It came to me one day. I was sitting in Richard Pau's room and we were talking to project lead Juan Valencia about what would be a cool addition to the game. We were talking about the factory breaking down and all the fires causing some sort of meltdown. I threw out the idea that the factory should have some icebergs in the background. Being a big fan of Easter eggs I jokingly said that one of the icebergs should have a frozen T-Rex. We all laughed at the thought but as we kept talking about it we realized that it was such a great idea. We came up with a scenario where the player would walk past the T-Rex on his way to his work station and when the factory blows up the players runs passed the iceberg only to find the T-Rex had reanimated and escaped.
We planned out the rest of the story that day. When we came to the end we realized that the ending was literally just flipping a switch. We couldn't have the player beat a few levels just to flip a switch. I said that the T-Rex should reappear and attack the player as some sort of boss battle. We all laughed and then Juan turned to me and said "Make it happen" I turned to him and said "Where do I even begin?" and he replied "Deal with it".
We planned out the rest of the story that day. When we came to the end we realized that the ending was literally just flipping a switch. We couldn't have the player beat a few levels just to flip a switch. I said that the T-Rex should reappear and attack the player as some sort of boss battle. We all laughed and then Juan turned to me and said "Make it happen" I turned to him and said "Where do I even begin?" and he replied "Deal with it".
Some of the first few sketches I made of the T-Rex Popsicle. At first he was supposed to be a realistic dinosaur but that didn't feel right so we made it into a watermelon flavored popsicle.
One of the first things I did was sketch out some ideas. At first I wanted the Rex to be realistic and terrifying, something that would drastically contrast the cartoony tone of the world. That idea went out the window fast. So we decided that in order to make any sense the Rex had to be made of ice cream. I suggested that he be a popsicle similar to the kind you would get at an ice cream truck. So after that was decided I sketched out what he would look like...I didn't have much success with the sketches but one thing we nailed down was that his flavor should be watermelon. That way his outsides would be green like a dinosaur and red like blood.
When i first started sketching out the boss fight I had this idea which I completely took from the movie "Carnosaur". In the movie this rampaging dinosaur is killed when the protagonist drives a forklift into the dinosaur impaling it and killing it. So for Freeze-E Frosty's We were going to pay homage to that scene and have Frosty drive a forklift straight into the belly of the Rex and scoop out it's insides. Due to time constraints that idea got scrapped. The Forklift is still in the game but the player can't drive it.
When i first started sketching out the boss fight I had this idea which I completely took from the movie "Carnosaur". In the movie this rampaging dinosaur is killed when the protagonist drives a forklift into the dinosaur impaling it and killing it. So for Freeze-E Frosty's We were going to pay homage to that scene and have Frosty drive a forklift straight into the belly of the Rex and scoop out it's insides. Due to time constraints that idea got scrapped. The Forklift is still in the game but the player can't drive it.
I made an early version of the Rex inside of ZBrush using Zspheres. This version of the Rex was never used in game.
When the news broke out that we were adding a T-Rex boss fight into the game no one believed us. The guys on our team just looked at me as if I was telling some sort of joke. I wanted to prove to them how this absurd idea was going to happen. So that night I went into ZBrush and with Zspheres I whipped up a pretty decent looking beast. I then clumsily exported it out of Zbrush and into 3d max where I then uploaded it into UDK. When the team came in and saw the legendary tyrant lizard sitting literally in the middle of the game they just stared and knew that it was going to happen.
It was up to our artist Richard Pau to model the T-Rex. I remember him being pretty ticked about trying to nail something so abstract. I literally dug up this picture from the first week of modeling. This version was promptly thrown out in favor of the T-Rex we have in the game now.
Now my ZBrush model was just for show. The real model was to be done by Richard Pau. We had a guy on our team draw some concept art for the Rex. What he came up with was a goofy looking dinosaur with popsicle sticks for legs. On paper it looked like it could work but when Richard began modeling it in 3d it just looked so bad. We dropped the model fast and decided to add some more to it, flesh it out some more. The next week we had the T-Rex you see in the game. I remember being skeptical at first about the popsicle stick legs but it ended up being one of the best things about the T-Rex.
We had to get a good texture for the Rex. We knew that we wanted it to be watermelon flavor for the skin and to have gumball eyes just like a popsicle you would get out of an ice cream truck. The texture we went with was done by Brian Shimamoto. Everyone called the pre-textured version of the Rex the robot Rex.
It was a long process but with only seven weeks to spare I began to build the boss fight from the sketches in my notebook. Early on Frosty was going to battle the Rex on foot. After a certain number of phases the player would jump into the forklift and impale the beast. This idea wasn't plausible because the Rex was so big compared to Frosty it just didn't work. What I did was I added a walkway leading to the shutoff valve room, this way frosty would be able to fight the Rex at a level where he could actually see him. The only draw back to this was that the player couldn't see the popsicle stick legs.
When I was drawing the boss fight out on paper I knew I wanted it to be pieced out into three separate parts with an intro and an ending. It took seven weeks to get the three phases done correctly. The third phase was the hardest and most complicated. The first phase had the T-Rex come out and use some simple bite attacks to damage the player. He attacked in a simple pattern and was always vulnerable to be frozen. In the center of the boss fight area was a glowing red steam pipe. The player was to freeze the pipe causing it to burst and shoot steam directly at the T-Rex.
It was simple enough but every phase got a little more complicated. In the second phase of the boss fight the Rex was much more aggressive and would attack the player with greater speed. He was always vulnerable to being frozen but even then the player would have to dodge diligently to avoid being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of attacks.
The debugging process was about two weeks by itself. It was a lot of tweaks to the animation and attack patterns / damage / Hit points. It was during these weeks I worked on phase three. Phase three was already complete but it was the most complicated phase. For one the Rex had three standard attack patterns where he would swivel from place to place biting at the player and roaring. With each roar icicles would fall from the ceiling. He then has his Mega Roar and stomp combo where he would stomp send out a shock wave and roar causing a series of icicles to rain down on the player.
What also made phase three unique was that the Rex is now invulnerable to being frozen and the key to beating him was no longer freezing a steam pipe. The key to his defeat was freezing this large ice cream sandwich that held this large steel pipes. Once the sandwich was destroyed the pipes fell and cracked some steam pips causing the T-Rex to be hit with large amounts of steam leaving him in a near death state. As he lay on the floor a swarm of army ants attack him. It was a very odd choice by us but hey we went with it.
When I was drawing the boss fight out on paper I knew I wanted it to be pieced out into three separate parts with an intro and an ending. It took seven weeks to get the three phases done correctly. The third phase was the hardest and most complicated. The first phase had the T-Rex come out and use some simple bite attacks to damage the player. He attacked in a simple pattern and was always vulnerable to be frozen. In the center of the boss fight area was a glowing red steam pipe. The player was to freeze the pipe causing it to burst and shoot steam directly at the T-Rex.
It was simple enough but every phase got a little more complicated. In the second phase of the boss fight the Rex was much more aggressive and would attack the player with greater speed. He was always vulnerable to being frozen but even then the player would have to dodge diligently to avoid being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of attacks.
The debugging process was about two weeks by itself. It was a lot of tweaks to the animation and attack patterns / damage / Hit points. It was during these weeks I worked on phase three. Phase three was already complete but it was the most complicated phase. For one the Rex had three standard attack patterns where he would swivel from place to place biting at the player and roaring. With each roar icicles would fall from the ceiling. He then has his Mega Roar and stomp combo where he would stomp send out a shock wave and roar causing a series of icicles to rain down on the player.
What also made phase three unique was that the Rex is now invulnerable to being frozen and the key to beating him was no longer freezing a steam pipe. The key to his defeat was freezing this large ice cream sandwich that held this large steel pipes. Once the sandwich was destroyed the pipes fell and cracked some steam pips causing the T-Rex to be hit with large amounts of steam leaving him in a near death state. As he lay on the floor a swarm of army ants attack him. It was a very odd choice by us but hey we went with it.
Below is a video demonstrating the rigging process our art lead Richard Pau went through to create the T-Rex. He made the model inside of Maya and the rig inside of 3D studio Max. He did a few of the animations. The rest of the animations were done by Tony Sanchez.
The final result was a memorable boss fight.
All in all the weeks of work that went into to it paid off. It really goes to show how a crazy idea can really come together. Richard modeled it, Tony Sanchez animated it, Brian Shimamoto textured it and Juan Valencia said make it happen. It is definitely one of my proudest moments, seeing a random thought become reality.
- Danny Q
@dannylv100
- Danny Q
@dannylv100
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