Tomb Raider 3 - Beta, October 5 1998

[TombRaiderTim]

Originally Posted by LaraCablara

I'm pretty impressed with how they bothered to make the entire river connect

It had to connect because a lot of curious Raiders at the time may have attempted to jump in and not expect consequences of a rapid, flowing river which would send Lara on a little journey to be flung over the edge of the waterfall to her death where the raft was otherwise the players would have been stuck in nothingness.

[Craig Michaels]

Is the river pretty much the same as the final version? The water looks - maybe greener?

[Woops]

Check the video in the OP^ and the level differences are listed there as well.

[TRExpertgamer]

Originally Posted by jonathanrij

^ Yup, pSX. I enjoy using it, even though it's seriously outdated and not very accurate. I intend to switch to another emulator eventually.

And about the download link, I would have loved to include it in my OP, but I didn't want to risk getting my thread shut down. I remember some time ago where threads discussing beta content would get closed/hidden, but the staff seem much less bothered by them now. I'm just not sure about the file sharing aspect anymore.



They do, but the boat ignores static mesh collision. Lara herself does not, though.

And while I absolutely love seeing some of these beta Antarctica elements in action, I can totally see why they ended up changing/removing some of them:
1. The orange boat: seeing as Lara's jacket has a similar shade of orange, she blends in just a little too well with it. This wouldn't have been a problem with her old outfit (which was primarily white/blue), but then again Lara would have faced a similar colour blending issue, seeing as the environment is made up of mostly whites/blues.
2. Ice chunks: with the boat ignoring their collision, players can drive right through them, which is not exactly a realistic look. But even with this issue fixed, players would have bumped into them instead, which I can imagine would have been such an annoying hindrance. As great as they look, I assume they were considered too problematic, especially considering the level was already lagging enough as it was.
3. The orca: very cute, but what is the point? If it was supposed to guide Lara somewhere eventually, that would have been pretty cool. But at this stage there seems to be no evidence of this whatsoever, given how the directive is so clear and how big the level already is anyway. Plus, it's known that there used to be a shark instead, so it's very likely they replaced it. It's obvious why they ended up removing it, but at least Willy will live on forever in this build.
4. See-through windows: they look great and offer some real immersion, but were most likely considered low priority in a time where memory was so incredibly sparse.
5. Extended ship section: I'm on the fence about this one. I was overjoyed when I realized just how different it is and how it really shows the depths of the ship, but does it actually offer worthy gameplay? You spend most of the time tediously moving boxes, followed by jumping over two empty pits. It does feel like a bit of a cheap way to add some extra gameplay time.

Also, for those of you who watched the Antarctica video in full, you'll notice that there was a button issue near the end of the level, which prevented Lara from accessing the Gate Control Key location. I bypassed this by simply moving the box below the button a little. Here's how you can replicate this fix yourself:
(0. Make a backup of the .img file.)
1. Open the original .img file in a hex editor. (I use HxD myself.)
2. Go to offset 00C6CB50.
3. Change the value 2E to 30.
4. Save.

This increases the box's Z value by an integer of two, which in practice places it half a tile forward, effectively making way for Lara to push the button.

Thanks for helping me with this situation!! now is there a way how I can finally use HxD to fix the rest of the other parts for this beta for Tomb Raider 3?

[Woops]

What other parts do you wanna fix?

[TRExpertgamer]

Originally Posted by Woops

What other parts do you wanna fix?

There's some of the levels in the pause & inventory menu that doesn't really look properly finished into this beta game itself. So is there a way how to fix all of that in some of the other parts of the game as well?

[jonathanrij]

Originally Posted by TRExpertgamer

Thanks for helping me with this situation!! now is there a way how I can finally use HxD to fix the rest of the other parts for this beta for Tomb Raider 3?

It's possible to do very basic game modding with a hex editor, but that's about it (realistically speaking). This may indeed allow you to fix some very level-specific issues, like I did by moving the box mesh in Antarctica. However, seeing as there aren't any other "fixes" like this one right now, you'll have to investigate them yourself. The thing is that this requires you to know where to locate the exact data you need and how that type of data is stored structurally. It's a tedious process that will take a lot of practice to get familiar with.

[TRExpertgamer]

Originally Posted by jonathanrij

It's possible to do very basic level modding with a hex editor, but that's about it (realistically speaking). This may indeed allow you to fix some very level-specific issues, like I did by moving the box mesh in Antarctica. However, seeing as there aren't any other "fixes" like this one right now, you'll have to investigate them yourself. The thing is that this requires you to know where to locate the exact data you need and how that type of data is stored structurally. It's a tedious process that will take a lot of practice to get familiar with.

Yeah that's very true because this was especially my very first time on trying to use the HxD editor to move the box out of the way at least

[jonathanrij]

RX-Tech Mines:



Check the video description for a very extensive list of differences. I may have gone a little overboard in my quest for documentation.

Here you can find the altered level file used in this video, which has a trigger to open the lead acid battery room. This trigger was completely missing in the original level, so I manually had to add it. I mostly did it to familiarize myself with the classic data format more, as I intend to write a basic level customizer soon (that will support adding/removing triggers, among other features), primarily for educational purposes.

[Gh0stBlade]

Excellent play through of RX-tech mines. And the documented differences really show how much Core Design worked 1 month before the game shipping to polish this level to completion.

Keep it up!