj-covered areas of this level are explorable. Including the areas inside JR.. I'd have to remove the actual Plantation House and give it a new central feature.

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Haha so I'm in the basement now... Look at this. In retail the vocal objects for dinosaurs are cube-like objects in clusters per-dinosaur in the basement. In early builds so far they have been diamond triggers (minimum-sphere-shape) in little rows, and not numbering many. There are more per dino in this level but the T-Rex's vocal triggers are now massive towers sticking up haha...

PHvocalobjs01.png (27.56 KiB) Viewed 9426 times

Hmmm aaaand... The human remains objects in this level have a special kind of hand-magnet, which I think is pretty fun. Too bad this scheme wasn't kept for later, as it would make positioning magnets for new models much easier:

PHhands01.png (130.51 KiB) Viewed 9426 times

As a note, those bones are all named as "Hunter" bones but I can tell you from the Mystery Models that things like the scapula and jaw fragment are in fact from the "Smuggler" bone set. The smuggler-bones did not have a ribcage. This selection is a mix, for some reason. At this stage I guess they wanted to combine the sets for better overall variation, but later it seems they stuck with the hunter bones and just threw out the smuggler ones altogether. Hmmm notable: The purple-brown armchair in this level is missing little pieces that come off of the armrests.. presumably handrests, and presumably for engine stability. These pieces can be found in the Mystery Models and in JPDS~streams. The fancy bookshelf is in this level's basement, but not ingame. Shall we assume it was meant for Hammond's mansion, considered for PH, then decided again to be reserved for the architect of Site B? Hmm. The tight-nit arrangement of the crates in this basement definitely indicates that they used the organization plaques seen in the Max scenes. Huh... The Survey Team crashed jeep in this level is tangible and moveable, but with no discreet physics models. Fun. And finally... the foliage area. Comparing it to the foliage area of IJ22, this one has virtually every foliage model findable in the retail game, quite impressive. There is a giant dead cuban palm that isn't present. Might be the only difference.

Aaaaand on to the next! IJ32. This time it's playable ingame with the retail engine, thanks to Tatu & co., very nice... Theeeee path layout and terrain textures are essentially the same as b22, which is cool. The physics puzzles of IJ1 have been updated with new versions, including one with ingame-accessible tinker toys. They are a bit too heavy for Anne, however this is the retail engine.. I noticed standard crates in PH32 which couldn't be lifted even a little bit by Anne. I forget my experience of the early build engines but I am assuming Anne could lift heavier things, at that time, including tinker toys. Shucks. But by far my favorite part of this IJ is the fact that the criss-crossing log puzzle is in full swing and actually doable! I absolutely love going back and forth on these downed palms across the ravine of IJ1, so much fun. b32 might be my favorite version of this, need to wait and try the others out...

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On to IJ2b32... This is AFAIK the first appearance of "PHjeepOpenBody00-00", the one without the top bars which is both physical and moveable. I touched it ingame and promptly died... Anyway, I recall this thing lasts clear until b96. Huh, the paler-white version of the dinosaur bone models is in here... Aaaand, here it includes the T-Rex tooth, without hand magnets. That's neat. Oh and, at the waterfall, still with the PV Ambient music, I thought at first that the throwable flower was not present... Tatu pointed out to me that, in fact, it is there but looks identical to the non-pickable standard flowers. Weird. Neat though. Hmm and I've taken note to create a test in Drac~Test for whether frozen, moveable flower objs can be "picked" using PickUpObject and UseObject script, so that it doesn't just fall off from random collision. Aaaand, of course, this is the first build we have the BioSyn helicopter appear in. It's 2/3rd through the swamp area, though its music trigger is still over where the Monolith goes. I note the huge density of dead trees in this level... Goes well with the swamp theme. Hmm I am still unclear, where you were intended to cross over the ridge into IJ3... Off close to the Monolith area, there are billboards, indicating not-playable-area. Then not far west from that, the ridge is too sheer to climb. Guess it was an exact spot that had no actual terrain reference yet. Oh and fun note... ingame, I was in this area and could STILL hear the T-Rex in the distance, which was definitely still in the spot where it began, at the beginning of IJ2, fighting the trike. I checked the script later, apparently it had no Sleep value. I guess that, plus so few AI in the level, kept it active from all that distance? I didn't realize modern Tres worked this way.

IJactiverex01.jpg (242.27 KiB) Viewed 9426 times

Humm in IJ3... I note that the crane still has the controls as part of the main mesh. I am guessing from this and other stuff I've seen that, some lost test levels were used a long while back to attempt to make some of these things work, separate entirely from the levels said models were to be in. And so, failing to be made workable, such things as fused versions of the meshes were what ended up in the levels-proper. The culdesac area in this version is completely empty, damn. The wood shack here is kind of neat, you can use the crates in front as a barrier against the raptor while you shoot at it... Haha look at this - the lock that is floating in retail is still here, but instead it's buried.

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b32

Code: Select all

471.742
195.016
36.023

19.897
-29.709
-4.4939

b116

Code: Select all

471.742
195.016
47.023

19.897
-29.709
-4.4939

Huh. It was raised exactly 11 meters by the time of b116.

...Ah crap. That's all we have time for today. Cancel that order, we don't want to set our base camp in the middle of a swamp.

---
To Be Continued
---

[machf]

Hmmm aaaand... The human remains objects in this level have a special kind of hand-magnet, which I think is pretty fun. Too bad this scheme wasn't kept for later, as it would make positioning magnets for new models much easier:

PHhands01.png

Well, there really isn't anything to prevent you from using those as magnets, there's no need for them to be cubes. Just as there isn't need for dinosaurs NOT to be cubes when using the string Mesh t-script value...

[tatu]

Hmmm aaaand... The human remains objects in this level have a special kind of hand-magnet, which I think is pretty fun. Too bad this scheme wasn't kept for later, as it would make positioning magnets for new models much easier:

PHhands01.png

Well, there really isn't anything to prevent you from using those as magnets, there's no need for them to be cubes. Just as there isn't need for dinosaurs NOT to be cubes when using the string Mesh t-script value...

What machf said. The game ignores the trigger mesh if it is a GeomType=1 trigger. It only read the boundary I believe. Not sure why square triggers need to be GeomType=2 along with BoundVol though. That is why I can have a 36000+ vert trigger and still load a level.

[Draconisaurus]

Heheh. Yes I know all that. Thing is that those Anne-hands are designed to represent a very old version of Anne, and most likely only the "normal" finger position... I'm not sure I want to mess around with the step of selecting which little hand object goes to which new model to be held.

At any rate, here we go! Next we go to part 5 of the Re-Exploration

So, that floating lock is, as I said, 11 meters higher in retail than in IJ32 where it is sitting just beneath that level's terrain. Hmm. If we move the lock down 11 meters in retail... we find that it is then waaayyy sunken under the terrain. So, from b32 to b116, both the lock and the terrain were raised, but the lock was raised more. Hmm. Moving forward, we have the area of crisscrossing dirt road and streambed. The area overall looks more united, to me. The absense of the smugglers' plane helps the Gravel Hill area merge with these streambeds better. There's less distraction from the streambed coming down from the mini-mountain, which still contains the helicopter crash music. Hmm.. speaking of. That spot up where the Monolith goes. In this build it has 2 of those bluish-gray fallen logs, sideways to the stream, and then sticking up and to its side is another one of those small, liftable fallen palms that're used for puzzles. What could this have been for? Why would there be a puzzle up here? There's no indication of why.. Since this is the first build with the helicopter, perhaps the helicopter was put here, along with this puzzle, and then moved to the swamp, while the puzzle remained. Odd. One other thing I really appreciate about this level is the terrain objects... TrnObjs get so boring and monotonous in retail. It's refreshing to see all this variety across the map. Man I tell you these 'puzzles' to cross the streambed are funny.. Surely they could see that the streambed would have to be made a lot steeper for them to be warranted. That never seems to have happened with these ones. *sigh* Then there is the little "Play Area" as in the last build, missing from retail, and it's pretty much the same as last time.. aaand then the level ends shortly after.

Ah, one thing. The previous build of IJ had ambient triggers which alternated between specific bird sounds and "SILENCE" sound-calls. This time there is just a list of bird sounds, aaand the freshly added SequenceDelay Min/Max script, along with MasterVolume Min/Max. Neat. Moving on to the basement... Of note that the giant HideMe box for the basement isn't here, yet. A note, this basement contains two different moveable, fallen cuban palms... and each one has two incomplete-length physics objects, one ending at each extreme. I am theorizing that this was to help it rest on terrain; as some will know, long Tres boxes will sometimes hit the terrain on either end but sink through in the middle. I imagine this method did work for them. This basement has the BioSyn heli, of course.. Why exactly it has blue dummy materials when nothing else does, I'm not sure. Only a few other additions to the basement at this time, like the car I mentioned. Additional vocal triggers have been added. Those bones are here, pretty sure those are new. Scaffolding was added for some reason. And that's it!

On to PV32! First up, the gates still appear to be swingable... and likewise, the arrows on the introductory trnobj are still present. Still no dysfunctional supply box on the side, yet. Yet. Huh this time VH49 is present right in front of the player, talking about InGen vandalizing its own locking mechanisms. Why this should be on the -other- side of the gate, I'm not sure. That log with the separate branches and physics is still here, oddly enough... Still no idea what puzzle that would have been. I wonder sometimes what the devs were thinking.. in their rush to accomplish the goals of the project, they may not have taken enough time to consider how so many physics puzzles could be fit practically into the game environment. Ah once again the level begins with a terrain renderer modification trigger, which no levels have in the retail-tradition as part of a start-trigger set... And the Reveal of Landscape music is here again, in place of PV Ambient. I'm unclear where that music track was originally meant for. The terrain going down into the valley is still too shallow around the start, where the player can just walk right off the map. Still uses the old road texture. Theeee km markers still do not actually list KMs on them. Next to pylon 12, Anne says that "These must run back to the town on one end." Seems like a perfect spot for this voiceover, for once heh. Oh weird! The Hunters Camp music trigger now plays at the Still Pond location. That spot is pretty nice hmmmm. Going up to the Mayan ruins, Anne does her "and never come back" quote. Hmm the ruins themselves seem to be exactly as they were in b22. Ah, the Raptor Nest has 3 triggers now. In one Anne mentions the Great White Hunter. Then VH105, a description of one of the missing hunters. Ah and in the 3rd, he names him as Van Holn, S. T., who is also still missing. That that they messed with the presumed sequence - the ex-policeman in VH105 ought to be Marden A.S., and Van Holn didn't have his own descriptive voiceover. Oddness. These three triggers are in descending scale within each other, but no hunter skeleton to be found at the middle.. Back to the main road. Hammond talks about how he built the pylons. The first bridge puzzle, same as last build.. The second, erm, it doesn't look crossable ingame. Don't remember it being this way in b22. Also I forgot to mention it in PV22 but this pit has 2 different crowbars next to the non-physical humvee... Unsure what puzzle they would have been for, particularly why there would have been 2 different crowbars. Perhaps a relic from a time they wanted 2 operable hands?... Sooo Tatu and I were just discussing, some of the things I pointed out above were already in b22. However the voiceovers are mostly new. I also missed a VA floating way up in the air near the gate, heh.

Ah here we go, Tatu has fetched a list of all model changes in b32:

Code: Select all

(added)
$Trike_Body-00
$Trike_Head-00
$Trike_Tail-00
FMoatStairRail00-00
FMoatStairRail01-00
FMoatStairRail02-00
FMoatStairRail03-00
FMoatStairStep00-00
FMoatStairStep01-00
SdamstairsA01-00
SdamstairsA02-00
step01
Step01
SWellbox00-00 (Named Wellbox00-00 in B22)
Trig_VA145-00
Trig_VA146-00
Trig_VA147-00
Trig_VA148-00
Trig_VA150-00
Trig_VA155-00
Trig_VA156-00
Trig_VA157-00
Trig_VA158-00
Trig_VA161-00
Trig_VA162-00
Trig_VA167-00
Trig_VA168-00
Trig_VH105-00
Trig_VH113-00
Trig_VH49-00
Trig_VH71-00
Trig_VH89-00
Upper railing01
FrontFace01

(deleted)
FPylonBaseA00-00
FPylonBaseTipA00-00
FPylonCrossA00-00
FPylonDiagX00-00
FPylonDiagY00-00
FPylonMidCross00-00
FPylonPillarA00-00

Lots in this level is about the same... Unlike b22, this PV is playable, so I went in and did the infamous bridge puzzle:

PVbridge01.jpg (218.55 KiB) Viewed 9394 times

Ta-daaa. Guess this is the best they got it. Funny... I had been assuming that the complex set of magnets for this bridge, were intended to make the whole thing a complex moving assembly of parts that Tres's engine can't actually do. And so then, they just made all the magnets breakable and had the bridge fall apart as the puzzle solution. And well, this may still be accurate but I found this in the walkthrough:

Drawbridge
A moat and a cement wall surround the geothermal plant, and the drawbridge on the plant side is raised, making the whole place seem like Hammond's interpretation of a medieval castle. Without much time to spare, unless she has already dispatched the entire pack of raptors, Anne must shoot out the supports which are holding the drawbridge up, and it will come crashing down, allowing her to cross.

Possibly it was intended this way all along. Possibly the walkthrough and/or level plans were changed over time. Not sure. Theee ribar puzzle for the gate itself is not actually active, yet. Gate is already openable. Then to get out, I tried the mac10 again... aaaand I'm not sure what happened? The... oh I just checked. Unlike the other bridge, this one is a clone of the later bridge over a streambed, and its magnet does not have bool Instance = true. So yeah, it just flew away when I fired at it..

PVbridge02.jpg (279.01 KiB) Viewed 9394 times

And finally... at the gate to the harbor, there are 2 voiceover triggers with tracks that we removed from retail:

Code: Select all

VA167: This used to be powered. Looks dead now...
VA168: Combo lock. OR it takes a card.

I don't recall identifying these voiceovers with that gate puzzle. At any rate, something strange to me... I swear I read in a document that you were intended to restore power to the Geo Plant in order for the keypad at the harbor gate to work. However, I checked the walkthrough and it's just not there. Hmm. Am guessing that VA167 plays, if you show up before restoring power to the plant. Then, or for the first time, if you show up and the Geo Plant is active, VA168 will play. Makes sense. So we know the combo lock version.. what would card have been? Presumably kept very close by. Probably would have been too easy. Aaaand the basement of PV32 is the same.

TestScene32... Don't think anything's changed. However, I just noticed that the pre-rendered shadowing for this model, matches the sun angle in this level, which is also the default sun angle in Trespasser... (For those who don't remember, various Tres foliage models have shadows rendered onto their bark textures to simulate the leaves casting shadows onto the bark; in this palm's case it's only accounting for light direction, the leaf shadows don't appear.)

TstScnTree01.png (478.93 KiB) Viewed 9394 times

Onward to build55!

BEbeach01.jpg (183.02 KiB) Viewed 9394 times

A nice beach! The earliest version of the start of the game we have. And well it is extremely early. I uh, I'm not sure how this ocean obj appears blue in the screenshot. It's got no textures and is supposed to be replaced with blue by the early engines. I remembered this kind of ocean appearing white, or maybe black, ingame, in the other levels.. Strange. Possibly similar to the way the Monolith appears black in retail Tres without any textures. Special non-image setting of some kind.

Aaaand here is the foundation stuff... I uh, I had hoped that the earliest version of BE would have had, you know, an actual sand beach here, instead of a cliff. This one's not as-cliffy but still very much a cliffside and not a smooth beach leading inland. Sucks.

Aaaand that's all we have time for today, folks. Come again tomorrow! And remember, it's always happy hour in Margaritaville.

---
To Be Continued
---

[Isolt]

Thanks Drac, this has been an interesting lock down read.

[tatu]

This is fun to follow. Well, I get the live updates as you do it. But it is really fun as most people don't end up writing their discoveries anymore.

[Hilwo]

I remember linking those 2 voiceovers to that location, but I'm not sure how. Probably when making the
various voiceover lists? And also that power needed to be restored to both power the gate as well as the
rest of the island. There is a file still on the retail disc that mentions something about restoring or having
restored power and heading for the lab, if I remember correctly. This file was used in the menu somewhere
in build 55, I think. Mention of having to restore the power probably also came from interviews.

Yeah, the text I mentioned is used as an intro when selecting new game in build 55. But it still exists as
a menu file on the retail disc. I'd recognize it, but I don't have the disc handy right now. Checked the
demo menu files, I think it was ngi.ddf. New game introduction, sounds right.

[Draconisaurus]

Isolt, thanks glad it helps

Yeah I miss when this kinda discussion was more frequent.

Hilwo, interesting. Just flipped into my b55 files and you were right, here it is:

Code: Select all

"General Introduction:"
""
"A year after the events of \"The Lost World,\""
"the Site B island lies in ruins.  John Hammond"
"publishes a memoir, a history of the InGen"
"corporation, but no one is quite sure whether"
"to believe it.   The island is half historical"
"fact, half urban legend."
""
"Anne, the player character, is traveling when"
"her chartered plane crashes off the coast of"
"Las Cinco Muertes and washes her ashore on Isla"
"Sorna...  Site B."
""
""
"-----------"
"Introduction to the InGen Lab level:"
""
"Here, Anne has won her way through 2/3 of the island,"
"in search of escape.  Having coaxed the island's"
"geothermal plant into life, she follows a coastal"
"road toward the island's central facility, the heart"
"of Site B...  the InGen Lab Complex..."
""
""
"Press \"OK\" to Start the InGen Lab."
"Press \"Cancel\" to return to the menu."

[Hilwo]

Yep, and that file has made it all the way to the retail disc

Edit: By the way I really enjoy topics like this as well and also miss them

[Draconisaurus]

Yep, and that file has made it all the way to the retail disc

Whoooaaaa. You're right, it's still there. That's really fascinating. Kinda creepy too. Kids hacking into the ddf files with Notepad back in 1998 could have read that and been like, "WTF is this?!?"

---

And we're on in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

*hissing sound*

Okay the security systems are off, grab the embryos.

...No? No takers? Fine

Resuming with BE55... or "Bch55"... There are skimpy foundations in place, around where they are found in the retail game. In their set up here they might actually be the foundation of a feasible building and not a player-activity arrangement of models. But meh. Anyway, the terrain for this level is, almost entirely undeveloped. It's obvious from terrain edit mode here that a rather large area was originally available for the play area, before they figured out how they wanted it to look.

BEterrain01.png (146.46 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

Huh, interesting note, the basement models in this level are sitting floating above the ocean. All 12 of them. Rather unusual. Oh the DLight in this level renders in TresEd as pure white, this might be the earliest level I've seen to have that.

On to JR55. I have uh, officially decided that this version of this level contains my favorite foliage-terrain landscape of any dev-made Trespasser material, possibly of anything ever put in Trespasser. It stretches out over huge areas, has just the right mix of high and low density, the trnobjs are used expertly to create a varied landscape with discreet areas, tiling-hiding, and great colors to look at. The terrain itself has hills, valleys, twisting paths, cliffs, waterways... and there's even a beach. It's all just amazing.

This area here, is that particular hill near the start with VH15:

VH15: Isla Sorna. Costa Rica lay to the east, a quiet neighbor, to the west open water, and the shipping lanes of the Pacific.

JRmakeoutrock01.jpg (326.92 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

JRmakeoutrock02.jpg (359.08 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

JRmakeoutrock03.jpg (315.29 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

JRmakeoutrock04.jpg (238.77 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

Love it. Just love it.
Not far away, the volcanic spring, paired with the Mexico bus station voiceovers in retail.. still in b55 without the actual waterfall objs.

JRpond01.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

Aha, I found it...... So far this is the only confirmed use of the giant felled cuban palm outside a level's basement, and the first time I've found it in the early builds. It's non-tangible here but has its accompanying individual-dead-leaf objs. It's unclear what its purpose would have been, but in this case it looks like it could have been to scale unclimbable terrain.

JRdeadpalm01.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

Ah, the beach. Looks splendid. Still appreciate that this obj is actually blue without any textures.

JRbeach01.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

Ah so, this is underneath that intangible Ocean-00. I just noticed that the terrain texture appears to be attempting to actually show beach froth, a la the newest versions of TC~Isle. Of course, not animated, and thus a tad odd looking.. Still, neat. This pretty clearly indicates that the blue ocean texture, also seen in retail, is intended to be not the ocean floor but the ocean itself.. I guess.. strange.

JRbeach02.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

And the jungle never ends. You know, I am inspired. One day I'd like to make a mod of this level.

JRend01.jpg (337.42 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

Next! IJ55... Which uh... according to the build list, is identical to IJ32. Except the SCN file is zero bytes and loads only a blank screen with the paper airplane, lol. So, we'll trespass on into the next level...

IJsidepath01.png (532.17 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

Alright then, PV55.

PVvalley01.jpg (357.11 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

I remember comments from somewhere, back in the day, that uh, PV used to have a TON of pine trees, then they were cut down to preserve framerate. It occurs to me that we most certainly have some examples of that. So, here's an image of the main valley, for reference... I'll take another shot in whichever build comes next.
So anyway. For the first time, the trnobj at the start no longer has the arrows! However the gates are still technically moveable, with Z-axis magnets... I suspect they don't move ingame, due to their density and the differences between retail and older builds with weight. In fact I'm quite sure I opened the PV gates in one of the early builds I installed, so... Still no supply box at the gate. The giant tree trunk and its separate branches with separate no-moveable physics is still here. Oh and major point, the actual tradition PV road texture is finally here! w00t! Heh I uh, I went exploring up towards the PCV (PreColonialVillage), and um... I decided to actually take out the Quake symbol this time and have a look at it. But -derp- it's not there this time... The Raptor Nest area, as far as I can tell is the same. Just noticed ingame this time that Anne saying her bit about "The Great White Hunter" is a large, PlayerLeaveTrigger.. The VH's inside get pretty small, indicating a centeredness at a non-present skeleton. Meaning, Anne doesn't comment on said skeleton until she's left it for a few meters. Strange. Back at the main path... The first bridge is the same. The second, also unchanged, and the crowbars are still there... but the Humvee is gone. Its sudden full disappearance biases me to believe that it was around this time that they got told Trespasser wouldn't have the rights to display Humvees in their game. Good thing they didn't get sued for the hummers in the promotional art One thing I noticed ingame. A ton of trees and such have no physics, where they did in b32. I am wondering, perhaps physics weren't working so well in this build, or maybe it was done globally around this build in order to help AI not bug out for people ingame. Hmmmm at the road-split, the road textures no longer do a sloppy overlap, but instead there are two different composit textures in place. Nice.

Oh. While I was ingame, I followed the inland stream towards the sea this time around... As I got there, this eerie IJ JUNGLE AMBIENT 1 music played and I beheld that there was no ocean. The water and salt alike, entirely gone. And Tatu's island was now replaced with a model. ...

PVmissingocean01.jpg (239.81 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

Huh. Looking around the geo plant, there are no billboards ingame.. That's interesting. Like demo. Hum... That mac10 by the bridge. I haven't seen these two muzzle flashes before. Odd thing is that they have no texture... Hm. Oh weird, also, the overhang crossbar thing on the bridge, the one with several submodels... no longer has DummyMaps as textures. Coincidence? Theee gate itself here, still has no hook-thingies a la JR gate, so the ribar puzzle I assume is still useless. Meanwhile inside, the turbine building still has the lifting-door, guess it worked for a while... and the inside is still missing the needle-turn puzzle thing. I'm surprised we actually got a build that has it, that's neat. Huh those possibly-were-breakable pipe things next to the cooling tower are gone. Inside the control building is about the same, except the parent instances of the props are now somewhere else. This plant has a surprising number of voiceovers that were removed from retail. I feel like they didn't spend this much effort to remove the voiceovers from dropped cues in other areas. That bloody bridge on the way towards the harbor is still not oriented with the road, and that log to cross is still there... except it's not tangible at this time lol.

Ah, this thing. In PV55 and at least one other level (Lab55?), there is something odd about the textures where one of the road tiles appears to be replaced by a crossroads texture. Unclear why... Worth noting that this is the location where, in all previous builds, the PV road stopped, despite that the fence was there and still a ways off. This is also where the brown thing next to the ocean starts, some sort of low-tide thing for the harbor. The regular road texture is "TPV_PvRd02t2.bmp", where as this one that appears as crossroads in TresEd is "TPV_PvRd03t2.bmp". I have seen examples in Tres before, where opacity and/or other textures, are imported into the level in multiple, dissimilar versions with the same name... sometimes for example, when opacities and diffuse maps are swapped with each other. I guess we should be glad it's not the other way around here, where one of the crossroads in TresEd appeared with a normal road texture.

PVroaderror01.png (520.06 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

So, this is fun... The fence/gate at the end. It's finally actually on ground level, but they finally caved and put the new brown textures on it, instead of chain-link fence. It has physics, tho the gate magnets are a little offset from where they should be. ..Actually the gates themselves don't have physics or scripting yet, heh.

On toooo LAB55! I actually played this level in the installed version of b55, but it would crash relatively soon after beginning to play... Mostly all I remember was a raptor that walked on his side, lol. Anyway, first thing I notice about the level is the way the devs chose to fill the start of the level with choice Hammond voiceovers. They wanted to drive home how potent the voice acting in their game was, I think they did a nice job there. Hmmm the white keycard plays the right sound on the reader, with no light.. and/but the door won't open. Funnily enough, inside is a mac10... at this phase in development it's one of the only guns they have scripted to work, and one of the very first, but to this day that mac10 is in the retail in the same building. It uh, just seems like.. that building is sort of wasted. They went to the trouble to put a keycard reader on it and they don't use it for anything. Hmmm "SloadingShak00-00"... Why have I never put this building in a mod? Maybe it's cursed. Huh they had the trailer-tip puzzle working this early, I'm impressed... Ah and, you can look at the inside while it rolls! Neat.

LABtrailer01.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

Oh and so, I decided to trapse down one of the docks, and what should I find...

LABquake01.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

Haha figures. I brought it with me. Soooo moving on... Apparently there was at least this one time in this one build, where you could stand INSIDE a moving, falling trailer, like in JPDS~testing and ~streams. I honestly can't remember if I thought the devs had actually tried this, back when I did those...

LABtrailer02.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

Huh, that yellow keycard and the mp5 in the harbormaster's place are still there... Inside the office building, the rooms are even emptier than I remember them, but one fun note this time is that the freaking wooden desk is moveable! XD

LABdesk01.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

Hmm so. There is this water, way out on the edge of the harbor area. It's not in retail. Is this the spot with the randomly higher terrain detail, in LAB116? Don't remember, I think so though. I wonder why it was put here. Did they have some sort of CAnimal encounter planned?

LABwater01.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

I mucked around in the warehouses... Warehouse A, furthest north, is uhh... well I suspect the climbing puzzles are doable in b55, but again, in retail the weight works differently. Crates that appear as if you're supposed to shoot them down, won't budge much if you shoot at them. So, I skipped this one. It did have a nice, moveable crate elevator model. Warehouse B, I was a little more successful, getting around in higher levels... not terribly exciting. I killed the raptor outside with Quake and moved on.

Guess what's outside the Emily? The BOAT HOOK! This little object is mentioned in the walkthrough as appearing in Cathy's Beach in PH. Having no idea what version they wanted, I even went ahead and modeled it for the PH contest the other year... fun to actually find it, in a different level, no indeed with a clear purpose for its presence in this new case.

LABboathook01.jpg (255.13 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

PHboathookdrac01.jpg (168.72 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

Too bad there was no Rex in this level. 'Nyways, moving on, I went and got the green keycard, already submerged in water by this build... Too bad we haven't gotten to see the progression of LAB versions. One thing I really like about this puzzle in b55, is that you have to push the key over into the keycard reader, with a ribar or whatever... That, that should have been in retail! Haha!

LABcard01.bmp (1.03 MiB) Viewed 9363 times

Had to shoot the door, after, to get it to open.. Anyway. Moving forward.. All the dinos are effectively dead and immobile in the retail-interpretation of this level, oh well. What fascinated me was that the path to the lab-proper had RaptorC visitors! Whaaaa. Little early. Linearly-speaking, they were going to be in mid-AS1 anyway, but time-wise they is some distance away from here. I wonder why the change.

LABquake02.jpg (302.97 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

Everyone's favorite trashcan! The purple keycard. Interesting that the path here lines up with the Comp building okay but the BioChem door is off-center..

LABtrash01.jpg (148.89 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

The uhhh.. haha. I forgot to mention that the bathroom doors and stall doors in the harbor office building were non-tangible. Anyway all that stuff's tangible here but look at these urinals...

LABtoilet01.jpg (119.5 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

There's a room downstairs, northeast corner, that in retail has an odd texture on the wall. It's fixed, here. Going upstairs, the top-floor inside the stairwell has a different texture... Unusual. Possibly they went to retexture parts of this model at some point later on and accidentally changed a detail or two.

LABstairs01.jpg (195.21 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

Duh-huh! Nice. The full-on face wash station, with pull chain etc... This is neat. Too bad I didn't have it for JPDS~HRS...

LABspray01.jpg (163.31 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

...but more particularly, what I didn't have in JPDS was this special door, seen in a random pre-release image somewhere that didn't provide enough for itself to be recreated. Well, we have it now, that's nice. Also uhhh.. One of the white doors has an off-center Z magnet. The doorway into the decon room in retail only has one door.. Did they honestly remove the entire door to fix it, instead of moving the magnet?...

LABnewdoors01.jpg (184.51 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

The walk-ontop-of-the-walkway-roof puzzle was still in place, so I used it... Tried to use a wood board to get atop the Admin building, but it went crazy. Fortunately the window was right there. The uhh, hmm. The secret conference room was accessible from the inside, anyway. Interesting note, in the retail version this door is blocked by office chairs on the other side... That's similar to the block put in place for the PH door, in b32. I sorta remember other old puzzles like this too. I think the one for this office in retail is the last surviving one... Neat. 'Nyways, off I went into Hammond's office... Not only was a GIANT reception desk sitting there, it was, as well, freakin' moveable. XD

LABdesk02.jpg (176.71 KiB) Viewed 9363 times

I proceeded into Hammond's office, played with the fun desk drawer on the floor... went around to the front of Hammond's desk and was promptly killed by The Physics That Be. ......

That's gonna be all for today. Glad everyone's having fun with this. Various things to discover here. Tune in again tomorrow for more, only on Fox Kids!

---
To Be Continued
---

[machf]

Ah, this thing. In PV55 and at least one other level (Lab55?), there is something odd about the textures where one of the road tiles appears to be replaced by a crossroads texture. Unclear why...
Worth noting that this is the location where, in all previous builds, the PV road stopped, despite that the fence was there and still a ways off. This is also where the brown thing next to the ocean starts, some sort of low-tide thing for the harbor. The regular road texture is "TPV_PvRd02t2.bmp", where as this one that appears as crossroads in TresEd is "TPV_PvRd03t2.bmp". I have seen examples in Tres before, where opacity and/or other textures, are imported into the level in multiple, dissimilar versions with the same name... sometimes for example, when opacities and diffuse maps are swapped with each other. I guess we should be glad it's not the other way around here, where one of the crossroads in TresEd appeared with a normal road texture.

The attachment PVroaderror01.png is no longer available

They just somehow typed the wrong name...

EDIT:

Oh, and BTW, this screenshot:



It was taken on that level at this location (the Raptor just walked closer on that early screenshot, it's to the left of the visible area in the level in TresEd):

TresLab55Image1b.jpg (65.98 KiB) Viewed 9358 times

Hmm so. There is this water, way out on the edge of the harbor area. It's not in retail. Is this the spot with the randomly higher terrain detail, in LAB116? Don't remember, I think so though. I wonder why it was put here. Did they have some sort of CAnimal encounter planned?

The attachment LABwater01.bmp is no longer available

Interesting, there's a teleport destination right next to that pond. And where have I seen those two floating small logs next to it before? Hmmm... some early screenshot, maybe...

[Draconisaurus]

Hummm... Didn't know about the teleport trigger there, yet. "Teleport_Water". And the name, "TForestWater-00", is the exact name of that pond in the first valley of PV. Different shape though. Huh funny note... That pond in PV55, the model is the same shape as the one there in demo, however the edges are arranged differently.. One is point-destination ideality, the other is linear uniform direction ideality. Hmm.