WC4 Remake

Pedro said:
AMD issues are resolved, all looking good :)
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With the help of @EmuMusicFan I believe we now have some minimum specs.
He helped test with low GPU memory and movie playback optimizations to get 60fps 1080p h265 running at speed with only 2 cores.

Minimum specs: (No shadows, no post process)
2 Core CPU
2GB GPU (Probably 860M/750Ti)
8GB Memory

Recommended specs:
4 Core CPU
6GB GPU (Something like a 980Ti)
8GB Memory

Ideal specs:
4 Core CPU
8GB GPU (Something like a 1070Ti)
16GB Memory

If these specs seem too high for anyone give a shout out.
 
linkjoy123 said:
So how will this run? On top of the OG game? How do you get this to run, while running such an old exe? Just curious
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Well this is just the demo, so we will be distributing the original demo with it (please try it using dos box and compare to make sure we are on the right path).

For the final release we will search your registry to find where you have WCIV installed, either from GoG or origin, and run using the data found there.

We don’t run the original exe or use any part of it; you could delete the old exe and it would still work so long as you didn’t delete the original data. We instead load the data from the original .tre files which include all the data and missions using a brand new 64-bit exe.

The best way to think of this is a port done in the way that many ports were done in the 90s - rewriting from the ground up using the original data.
 
Great progress!

Jump looks good.

Ejection looks good.

Tumble looks good, although I would have loved a little bit of additional creative freedom taken there.

The capship explosion however does not work for me 🥺, it is, for lack of a better word, too quick. I feel the intention of WC3/4 was that capships break up slowly, some secondary explosions and then a big primary one than burns out the vessel to a hulk. The tech at the time prevented this from being realized in any significant manner but your comparison shot actually shows this off pretty well: The frigate does not die instantly, there are some smaller explosions first (the space-y equivalent of the ship starting to burn or capsize) and then something critical like the ammo storage or reactor goes BOOM.
I have no problems with the actual effects you are using (death-star shockwave 😋) but I think the timing is a problem. The frigate's death in the remastered footagelacks impact, since its over far to quickly. Maybe a look at Freespace's capship deaths could inspire some change here?
 
Vidmaster said:
Great progress!

Jump looks good.

Ejection looks good.

Tumble looks good, although I would have loved a little bit of additional creative freedom taken there.

The capship explosion however does not work for me 🥺, it is, for lack of a better word, too quick. I feel the intention of WC3/4 was that capships break up slowly, some secondary explosions and then a big primary one than burns out the vessel to a hulk. The tech at the time prevented this from being realized in any significant manner but your comparison shot actually shows this off pretty well: The frigate does not die instantly, there are some smaller explosions first (the space-y equivalent of the ship starting to burn or capsize) and then something critical like the ammo storage or reactor goes BOOM.
I have no problems with the actual effects you are using (death-star shockwave 😋) but I think the timing is a problem. The frigate's death in the remastered footagelacks impact, since its over far to quickly. Maybe a look at Freespace's capship deaths could inspire some change here?
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Thanks, we have exactly the same desires for the capship explosions; but it's not our most burning priority.
I will say that whilst defiance did an excellent job on the parts the explosion was thrown together in a single night by yours truly, actually all of the particle effects are still programmer driven + purchased assets.
We have to show what we're doing (it does occasionally result in new recruits), but that doesn't mean anything is anywhere near final; the video is just of a collation of things we've put in for the demo which we are releasing in a couple of weeks.

I was going to get Defiance set up with the particle editor but he's slammed with the cockpit and various HUD elements.
Our biggest obstacle to adding polish to various elements is time and manpower.

One of the reasons we're releasing soon is actually to say "look, we're not vapour ware, but we need help! Please help!"
We do have a new volunteer who will be improving our AI, although sadly they've come on too late for that to be reflected in the demo. Still it will take a lot of pressure off me so I can focus on effects work.
 
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Oh I missed the fighter tumble, two things:
1) Defiance loves it, he insisted it go in for the demo, I was happy for it to wait for the full game - but I like it now it's there
2) I think it was done for game design reasons - you need the pilot to give his death comm, and for it to be absolutely clear you have already killed them.
The speed of rotation, particle effects used etc are all tweakable - but something is needed to get that final comm out, and if that's what the original design team chose who am I to argue?
 
AD said:
The best way to screencapture originFX is to run win3.1 in dosbox and then run originFX in within win3.1 ... at that point you could really just run WC1 and 2 in dosbox on their own and screengrab that. There's lots of dosbox options for resizing and rescaling that will get you the size you need.
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Pedro said:
Oh I missed the fighter tumble, two things:
1) Defiance loves it, he insisted it go in for the demo, I was happy for it to wait for the full game - but I like it now it's there
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I occasionally know what I'm talking about. :)

As for the Capship crack ups: ideally we can get better explosion effects in place before the release. I've invested in some specialized software for making booms. The real pressure is time. I have less than a month until we lock down the code and I have to finish a new cockpit mesh. That said, I'm hopeful we'll be able to address that in time.
 
Pedro said:
Oh I missed the fighter tumble...
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I think I need to elaborate here, what do I mean by I would have loved a little bit of additional creative freedom taken there exactly?
Well, as Defiance and you have pointed out, the tumbles are a very important part of Wing Commander Gameplay and, more importantly, for game feel. Together with the soundtrack cue and the deathscream, they serve to reinforce the player's success! One less bandit, nice shot colonel!

I just feel that, similarly to capship explosions, that there was a gap between the designer's intent and the ability to realize that intent with the tech of the day, as breaking appart the model was absolutely infeasible with a software renderer and computing a more cinematic out-of-control tumble was probably too CPU-instensive too. So, they did what they could, made the ship spin like crazy while continuing in a straight line instead (probably using something very similar to the Glide code).
But what exactly is the designer's intent? Well, easy, increase satisfaction of the kill by use of audiovisual means 😇! But in contrast to Strike Commander, we lack a crucial component on the visual side in WC: We cannot easily show the craft to be a wreck now by letting it tumble down towards the ground in a fiery twisted mass of molten metal 😈, there is now ground. There is also no defined down, because we lack a nearby death star (see here). So, they took everything that was translatable from Strike Commander, then probably remebered how cool this one looked and then had to cut back on their ambitions a bit. That that, only that, is what I was talking about.
When I say that I would have loved a little bit of additional creative freedom taken with the tumbles, I mean that it could have been cool to having something more elaborate than the ship basically engaging glide and spinning around wildly. A more elaborate spinning-out-of-control behavior, maybe even different ones for visual variety, maybe spirals or uncontrolled veering to the side (while computing paths that minimize a collision with the player, in order to keep it satisfying and not frustrating). But, it is a remaster project, so if you feel that is a crucial visual component of the original, then so be it.
 
We have:
1 programmer (part time)
1 artist (part time)
We intentionally set ourselves the modest goal of putting the now ancient FMV and gameplay in parity. Being elaborate isn't a goal here - that's a fast way to turn a fan project into vapourware.
 
Quick Question: Will it be possible to ply the game without the whole cockpit.
Or in other words: Play it with the original WC4 Cockpit?
 
Triple-B said:
Quick Question: Will it be possible to ply the game without the whole cockpit.
Or in other words: Play it with the original WC4 Cockpit?
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It’s planned but not implemented yet.
That said it’s more of a hybrid system anyway; you shouldn’t find your view obscured like in wc1-3, it should feel more like wcp
 
Pedro said:
We have:
1 programmer (part time)
1 artist (part time)
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I know. There is no need to defend your work, we had these discussion already.
You put these videos out and you get feedback. Some of that feedback you will like, some of it you won't.
And you put the things you like in your backlog, or it confirms things that are already present there. And that is it.

I think you are approaching this project with the exactly correct mindset.
 
Vidmaster said:
I know. There is no need to defend your work, we had these discussion already.
You put these videos out and you get feedback. Some of that feedback you will like, some of it you won't.
And you put the things you like in your backlog, or it confirms things that are already present there. And that is it.

I think you are approaching this project with the exactly correct mindset.
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Didn't mean to sound defensive; just putting what we're doing in context.
For stuff like that rather than adding it onto our own backlog the long term goal is to open source so if someone wants to go way down the rabbit hole on visual flourishes, or do some rebalancing or whatever they will be able to.
 
Do we have any French speakers here willing to help adding French language options? Or for that matter any other languages?

We have English, Chinese, German and Japanese so far.
 
Pedro said:
Do we have any French speakers here willing to help adding French language options? Or for that matter any other languages?

We have English, Chinese, German and Japanese so far.
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You can contact me on PM or on Discord (Rufus Shinra#5807) with English text to translate to French if needed.
 
Great work!
The settings buttons at the bottom are difficult to discern as the red on red makes it tough to identify what's what. Setting up the controls were pretty simple once that was worked out.
Also, kind of shot in the dark, but... are there any plans for VR support in the future?
 
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