Identification of Confed's Bar Food Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's time once again for... SNACKS OF THE TERRAN CONFEDERATION!

The famed TCS Victory's rec room always has popcorn on the tables...

The Grey Ghost, TCS Lexington, has little bowls of peanuts all around the lounge. ... and finally the megacarrier Midway has a megasnack: big cheeze doodlepuff type things. The Victory's bar has some other options, too: bowls of peanuts, cherries, orange slices (only around when Flint is drinking!) and what I think are Tootsie Pops?! Does anyone ever actually eat the bar snacks? There's a scene in WC4 where Blair palms a peanut and then puts it back while he's talking to Maniac... but I think Captain Paulsen is the only one who ever eats anything!
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WC4 Remastered Mod Enhances Planetary Missions & Solicits Assitance Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We've got a delicious update today on WC4 Remastered. Pedro reports that the team is digging deep into the ground missions of the game. As is usual on a project like this, once they started peeling back the layers of the original, things got complicated. This has necessitated some clever solutions, which have been detailed in a new WCRespace article. A few options include taking some artistic license and deviating from the original experience slightly, but this should produce a more engaging product overall.
The first issue was to add support for loading the terrain and we had to ensure that the models which we had full transforms for lined up exactly as they did in the original game. Classic buildings and terrain.

We have accomplished this and added support for terrain collisions. The ~1 million vertex original terrain can be rendered on modern hardware in a single draw call – but still that’s not an insignificant number of poly’s. Going in I had expected to find a largely repeating landscape, but no, the team had a single heightmap that it took hours to fly across.

We want to stay as true to the original games as possible, but being too faithful to this geometry would inevitably be disappointing. As such we’ve decided we are going to work on creating more exciting terrain, something perhaps more inline with what PSX gamers were shown than what PC gamers actually got.

The team is also looking for some assistance to help process things more quickly. No technical experience is required! Learn more here.
What we need is for people to play a special build of the game which logs which room you entered, which videos played – and most importantly what variables were changed so we can identify what they are used for. We need people to then go through the original game and record which of the multiple background images are used for each conversation. If you can help let us know on the forums and we can provide you with a special build for tracking the variables in-game.

Confederation Mod Adds Expanded Raptor Art & 3D Hornet Cockpit Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We've got a couple of exciting updates on the Confederation engine makeover for Wing Commander 1. AllTinker shared his latest Raptor side art. He's also created a very cool 3D bubble of the Hornet cockpit to explore potential new features that can take advantage of this. Click into the thumbnail for a larger animated GIF video of the head movement in action!
I'm still working on the extended side views for the hangar sequence, but I've at least made a start on all five WC1 ships. The closest to being finished is the Raptor:
After pondering my wrap-around cockpits I've decided the best way to properly support ultrawide without the awkward (lack of) perspective is to bite the bullet and go 3D. This will just be another option. The wraparound 2D cockpits don't look so bad at 16:9, but really start to break down quickly beyond that. 3D cockpits also allow things like padlock view (something I've always wanted in a WC game), and perhaps someday VR support.

It's very much work-in-progress (especially everything outside the cockpit), but this is how the Hornet looks so far:

I've had to mutate it a little from the 2D original just to make a little more physical sense, but I've done my best to keep it as faithful as I can though (with my terrible modelling/texturing :p ). It directly uses as much of the original art as possible.

The 3D cockpits will delay things a bit but I think they'll be worth it. The day job is also pretty busy at the moment, but progress continues. :)

Make Mine a Double Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Oh, did your version of Wing Commander III not have a mission where you escort two minelayers?
Lord Thrakhath sacrificed an entire Bhantkara carrier group in a feint at Torgo as part of his strategy to trap the Behemoth. Here: Thunderbolt 300 escorts a pair of dedicated minesweepers as part of the effort to cover the weapon’s approaches.
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Space Sim First Look: Squadron: Mercenaries Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Goge stopped by to share a very cool space sim tech demo that he's been working on lately. It's called Squadron: Mercenaries and he's got some very lofty goals in mind! The core portion starts as a traditional Wing Commander style sim, but there are larger secondary element planned as well. One really cool thing that jumped out at me is that it just runs in a browser window. You can visit the website here and be playing in a few seconds without installation. More info is on the page to get oriented. We hope to see some of his ambitious plans come together!
Squadron: Mercenaries

Squadron Mercenaries is a thrilling spacefaring epic that blends the adrenaline-pumping space flight combat simulation of Wing Commander with the intricate personnel and material management aspects of 'Mechwarrior Mercenaries.' In this immersive game, players will not only engage in intense dogfights and grand-scale space battles, but they'll also assume the role of a resourceful commander, managing a crew of diverse characters, upgrading and customizing their spacecraft, and navigating a dynamic galaxy filled with contracts, alliances, and political intrigue. With its seamless integration of strategic management and action-packed combat, this game offers a uniquely captivating experience that caters to both die-hard simulation enthusiasts and fans of deep, story-generating gameplay.

I've been working on this on my free time for a few months. I'm gonna take a break and go build something else for a game jam next week. Then I should be back to this with weekly updates :D

Wing Commander 3 Ports Side-By-Side Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

I'm comparing the UI in different Wing Commander III ports! Here's the callsign selection screen on the PC, 3DO, PlayStation and Macintosh. "Maverick" is my entry except on the PSX version which plugs in BLAIR automagically! Here's the Victory's main menu on the PC, 3DO and PSX. The Macintosh port doesn't do any of this diegetically, it's handled all in the operating system's UI (boo). Duty logs, aka save/load! And here are the (gameflow) options screens. Here's a really fun one: if you access the menu during the last two missions of the game (where you're flying from covert asteroid depots instead of the Victory) the menu changes to reflect the new location! And in the 3DO version only each depot gets its own name.
Vera: Are there differences in the Victory Streak too?
There are! They redid the layout so it would fit in the thin 3DO boxes and added all sorts of additional art. Even a System Shock screenshot for the movie review!
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Get the Heck Out of Dodger Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

AD reminded me that Blair's callsign is DODGER in Kevin Droney's first draft script for the Wing Commander movie. I... don't hate it? The scene where they all explain their callsigns is fun, too:
Kevin Droney's First Draft (133 pages, 33 mb), which was written way back in 1995 (10/27/95)! It's very different from the later versions: it features many different proper nouns (Angelica "Angel" Devereaux), a strange callsign for Blair ("Dodger") and a very unusual twist on the traitor subplot. The Second Draft (9/21/97) and the Third/Shooting Draft (1/8/98) are also available. Along with the original Phoenix Pictures Memo, you now have all the tools to decide what went right and what went wrong with the Wing Commander movie's story!
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Hellcat Leaps to the Third Dimension Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Nightball06 has been on a load road to go from 2D sketches to 3D model. After a couple years refining the design, the digital representation is nearly complete. He's spent a lot of time working to get the shape close to the original, but one area that he has taken some artistic liberties on were the engines. They look pretty cool! Now that he's got a file that can be manipulated, he's exploring where to take it next - either through 3D animation or maybe a physical print!
Some final updates. Haven’t gone far on the animation part yet & I am still looking for someone who could turn the Blender file into a 3D-printable file.

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