Way back when Quake's first utilities hit the net I had experimented with skins etc on Quake models and found out that you could make your own models for the Quake engine. The first lot of models I saw were from a guy called Bubbah (John Diamond). I had access to 3d Studio r4 and decided to try one myself using 3ds for the first time. I chose to make a raptor as I had been a big fan of Jurassic Park the movie and would liked to have seen a dinosaur in the Quake engine.

I came up with (or better put "was responsible for") The Quake Raptor completed in late March 1997 and boy, was it a real piece of crap! Multiple object (no bones IPAS at the time), forward kinematics etc. Yuk. I spent 3 months on the raptor, learned the basics of 3d Studio and then re-released it after another month of refinement. Also during that 3-4 month period I had found that there were groups starting to modify the Quake engine entirely and from there was pretty much the beginnings of the TC (total conversion) scene.

I played around with the idea of creating a TC group. The drummer in our band was a programmer and was the coder behind the raptor and other things like QTorch (the first flashlight for Quake including a deathmatch without lights or "darkmatch") so the code was taken care of. A few people contacted me and we started on Jurassic Park Quake. I whipped up several multiple object models to animate - basically everything we have now bar the stegosaur.

It was now June 1997 and I was moving to another city as I was starting a new job in a mine which is where the problems began. I was leaving for work at 5am and getting home at 7:30pm sometimes later. The plan was to stay there for only 3 months and go back to what I was doing before but I ended up staying there for 10 months (the money was good). During this time our TC came to a full stop. Ending up without a net account due to a lack of time I lost contact with most of the team members. I moved back to the city I came from (Perth, Western Australia) and continued as planned only this time I had ordered 3d Studio MAX r2 and Character Studio (made possible by working in the mine for 10 months).

3d Studio MAX r2 rolled up 3 months late, it's now July 1998 and I was set to make a big descision. Whether to scrap the models I had done and start fresh with Character Studio and MAX r2 which would bring much better results or continue in 3dsr4. I chose to start working from scratch. This put us back to square one again as I had to learn the concept of bones animation and inverse kinematics. I spent 4 months making the new models and learning the software. During these 4 months I had the pleasure of seeing Unreal and the way they textured thier models. I learned the concept of unwrapped uvw mapping coordinates and implemented this technique (quite badly) in the current set of models in Jurassic. Perfect for maximum coverage using the 256x256 texture size that the Voodoo 1 and 2 are limited to.

We tried a few models in the Unreal engine. All went well so we decided we were to change to an Unreal TC. It is now late October 1998 and we found the problem of the bounding cylinders that Unreal uses. It was possibly the worst way of providing hit detection for a dinosaur. We posted our bad news and Luke Wenke then emailed me with a solution which brings us to the present. All up, without the gaps in between, from the beginning of the Quake Raptor, right through to what we have now is a little over 12 months work spread out over 2 years. This includes the entire rebuild of all the models.

The intro is a combination of extremes. From the 1200+ face model of the foot that stomps on the word "Jurassic" to the 180 face soldier and Hitler models, I went to extremes seeing how much detail could be put on screen as a singular model and as a group of models. The soldier and Hitler models are what you call optimization in it's most extreme.

You will see holes and unprofessional work but I treated this as a learning exersize for the next project I end up working on. It has forced me to further inverstigate 2d art which is the perfect compliment to a 3d artist. The only skins I created were the stegosaur, pteradactyl and demon skins in that order. The next set of models I work on will be a little more consistent.


Here are some guidlines for those of you wishing to start your own total conversion.

1. If you are serious about getting into the computer gaming industry I think there is no better way to go than to throw yourself into a fully blown total conversion. It will teach you how to structure your work to ready you for a job in the industry.

2. I find it's a good habit to get into writing down a list of duties for the immediate future (like a plan file, only on paper). I started by making the long term, broad spectrum list of tasks (basically which models to build) and then broke this down into a more particular list of tasks to complete for each model. This way you not only see the progress on screen but can see your progress on paper. It keeps you focussed and keeps distractions to a minimum.

3. Keep an organised directory structure for your models and work in general. This will come with practice if you are naturally haphazzard like myself. Having stuff all over your hard disk gets to be a real pain after a while. I wrote a page of text headed "Directory Structure" listing what files I would have and where but I ended up not adhearing to it. I deleted crucial files like the original unwrapped models so making refinements to the models was impossible. BIG mistake.

4. In saying that, make regular backups of your work. Even down to backing up your files several times on floppy disk or cd if your are lucky enough to own a burner. A few dollars for a pack of 10 can save you literally months and more of work. I lost quite a few animations when my hard disk crashed and I can confidently say it was the most discouraging thing to have happened during my entire time working on this project. None the less if it does happen - push onward. You may even do better the second time around :)

5. If you find yourself falling into a routine (a boring one that is) try and keep your daily schedule varied. There are many ways to keep that "fizz" going. Use music to throw you into the mood of design. I'm a musician myself and music, I think, is one very under-rated medium. It can sway crowds, it can influence people and it can add spice to that bleak 3d Studio menu.

Anyway...