WC4 Remake

Love the data plate, but one thing worth pointing out is that you won’t normally find the serial number of the engine on the airframe data plate.

Airframes frequently have engines swapped out when they reach overhaul time. In aviation, we have a saying: “If the engines aren’t spinning, it’s not making money.” For that reason, nobody will wait around with a grounded aircraft for the same engine to go through overhaul. That could take weeks (or years in some cases if the government owns it... bureaucratic inventory/paperwork, y’know). For that reason a different overhauled engine gets slapped on from inventory, which only takes a few hours to do. Engine swaps happen far more frequently to military aircraft, which are used for far more demanding flying than civilian aircraft. In the three years from 2669-2672, that fighter has probably had a good 3-5 engines placed on it.

It’s also worth mentioning that multiengine aircraft have different serial numbers for each installed engine. That makes the number 6-10 different engines.

I know this comment is nit picky, but I just thought I’d point that out.
 
StarvingPilot said:
Love the data plate, but one thing worth pointing out is that you won’t normally find the serial number of the engine on the airframe data plate.

Airframes frequently have engines swapped out when they reach overhaul time. In aviation, we have a saying: “If the engines aren’t spinning, it’s not making money.” For that reason, nobody will wait around with a grounded aircraft for the same engine to go through overhaul. That could take weeks (or years in some cases if the government owns it... bureaucratic inventory/paperwork, y’know). For that reason a different overhauled engine gets slapped on from inventory, which only takes a few hours to do. Engine swaps happen far more frequently to military aircraft, which are used for far more demanding flying than civilian aircraft. In the three years from 2669-2672, that fighter has probably had a good 3-5 engines placed on it.

It’s also worth mentioning that multiengine aircraft have different serial numbers for each installed engine. That makes the number 6-10 different engines.

I know this comment is nit picky, but I just thought I’d point that out.
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Hi @StarvingPilot,

Heh, I'm far from an expert, so I had no idea about any of that 😝

I just based it on this one:

plaque02.png


I started the engine ref with "DFUS" because I thought it could be short for a "Douglas Fusion model" :)

I was seriously tempted to make a reference to a Wankel engine, just because it sounds so hilarious to my British ears 😝

But "WANK 6A4-165B3" might have been a bit on the nose...
 
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ODVS said:
Hi @StarvingPilot,

Heh, I'm far from an expert, so I had no idea about any of that 😝

I just based it on this one:

View attachment 12222

I started the engine ref with "DFUS" because I thought it could be short for a "Douglas Fusion model" :)

I was seriously tempted to make a reference to a Wankel engine, just because it sounds so hilarious to my British ears 😝

But "WANK 6A4-165B3" might have been a bit on the nose...
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Well, shut my mouth! That is a legitimate data plate. I've never seen one that had the engine's serial number on it until now. I've only seen that included on the Manufacturers Aircraft Association data places. I wonder why the MAA included that, because every other data plate I've seen doesn't include the engine number. Even identical models from a Bell 47 are this way. If it was manufactured with an MAA data plate, it includes the engine number; if it was manufactured under Bell with one of their regular plates, it doesn't. I guess re-stamping the numbers on the plate at overhaul wouldn't be too hard... just a lot of extra work.

Interesting Fact: The MAA was formed in World War I due to multiple patent conflicts that took place in the United States in the 1910s, chiefly between Wright and Curtiss. The initial conflict was in regards to technology used to make the airplane bank/roll. Wright preferred wing warping on their earliest models, while Curtiss used ailerons. Ailerons were simpler and are still in use today. Unfortunately, this led to several patent lawsuits and logjams that ground a lot of aviation manufacturing to a halt as World War I began. If I'm not mistaken, this brief lack of aviation progress in the US also was a factor that led to the French taking a lead in aircraft design during that decade, which is why a number of aircraft parts have French names (fuselage, empennage, nacelle, aileron, pitot). The MAA was formed to allow multiple manufacturers to use technology patented by other manufacturers in their own designs, allowing airplanes to be manufactured in great quantities.

So with that winded explanation, I say keep it like that. Besides, I'm sure that by 2669 they have technology that allows numbers on metal to be magically changed. Just cover it in some plastisteel!
 
Interesting info, @StarvingPilot - thanks! 😃

We could fold some of that into our internal lore/headcanon to inform design choices. Maybe the Manufacturing Spacecraft Association (which I made up because it sounded right) formed in the future for similar reasons to the MAA, with patent conflicts over future tech during the outbreak of the Terran/Kilrathi war. It would be a lovely little bit of "history repeating" :)

I'm also massively nerdy over matters of etymology, so I'm adding that nugget about French names for aircraft parts to my mental vault.

As a side-note, I love the idea that France pulled ahead in aircraft engineering because American companies were bogged down in matters of litigation - it brings to mind a joke from Milton Jones, one of my favourite one-liner comedians:

"I visited America recently, and I really got into the culture. I went into a shop and the guy behind the counter said, 'have a nice day!' And I didn't. So I sued him."​
​
😝
 
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I feel really bad.; this is clearly a tremendous labour of love and I can't wait to play it, but the first thing I thought when I saw the gameplay footage was that the new cockpit interiors are quite disappointing. Very austere and they scream "fan-made mod".

But amazing work all-in-all.
 
YCDTD said:
I feel really bad.; this is clearly a tremendous labour of love and I can't wait to play it, but the first thing I thought when I saw the gameplay footage was that the new cockpit interiors are quite disappointing. Very austere and they scream "fan-made mod".

But amazing work all-in-all.
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Constructive criticism is welcome, as we've noted everything is first pass, the cockpit on the hellcat is being re-modeled right now, the texture resolution is low as we previously had a 1GB limit on total assets, and all of the VDUs are first pass (ODVS has taken over the 2D artwork, what's there now was by Defiance before we found a 2D artist). We absolutely plan to polish all of this but unfortunately "scream "fan-made mod"" doesn't give us any information to direct our efforts, at most it'll cause hurt feelings.

Is it the mesh, the texturing, the lighting, the static nature of the monitors etc?

The Hellcat V cockpit actually appears in the intro FMV:

WC4 Movie Index: Introduction - Holovids - Wing Commander CIC

Wing Commander CIC
www.wcnews.com www.wcnews.com
We are avoiding taking too much artistic licence, but if there are things about the original that you liked and dislike about our interpretation please be descriptive as possible.

I appreciate the effort but compliment sandwiches don't actually help soften the blow :)
 
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Pedro said:
Constructive criticism is welcome, as we've noted everything is first pass, the cockpit on the hellcat is being re-modeled right now, the texture resolution is low as we previously had a 1GB limit on total assets, and all of the VDUs are first pass (ODVS has taken over the 2D artwork, what's there now was by Defiance before we found a 2D artist). We absolutely plan to polish all of this but unfortunately "scream "fan-made mod"" doesn't give us any information to direct our efforts, at most it'll cause hurt feelings.

Is it the mesh, the texturing, the lighting, the static nature of the monitors etc?

The Hellcat V cockpit actually appears in the intro FMV:

WC4 Movie Index: Introduction - Holovids - Wing Commander CIC

Wing Commander CIC
www.wcnews.com www.wcnews.com
We are avoiding taking too much artistic licence, but if there are things about the original that you liked and dislike about our interpretation please be descriptive as possible.

I appreciate the effort but compliment sandwiches don't actually help soften the blow :)
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Sorry Pedro, that was an uncalled for snipe. I would say just make the cockpits look as close as possible to their WC3 counterparts: https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wca_hellcat1.gif
 
@YCDTD - Hi, hey so we are actually using the WC4 FMV as the basis for as much of the art direction as possible. The WC3 cockpit is visually more appealing for sure, but not in line with the physical set built for the intro, that said, the new cockpit model will be more detailed and have higher res textures, though it will still hew more closely to the WC4 FMV, we are adding additional off-HUD functional instrumentation like an "RWR" of sorts to help the pilot identify incoming missiles and plan their evasion better, etc. so as to make the cockpit feel more like part of the experience and not just a dashboard that gets in the way of your seeing the bottom 3rd of the screen.
 
DefianceIndustries said:
@YCDTD - Hi, hey so we are actually using the WC4 FMV as the basis for as much of the art direction as possible. The WC3 cockpit is visually more appealing for sure, but not in line with the physical set built for the intro, that said, the new cockpit model will be more detailed and have higher res textures, though it will still hew more closely to the WC4 FMV, we are adding additional off-HUD functional instrumentation like an "RWR" of sorts to help the pilot identify incoming missiles and plan their evasion better, etc. so as to make the cockpit feel more like part of the experience and not just a dashboard that gets in the way of your seeing the bottom 3rd of the screen.
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🤩🤩 Can't wait to see the cockpits of The Borderworlds fighters, the Bearcat, and Dragon!
 
One of the main aims is to make the transition from FMV to gameplay seamless. It’d be pretty jarring to jump from seeing the lcars neon cockpit to wc3s old school look five minutes later.
 
Are there any C++ / C# programmers out there left to recruit?
We have two musicians but only one programmer :) It's our only real bottle neck.
 
Vidmaster said:
Depends on the C#-task at hand, to be honest. Won't touch C++. PM me with the details 🙂
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We're looking for tools. Now whilst many of the tools are in C# like all game engines the core is in C++ interop is going to be needed even for those. Maybe you could help with the AI tool, but an aversion to C++ is probably going to put you off even that as it does need to reflect C++ gameplay behaviours.
I'll outline some tasks I think we could bounce to others here:
AI Behaviour Tree - New behaviours for space combat (Tool C#, game behaviours protocol buffers, behaviour implementations C++)
Model material editor: Leaning towards C++ using IMGUI to avoid complexity. C# is an option but would require a lot of interop

The AI tool exists but needs to be redone to support per project behaviours and a focus on 3D locomotion. The material editor doesn't, material overrides are currently defined in yaml.
 
Yes, you are right, that unfortunately scares me off 🙂. In my humble programmer's opinion, C++ is an outdated blight upon the world and the sooner professional software developers (like myself) stop using it, the sooner it will finally die. These things take time though and we a stuck with this language for many tasks in the forseeable future and for a project like this, usage of an existing engine is the correct choice. I will stop here, lest this thread devolves into a technology discussion.

I noticed that a summary of your post appeared in the NEWS and I am selfishly hoping that someone else does not share my sentiments, since I am wishing nothing but the very best for the WC4 (and 3) Remake Project.
 
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