JPO Demo Preview Thread Update Feb 17 - Info Update (text)

[machf]

Well I can't have it look exactly like the real ship, because the real ship has specular highlights and Tres can't do jack when it comes to specular highlights Some angles the ship is bright green and some it's dark green.

Are you sure the Trespasser parameters can't help with that? I mean Diffuse, Specular, SpecularAngle, all those...

[hppav]

This is supposed to be happening between JP and TLW, right? Before anyone heard of Site B?

Yup. This is during the time that only Malcolm really said it happened. Grant and Ellie pretty much denied everything.

Remember that guy who flew his airplane over Eastern Europe all the way to the Red Square in Moscow undetected?

You have to remember that the Coast Guard actually knew they were there and tried to get them to identify themselves but the pilots turned the radio off.

Or they have a "let's just leave the dinos to handle them" attitude...

Probably but the Coast Guard aren't exactly the focus of the story. Sure some plot points involve their presence on the island but that's pretty much as far as their involvement in the plots go so their reasoning is something left to the player.

The only thing I think the boat textures need are some wear and tear elements to make them fit better and look more realistic. Some pitting, maybe some slight rust...some barnacles? I dunno whatever real ships have.

Here's some example longliners:
http://www.maritimesales.com/images/Others/PEY10-01.jpg
http://www.dockstreetbrokers.com/upload ... -003-a.jpg
http://www.boatsforsalebyowner.net/imag ... P-Main.jpg (The rippling of the hull here is actually mimicked on my boat, the rust isn't though. I may make a modification later to the texture to include this.)
http://www.photographyblog.com/gallery/ ... ed_968.jpg
http://www.islander36.org/whim2000/wh171.jpg
The person in the game has only owned this particular vessel for about four years. The rust around the windows/doors of the pilot house is due to the fact that they are openings in the metal and typically rust first. Boats are frequently repainted to protect them from rust and increase longevity. One particular problem I read about with longliners is that the pilot house is located towards the front of the ship making them vulnerable to high seas.

These are usually constructed of timber, metal, glassfibre or cement. Boats need to withstand wear and weathering to a greater degree than painted surfaces of a house exterior and in addition are subject to periods of immersion and drying out. The paint or varnish applied to a boat therefore needs to adhere as firmly as possible to the surface and brush application of primers or first coat is advised. Boats which are in poor condition and are intended for repainting or revarnishing should be stripped back to bare surface and treated as for new. Annual maintenance painting is essential to keep surfaces as resistant as possible. As specialised coatings are required for painting boats and yachts, owners should consult the Permoglaze Technical Information Service for expert advice.

http://www.sofapltd.com/guidedetails.as ... name=BOATS

Restoring boats seems to be a big pain.

Are you sure the Trespasser parameters can't help with that? I mean Diffuse, Specular, SpecularAngle, all those...

It may help a little bit but I'm not entirely sure that it can take something from light green to forest green depending on the angle. I'll fiddle around with it though.

[machf]

I'm wondering how those "ClutColor" parameters work... they have a "Start" and a "Stop" one, and also a "Reflection" one. Since "CLUT" is just another term for "palette", basically, I've been wondering... do these auto-generate a 256-color palette based on those values? I'm looking for 3D Studio documentation that might explain this, as Trespasser was closely tied to it.

[Draconisaurus]

The only thing I think the boat textures need are some wear and tear elements to make them fit better and look more realistic. Some pitting, maybe some slight rust...some barnacles? I dunno whatever real ships have.

Agreed. Sam, I don't actually mind your color choices, it's the fact that most of the maps used are not so much "textures" as they are solid colors, from all appearances It's the same thing which plagued that van from EastDock. In theory, things do have solid colors in real life sometimes, but it doesn't even look slightly realistic in 3D unless you have super-lighting effects, special mapping channels (like normalmaps), and crap like that. Looks kinda cartoony otherwise.

http://www.boatsforsalebyowner.net/imag ... P-Main.jpg

I actually like this image best. I'd say try to replicate it with your textures. Find stock images of grunge etc, or just dump a bunch of TC Isle textures and go wild. Tres has some useful things for this too.
http://www.cgtextures.com/

I'm wondering how those "ClutColor" parameters work... they have a "Start" and a "Stop" one, and also a "Reflection" one. Since "CLUT" is just another term for "palette", basically, I've been wondering... do these auto-generate a 256-color palette based on those values? I'm looking for 3D Studio documentation that might explain this, as Trespasser was closely tied to it.

I've actually played around with the clut values a lot. If, for example, you choose two darker colors, you'll be limiting the total available colors for the engine to render. It can actually look pretty ugly and results in loss of texture detail.

[machf]

I'm wondering how those "ClutColor" parameters work... they have a "Start" and a "Stop" one, and also a "Reflection" one. Since "CLUT" is just another term for "palette", basically, I've been wondering... do these auto-generate a 256-color palette based on those values? I'm looking for 3D Studio documentation that might explain this, as Trespasser was closely tied to it.

I've actually played around with the clut values a lot. If, for example, you choose two darker colors, you'll be limiting the total available colors for the engine to render. It can actually look pretty ugly and results in loss of texture detail.

Hmm, those are always near the Fog trigger, so it looks like that's what you should also tweak when setting fog values for a level (look at the values dump, they are immediately one after the other). But that's the global clut, using DefaultClutXXXColor, while there's also another set of values, ClutXXXColor, which aren't currently used in levels. I'll try applying the in an object's t-script, instead of using them as global clut definitions and see what happens.

[hppav]

Sam, I don't actually mind your color choices, it's the fact that most of the maps used are not so much "textures" as they are solid colors, from all appearances

Erm, they aren't solid colors. I used the texture from a mail truck and colorized it to the appropriate colors so there's small dents and ripples and also the plating effect (that makes it look more like steel plates rather than just a solid mass).


Here's the actual texture. It's covered in dents and dings, ripples, has a crease in it, etc. Not exactly solid. I bet you were looking at my temp textures and didn't think I changed them later

[Draconisaurus]

Possibly That's better than I thought, but still not particularly obvious, especially after mipmapping I'll bet. The fact that you used colorize also hurt it - you'll want to use Color Balance instead, as it will preserve a certain range of hues, making it a bit more realistic. And well, those railings didn't seem to have much in the way of texturization. I should note that things such as cylinders should all be mapped (with a dummy texture if you like) prior to combining meshes and/or applying bend modifications etc, so that mapping a good non-solid texture later will not be a pain (selecting parts of meshes and adjusting the UV gizmo) or look cheesy (box-mapping onto cylindrical objects etc.).

[hppav]

Yeah, going through all that trouble to get the railings on something you are only seeing from a distance to look nice

[Draconisaurus]

If it's only ever to be seen at a far distance, you might have been better off making the railings with opacity textures instead of meshes

[hppav]

Which would use two more textures

[Draconisaurus]

Yes The point being to reduce rendered faces. Anyway it'll probably work as it is.

[hppav]

Just a text update for you guys.

The JPO Demo will feature the first level of JPO only. Further releases will be level packs, which will contain three levels each. There are currently four planned level packs.

The first level pack will include three levels, the first one is currently the main level of the demo, the second one is uber top secret and only Draco knows what will be there, and the third one is the one that features the Visitor Center.

Tou haven't even seen half of what will be inside the VC once it's done, no one has actually, and I'm going to keep it that way (I'd say it's the equivalent to the mansion in Resident Evil or the RPD in Resident Evil 2, a big building where a good chunk of the game takes place that you explore and unlock parts of through progression with the plot, but that's beside the point). I have the entire VC mapped out as well the sections that will unlock as you progress.

I actually played through Resident Evil 1 PSX TWICE just to get the feel of a Survival Horror game, which is this mod's goal genre (and the genre Tres was originally developed for). Puzzles will definitely not be as nonsensical as those of Resident Evil though. In fact the first level (and the demo) won't have very hard puzzles in it for the sake of getting the player used to the game play, but there will be puzzles of course and a little bit of an intro to the story (Not a FMV -yet- as the character modeling isn't quite done yet).

Release of the demo is currently slated for the end of March. As the demo is closer to completion I'll get you guys a definitive release date

[makairu]

Great news Sam! Can't wait

[jetblack]

Sam, quick question...will we see the character at any point during an FMV?

[hppav]

Possibly, if I can get her face to look right, givin' me a headache