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Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2023 1:35 am
by hppav
I have returned (again). Not sure how active I'll be as I'm usually pretty busy.

Anyway I couldn't find any posts about this by searching, but I decided to look into the newspaper that appears for a few seconds in the intro and found that it is an edited version of a real issue of the Los Angeles Times from May 12, 1998. The article on the far left was not changed at all and the text for the second article and the far right article stayed the same. My guess is the rest of the text below the picture of the Ops Center is from elsewhere on the front page.

The articles:
"Dominican Bones Line Pathway to States" by Mark Fineman, this article stays the same.
"Reno Seeks Special Probe of Labor Chief" by Robert L. Jackson, this article the title is changed to "EPA, Costa Rica Extend Isla Nublar Quarantine"
"State Justices Uphold DNA Evidence, With Limits" by Maura Dolan, this article the title is changed to "Hammond Testimony Sealed for 8 years" NOTE: Maura Dolan's name is also below the Ops Center picture for the "InGen Files Chapter 11" article.

The date is also changed to TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1989. October 12, 1989 was on a Thursday. However, May 12, 1998, the actual date of the newspaper, IS a Tuesday.

If anyone has a Newspapers.com subscription, here's the link: https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/160497533/

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2023 1:52 am
by MikeTheRaptor
Hi hppav & wb.

Nice find. Kinda cool that the original paper actually includes an article about DNA and the government. It's relevant :D

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2023 2:02 am
by TheIdiot
Welcome back, hppav. It seems you can never escape the clutches of TresCom. :wink:

Never would have thought to have considered that news article to have been real. I figured it was just doctored for the game. Mike's right, that's really neat how they selected a relevant article and modified it to suit their needs.

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2023 2:18 am
by hppav
MikeTheRaptor wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 1:52 am Hi hppav & wb.

Nice find. Kinda cool that the original paper actually includes an article about DNA and the government. It's relevant :D
Lol, yeah, and now we know that the intro is no older than May 12, 1998.
TheIdiot wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 2:02 am Welcome back, hppav. It seems you can never escape the clutches of TresCom. :wink:
Trespasser is always stuck in the back of my mind in some capacity, lol. I spent most of my life with this game at this point lol, I've been playing it and doing stuff with it for just over 21 years, I was 13 when I stumbled across articles on TSOrd's Trespasser Secrets site about the Geothermal Plant level. Actually remember being excited that he posted an update on Early September but it wasn't Tres related and turned out to be the last update on that site. (TSOrd's work on Pine Valley and Trespasser Level Editor was the last thing I got excited about before 9/11 of all things). Went searching for more information and found Remdul's Pine Valley site and he directed me to MP's Diehard forums and I got the game in December 2001 when I was 14 :o
TheIdiot wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 2:02 amNever would have thought to have considered that news article to have been real. I figured it was just doctored for the game. Mike's right, that's really neat how they selected a relevant article and modified it to suit their needs.
Yeah I'm surprised they kept the names of the actual reporters in the articles. Made it easier to find the article on the left and get the date of the paper it was in. Still think it's weird that there's added damage to not only the Ops Center in this article that's supposed to be from 1989 when it is first abandoned but also added damage to the real life set photo that follows - The right door design is messed with, there's an added hole in the overhang over the doors, and the top of the observation tower is cut off - not sure why the set was plenty damaged as it was.

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2023 4:29 pm
by Draconisaurus
Well this is pretty neat. Welcome back, hppav. Finding out these obscure IRL details was always part of what we looked to you for... Here's a totally unexpected one.

May 12 2998, huh. Tatu'll be interested in how that fits with the creation of the SMK.

How's life these days? Working holding up? Main thing to note that we've been up to here, is the progress of the "TresCom 20th Anniv community level", a functioning public mod project that's come a long way but slightly missed the deadline of Dec. last year. It's looking pretty nice.

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2023 4:57 pm
by tatu
Neat find. I never really bothered about the intro as it was probably not made by the devs themselves (I was once in contact with a Matt Hall who said he worked only on the cutscenes of the game, but is not in the credits).

As of the SMK. I know this was added after build 32, as it is present in build 55. SMK itself is older 8-)

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2023 6:35 pm
by hppav
Work's been an adjustment. Back in October they changed our base schedule to 4 10-hour shift instead of 5 8-hour shifts. We also no longer have the 16 hours of overtime every week we were getting due to losing a major contract, got used to having all that money now I make almost $300 less per week, that's been hard.

Been trying to get back into 3D modeling, right now I'm doing a new Operations Building and trying to wrap my head around all the references I have on my backup drive as well as try to undo all the changes made for JP3 in some of the images. Too bad the building collapsed and was demolished, wish someone got some pictures of the inside where the base of the dome attaches to the rest of the building. Also, some of the things I had thought about the structure of it back when I was making my Town level turned out to be wrong. I'm sure I'll get it figured out though. The Sliders scenes are a great resource though.

I'll have to check out that TresCom 20th Anniversary community level project, I've been out of the loop for a while heh.

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 6:37 am
by Hilwo
Wow, really cool find! :D

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 10:53 am
by codemuk3y
hppav wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 6:35 pm Been trying to get back into 3D modeling, right now I'm doing a new Operations Building and trying to wrap my head around all the references I have on my backup drive as well as try to undo all the changes made for JP3 in some of the images. Too bad the building collapsed and was demolished, wish someone got some pictures of the inside where the base of the dome attaches to the rest of the building. Also, some of the things I had thought about the structure of it back when I was making my Town level turned out to be wrong. I'm sure I'll get it figured out though. The Sliders scenes are a great resource though.
One of the sliders pics does show where the dome fits onto the rest of the structure, but it's mostly the interior carpentry that wasn't supposed to be visible.

I have some other ref pics of the outside if you want them

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 3:53 pm
by hppav
Yeah, I'm aware of the Sliders episode that shows the back of the Ops Center, pulled it up on the Roku Channel since my screenshots are really low quality (came from some old streaming sites, were less than standard definition). Combining that with the vending machine scene in Jurassic Park 3 and a set of collages of photos of the JP3 iteration of the set which show the rear of the set, I think I have the layout figured out.

[attachment=2]OpsCenterDome.png[/attachment]

The doorway seen in the Vending Machine scene in JP3 matches the doorway at the other end of the rear hallway so I believe that's original to the TLW set. And in Sliders you can see through the windows to another opening with a hallway that curves towards this door, so I believe that's the actual entrance to the dome area from the interior. Not sure what the doorway on the other end of the hallway connects to as the portico doesn't go all the way back to meet the hallway. BUT it's important to note that the portico ends in a straight 90 degrees on that side while it is angled on the other side so maybe there was a set of stairs there? Without the set blueprints or a photo of this area from when it was the Operations Building set we can't tell for sure. Maybe it didn't lead to anything because it was never meant to be opened?

[attachment=1]OpsCenterRear.png[/attachment]

Anyway, that's what I spent a good chunk of yesterday trying to figure out lol. And yeah, I was wrong about there being windows on that one wall of the Ops Center, the shot in Sliders of them walking through the Ops Center was filmed through the unknown office across from the Communication Center, not through windows in the far wall. So there's that. Also it appears that the hallway was already falling apart around that door that goes out to the balcony attached to the dome when they were filming Sliders as parts of the framing had fallen down and bent at weird angles. I don't think the actors even use the door because the window framing is missing from the back door to the door to the dome. If the set was never repurposed for JP3 I bet the hallway would have fallen apart first instead of the roof over the central lobby area. Still surprised a plywood set built over a pond managed to last almost 15 years before collapsing in on itself.

I also know that there's an episode of Crossing Jordan that uses the set post JP3 but I'm not sure which one. You do see up through the dome in it, which means the dome got its most use in a TV show instead of the movies it was built for :lol:

EDIT: The Episode is titled "Blue Moon," Got it pulled up right now. "Redecorated" as an abandoned church with oddly placed religious objects and fake spiderwebs everywhere. Looks like they removed the wall between the dome entrance hall and the rest of the set, leaving that one doorway. Also looks like the dome is set back just slightly from that back wall and there are windows on that back side of the building, I'll have to make some adjustments. They also constructed a curved wall between the vending machines and the base of the dome, which is what I thought. There's a scene showing the interior of the dome base in there too. Too bad I can't take screenshots. You can see the curved constructed wall through one of the original dome base windows. The building set was used more in this one episode of Crossing Jordan than anything else I've seen. Sliders didn't even use the building itself this much, it was mostly the village set.

EDIT 2: Done. The windows look to be squared off at the top, which was likely done for JP3, so I made them look more like they would in the Ops Center with the angle at the top. Due to the beam along the back of the building it means there's no top row of windows as these sit lower but overall looks pretty OK to me.

[attachment=0]OpsCenter6.png[/attachment]

Hopefully I got it right. Looks like I broke the "place inline" option of the attachments due to adding another. Oops.

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 6:09 pm
by Draconisaurus
Pretty nice work. Sucks that the attachments glitched. This's always been a nice Tres-y building. My interest in it seems to go up and down. What made you want to take another crack at it?

Btw, not sure if you have all of these -
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TB2BDvvy7Yaximxj7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JQNaMhnut9zSHBEU9

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 7:36 pm
by hppav
There's definitely a few in there I did not have, thanks!

I don't know what inspired me to take another crack at it, I just got the urge to try again. Think the last time I had given up because I had tried to modify my older model to match the newer references but there was so much wrong that I just stopped. That and the level was crashing in random spots. I'm going to focus one building at a time. I'll start a thread once I get the Ops Center built and in a level, shouldn't take too much longer to finish modeling since a lot of hard details are already done. Started working on the windows and put in the front doors and made the satellite dish, etc. Obviously, furniture and other interior details would be made seperately, a lot of it could be done just cleaning up the models I had already made previously and redoing the textures.

Also looking at the file there appears to be a window in the dome base facing the windows at the back of the Ops Center.
InteriorOpsDome.jpg
InteriorOpsDome.jpg (73.65 KiB) Viewed 4103 times
The hallway linking the base of the dome to the door is that opening to the left, which as you can see has the wall removed between it and the Ops Center proper as I pointed out before, but to the right of that is another set of double windows facing the gap between the building and the base of the dome. I'll have to put that in. This area looks a lot cooler than I thought it did :lol: Too bad it wasn't actually used in the movie.

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 7:43 pm
by Draconisaurus
Still no idea what that dome was for. I don't think InGen needs a stellar telescope. Then again, that poster in Hammond's House says "InGen Astronomy"...

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:38 pm
by hppav
It gives off mad scientist lab vibes, think a lot of them used some form of dome.

Anyway, looking over the pictures you posted you can actually see the rear windows and the dome windows in one of the shots:
DomeWindowsAndRearWindows.jpg
DomeWindowsAndRearWindows.jpg (73.35 KiB) Viewed 4082 times
Of course the top of the windows were angled originally like I thought. So they changed those windows for the EA set but never filmed at an angle to show them, while also removing part of the wall by the entrance to the dome to make it easier to get into the dome and cut an opening through the base of the dome on the other side, possibly to increase entry points for cast and crew, since they added to the rear balcony to attach it to the staircase behind the dome and the front portico.

Re: Trespasser Intro Newspaper

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:19 am
by TheIdiot
This is looking quite good so far, the back of the Ops Centre has always been somewhat lacking in re-builds. I'd had no idea about the connection between the back hallway and the octagon building. Definitely appreciate the new textures as well as the curved mural, something everyone seems to miss. I'm not especially familiar with the Ops Centre (or other TLW sets) so I'm afraid I'm not of much help on this one. But I'm impressed thusfar. :)