The Beach HD finally complete.

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Jdangerousdinosaur
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The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by Jdangerousdinosaur »

Hey guys I'm new here, :) just thought I would drop this level here. It's the HD version of the beach created by Theidiot a while back, but it was never finished. I always loved how this level looked, so I fixed it up and added some weapons and dinosaurs, and you can now use the monorail at the end of the level. It's not a direct remake of the original Beach Level there are some differences, but It's nothing much. I wanted to do quite a lot more with this, but I had so much trouble with the level becoming unstable and buggy, that I had to restart it multiple times. It was a headache, putting it nicely, haha I think it had something to do with how many objects are on this level, but this was my first Trespasser project to get used to the editor and I really want to thank Draconisaur for his help. This would not have been finished if it was not for him. Please let me know if there are any issues. https://www.mediafire.com/folder/5zm5je ... D_Complete
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Last edited by Jdangerousdinosaur on Sun Nov 12, 2023 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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codemuk3y
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by codemuk3y »

Nice work
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TheIdiot
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by TheIdiot »

Dude, whaaaat?! This is awesome! I'm so glad to see it finished at last. :D Thanks for doing this! I don't see a download link, however?

A couple of things to mention: the textures on the medium-height curved palm trees with the hanging yellow leaves (visible in the centre of the first image) are slightly bugged and need replacement as they tile incorrectly. Also, the banner at the end of the level that reads "welcome to the city of tomorrow" above the final gate is supposed to be animated to sway in the wind, hence the reason there are like 5 similar meshes of it. You could try animating it but that might be a bit difficult if this is your first level, though there are some examples of how to do this in other levels, such as the pteranodon in TC Isle and the drinking parasaurs in RTJP.
The reason there are no dinosaurs is that this level was meant to be part of a complete remake of the whole game in this style, following the early written walkthrough, which does not include any dinosaurs until near the end of Jungle Road and Plantation House. If I you wanted to remake it a bit more accurately to the original game you could probably move some trees around and bring back the brachiosaurs (which I have Tres-esque textures for if you need them) and the Raptors at the end. There are also no guns for the same reason, though even if I were to revert to the retail version with the brachiosaurs and Raptors, I would still really limit the guns as much as possible, maybe make the tutorial guns NERF guns or something. :P
I'm going to guess the level is unstable because I didn't know about the "intersecting textures" problem yet when I made it. If you're unaware, we've found that having too many transparent meshes/textures intersecting with one another heavily affects performance and can cause crashing or make the level completely unplayable. The leaves on the trees are also animated which prevents them from rendering as billboards which is also a problem - you might be able to solve this by adding detail meshes for the trees which aren't animated (maybe even just duplicating the entire tree mesh itself and using it as a detail mesh, but without animations, perhaps?) or reducing their draw distance.

Now we just need you to finish RTJP as well...would you happen to have 10+ more years to spare? :P

EDIT: Oh, and I got a bit too excited, I nearly forgot - welcome to the forum! :)
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by Draconisaurus »

Fun to see this level get additional attention. It's one of just a handfull of levels that focus on environmental detail. So happens that Lost Jungle HD is also a remake of another member's level lol. I wonder what other levels would work with HD revisits.
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by tatu »

Amazing! It is nice to see someone actually doing fan work on a fan level.

They told me they forgot to attach the download to the post, which they will do ASAP ;)
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by Jdangerousdinosaur »

codemuk3y wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2023 9:37 pmNice work
Thank you :)
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by Jdangerousdinosaur »

tatu wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 11:22 am Amazing! It is nice to see someone actually doing fan work on a fan level.

They told me they forgot to attach the download to the post, which they will do ASAP ;)
Haha I'm sorry about that I was having some issues with Mediafire but the file seems to work now so the level is now attached :)
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by Jdangerousdinosaur »

TheIdiot wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 12:37 am Dude, whaaaat?! This is awesome! I'm so glad to see it finished at last. :D Thanks for doing this! I don't see a download link, however?

A couple of things to mention: the textures on the medium-height curved palm trees with the hanging yellow leaves (visible in the centre of the first image) are slightly bugged and need replacement as they tile incorrectly. Also, the banner at the end of the level that reads "welcome to the city of tomorrow" above the final gate is supposed to be animated to sway in the wind, hence the reason there are like 5 similar meshes of it. You could try animating it but that might be a bit difficult if this is your first level, though there are some examples of how to do this in other levels, such as the pteranodon in TC Isle and the drinking parasaurs in RTJP.
The reason there are no dinosaurs is that this level was meant to be part of a complete remake of the whole game in this style, following the early written walkthrough, which does not include any dinosaurs until near the end of Jungle Road and Plantation House. If I you wanted to remake it a bit more accurately to the original game you could probably move some trees around and bring back the brachiosaurs (which I have Tres-esque textures for if you need them) and the Raptors at the end. There are also no guns for the same reason, though even if I were to revert to the retail version with the brachiosaurs and Raptors, I would still really limit the guns as much as possible, maybe make the tutorial guns NERF guns or something. :P
I'm going to guess the level is unstable because I didn't know about the "intersecting textures" problem yet when I made it. If you're unaware, we've found that having too many transparent meshes/textures intersecting with one another heavily affects performance and can cause crashing or make the level completely unplayable. The leaves on the trees are also animated which prevents them from rendering as billboards which is also a problem - you might be able to solve this by adding detail meshes for the trees which aren't animated (maybe even just duplicating the entire tree mesh itself and using it as a detail mesh, but without animations, perhaps?) or reducing their draw distance.

Now we just need you to finish RTJP as well...would you happen to have 10+ more years to spare? :P

EDIT: Oh, and I got a bit too excited, I nearly forgot - welcome to the forum! :)
Feels really strange talking to you guys honestly. I have been lurking here and have been a huge fan of the work you guys have done for the game for years :) I have updated the original post so it now has the download link it should work fine but please let me know if there are issues. I have always loved how this level looked. I used to play levels like the ones from Dark Secrets and think about all the cool things I could maybe do with this level...yeah that would never happen haha. I had to downscale my ambitions a ton when the level just kept bugging out. Anyway, I hope you guys like it it's nothing special at all compared to what you guys can do but I'm glad it's finally done haha.
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by Jdangerousdinosaur »

Draconisaurus wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 2:33 am Fun to see this level get additional attention. It's one of just a handfull of levels that focus on environmental detail. So happens that Lost Jungle HD is also a remake of another member's level lol. I wonder what other levels would work with HD revisits.
Thank you so much for your help.
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by Draconisaurus »

Jdangerousdinosaur wrote:I had to downscale my ambitions a ton when the level just kept bugging out.
Working with that level added a factor of over-detail that most beginning modders don't have to tackle. I'd say for a next project start smaller. I have a few tutorials in the Tres tutorial section that might help.

PS: I think multi-posts are fine, tho some members disapprove. machf makes his own multi-posts and no one stops him. If they are on different points of discussion, why not?
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TheIdiot
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Re: The Beach HD finally complete.

Post by TheIdiot »

So I gave this a look, so glad you finished it up! I like the surprise allosaur at the end, and I'm glad you put a triceratops there where the brachiosaurs were as that feels closer to the walkthrough (though I would have had it sleeping to match up with Anne's dialogue). The inclusion of the actual tracks really makes a difference as well - I was going to use something closer to the T-shaped version from the earlier builds but it is admittedly difficult to walk on. I had intended to make a complete set of new monorail tracks based on the abandoned monorail at the Toronto Zoo (which I put together a lot of reference material for on my last trip there) for JR HD and then backport them to BE HD.
There's probably a fair bit more work that could be done on the final valley where the station is, I never really got that area done to the level I'd intended and it looks like you left it largely the same. I'd wanted to make the foliage thick enough that you could glimpse the station through the trees from the top of the hill, then you'd descend down into the jungle, pass a few bits of construction material concealed by the undergrowth, and then emerge suddenly into the clearing at the station. The final puzzle was to have two solutions: the original path, jumping over the wall on the tracks (with an additional element of maybe having to balance part of the track or something?), or the walkthrough's solution of using a piece of rebar and jamming it between the gate doors in order to remove the crossbar holding them shut.
Draconisaurus wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 2:33 am Fun to see this level get additional attention. It's one of just a handfull of levels that focus on environmental detail.
Funnily enough actually I started the level with less of a focus on the environment and more a focus on making each area unique. It just so happened that it also ended up becoming heavily focused on the detail because of how many objects I ended up putting down. You'll notice the level files are just called "tp~beach", because it wasn't really intended to be HD yet, more just a reimagining of the game.
Jdangerousdinosaur wrote: Sun Nov 12, 2023 7:04 pm Feels really strange talking to you guys honestly. I have been lurking here and have been a huge fan of the work you guys have done for the game for years
I felt exactly the same way when I started ten years ago. I was introduced to Trespasser in 2008-09 by TC Isle before actually playing the retail game so I was already a big fan of the work of the Tres veterans. It's a bit surreal when you get help from the guys who pioneered some of your favourite mods ever. :D
Draconisaurus wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2023 3:17 am Working with that level added a factor of over-detail that most beginning modders don't have to tackle. I'd say for a next project start smaller.
Yeah, and it's mostly my fault for making mistakes with this level that I wouldn't have done now. I did some partial work on Jungle Road HD as well which would have been even more unstable as the level of detail on that was a whole step up from Beach. I definitely suggest you try making your own level from scratch, though - something small and simple. Once you grasp all the basics you can look to throw in a ton of detail like this since all it really takes to get something to look like Beach HD is an eye for detail and a LOT of patience. But the actual object placement is really easy, thankfully TresEd is one of the most user-friendly level editors for any game.
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