Tomb Raider Forums  

Go Back   Tomb Raider Forums > Tomb Raider Level Editor and Modding > Tomb Raider Level Editor

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 14-06-13, 02:42   #1
DJ Full
Member
 
DJ Full's Avatar
 
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 4,183
Default DJF's Eternal WIP Thread

Last night, I couldn't sleep. By saying "last", I mean the previous one, not the one which has just passed. However this message had to wait two more nights to be completed... so in fact it all started 3 nights ago, in a particular moment when I, helplessly disturbed by thoughts and summer heat suddenness, just couldn't get heavy industry out of my apparently rusty, oil-dirty mind. I felt the whole weight on me - just like if tons of raw steel lied wasted, non-utilized, just like those fallen Polish factories slowly turning to ruins unused and forgotten, and just like me at that moment, plainly lying down, still and useless. Finally, after two hours, I got it. It came to me. I understood what is wrong with the whole Back to Basics: Steampunk - the approach. This concept should never be shrank to a single level. Steampunk means heavy, coggy, working, contrapted and, above anything else: huge. It should be beyond everything provided. We got lots of great levels, but it wasn't enough. The topic will always be underused as long as the limit of a single level is kept.

I stood up,
I locked myself in the toilet
and this is what I got:



Henceforth, the single-level idea is dropped. It's gone, squished and dumped. I should have never thought this way, because it only made me waste time on thinking how to stay within the limit instead on setting my desires free. Such approach was impossible to enjoy, and - as follows - I kept avoiding the project instead of pushing it. But now when I finally forced myself to shot dead the apparently sick ambition inside me, as soon as I buried it, a true one has been resurrected. So from now on, each location that goes too complex becomes a separate level and I don't care how many of those I get. Because raw steel needs space to breath freely, with all its power felt utilized, and I won't try to choke it by squishing it in a 100x100 block space anymore. Don't ask me what the construction is supposed to be, because I have no idea - I just built it and it almost filled the whole map:



In fact, my goal was to take up a quarter of it, but I fell in a kind of trance, wishing for more and more. As follows, it might require balancing on the edge of the editor capacity to fit anything more in. Anyway, I decided to try - as hard as I can. After just two more days of unplanned improving (the actual reason of postponing this message), things have already got completely out of control... or maybe under it at last? I completed filling the column gap once present between the roof layers, and which now reaches to the very end of the hall...


CLICK THE PICTURE TO MAGNIFY AND CAUSE LAGS

...and designed some detail in one of the corners...


THIS ONE YOU CAN MAGNIFY AS WELL, JUST LIKE ALL GAME SHOTS THAT WILL FOLLOW

...for them to serve as a pattern to copy/paste and derive from later. This is how I do it: starting from a simple shape, in this case based on a building I spotted in Berlin on my way to Bad Grund:



Because I don't know German, I have no idea what's inside, and that's the point, so please don't spoil the content to me, for my vision to remain unaffected. When I finish filling the hall with objects, You can tell me the truth...

So I have that simple, just 9-angle shape and then I sculpt small pieces one by one to complicate it, until I finally get the pattern I want. Then I copy/paste this pattern for illusion of heavy industry. It might seem doing the last thing is lazy, but in fact the area is so huge that splitting those rooms, joining them with portals and copying/pasting stuff took me about 40% of the overall building time (if not more). Additional 20% were spent on obsessive following the grid (what I allowed myself to fail at in unnoticeable spots). Only 10% has been spend on all-the-time changing texturing... and the final 30 was wasted on nothing because I got more immersed in Mike listened to while building than in building. Well let's screw that 30% and treat them like obligatorily waste, so I can say the building couldn't have gone faster... still I only have a small fragment of the planned hall... hangar... storage... base... silo... factory... well, whatever. Anyway, here You have a size comparison between the just-shown corner and the whole superstructure I ridiculously jumped at:



...and one more, because wait, the above one doesn't actually express entire ludicrousity of the project:



Not much of the upcoming completion can be imagined from it though, and this is exactly why I didn't post any of these pictures before - but I'm doing it now, because some sort of unity is visible, and because soon my turning point will be so far in the past that there will be no more sense to share its joy with people

Some editor pictures, for technical side - upleft: the corner NW, upright: the pattern, downleft: the corner NE, downright: Light+Shade... hell no, Mike Oldfield appeared against my will again (dude, leave me alone, I'm scared :P)


THIS ONE YOU CANNOT MAGNIFY, BECAUSE IT'S AS MAGNIFIED AS POSSIBLE

Following this fresh breath, I decided to share some excerpts of the Sound Illuminating Contraptor, started and (fortunately) failed for BtB 2 years ago. But I'm currently in my parents' home, and the remaining already-built areas were left 150km from here, so I can't post them now. I'll do it when I go back there.

EDIT: Apparently not. They're on the same external drive I brought here to record next trailer material on. So here the pictures go:

Schollywood Inc. Headquarters, Halina's hideout... OK, I called it Headquarters, but this is actually my flat and basement, where Lara arrives in the beginning to set off into the past (unfortunately killing me by accident, so her will to resurrect me becomes another reason why she has to go back in time):



Right before killing me, Lara accidentally breaks the toilet, and flooding the mentioned basement is one of results... based on mixture of real-life events:



- Tanks of liquid night (unchanged since 2011, I think):
1)

2)

3)


Cogs and a "control hut" inside the factory:



A train assembly point or a station, no clue:



A better look at a stain glass on the other side on the last place:



OK now posting and fixing this message probably took me more time than making a huge and climatic room would... So there will be no more updates as soon as the hall is finished Wish me luck, because this might take some time...


A similar split up into several levels as it occured to SIC will possibly happen to Hyraider, my unfinished BtB2013 level, trailer of which I btw forgot to unlock after the competition was over, so it can now serve as a bonus:



Also, from now WIPs from all my projects will be placed here and just here, because there are so many of them running in the same moment that they would trash half of the forum if I created a new thread for each one. I'll also I merge the old stuff in and, as soon as I do it, all previous threads I ever created might be deleted. Together with all question threads I created several years ago because of being unaware about the Open TRLE Chat. Sorry for causing that trouble, I shouldn't have done it.

Following the above statements, here You are several excerpts from Hyraider thread, once existing in hidden BtB forum:


TOMB RAIDER DIFFICULT
JUMPSWITCHES OF THE NEW WORLD
alternative title if the above is too long to fit in the script
H___Y___R___A___I___D___E___R


Class: Mystery
Location: Canada (as You can see, eRIC has unintentionally already mentioned it in the wait thread)
Date: 2013 BC (2013 Before Competition)
Temperature: 273,15K
Secrets: TOO DAMN MANY
Bonus secrets: NONE (jumpswitch unlocking them has been frozen; no kidding, there's NO WAY to open it; hahaha I know You will try anyway )

Story: Running for her life, Lara reaches Casey's house on the swamp, with an item that once belonged to a dead boyfriend of the latter. What happened she can't remember, it's all a blur. Wasted a lot of time to free herself from a homemade prison, she finds Casey jailed herself by a bunch of abominable beings. While weird things start to occur - darkness falls around everywhere, as a thick ice covers the sky - from now on both girls act together, exploring the swamp in search for whoever could have disturbed the peace. The only clue is a half-eaten, golden apple left by one of the creatures, and the only gardener in the hood is Casey's neighbour Dave, known for caring about his privacy...

FIRST, FLAT AND UGLY SCREENSHOT EVER TAKEN FROM THAT


PAGAN CHAPEL PLAN


GREENHOUSE (SAVED BY ESSGEE WHO TAUGHT ME ABOUT SPRITE REMAP LIMIT)


CHAPEL IMPROVED


THIS IS CALLED "SCRAPLANDS" AFTER BEING SCRAPPED AND REBUILT TWICE


SECRET HINT AREA


TOWER TOP PLAN


EXPERIMENTS WITH LIGHTING


EXPERIMENTS WITH OBJECT OVERLOAD, ARRRRHHH...


TOWER PLAN


PUZZLE FIELD


IRRIGATION AND HEAT SYSTEM COOPERATING


ONE TEXTURE CHALLENGE


THIS WAS POSSIBLY A NICE IMAGE, HOWEVER I CANNOT FIND IT


BUILDING CASEY'S TOWER


CASEY'S TOWER NEAR COMPLETION


WISHING FOR BLOODY MOVEABLE TINTING


I'm wondering if to throw in the whole thread history for this level, because there were many energy-filled comments which really kept me going through all this time. I'll possibly quote these words, however I need to restore the structure, messed up after extracting raw text from trle.net (that forum has a bit different style, so not everything can be just pasted here).


That would be all... unless I remind myself of something. But for now, I'm going to sleep - finally
Goodnight... or maybe good morning. Have a nice day! Or night.

Last edited by DJ Full; 14-06-13 at 06:17.
DJ Full is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14-06-13, 07:39   #2
Peanut
Member
 
Peanut's Avatar
 
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 4,571
Default

This looks to be incredibly promising. I don't know if all of these projects are going to be connected as they each are quite unique. The fact that you made that huge, huge factory in the first few screenshots in days is magnificent. Can't wait to see more!
Peanut is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14-06-13, 13:29   #3
Soul
Golden
 
Soul's Avatar
 
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 6,652
Default

This thread shows some incredible talent mixed with unique ideas. I can't wait until the day a proper game of yours gets to see the light of day, as it will most likely blow us all away.

Perfect!

Last edited by Soul; 14-06-13 at 13:30.
Soul is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14-06-13, 16:58   #4
Titak
Moderator
 
Titak's Avatar
 
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 33,359
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Soul View Post
This thread shows some incredible talent mixed with unique ideas. I can't wait until the day a proper game of yours gets to see the light of day, as it will most likely blow us all away.
All I can do is agree with this. Couldn't have said it any better.

Great stuff indeed!
Titak is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14-06-13, 18:37   #5
psiko
Member
 
psiko's Avatar
 
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 1,622
Default

Pure genius and creativeness.. and now I know for sure that you are crazy, in the good sense of the word
psiko is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14-06-13, 19:41   #6
Mytly
Member
 
Mytly's Avatar
 
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 14,252
Default

Wow, that's HUGE!!! I can't imagine how much such a large space will lag. Can Lara even move around in it?

The finished screenshots of Sound Illuminating Contraptor and Hyraider look great.

Quote:
Originally Posted by psiko View Post
Pure genius and creativeness.. and now I know for sure that you are crazy, in the good sense of the word
Indeed.
Mytly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14-06-13, 21:54   #7
DJ Full
Member
 
DJ Full's Avatar
 
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 4,183
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanut View Post
I don't know if all of these projects are going to be connected as they each are quite unique.
This is a bunch of my ideas I kept failing to execute until now. Each one has its own storyline, however it isn't excluded to e.g. join my all skipped BtBs in a sequence. Because I often tend to focus more on recent ideas than on former ones, the order would probably be reversed: Nordic -> Steampunk, and this would be called Back to Backwards. I remember I wanted to make a BtB level even since Venice, but I actually never had any vision for that place, nor did I have time to think about it, so I can't tell if the whole thing will be a Venice-ending bilogy or a Steampunk-ending trilogy.

Actually, when I look at my knowledge back then and compare it with what I know now, I feel ashamed of my past... Not even half a year ago, while starting with Hyraider, I didn't even have an idea preventing water from waving is possible, and I had no clue if You press all [1][2][3][4][5] switches it will activate from the very beginning. Such a priceless bunch of information anyone should know, and I wonder how many builders skipped it all. As You can see, the last and previous Advent Calendar helped me a lot... Also this year BtB did. Thank You everyone who had part in it.

For people involved in hidden Hyraider thread. I'm really grateful for their help, but now I think quoting all those words they have said doesn't make sense - because their help was directed to me, so it simply won't be capable of encouraging anyone who reads it except me. And above that, I don't want if they want to be quoted once more... I'll just credit them all in the readme. I'll also rewrite all fake prayers I made to my pagan god to keep the thread continunity, for them to serve as storyline or ingame lines.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peanut
The fact that you made that huge, huge factory in the first few screenshots in days is magnificent. Can't wait to see more!
I had to make it fast, because if I allowed myself to wait one more day, my courage to share it with You would probably have expired. It was an impulse and I had to catch it - hence the rush in building. But now it should go on more slowly and accurately.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Soul View Post
Perfect!
You enjoyed the most one of screenshots I find the most irritating Well that's no surprise for me at all But this is the old lighting version. The pictures have been presented in chronological order, picturing development history, so... here You go:



Hmm...
hmm...
...
...
hmm...

..
...

..
.



Now that I think about it, it might not have been an improvement at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by psiko View Post
you are crazy, in the good sense of the word
Thank You. The way is actually both good and bad. You see - I try to build and clear QRS's Egypt and Beyond Full in the same time, but I foolishly stated one level per a day as my target speed... But with the area like I played today, all filled with narrow corridors, holes popped in the ceiling, many pillars and an extraordinaly huge amount of opening/closing doors, my compulsion to look in every corner required several hours to be satisfied. Plus I had a sick sense of honor to negotiate all those wraiths withouts medis... so in total combined effect, I wasted the whole day so I'll probably build nothing today But who knows...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mytly View Post
I can't imagine how much such a large space will lag.
Actually it doesn't lag at all yet. Possibly because there are no objects except those metal supports. There will be really a lot of them, but I'll try not to invent any new idea before I execute what I already have in mind. This way I can avoid putting in too many objects. I intend to save some frame rate for fraps recording.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mytly View Post
The finished screenshots of Sound Illuminating Contraptor and Hyraider look great.
Actually, the tanks are not finished. Notice they have no objects, because at the time they were constructed and textured, I never looked in the wad yet And the lighting is only acceptable because of water The chapel is also not finished, for that indoor tinting will need a lot of adjusting... and the new room behind the altar affects ambience, so this will need a correction as well. The only locations of those two projects I might treat as finished are:
- Casey's house (HYR)
- the tower (HYR)
- Halina's hideout (SIC).

Halina is actually a siberian husky we liked to walk in the woods with whenever her true owner had no patience. The coyote provided by Nadine fits this character more than well... maybe I'll make her fetch the torch everytime Lara drops it

Last edited by DJ Full; 14-06-13 at 22:26.
DJ Full is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-06-13, 11:11   #8
teme9
Member
 
teme9's Avatar
 
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 3,252
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Soul View Post
This thread shows some incredible talent mixed with unique ideas. I can't wait until the day a proper game of yours gets to see the light of day, as it will most likely blow us all away.


Perfect!
This post basically says what I would've said

I wish my imagination was as vivid and non boxed as your is! Truly amazing pieces of work!
teme9 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 16-06-13, 04:01   #9
DJ Full
Member
 
DJ Full's Avatar
 
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 4,183
Default

Teemu, my imagination is possibly as boxed as Yours. And sometimes literally. What have I actually created? A warehouse? A train station? A factory? And even if a combination or derivative of those, it's still just a huge box - a container for something. I've finished the whole roof structure. I adjusted the look cam to show the things clearer:



A bridge Lara's standing on wasn't even planned, but when I copied the tower and it landed opposite the first one, I couldn't resist (it often happens that I'm building like if I was playing - placing something I would like to see next in a game I would enjoy).

The problem is my box can contain more than one topic, and weird connections appear one after another, so I can't help adding and adding whatever appears, and that might eventually doom gameplay due to lack of unity (the thing I praise the most in decent custom levels). For example: I was so bored with and not seeing any progress in tedious fixing a failed mirror of certain fragment, that in suddenly dropped everything, just because of a primeval need for something green and comfy, opposing the monotonous repetition I had just made. I landed on the floor and created a garden:



You can ask me: "Hey, what's the problem? This is a nice garden, what's wrong with that?" And the answer will be it's located right next to THIS:



A device I constructed without any purpose but to change a disturbing copied unit into something completely differing from the original fragment. Here's the thing in working state:



Oh, sorry... Not that! CURSED FLAME EMITTERS! Everything is targeted with fat end of the cone, except them... Wait a moment... ... ...
...
...
...
OK, there You go - this version is correct:



But I mean is we have a garden right next to an infernal device of doom, what causes total incompatibility, and I'm afraid the whole level might end up like this. So far, the machine has been working-named a "surprise generator", because it contains so many partial textures that I might be really surprised when I run out of sprite limit faster than I intended... Before, the remap value was at 85, now it jumped 10 more. But the most of the number is because of the huge wad - even that little globe model is 1.6MB big itself, what is 7 times more than the horse jeep from NL (WHAT THE...?!!). And everytime I compiled this "level" for testing, the program had to read and process that globe, even though it's not used at all... Nonsense!! When I finished with geometry, I cut the wad and left only wanted objects, so now NG_Tom2PC converts several times faster.

Following the box concept again: the greater a box is, the greater a surprise when You hit the wall:



In my case, this is the full set of roof support beams:



If You take a look for some time, You might notice an obvious mistake: if You stand close to the low windows and look at the upper vertical ones, the whole thing starts to clip due to being seen behind the off-portal transparency. Arrhh... completely forgot to care about it! I didn't expect to happen even though I had been through it several times... possibly I need twice more to learn. But the ceiling will be easy to fix, compared to fixing walls. Can anyone tell me why it's impossible to copy walls, while we can copy floor and ceiling? This is madness!

Finally, some editor pictures, showing several stages of today process, mentioned before or not:




The final point for today, with patterns for both sides finished:



And a close-up on the corner opposite the first one. Took much more than I planned, due to failed mirror of the grid and inability to copy walls. And still the lighting needs to be fixed, objects added and portals applied to make the windows 3D. But I've already altered it a bit during cloning the pattern. The device and the garden are right behind the rosette portal:




Yesterday night, it appeared I couldn't focus enough to build anything new, so I pushed Egypt And Beyond and cleared three levels of EAB in a row. I wanted to reach the Hall Of Fame 1+2 as soon as possible - for I love tributes, so I planned it for a break after today building ... but apparently the work didn't go so good. I'm just finished, however I don't regret the passed night, for the reason of delay is something really little, yellow and fluffy... can You see it?



If not, look here:



Heheh, she was supposed to be born tomorrow And she already has a brother! Here she lies in a hastily contrapted incubator, stuffed with toilet paper... the SOFT kind! I took a window thermometer out of its case and put it in the box to measure the heat:



But possibly I didn't have to be so accurate - it's enough to put a hand in the box and check if it's warm inside or not.

Even closer:



In the last moments of day, I built a level for her as well - put her in my bed with blankets around:



so she had a kinda Alpian horizon:


Last edited by DJ Full; 16-06-13 at 04:16.
DJ Full is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-09-13, 06:54   #10
DJ Full
Member
 
DJ Full's Avatar
 
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 4,183
Default The Trash Released

The below words once written here are NOT TO FOLLOW anymore, because Michael has got all components already and merged them into a fully working package:

Hey hey hey. 20MB of Trash has been released yesterday, but in case if someone of You downloaded it already, You need a fixed data file which I made after Scottie has found one serious bug during his playthrough, but which hasn't been updated on trle.net yet. It will possibly be there when Michael wakes up, and thank You Scottie for help

IMPORTANT! Working script.dat for the flipmap puzzle (and the rest of the game) is provided separately.


The above links are also old, so don't bother them. Everything is fine now. I think so...

Last edited by DJ Full; 10-09-13 at 15:04.
DJ Full is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT. The time now is 10:23.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Tomb Raider Forums is not owned or operated by CDE Entertainment Ltd.
Lara Croft and Tomb Raider are trademarks of CDE Entertainment Ltd.