World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

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World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by hppav »

Long before TrespasserCE I had started work on a World Trade Center level based on what the WTC looked like in 1998. I decided to play around with TrespasserCE settings in order to take some cool looking shots. I pretty much turned off the fog and set CacheMinDist=1000.0

This was kinda a ridiculous setting, which causes the game to get some sluggish framerate while looking at both towers, but surprisingly not THAT bad. The towers do have decent polygons but not crazy amounts of polygons. Just enough to get things done. It takes forever to walk around these buildings because of how huge they are, but here's a few shots plus a link to the album of all the shots I took.

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More screens here:
http://imgur.com/a/NZRtW

The quality of the render is quite amazing, you can see the "belts" at the mechanical levels shift color based on angle, just like the real WTC. There's something quite amazing about seeing them rendered at this quality and walking around them at full scale. I never got to visit them in real life, it was something on the list of things I wanted to do since Home Alone 2 but we didn't have the money to go to New York for anything, much less to visit the towers. I figured this may interest a few of you while showing off what TrespasserCE can do.
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by machf »

Great to see them. Are you planning on ever releasing them?
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by Rebel »

Looks pretty cool, hppav. I've seen the towers the few times I've been in nyc, I
got dizzy just looking up at them. It's weird how tall buildings seem to be falling
in towards you. I imagine it's an optical illusion, but it's nevertheless odd.
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by TheIdiot »

I do believe you have shown or released this level somewhere else, hppav. Nonetheless very cool to see it in CE - I think I only ever looked at it in TresEd. Now it just needs the custom sky to look perfect! I never got to see the real WTC (and likely never would have as I never intend to visit New York), but doing huge buildings and cityscapes in Tres is always spectacular to behold. Makes me wonder what that old "Resident Dino" project would have looked like. :P
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by Draconisaurus »

Nice. Mmmm I wonder if we'll ever make the TresCom town.. X_X
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by hppav »

Figured I'd work on it a bit since I don't have a lot of time to work on anything (and likely won't have much time at all this year). It seems the level's instability was solved by TresCE but it has developed a new problem, importing new textures to replace old textures results in the level crashing on load. No idea why. Made a new 6 WTC plaza sign that actually matched the real thing and the game crashed. Modified 4 and 5 WTC to increase their height as they were a little taller than 6 WTC and added on the addition to the west side of 4 WTC which I finally found proof of existing in 1998. Just importing in the model rendered no crash, but importing in the model and overwriting textures results in a crash at the same point in load. Not sure if there's an error in the level's textures files or what. I may have to create a new blank slate level and move stuff over from this level into it. Will have to fiddle around with it.

But anyway, here's a shot of that addition. The temporary black texture doesn't look so great and is on the list of things to change.

Image

Also note that I have updated the sky to be a Tres CE sky using some of the stuff released by TheIdiot recently, just a temporary sky until I make something myself. This version of the level still has fog though as the fog change was done after the last backup.
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by TheIdiot »

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Figured I'd work on it a bit since I don't have a lot of time to work on anything...Will have to fiddle around with it.
That's weird that it crashes on texture import - probably had something to do with a bad import at some point. I'd highly recommend you just transfer everything over to another level before you continue work on this so that these instability problems don't escalate down the line. Anyway, it looks really cool so far! Might I suggest using some high-res textures via CE with bumpmaps to make it look even better? Currently the large textures that are covering the side of the building look a bit too blurry due to their file's image size-to-render ratio.
Also note that I have updated the sky to be a Tres CE sky using some of the stuff released by TheIdiot recently, just a temporary sky until I make something myself. This version of the level still has fog though as the fog change was done after the last backup.
:D Great to see my stuff being used. Might I suggest that you color the fog the same color as the sky background? I find that it looks a bit more realistic this way, though I guess in a large city the fog would be mostly grayish due to the smog (that's how it is in Toronto during the summer, at least).
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by hppav »

Yeah, I am planning on upgrading everything I have specifically for the new features in CE as well as start replacing my temporary textures. WTC 7's texture is just awful. It works well as a backdrop building texture, but not a main complex texture.

I also axed ideas to do the concourse mall/path station because of the fact that it would be quite a bit of polygons in a small space. I'm going to instead focus on building up the Windows on the World Restaurant in WTC 1 and the Indoor/Outdoor observation decks in WTC 2, add detail to the antenna for WTC 1, and build low poly backdrop versions of many of New York's buildings and structures so that at least some of the important experiences of going to the Trade Center will be replicated.

I actually have some photos someone took of detailed floor plans of several floors of WTC 1 of the offices of J&H Marsh and McLennan's offices from the target timeline of 98-99. These include furniture placement and I tell you, if I did a complete floor of this building complete with furniture I don't think even Tres CE could handle it. Literally an ocean of cubicles.
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by hppav »

Some updates I've done recently. I started a new level to bypass the texture import glitch I had been having Let's see how this goes.

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Here's the updated plaza floor. I need to change that white brick pattern though, it's way too white. Needs to be more of a tan-ish white and with less deep looking cracks. Would make a fine bumpmap to turn into a normal map for the plaza textures as is though...

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My next project after importing the new plaza was to start upgrading the plaza building textures since Trespasser CE allows higher resolutions and bumpmaps. I finally found a higher resolution picture of the side of WTC 5 with a somewhat even lighting and not a lot obstructing it and was able to create a new texture from it. This is WTC 4. I have only updated the upper floors texture and plan on updating the bottom texture soon.

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Here's a nice shot of the currently not updated WTC 6 and the new WTC 5. I have modified the roofs of all four plaza buildings again as it seems they appear different over the years. This is how it seems it appeared in 1997 so I assume it was the same in 1998. I am not sure when the newer raised roof on the southern end of WTC 5 was constructed though. Kinda hard to find shots of the roofs of these buildings... Almost as if no one cared about these three buildings lol.

EDIT: Update. I modified the Mechanical Floor exteriors so now the columns are a bit narrower from the front while still being wider than the regular columns. This is so that they appear darker from straight on than they had. I also added in vents to replace the flat black texture there to mimic the actual exterior of the mechanical floor.

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Here's an upclose shot of the new recessed vents of the mechanical floor.

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Looking up at the updated towers with mechanical floors from between 4 and 5. Note: I have not updated the crowns of the towers yet so they are not yet in the level.

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Looking up from below.

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Would look like a photograph if it wasn't for 6 WTC's low resolution texture...

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Northeast of the complex looking towards the towers.

Certainly is improving quite nicely 8)
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by Draconisaurus »

Looking good! :|
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by hppav »

Thanks! Been doing a ton of research into the indoor observation deck. Seems that between 1996 and 1997 it got a remodel so that it had ceiling tiles instead of exposed steel, thankfully. That'll help with the poly count :lol: It seems in every other 3D recreation of the towers that no one has done the 107th floor observation deck. Likely due to the fact that there's so few photos. But I did find quite a few videos from 1997-2000 that show it.

Using a 107th floor map of 1 WTC rotated to place the two express elevators with doors on both sides in the south eastern corner I will soon be able to start work on building the interior observation deck, the first recreation of it ever :lol: The hardest part will be doing the informational graphics on the walls about various parts of NYC, but I think I can recreate as much as I can and bullshit the rest. Nobody really paid much attention to the wall graphics anyway, they were all either looking out the windows, eating at Sbarro, or shopping in the couple of shops up there. It'll be interesting piecing it all together.

Anyway, in preparation for this work I have upgraded the tower crowns.

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Every other column has been narrowed, just as it was on the actual towers.

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Also both towers have tinted window textures all around floor 107. The south tower had windows on floors 108-110 on the north and south side near the middle so you could see as you were going up/coming down the lower set of escalators. Floor 110 had two short hallways connecting these escalators to the escalators which led you up to the outside deck. You went to the southern end of 107, ascended an escalator to 110, then went through a hall to an escalator going up to the western side of the deck. Then when you went to go back inside you came down the eastern side into 110, passed through a hall then went down an escalator to the northern side of 107.

Also these recessed vents would sometimes have communication equipment between them and the outer columns. I found a handful of photos showing this up close.

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Here's the towers from the north east with the new crowns.

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From between 5 and 6 WTC.

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From the base. The updated mechanical floors and the crowns work well together, adding a lot of depth to the towers.

EDIT: Update. Started work on the interior of Floor 107 in WTC 2. I have built a rough version of the floor with just the basic core layout without any of the special parts of the observatory. I have put in a large physics object so I can walk around up here.

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The empty floor so far.

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Looking down at the plaza from floor 107.

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Looking at 1 WTC from 2 WTC.

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Door to Stairway A. This was the stairway which survived the impact of United Airlines 175. I believe about 16 people survived from at or above the point of impact, with the highest floor being 84 I think... The EXIT sign has a second mesh with an unlit EXIT text on it that makes the EXIT sign stay lit, regardless of shadows.
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by tatu »

Really nice work. So weird seeing Anne in a non-hostile environment as a regular person like that, kinda like a casual "work" simulator game. Kinda cool actually! (not everything about shooting and killing dinosaurs.)
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by hppav »

Thanks. Yeah it is kinda weird to experience. I am considering possibly making up a company and making an office for it somewhere in the building so I can have an example of an office floor (though less emphasis on stupid cubicles). That would have me make at least one sky lobby as well though, but I'd only have to make a partial floor for that as there was tenanted space on those floors as well, just have "locked" doors to those offices I guess.

Anyway, I've been going over all my references I have so far to map out the 107th floor as well as I can. I will have to kinda make up some of the stuff. This floor doesn't have the advantage that the 107th of WTC 1 had, which is an employee who loved it so much that he photographed the entire 106 and 107 floors of Windows on the World Restaurant...

Image

The flat walls on the East, North, and South sides all have large infographic murals on them that are proving to be a pain. Sure I'm able to BS my way through recreating them, but it takes time to make sure I can't find better references or videos of them before I make them. Also I have to do some research to fill them out with some true information as the text would be legible to the player. So yeah, that's what will make this truly the most difficult part of the entire project :lol:

I'm almost done with the mural for the east wall north of the entrance hallway and the amount of time I've spent on it makes me think it's going to take ages on that part so I should probably focus on getting the geometry done and up there first, but I'll finish the first one real quick and upload a full resolution version when I'm done.

The third one between Manhattan Magic and Sbarro has a picture of Malcolm X that is actually shaped like an X. Ah the 90s :lol:
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by hppav »

I will note at this point that I have noticed that the height of 107 is too low. The floor is actually a bit higher than it is depicted here and I am working on modifying it appropriately. Also I'm working on fixing the interior walls by the windows so that they don't have "cracks" in them and also working on the alignment between the crown mesh and the tower mesh as that is off as well. To be fair, I initially hadn't intended to do the interior of 107 and do the usual "teleport the person to the outdoor deck" trick everyone else employs.

Found out that my graphics card has a new recording application that runs in the background that captures video and sound so I may also be doing some video updates, that will help you get an idea of how huge this place is I bet :lol: Going to see about importing the lobbies (sans the ugly railings that need reworked) and putting in some kind of physics object for the floor of the plaza and doing a video walking from the entrance at Church street to the base of the North Tower so you get an idea of how big it is.

After this week I'll only have Friday through Sunday to work on this as I'm going back to school for Automotive Technology on the 17th. (Technically that would mean I have Monday this first week too). So I want to get a bulk of the work for the South Tower observatory done before then. I might not do Windows on the World because I'm not sure Tres can handle all the chairs/tables/etc. Plus the time constraints getting tighter and how long it's taking me to properly research floor 107 of the South Tower... Idk, I may add it in at a later date, but when I do my initial release it will likely just be the plaza, tower lobbies, and the observatories of WTC 2.

EDIT: Ok, here's the promised video of the plaza in its current state with physics and that white brick texture finally fixed. I also have imported 3 WTC as it was in the original level. It still needs work obviously:



Framerate in the video is only a little off due to the recording program, the framerate is still smooth in game. Anne is moving at her full retail run speed. Walking would take even longer and still be faster than the average person traveling :lol:
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Re: World Trade Center in Trespasser CE

Post by machf »

Wow, it's HUGE...
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