I originally was going to do a demo of my failed "Jurassic Park Oblivion" mod that centered on finding Nedry's Jeep and exploring the wrecked docks. Draco liked the location but not the premise. He was the one who came up with the idea of doing a campaign around Nedry trying to make it to the docks from the Jeep wreck. A sort of "What if?" alternate universe level.
I used MS Paint while looking at Jurassic Park Legacy's Nublar Map to do a rough map of how the area was laid out, which Draco used as basis for laying the roads and building the level. Vegetation was planned to be a mixture of the TresCom Isle plants and the retail Trespasser plants. The docks themselves were designed using an image I found on Google Image Search. However, due to the changes in Google since then I can't relocate the image and the reference folder for the East Dock project was lost in my last hard drive crash.
Draco pretty much recreated the docks based on that image. He modeled the docks themselves and the phone box and used models from TC~Isle and the retail Lab level to create the docks. The high security storage cage area was my idea and the light posts, water tower, sign, and van were models I made specifically for the docks area. Virtually all the textures used in this level was done by Draco except for the van and the dock sign.
The Jeep was the only model that had been made prior to the development of East Dock. Draco spent a good two months working on the mesh and making new textures. You can ask any of the admins who chipped in occasionally (Slugger and machf specifically) about how much Draco fussed with that mesh. The Easter Egg in the Jeep, the Seinfeld tape, was something Slugger suggested and was put in by Draco.
Nedry's torso was my model. Draco took that and made the head and limbs himself. He then had machf rig the mesh since he had been doing a lot of experiments with rigging different meshes to Anne's rig. The motion sensors were my model and designed based of Jurassic Park for the Super Nintendo. The yellow road signs were my idea based on this image:
If you look closely you can see something that appears similar to the outlines on the signs used in the level. I remember Draco thinking that was quite neat. I'm personally surprised there wasn't a more direct shot of the sign, since they clearly put some effort into making it look like it fit in.
The tunnel was a lofted spline based on the outline of the cafe from when Nedry said "There's the road." Fun fact: The tunnel's mirrored from what it should have been and it wasn't caught until after it was too late to do anything without yet another delay.
The island signs and reflector posts were my models. The fence and gate later on is my model as well. Draco, as stated earlier did the textures.
The idea to use the SS Venture was mainly to cut time. All Draco had to do was change the name to the SS Anne B, the name of the boat in the book.
The last thing put in the level? That van. Probably the lowest quality item in the entire level. I'm surprised that we didn't just scrap it since it's just there to add visual interest.
And Draco's custom settings for the ATX rain became the standard settings because Big Red thought it looked awesome.
Speaking of rain, did you know that the TC Test Rain (used in the tunnel transitions) was based on an idea I had back in 2002? Lacking the skills to do it myself, I suggested the idea on the forums. Remdul managed to actually attempt it, though it proved to be a resource hog.
Now, here's the funny things about this level now that Jurassic Park the Game has come out.
The guy at the dock was played by Draco. We had no reference for what he looked like except for a highly pixelated security cam image in the movie, which gave us some leeway. Ironically the guy in the game kinda looks and sounds like Draco's representation of the character.
Then there's how both us AND Telltale's team did the same error in the Jeep crash scene. You see, in the movie the Jeep slides down a small slope before it levels out on top of the fallen tree, but in our level and in the game the Jeep wreck is on the same height as the road it drove off.
And that, pretty much, is all there is to it.
