Wing Commander Prophecy: Secret Ops Model Update Pack

Unknown Enemy Remastered, oh boy!

Brand new models with lots of detail and the massive update of the mod (mostly in adding all of those DLLs).

Would be cool to see...

one day

*sigh*

Oh for those high school and undergraduate days when spare time was more plentiful.
 
Iceblade said:
Unknown Enemy Remastered, oh boy!

Brand new models with lots of detail and the massive update of the mod (mostly in adding all of those DLLs).

Would be cool to see...

one day

*sigh*

Oh for those high school and undergraduate days when spare time was more plentiful.
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It gets better eventually. I hear that most people end up having some spare time once they retire ;).

The problem with UE, though, is that originally I just wanted to do a very basic clean-up update - convert it to new DLLs, fix any bugs I find in the missions, and leave it at that. But appetites will grow. In particular, new models will demand new cutscenes as well (we did have pre-rendered cutscenes in UE...). And undoubtedly it will seem odd to have fancy new graphics while sticking with the old voiceovers - overall quality of the voiceovers in UE was somewhat below Standoff, primarily because we cheated wherever we could, so most pilots only had special voiceover lines recorded, while their generic lines were straight from WCP (they even called you Casey!). And when you change voiceover - ah! Well, then, you might as well rewrite all the bad lines, right? And while you're at it, you can write a few extra lines, and add a few extra missions, why not? Oh, and surely, it's much more plausible now to have cutscenes with people today than it was back then - just create a few background models, a few bits of uniform, stuff it all into Skyrim and record people cutscenes machinima-style. Why, you can even have Kilrathi characters then, very convenient for UE. Thus things can grow, and grow, and grow, until finally you realise you're really starting out all over again instead of just tweaking the original game. Yeah, things can go downhill all too quickly and horribly.
 
Oh right, I forgot about the pre-rendered cutscenes.

No need to let it grow though. Set a ceiling. The core goal. Heck the interest in upgraded graphics is just due to this project. Not even a large number of models needed.

Here is a much more manageable list:
Bug fixes/polish

Upgraded models (done by an interested third party - not necessarily Defianceindustries or Darksentinel - willing to also recreate the 3 or 4 FMV cutscenes)

Maybe new recording of pilot VO, though I would suggest attempting to get the original VAs to record just the suite of in-flight comms.

This is still a bug fix and polish job; not a rewrite/remake/expansion. Plus new missions add significant work load and should be avoided.
 
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Enhanced Starfeild patch along with Hi Res Settings/Widescreen support would be sufficent.

If there is one day however plenty of spare time, one could remake the whole game, but for now the basics are just fine.
 
I'm super excited about this Midway reveal. WCP was my first Wing Commander game and so the Midway holds a special place in my heart as THE homebase. I'm sure some of you old coots feel the same way about the Tiger('s) Claw and Concordia. I was honestly pretty disappointed by the Midway-class model in Arena, even with the understanding that the one we saw was a sort of worn-down husk of a ship.

Now with that said, was there ever a discrepancy over number on the Cerberus' hull? I THINK I remember 00 AND 01, and something about the first Hades-class (TCS Hades?) not being finished by SO or something, so... I bring this up now because if it's incorrect in the game this is the perfect opportunity to rectify it.

EDIT: I forgot to add (and this was my whole point of logging in to post and yet it slipped my mind in the end), if you need any missions to test a ship or capship or something in an isolated environment, such as just empty space and not in combat, I can easily make a mission and send it. Granted it would be in the simulator only.

Using grim's dll I was able to place every capship from Secret Ops, UE, and Standoff in one nav point without it crashing, so pretty much anything you'd need for testing/showcasing is possible.
 
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DefianceIndustries said:
That depends a bit on what exactly you want blown up. If you want me to create destroyed versions of every cap ship, that would have to be a "nice to have" until we get the rest of the game assets complete (or some genius comes along and figures out how to hack in WC3-4 style capship deaths into WCP) For the ones already in the game (ie. Fralthi II) They will get done but they're on a slightly lower priority than the other game assets like stations and Neph capships.
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Of course, like I said pure wishful thinking. Just to be clear I wasn't asking for some mechanism or system to actively destroy the ship models in game. I am aware of enough of the limitations of the game engine to understand what kind of a pain in the arse that would be, if not just out right not possible. But rather having 2 models for each item. So for example: In the mission where the Transport ships get destroyed. You would have model 1, the normal in-game model with the destroyed/not destroyed meshes. and then you would have model 2 which is basically a debris field with a couple recognizable parts among the field to visual ID the wreckage as coming from a certain ship type, probably like one of the forward prow parts, or something else that is readily identifiable as coming from that ship. And have a couple of "Loose" parts that are just PNGs with transparent background that could be layered over the video of the 'destroyed ship' and be animated separately in premier. The game engine itself wouldn't need to 'destroy' the ship, I feel pretty confident in being able to handle that on screen through premier and some clever editing. I'm just talking about having 2 models, 1 standard and "damageable" pretty much what the game does right now, and a 2nd that is "destroyed".

Just for discussion sake, and off the top of my head I was thinking of the following:

Destroyed Fralthi (already addressed so no need to beat that particular dead horse)
Destroyed Pelican transports
Destroyed Alien communications relay
Damaged Shrike (like burn marks on the hull, exposed workings, disfigured panels)
Damaged Vampire (Pretty much same as above with the Shrike)
Damaged Devastator (Same as with the shrike)

Again, the game itself wouldn't have to do anything with the different models beyond use them the same way the game already uses the models you are making now.
 
Was there any progress on the "better destructible capships" conversation we had months ago or did that take the backburner in favor of things we know for certain we can pull off?
 
Lt.Overload said:
Was there any progress on the "better destructible capships" conversation we had months ago or did that take the backburner in favor of things we know for certain we can pull off?
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Right now, my main focus is to finish getting the assets upgraded. We are still looking into engine enhancements like better dead capships and how to keep capships from firing on dead targets, which may in fact be linked, but those are secondary. This thing is stretching into year 2 and I really want to hit the core goal before we jump to those. But, if we can squeeze them in, I'm always up for bonus features.
 
Technical question:
How does engine handle the collision of subystems? Can you have details that are attached to, say, the engine, but do not belong to it's collision and can't be damaged?
 
yes - basically I'd leave the extra parts attached to the main hull object and include them in the hull collision mesh - even if they are dangling in space as it were. The pelican is like that, the spar that connects the two engines is part of the base mesh but it just hangs out until the engines are attached.
 
Er, sorry, I guess I didn't explain it well enough.
Imagine you have this capship. Black is hull, red is it's collision mesh.
It has destroyable bridge. Geometry blue, collision purple.
So that enemy torpedo bombers go for the bridge; and sensor masts (or whatever they are) can't be damaged at all - but they get destroyed when the bridge is knocked off.
 

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ah ok. So a couple of things. Vision doesn't support chained objects. So if I put destroyable masts as a seperate object on an object like a bridge, if the bridge is destroyed, the masts wouldn't automatically be destroyed. If I want the masts to be destroyed with the bridge, they should be made part of the bridge object. In your example, you would do basically what you show, take the masts off the main hull, make them part of the bridge object. However, when you make the bridge .iff, you put the center, collision sphere, and collision mesh around the bridge object only. The masts' collision mesh would remain part of the hull collision mesh.
 
Yessssssss.
Well, the only thing I'd comment on: the tiny cutout strips on engines - I made them this way so that they could have that purple glow.
Or it didn't look good enough?

UPD: and well, after some thinking. Maybe step away from total accuracy this once and slap the Confed Star somewhere on it?
 
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Dark Sentinel said:
Yessssssss.
Well, the only thing I'd comment on: the tiny cutout strips on engines - I made them this way so that they could have that purple glow.
Or it didn't look good enough?

UPD: and well, after some thinking. Maybe step away from total accuracy this once and slap the Confed Star somewhere on it?
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Originally I had the vents glowing but they didn't look very good - I tried baking the texture a couple of different ways but they never looked quite right, so I just made them look like giant exhaust vents.

As for the star - My original paint scheme did have the star on the blue stripe running down the bow. I took it out because, I dunno. The Confed star is kind of weird on ships in the WCP era, some have it, most don't. Really the only ship that actually has it is the Midway, all the other capships don't. The facilities do like the Comm Fac and the Callisto starbase, but Ella doesn't. And I added it to all of my fighters. I'm not sure why the artists began phasing out the star. WC4 Confed ships didn't have it either.

Meh - who knows. Anyway I'll put up another version of the texture with the star and we can let the community decide...Star or no star!
 
I believe the Comm Relay, Callisto base, and Outposts have it, as well as the Wasp, Excalibur, and Vesuvius. Heck, in your own remodels, when you replaced the squadron liveries for Secret Ops, you replaced them with the Confed Star.

Do you think you could bring your Razor, Vindicator, and Rapier from this to Secret Ops as well? I mean, the Vind's had a SO mod and the Rapier too I think but the Razor is one ship that's never, ever, ever been imported into SO, even the old model. Super low priority of course, not saying do it now or anything, somewhere down the line it would be cool, since it's something you've already made, not something you have to re-do.
 
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Lt.Overload said:
I believe the Comm Relay, Callisto base, and Outposts have it, as well as the Wasp, Excalibur, and Vesuvius. Heck, in your own remodels, when you replaced the squadron liveries for Secret Ops, you replaced them with the Confed Star.

Do you think you could bring your Razor, Vindicator, and Rapier from this to Secret Ops as well? I mean, the Vind's had a SO mod and the Rapier too I think but the Razor is one ship that's never, ever, ever been imported into SO, even the old model. Super low priority of course, not saying do it now or anything, somewhere down the line it would be cool, since it's something you've already made, not something you have to re-do.
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I already covered the rapier for a test. It works better in WCP classic than SO because it has the right weapons, the particle gun was yanked from SO so it gets a tachyon in it's place. But sure - if nothing else I'll convert them for when and if UE gets a remaster.
 
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