Jurassic Park mod for Crysis Wars

3 comments by Devotus_Mustelus on Dec 17th, 2009 digg this super bookmark

I was going to do a video for you guys, but Adam will be out of town for a few days. The video is of the Visitors Center, and I need a copy of Ian Malcolm before I do the video. We did a test earlier with Ian and the Visitors Center ingame, but my viewing was done through TeamViewer, low color stream, and he wasn't recording.

That is ok though because the Visitors' Center was greyscale in this particular import. I however have colored it, and just need to export it with the separate material/shader data for each color.
The extra time will give me some time to also clean up a few issues.
I've already optimized ALOT of the model.

When I gave a copy of the Visitors Center to John Harvey to work on, he did alot of nice work on it. Unfortunately he used Rhino and NURBS.
Although he created a nice export flowgraph (w/e) to make it quad output and get rid of wasteful faces; there is still really HORRIFIC topology on 60% of everything. Not to mention uneven flowing of geometry due to this as well. Lots of terrible issues, really unusable. But good news is, I cleaned up a shit load of geometry. Deleting edges, vertices.. recutting and defining edges. Some things I'll be better off rebuilding completely, but his proportions are good so I'll use his work as a reference. So not a complete waste.

My modeling skills have GREATLY improved since I begun this structure.
When I first started modeling the Visitors' Center, I didn't even use modifiers. I didn't even know basics 'edit poly' tools such as cut, ring/loop, connect, bridge, cap, extrude, bevel, inset.

I basically built everything from boxes, and used boolean here and there.. basically the same kind of modeling you do in Source engine's Hammer world editor. I only recently since the beginning of this year, taught myself the basic tools in 3D Studio Max, and now more recently, advanced tools/modifiers. I've graduated from being able to do structures, to smooth more complex surfaces like vehicles. And moving on to organic models like characters and creatures.

So I've gained the experience to finish the Visitors' Center. What used to be tough, is now a piece of cake. And also with the help John Harvey lent, there is now alot less guess work to do with proportions.

I just have to clean some things up, and fill in missing areas in between. John Harvey will not be doing anymore work on the Visitors Center, so anymore work on this will be my doing alone.
We have a very basic separate model of the Control Lab and Hatchery, with the rotating visit.

I'll be fixing up its scale/proportions and connecting it to the current Visitors' Center model.

As it stands right now, we have a very very good WIP exterior, rotunda, cafe, and kitchen. Substantial amount of details.
I'll begin adding the hallways in the Rotunda and try to create a basic pathway to the stairwell that leads to the 2nd floor in the rear of the control room/lab area, as well as the elevator.

This structure in-game is totally bad-ass. Part of the reason Adam didn't record the video is because he spent his limited free time playing around in it too much, he had too much fun. :P

This is definitely going to be the most exciting area to play in.
Currently the model is 40,000 polygons. With some good optimization, this can be reduced perhaps in half, but keep in mind this is 40,000 for the ENTIRE structure so far, including some temporary props.

With the optimization in CE2 though, all 40,000 polygons are not drawn, only what is seen.. so it runs FAR smoother in CE2 than in 3DS Max. FPS was not low at all when we ran the test. 72+ FPS.
With lots of vegetation though, that will probably drop to 30 FPS.
Vegetation in Crysis is laggy, not sure why. Must not have good LOD models.

Anyway, back to Ian Malcolm though. Absolutely amazing in-game. Works perfect, and its surreal to see him moving and interacting in-game. Can really feel this finally coming alive.

We also have been modernizing Alan Grant's model. It was a bit low poly with no additional models for high poly LOD. Well unfortunately the topology of the model was pretty bad according to Adam. The original artist was Robert Blight who's not with us since over a year.

Adam tried his best to work with the model and zbrush it up. Although the face actually in some instances is more accurate to the actor, the skin looks way too aged. He might have been basing his references on the now 60+ year old Sam Neill, so I've given him references from the 80s to base the face on a much younger looking Mr. Neill.
But that wasn't the big issue.. the eyes are also extremely screwed up. He looks like he has down syndrome; Not sure what caused that, and I don't think Adam knows either. Probably can be fixed up to perfection, but Adam says its less work to just redo it, rather than try and fix Robert's model.

Regardless, Adam's current assignment is getting this new Alan Grant ready. Whatever is quicker, will be best considering were trying to get this thing released ASAP.

But anyway, if you notice the latest picture in the image gallery, where Alan Grant's face is censored with a photoshop pixelation/mosiac filter, now you know why. heh

Matthew Hodge is wrapping up Muldoon. We'll have a new image to show you soon. He has improved the facial structure of Muldoon to look far more like the actor Bob Peck; so the face no longer looks like a caricature. His completion of Muldoon marks the beginning of Ellie Sattler. Depending on how fast both him and Adam work, we can see all 4 characters working in game by early January. Hopefully sooner.

We already have decent dinosaurs made. Although I would like them to be redone or improved, we will just have to use them temporarily for the demo if we cannot prepare them in a sooner enough time. I'm trying to release something DECENT before late January. Regardless of how good the dinosaurs work or perform though, we'll definitely get out at least a demo with the 4 characters and the Visitors' Center. We were unreleased during MOTY 2007. I'll feel ashamed if we are still unreleased MOTY 2009. So a release is not an option. I know I pushed back the Dec 1st release, but I promise you I will release something, regardless, before MOTY begins. Got my word on that.