They're Quick and Light

This was a quick sketch to help me get back into drawing. I imagine it as a Ferret pilot just about to go on patrol, and is reviewing his waypoints. I realize the Ferret isn't really scaled right, and the hands are a little funky, but I thought you all would enjoy it anyway.

Those are the Drathis stenciled beneath the cockpit, and it says "Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty," on the nose.

Saga Sheds Light on the Darkest Dawn

A full length Wing Commander Saga trailer is about to be released. In fact, we are just finalizing the music for it. Watch, and enjoy! There is more to come soon.

Movie Airing in Finland

The inhabitants of the planet are fighting on behalf of the Kilrathi-empire. Ohjaaja: Chris Roberts, USA 1999.

Boeing CST-100 Renderings Released

Boeing is maturing the design of its CST-100 spacecraft under an $18 million Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) Space Act Agreement with NASA. The CST-100 can carry a crew of seven and is designed to support the International Space Station and the Bigelow Aerospace Orbital Space Complex. The CST-100 will ... be able to launch on a variety of different rockets, including Atlas, Delta and Falcon.

Video Review Highlights Awesome Port

For my first review, I look at one of my all time favorite games. Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger for 3DO.

Countdown: Two Weeks!

We're now less than two weeks away from the CIC's 12th Birthday! In addition to celebrating a dozen years at wcnews.com, we're also pumped up about the Wing Commander series' 20th anniversary this year, so this should be our biggest bash ever! It's easy to stop by #Wingnut and start hanging out with the coolest WC fans in the world. Be sure to come by on Tuesday, August 10, 2010. The party starts at 7:00 pm Eastern US time (4:00 pm Pacific and 11:00 pm GMT) to join the festivities. There'll be plenty of games, prizes and special features to unveil. You can also RSVP at the Facebook Page. See you there!

Starcraft 2 Released

Online TacOps Game Grows Each Week

Hi Everyone. I have a nice Phase 3 bonus for you. With the skills I picked up on Saturday, and using the framework I built for the Phase2a demo (i.e. this is not database fed, like the real game will be), I give you Fun With Rapiers. The formatting on the dialog is a bit chunky, but it took all of 30 mins to do this entire demonstration.

My next update will likely be longer in coming, as I now have to tackle the actual Phase 3 objectives (build the ship info dialog, and weave it into the code so it is turn/phase database fed. I also intend to build the pilot class, which I haven't done yet, and tie it in).

MSL Goes For First Drive

Happy Birthday Arena!

Arena didn't sell well enough to garner an immediate expansion or sequel, but it continues to hold its own on the XBox Live Arcade sales charts. Contrary to outlandish rumors of delisting, the game holds its own around the 60th percentile (top 40%) of titles in Microsoft's Marketplace. Games are the core of this franchise, but peripheral fiction, books and merchandise are also an important part. The Star*Soldier companion to Arena includes the most comprehensive timeline of the series, which beautiful ties together elements from the television show, movie and latest games and novels. It also acknowledges the diehard fan base with numerous references to dedicated Wingnuts and the work they've done over the last 15 years to bolster the online community.

And all this for only $10! Happy Birthday Wing Commander Arena! And thanks to the team at EA Vancouver and Gaia Industries for putting everything together!

Super Soaker Stockpile Spread Out

Read Up on the History of 3D

For much of 3D's history, the trick has been getting the effect of the third dimension without having to do it for real. The early Wing Commander games gave the illusion that you were flying through 3D space, but really they were just scaling sprites up and down.

Ultima Underworld could afford to push these limits because as a role-playing game, it was inherently slower than a shooter, and the audience was more willing to accept the necessary limitations, like the small viewing window. It didn't hurt that while publisher Origin's official motto was 'We Create Worlds', its unofficial credo was 'Your PC Will Cry'. It never did worry about system requirements...

Prelude Part 11 Now Playing

I decided rather than clog it up releasing two episodes at the same time, that I would release Part 11 now and Part 12 when it’s finished whish should be about a week or so.

Part 12 is coming along now at 71% – lots of action in this part as it is now purely a space battle scene. Keep checking the updates on facebook. Stay tuned for more next week (and hopefully the release of Part 12).

New Dev Diary for Hostile Frontier

I recently finished converting the Wake-class and the Exeter-class. I also tried to do some high-polyization to the Wake-class model, e.g. recesses for the windows and bulkheads at the back, cylinders for the engines, and modeled bumps on the "bumpy thing" on the top. The modified model also has a changeable nameplate, so it can have "FRLS Independence" or "FRLS Magna Carta" written on it without having to create a new model. Thanks again to the Standoff team for the Wake-class and Exeter-class models.

Digital Downloads Trending Up

While NPD’s point-of-sale research shows that PC physical retail sales experienced a year-over-year revenue decline in 2009, it was still slightly larger than PC digital download sales on a unit basis. PC digital downloads represented close to half of unit sales across digital and retail at 48 percent in 2009, and accounted for 36 percent of dollar sales.

Firekkans Get Legs & Straps

I think I made a close match of the straps around his body.

Spore 2: The Darkening

Darkspore will feature dynamic, fast-paced action as players battle across alien worlds to save the galaxy from the mutated forces of Darkspore in a four-player co-operative and full single-player campaign, as well as intense multiplayer battles. In order to defeat the malicious Darkspore, players will need to collect an arsenal of living weapons - genetic heroes with different combat abilities - and upgrade them with tens of thousands of collectible body parts and armor.

Darkspore will feature three unique classes of five different genetic hero types, with a limitless number of upgrades and customizations available through the parts players collect on each planet level. As players progress, Darkspore builds in intensity, with new planets and enemy forces requiring players to strategically select the right squad and ability combinations to succeed in their missions.

Steady Progress Made on Images & Missions

Wedge has been a image replacing machine the last week! He's been replacing a lot of the crappy images we uploaded at first and replacing them with nicer ones.

The rest of us have been eating away at a variety of projects. I'm down to 2 WC1 missions to complete for basic article format. I've got the SM1 and SM2 scripts from LOAF ready to go when WC1 is completed. So this summer has been pretty productive. Let's keep up the good work in the final month before the bday!

Ascendant Pictures Acquired by Bigfoot Entertainment

Los Angeles, July 6, 2010 – Bigfoot Entertainment, Inc. has agreed to acquire the assets of Ascendant Pictures to form Bigfoot Ascendant Distribution LLC. The combined company will drive the foreign sales of both companies’ portfolio of titles through Ascendant Pictures’ existing distribution channels, as well as build new relationships.

Founded in March 2002, Ascendant Pictures integrated the creative independence and budget sensibility of Indie film companies with the production and market savvy of major studios, and quickly became one of Hollywood’s most promising upstart film companies. Furthermore, Ascendant developed a foreign distribution operation that distributes its films through output arrangements with major territorial distributors and broadcasters.

"This development strengthens our portfolio of film titles," said Kacy Andrews, CEO of Bigfoot Entertainment. "And we believe that this acquisition will help springboard us into the distribution arena which is Bigfoot's primary focus this year."

"We are pleased that Ascendant Pictures has become a part of the Bigfoot Entertainment family," said Chris Roberts, Founder and Chairman of Ascendent Pictures. "We do believe that this will positively impact the industry through the consolidated efforts and resources of bringing the combined company’s arsenal of titles to market."

Titles that will now come under Bigfoot Entertainment’s rights under this new arrangement include completed films such as Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), The Big White (2004), Ask The Dust (2006), Lord of War (2005), and Lucky Number Slevin (2006), as well as other Ascendant Pictures’ titles in the works.

Key personnel of Ascendant Pictures will remain on board in the newly-formed Bigfoot Ascendant Distribution LLC to ensure a smooth continuation of operation under the new management team.

About Ascendant Pictures:

Ascendant Pictures is an independent film development, production, finance and foreign distribution company. Ascendant combines the creative independence and budget sensibility of groundbreaking “indie” film companies with the production and market savvy of major studios. Ascendant is striving to identify, develop and produce films in a variety of genres with compelling stories and fascinating worlds that inspire and captivate global audiences while having the potential to grow into franchise entertainment properties. With the expertise and experience of its principals, Ascendant has the distinct ability to move films beyond their linear film medium into the interactive entertainment market.

About Bigfoot Entertainment:

Founded in 2004, Bigfoot Entertainment is an international entertainment company producing independent films for the global marketplace. The company finances and develops feature films, documentaries and reality TV shows, many of which have received industry accolades, festival awards and have been distributed throughout the world. Featuring both well-established and up-and-coming American and international talent, Bigfoot releases have shot on location worldwide including the United States, Hong Kong, China, Africa, Europe and Vietnam. Bigfoot Entertainment produces many of its projects at Bigfoot Studios, a wholly-owned subsidiary that encompasses six sound stages and on-site state-of-the-art post-production facilities.

Headquartered in Los Angeles with studios in Cebu, Philippines, Bigfoot Entertainment creates content reflecting a Hollywood foundation with a global perspective. For more information, visit www.bigfoot.com.

Saga Website Revamped

Browse our new site, leave us your comments, and stay tuned for exciting developments in the near future.

Help Build the Fleet

This list shows all available graphics for use with the computer-aided version of WCTO. Mainly meant for Avacar right now, but it also shows the progress of the graphical side of the project.

Personally, I'd love to include the WC1 fighters, but their stats would be tricky to balance... Actually, I have all the WCTO ship stats worked out for pretty much all craft from WC1 to WC3 and Privateer - I'm just lacking ship models that are on par with Marc's excellent work.

The Darkening's Composer Interviewed

James Hannigan: I've been composing professionally for around sixteen years. After starting out intending mostly to work in film and TV, I was offered a job quite quickly as an in-house composer at EA in 1995, where I then spent a few years before going freelance again. I'd already cut my teeth in games before that though, alongside composing quite a lot of library music and little bits and pieces for TV. I gained some useful experience while at EA, working on numerous EA Sports titles, games such as Privateer: The Darkening, and others, plus I got to grips with various techniques for creating so-called 'interactive music'.

Chris: As a freelancer, you came to prominence working on titles such as Conquest: Frontier Wars, Brute Force, and the appropriately titled FreeLancer. Could you share your experiences on these projects and how they influenced your career?

James Hannigan: A few years before those, I'd composed for the Origin title, Privateer: The Darkening while at EA, and one of the producers of that had a lot of involvement with the formation of Digital Anvil. Martin Galway, the audio director at the company, got in touch and we went from there. As a teenager, I'd heard a lot of Martin's music in various C64 games, so it was really great to be working with him — and we've been in touch ever since.

Secret Missions End in Success

Ek'rah Skabak erg Thrak'Kilrah maks Rag'nith!

I think I have been quite faithful to the design as it appears in the Warbirds document from WC3, but I appreciate comments and constructive feedback all the same.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

In 1998, Interplay decided to leap in with the confusingly named Descent: Freespace. The name was a curious marketing ploy, considering that Descent was a niche series that played like a corridor-based first-person shooter on three axes, offering only the faint whiff of crossover appeal for space combat fans. But it came at a perfect time, arriving on the heels of the disappointing Wing Commander: Prophecy, which marked EA’s attempt to relaunch the series without the input of creator Chris Roberts. Freespace received enough positive word-of-mouth to warrant a sequel, which would be released the following year.

The release of Freespace 2 alongside X-Wing Alliance was part of a confluence of events that would ultimately mark the end of what had been one of the preeminent genres of the 1990s. Roberts had long since left Origin, leaving the series dead in the water after the lukewarm reception given Wing Commander: Prophecy. Interplay was in the process of hemorrhaging money, and X-Wing Alliance marked the end of a trilogy. The stage was set for the genre’s demise.

Privateer 3 (more, more, more, more, more, more and more) and Wing Commander Strike Team / Shadow Force should have continued the series as everyone expected. But then we got to those changing market conditions, unsustainable FMV budgets and rising costs. Games like Freespace 2, X:BTF and Starlancer did not sell as well as the last crop of Wing Commanders and Star Wars games. New formats such as the massively multiplayer Ultima Online were booming, and so there was a big shift in direction. Wing Commander development transitioned into Privateer Online (more), Wing Commander Online and then Privateer Online again. Electronic Arts also acquired Westwood Studios, which was further along on their space MMO Earth & Beyond. With competing products in the pipeline and a market quickly becoming saturated, the decision was made to launch E&B instead. Wing Commander Online and Ultima Online 2 were sidelined, and Origin didn't recover from the tailspin.

That hasn't kept the powers that be from attempting to pull everything back together, but so far only smaller scale projects (Prophecy Advance, Wing Commander Arena, various ports/rereleases) have made it to see the light of day. Hopefully you find this history fascinating, and someday we'll all be able to look back at this time period and see how it built up into a great relaunch of the series. It's only a matter of time until the next Wing Commander game!

Callitri Continues Concordia Construction

Big Battle Briskly Brewing

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8
• Part 9
• Part 10

"Hey, that's a Kilrathi on the screen!"

Missions: VotK re-established the famous “mission tree,” with a slight change: there was not an extensive “losing track.” Each new system to which the Concordia jumped offered a series of winning track and losing track missions. When players failed a mission or series of missions in any particular star system, they would then play through that system's one series of losing track missions that offered the chance to get back on the winning track. Of course, should the player fail at both a regular series of missions and its subsequent chance at redemption, the player would then see a “losing” ending, which is being reassigned back to Caernaveron station, losing the entire main campaign, and Angel.

Though this does not give the player as much of an opportunity to claw their way back to victory after a series of losses due to some bad luck, it’s definitely better than the “all or nothing” approach of Secret Missions and Crusade. Of course, most players never see the losing ending, because VotK gives you the option to immediately replay a mission after a loss, or to "continue script." Which do you think the majority of players are going to choose? I had never seen the above losing screens, in point of fact, until I lost intentionally just to get the screen grabs.

Story: VotK expanded the Wing Commander universe substantially, as well as adding elements of uncertainty, doubt, and fear into the game by using the human traitor subplot; the reveal for which is done very well, keeping you guessing as to who the traitor may be the entire time. Of course, the scripted deaths added just the right element of suspense and impending doom. Developing a relationship with Angel over the course of the game only added to the fear that "anyone can die."

Ultima Online Receives Technical Upgrade

Why is this significant for us the team at Bioware Mythic? Because while we have worked on it in the background for months, and planned for it for a couple of years, UO has needed it for much longer than we'd like to admit.

While we do understand that game bugs, skills and object balance, and live content are important to the longevity of Ultima Online ... the foundation on which all this is supported was at a critical level. We want you to know we are in this for the long haul! 

We thank you for your patience, and I'm certain you understand the significance of this update as we continue to improve the service of UO.

Test Basic TacOps Tech Demo

These Cockpits Deserve Close Inspection

You Have Entered CONFED READYNET

Chinese Conference Connection to WC

Aron Warner, the producer of the Oscar-winning cartoon feature Shrek, led a team of Hollywood producers and designers to Beijing to talk about the success of Hollywood's animation industry. Only a quarter of the anticipated number of participants signed up for the three-day course, an outcome the organizer blames on the Chinese cartoon industry being too protected to invest in learning.

...

Some students requested a 1,000-yuan ($146.40) refund after learning scheduled participant Chris Roberts, producer of Lord of War and the Wing Commander series, was unable to attend because he couldn't secure a visa, according to Tuo.

Birthday Bash Next Month

The next CIC Birthday is just one month away! Come celebrate with fellow fans and watch the website turn twelve years old on August 10, 2010. The party starts at 7:00 pm Eastern US time (4:00 pm Pacific and 11:00 pm GMT) in the IRC channel #Wingnut. It's a great chance to catch up with other Wingnuts, and lucky fans will also have a chance to win rare and exotic prizes. First time partiers can get up to speed via the simple Java interface. Clear your calendars and don't miss it!

Behold the Beautiful Blue Box

A few weeks past and I found a set of Wing Commander 1 with the original fighter specs however after some heavy bidding I lost it to someone else and felt rather defeated. I took one more pass at ebay and found a “Buy it now” of Wing Commander deluxe edition IN THE ORIGINAL BOX with FIGHTER SPECS, CLAWMARKS, WC1, Secret missions 1 and 2 plus the install manuals, a 1990 catalog and some other paperwork from Origin! I jumped on that quickly and awaited shipping.

Today it has arrived and it is Christmas in June for me! The box has a dent in it but all the contents are in excellent condition. For being almost 20 years old I would say it has held up pretty damn well and I look forward to liberating the Vega Sector, chasing down the Sivar and liberating Firekka from Kilrathi Occupation!

Shockwave Hellcat Painted for Patrol

I am astonished as to how good it actually looks, even if some parts of the texture do not properly align with the mesh ( yet! ).

Gotta Love Those Tachyons!

The Tachyon cannon is one of my favorites. It packs a real wallop, rarely fails and it's one sleek design.

Fleets Engagement Coming in Prelude Part 11

I know that this part is taking its damn sweet time, but let’s just say making a battle scene between a opposing fleets is quite complex – one 300 frame shot I did yesterday took twelve hours to do.

The last week has however been massively productive in terms of how much is actually in this latest scene (Scene 25 – the final scene of Part 11). I have managed to squeeze another 10% into the completion status since the last update so by that rule, we should be looking at another 1-2 weeks.

Online TacOps Version in Development

Phase 1: Establish a working, static html/css board which successfully overlays the grid on a background, and puts ships in grid cells. Being static, I expect a hardcoded change is necessary to move the ship to a different cell. I also need to work out how ships that are larger than cells will work (since images typically aren't positioned based on their center), and how to handle multiple ships in the same cell.

The key thing shown here, is that we have determined how I'll layer the css and the html, what is a child to what, tag wise, and how I'll move ships around. While this static version can't move ships without a hard code change, *where* to put that hardcode change is obvious.

The next step, I'll put in the hex-coordinates to pixel-position math, and a form to let us control them. Additionally, I may mess with some simple jquery. finally, I'll start playing with the php GD library that lets us rotate the image on-the-fly, and see if we want to do that, or simply store 6 orientations for each ship.

I haven't decided the best way to address if 2 ships are on the same square yet.

Mythic Entertainment Becomes Bioware Mythic

New Firekkan Model Swoops In

I'm not done with the head. I would like to add in instanced feathers, and work on the texture more. I'm not doing a body yet, I'm looking for feedback on the head before I move on to the body. Does it look too bird like or not humanoid enough?

War is Declared

On 2634.186, war is formally declared by the Terran Confederation on the Empire of Kilrah for countless acts of piracy and unwarranted assault.

The Anna Magdelena, ferrying orphans to Dieno, is attacked by a pair of Kilrathi fighters. All hands are lost. In retaliation for this and the five-year string of equally heinous abuses of all known laws of civility, the Terran Confederation officially declares war on the Empire of Kilrah for countless acts of piracy and unwarranted assault.

The Anna Magdelena, a refitted transport ship ferrying orphans to their new homes on Dieno, is openly attacked by a pair of Kilrathi fighters. No one survives. In retaliation for this and the five-year string of equally heinous abuses of all known laws of civility, the Terran Confederation officially declares war on the Empire of Kilrah.

Consider Copious Console Choices

The old poll picked Wingnuts' favorite cockpits. The realistic dashboards of Wing Commander 3 won, but there's a pretty even popularity between Privateer, WC1 and WC2 behind it. WC4's spartan HUD also had a fairly strong showing.

Happy Fourth!

Happy Independence Day to our American visitors out there today! Visitors from the US make up the majority of Wingnuts, but we've upgraded our Origin FX fireworks for all. To Wing Commander fans everywhere, have a great day!

Happy Birthday Richard Garriott!

OBJ 2 WCP 2 U

OBJ2WCP is a command line application that converts models from Wavefront OBJ format to a pascal source code file, which can then be compiled by WCPPascal into a Wing Commander Prophecy/Secret Ops IFF mesh. OBJ2WCP is written in Java and the source code is available in the download.

-| Features |-

- Reads info from v, vt, vn, and f
- Support for multiple materials
- Support for full lighting on materials with "illum 0"
- Apparently it supports smoothing too.
- Gives statistics about the model
- Tells the user what bitmap goes with what MAT number
- Gives understandable error information
- Attempts to calculate face normals (experimental)

Supersized Saga Ship Sets Sail

We intended our vessel to be the same class of the troopship mentioned in the Price of Freedom novel. In the novel, the Pelileu-class assault transport TCS Louis B. Puller deployed the Marines that “rescued” Tuesday Brody from the Border Worlds in the Tyr System. As the sharp eye can see, our concept of this ship is a larger derivative of WC Armada’s Belleau Wood-class transport.

Expert Endeavor: Expanding Entries

1. The year 2654
2. The TCS Tiger's Claw
3. And Christopher Blair

If anyone has any suggestions or is looking for something to do on the project, but not sure what, just let me know. I've got tons of things that people can do to help out!

Invest in Interstellar Industry

This one is still a work in progress.. but I consider it about 85% complete.

Shockwave Stars Surround Sleek Ship

WCS took our advice and added a starfield to the background of his Shockwave tech demo. A few stars or a nebula always bring an otherwise simple render to life!

Wing Commander Shockwave

Click once in the opening screen ( yes I'll replace it at some point, but I needed a suitably low-compression ratio image to prevent a bug in Adobe Shockwave player for Firefox )

Controls:
Q,W - Roll
Arrow keys - Yaw, pitch
Z,X - Speed
Home - Return to opening screen