wip School of War: Tron Legacy Edition

[EvasionStudios]

:: Greetings Programs ::

 

In 2010, a movie released that has been under appreciated in my (and others) opinion.  However, after seeing Tron Legacy in IMAX, and subsequently several times after that - the idea of taking this digital frontier and applying it to Jedi Academy has never left me.  As part of the School of War server, I knew that many aspects of this movie tied directly into the pathos of our community.  It's been 13 years since that film debuted, but the reality of a map combining the rich visual aesthetics and contrasting elements is now becoming a reality.  Thanks in no small part to the people I have partnered with; the beginning of something truly revolutionary is coming to our server, and to the rest of the Jedi Academy community.  Welcome to the first stages of what we hope to be the fruition of dreaming of this for the last decade. 

DISCLAIMER: Most of the screenshots shared here are not rendered in game, but are actually being rendered in Blender.  Through a number of techniques afforded to us by kind and expert modders in the community, we developed a pipeline to do the bulk majority of the world building in blender, and then transfer that to radiant, and eventually into the game.  Proof of concepts have been done multiple times so we are cutting down the limitations of Radiant, while also speeding up the process as Blender is a far more useful and easy medium to construct this vision. 
 

I. The Plan 

Based upon the movie; Tron Legacy, the concept for this map is broken up into three distinct levels with multiple areas in each level.  The original concept had three levels.  That of the Outlands, The City, and the Underground.  While the outlands and the city were canon to the movie, the underground was an addition to offer some versatility to the map, and some of the normal features of rooms for events, training, and information.  

This was the rough guide in putting together this masterpiece, and after some lengthy discussion and re-watching the movie several times - there was a clear direction in moving forward.  While my mapping partner and I were not fluent at all in the art of mapping for Jedi Academy, we are passionate about making this a reality, so we endeavored to learn by doing, and getting the amazing help of the mapping community through the process.  The following proof of concept has been put together to show you how we are making this map feel like the same experience we got in the movie.  

 

II. Proof of Concept

Stage 1:

Upon loading the map for the first time, you are transported into the real world, outside of the Arcade.  Now for reasons of our server - the name of the Arcade has been changed to Red's.  This arcade will host a variety of well known arcade games from various eras, including cabinets we custom built for games that were never arcade machines to begin with.  Based off the layout of the original Tron movie, the arcade will be setup with an upstairs office/bedroom, along with a focal point arcade machine which acts like a secret door to venture down into the laboratory.  From there, access to the Grid will be through a computer terminal, which will transport the player to the Grid version of the Arcade's lower laboratory. 

 

Stage 2:

Once you emerge from the laboratory, you are now within the Cityscape of the Grid.  This will be a massive city sitting on a hexagon and replete with towering buildings all accented by ribbons of light, and in the center a massive structure that culminates in a stunning skyscraping tower, atop which features a night-club/lounge area.  A large highway system connects the surrounding quadrants of the city, and empties into a section of grid like streets that encircle the various buildings.  This is by far the largest area of the map, and will be an open-world of catwalks, ledges, buildings, and scenery that will immerse the player in the Tron experience.  Various vehicles will be either parked or on routine paths snaking around the city.  The presence also of a massive cruiser orbiting the city will also be of noteworthy exploration and discovery.  

Stage 3:

From the Grid, the player will have to journey between the city, the arena (featuring dynamic dueling pods), and a lightcycle (or swoop) grid, in which races, and battle royals can be accomplished.  A key structural destruction of the grid wall will allow players to access the outlands, and from there they will need to discover the hidden gems in this rocky and darkened terrain.  Eventually their path will lead them to a secluded oasis that holds the key to getting back to the Grid itself, and beyond to find the way back home.  

Stage 4:

Re-entering the city through a secret tunnel that leads into a long and winding canyon and eventually back into the city, the race is on to the Portal.  But first, the player must secure the disc in order to even use the portal, and for that, they need to reach to the pinnacle of the tower to that elusive End of Line club in the skies.  Traveling up an elevator to the peak of the spire, they will indulge in the lights and sounds of a Daft Punk inspired night-club, where they can explore the setting high atop the Grid.  Perhaps a bit of danger exists though, as the orbiting ship and some flybys of Recognizers are amid the sky as well, just waiting for an opportunity to strike. 

Stage 5:

Once you find the method to reach the cruiser that orbits the city, you'll eventually locate the Master Disc that will give you access to the Solar Sailor, and access to the Portal.  This train ride will take you through the rest of the outlands on a sky-high adventure reminiscent of the train level in base SP.  Eventually arriving at the Portal, to which you will use the Disc to portal out of the Grid and back to the arcade where your journey began, thus completing the circle of the map.  

 

III. Construction and Design

We are several months into the process for creating these levels and working on various aspects to get the aesthetic correct.  There's been a lot of talk with the modding community that has been an invaluable help to us about shaders, culling, clipping, and light mapping.  We're figuring things out as we go, and jumping back and forth between the various areas we'll have.  You'll notice we haven't really touched on any parts of Level 2, and that's because it's an unfinished idea of what we want, though we do have some models already set that we'll be making use of.  

We still have a great amount of work ahead of us, but we are enjoying the journey.  We wanted to post this first post of the thread just to show you what we're doing, and where we are currently at.  We'd love to get feedback from the community and see what you think, and how we might even improve on this vision.  We do have a Discord server specific to this project, so if you are interested in joining that, we can talk about that opportunity should you express interest in it.  We'll keep you appraised here with sporadic updates as they come to light on this thread.  Thanks for your time, and happy trails program!

[GeoBall]

Look's purty cool ^_^

[EvasionStudios]

It's been a month and a lot of work has been done.  We've discovered several new methods thanks to the kind and supportive people who have generously given their time and talent into helping this project move forward.  What we've found is that we needed to move every area into a blender file first, and use them to move it into radiant.  So we've scrapped some of our earlier work that was done in Radiant and in game, to recreate it new in Blender.  After doing that we started to fill in more of the areas that we needed to create, as well as new rooms.  So enjoy these preview shots of the areas lit up in Blender. 

I. Tron City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II. Disc Arena

 

 

 

III. Lightcycle Grid

 

 

IV. Arcade

 

 

 

 

V. Oasis

 

 

 

 

 

 

VI. End of Line Club

 

 

VII. Emerald Palace 

 

 

 

VII. Amber Garden

 

 

There is still a lot of work to do, but we have come a long way.  We will of course being giving proper credit to the numerous people who have helped us, the places where we were able to get models and textures.  Once we are finished putting all of this into Blender, we will then be going over a final pass to make sure all the textures are proper.  Then we can get into radiant and start making this thing a reality.  I hope you look forward to the future updates here, and we'd love to hear what you have to say about our progress thus far!  Till next time, programs!

[scp_chaos1]

Simply impressive!

[GeoBall]

Looking good! ^_^ We're getting there!

[ZanderNao]

I love the Tron aesthetic. You're capturing a very amazing range of styles here, too! The outlands map and Amber Garden are going to be my favorites.

[ZelZel]

Incredible work. Can't wait to see more

[PreFXDesigns]

waaaaaaaoooooow!

[NumberWan]

Very beautiful. Aside from the very unusual designs and details, what is equally impressive – the shaders, the lights and the general atmosphere. In some cases I wouldn't expect the JA engine to be able to bring up this quality. The shining and the "reflective" parts look very neat: the floors in Amber Garden for example, as well as areas in the End of Line Club.

The bed and other furniture in the Oasis rooms are beyond words – these look exotically perfect. 

Did you use Radiant for mapping? 

[EvasionStudios]

So as the disclaimer has said in the posts, most of these photos were created in Blender.  However, we have every confidence that with the proper shader files, and some other modifications - that JA will be able to handle all of these effects without hindering performance. 

[SomaZ]

On 5/13/2023 at 11:28 PM, EvasionStudios said:

So as the disclaimer has said in the posts, most of these photos were created in Blender.  However, we have every confidence that with the proper shader files, and some other modifications - that JA will be able to handle all of these effects without hindering performance. 

Looking very good so far!

 

Be warned that jedi academy lighting can actually just darken your diffuse images though. Just because it is often just mutliplied and lightmaps and diffuse images are in 8bit (per channel) color depth. If you are interested I could show you how to use a blender addon that I've written to properly bake lighting with blender. I could also offer help if you are interested in providing rend2 support with your maps.

 

Blender addon in action:

Spoiler

 

Old version of rend2 in action:
 

Spoiler

 

[EvasionStudios]

Greetings Programs!  It's been a while since we had an update.  Things were slow during the month of May and June, but we're getting back on track.  Most all the areas of the map have been built and put together in Blender.  The next phase of the project was a texturing phase, to ensure every model and surface had an appropriate texture.  We also got help to ensure that the transparent background images were all setup as the correct file extension so that all the images will work within Radiant and in game.  We're still working on the textures at this point, having a few more rooms to take care of, and then we can begin exporting.  We were also to get some great help from the community in setting up a path where importing all the models could be done at once, instead of having to manually import each individual model.  So here's some more visual reference in Blender with all the textures in place. 

I. Lightcycle Grid

First we have the Lightcycle Grid.  This has been tested in game, to ensure that the ramps and jump are correct, and the size of the race track around the perimeter is usable for racing.  There are two levels on the main floor, allowing for a great freedom of movement on swoops.  After we have the map completed, we may be working on custom Tron inspired vehicles, based on the models we were able to get.  

II. Disc Wars Arena

This section you're seeing here was an addition we decided on, to create a larger platform based area to duel on.  The four pods above this area are for the one-on-one duels, but this is for more of a free for all setting.  A lot of it is glass, and the rest of it is textured as metal walls with light accents.  

III. Command Ship

Sitting in it's club-box seating is the command ship.  This will be present in a few areas of the map, and features the throne room for watching the sports, and the command portion behind a hexagonal door.  This ship will serve to control functions of both the disc arena and the lightcycle arena respectively.  

IV. Exit Portal

At the end of the map, the journey to this location will be the one way exit back to the arcade.  This is one of the first areas we built, and it was done by hand.  It is a fairly accurate representation of the portal in the movie.  Also, the original portal was meant to close up and open into this shape, which actually looks like the laser that portals people into the grid in the first place.  Our doesn't have that movement function, as that would be a little too much, and unnecessary. 

V. Oasis

We've done a lot more texturing and adjustments to this area, but it still has some work to be done.  The bookshelf has a number of real books intermingled among the nondescript ones.  Each book will have a usable function to show you snippets of text from those books.  The School of War has always had a library and we certainly are including another one in this map as well. 

VI. Outlands

Originally we had done the outlands by pulling models into Radiant and building it within that program.  However, we found out that in order to get the right kind of shading to work with proper reflections enough to match the scenery of the movie, we needed to actually rebuild it from scratch in Blender.  This is one of the larger areas of the map, and includes both a secluded cave, as well as the path towards a door which leads into the Oasis' underground garage. 

VII. End of Line Club

Perched high atop the main spire in Tron City sits the End of Line club.  A party area with a bar, upper deck seating, an elevator, and two doors that we decided to open up to the outside.  The balcony hosts a nice area for taking in the scenery and perhaps some duels as well.  Not to mention we have Daft Punk in all their glory hosting the music scene at this particular nightlife haven. 

VII. Dojo

A brand new addition to the map not found in the movie, is our School of War dojo.  We were able to "Tron-ify" it appropriately, and it will be used for a place to train and spar as we currently have in our main map.  Feel free to try and translate the Kanji and figure out their meanings. 

Once we have finished doing all the textures, we will then start to collaborate more with checking on the shader needs to get all of the textures and transparencies into Radiant for building the actual map.  We expect that to happen within the next month, and we're looking forward to doing a lot of testing with these areas to see how they can perform.  As previously mentioned, if you are interested in doing some beta testing with us, and have an interest in being involved in solving the issues that will undoubtedly arise, feel free to message me on the forum here and I'll give you access to the Discord where we solve those issues.  

[EvasionStudios]

Hey folks, 

It's been over a year and we had to put this project on pause for a while.  We needed to wait for some help from @SomaZ and @mjt who have been instrumental in helping us get through some of the pains of the project.  Notably they were able to facilitate a method for us to move the blender areas in bulk into Net Radiant.  So we've picked back up and are working to finish some of the textures that were not properly sized, while also testing these scripts and getting them moved over into Net Radiant. 

Our current goal is to get the areas moved in with textures applied, and have all areas in one map, that we can load into a game and see what happens. From there we will do the shader work, the operations of various points in the map, and start to refine it.  No pictures for now, but we're excited to keep on moving!

[ZanderNao]

I think your game flow makes sense. Getting the map with textures in game is always a good first step. Shaders can always be adapted after the fact, lol. Thanks for the update! I can't wait to play in this sandbox!