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There comes a point in any project where you look at your in-progress work and you see the work coming together that you’re like “okay… this is looking friggen awesome!” Here is that moment with the Vampire model:
I decided to something crazy and I took the Vampire figure from Thingverse, and upscaled it to produce a roughly 14" long model. Now because of the size of my resin printer, I had to break the model down into segments. But then I also took a step further and wanted to make the engines rotate. So those needed to be separate parts, and the wing pylons needed to be modified to allow the rotation. But then I decided to make it even more involved and chose to install lights in the engines. So crazy enough? Well here is a record of my progress.
This review of Wing Commander SNES has a neat ship identification chart (where they've colored in the ships)!
Perry Naval Base:
The famed TCS Victory's rec room always has popcorn on the tables...
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.
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.
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. :)
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.
Squadron: MercenariesSquadron 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
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!
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!
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.
If you kind of squint, it looks a little bit like a clover...
Got some new rarities. Portuguese Wing Commander IV and Privateer 2. Unfortunately the seller stored them in a very humid place. Trying to open the IV he destroyed the slide cover.
LOAF: Are they localized at all?Dominus: Boxes and documents all in Portuguese. At least the intro has no subtitles. Look like the standard UK CDs. Even the quadruple CD case inlays are the UK ones and not translated (manual etc. are translated).
If anything, the Wing Commander movie has settled into an interesting little niche we didn't see coming: people kind of like it. It's not the second coming of George Lucas (sorry, Chris Roberts)... but it's also not really trash anymore, either. Every time it's mentioned on social media you get an inevitable host of people who view it as a guilty pleasure or a fun escape or a movie they thought deserved more attention. And that's kind of neat! Much of that is the sheer uncaring numbers of it: many, many more people can (fondly?) remember seeing Wing Commander the movie on DVD or cable TV than ever considered playing Wing Commander the game. Some frustrating old fictions remain–like the idea that including the Star Wars trailer printed money for the project (Wing Commander was a giant box office flop!) or the endless incorrect claim that the movie thinks the characters need to be quiet in space to escape the Kilrathi (thank you, Mr. Ebert)--but they're occasional bits of interest to politely point out instead of life-or-death challenges to nerd battle. The Wing Commander movie has improbably, probably done better for itself than anyone could ever have anticipated.
Instead, today I'd like to answer a question I'm asked regularly: why study Wing Commander today? On the surface there's not necessarily anything there. We aren't going to cure any diseases or change any minds or break open the universe in some shocking way. If we're lucky we might play a new game someday and that's about it. Even in the realm of liberal arts, there clearly aren't deep meanings or ideas to uncover. So why spend my time, say, charting out all the battles from the movie to make an accurate kill score, or tracking down all the background characters, or contacting costume makers to help identify illegible name tags? Why do these things that don't seem to add up to any satisfying whole?
It's because loving something this way is where the journey starts and not where it goes. We aren't celebrating Wing Commander because Wing Commander is the greatest movie or the best game or the most perfect story… we're celebrating it because it's ours and from the understanding we have of it we form connections to each other and to new ideas. We learn new things in every conceivable field because we take a harder look at some piece of Wing Commander. It's a compass or a Rosetta Stone: from considering the movie we come to new things we never could've considered otherwise. Whether that's diving into some piece of source material the movie references or learning how the game worked its magic under the hood, we start from loving Wing Commander and we come to know and think about other things. I've experienced art and music and political thought and ideas and an understanding of how other people create because I started from trying to understand Wing Commander. And that's even more important because the biggest lesson I've taken in three decades of fandom is that it is deeply important to surround yourself with people who love things regardless of what those things are.
The connections we've made over Wing Commander have made us better, more whole people and they've given us such important relationships. I did not feel like writing this update today. I've been having a bad time lately and I frankly would have rather hid in a hole somewhere. I was content to let the anniversary pass with the lazy man's option (some tweets). But my dear friend Chris Reid, who I have enjoyed Wing Commander with for all these years (including the movie on this day way back then!), messaged me and asked me if I could write a few words. He said he thought I would do a good job of capturing the anniversary. And immediately I was excited to contribute: to help my friend and to say something that someone seemed to want to hear. And when I can't manage to make anything else work right in this universe, I can still fall back on Wing Commander. And I know Chris BECAUSE of Wing Commander and we've come to have lives and families and dreams and hopes and all that bullshit together BECAUSE Wing Commander has been our lingua franca. And I remain so excited to find new ways to speak it and to see all the new places that will take me.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm needed at the edge of the universe. You see, all hell is about to break loose.
How does it feel to hit 25 years since Office Space?Richard Riehle (engineer liaison Tom Smykowski): Hard to imagine it’s been that long. It seems like just yesterday, and people still talk about it. When I’m recognized, it’s one of the first things they ask about.
Riehle: Mike [Judge] always had things that he wanted to throw in — “Try this, try that.” He was the best host there in Austin, as well as director. He would take us to places where his band used to play and to places with good food.
Riehle: Maybe four months later or so, I was back in L.A. and doing upfronts with Fox, so Mike was there as well, and I said, “Mike, the strangest thing is happening. People on the street are quoting lines from Office Space to me.” And he said, “It just got picked up on Comedy Central, and everybody is loving it.”
Riehle: It certainly was a nice element. Unfortunately, it was sold outright to Comedy Central, I think. I never found out any of the details of that. But I’ve gotten more checks over a longer period of time for Free Willy than I have for Office Space. (Laughs.) But it certainly has been nice to get definitely a decent check for it a couple times a year.
Wing Commander II Demo is a rolling demo of Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi. It features an early version of part of the game's introduction showing Prince Thrakhath's audience with the Emperor. It was the first Origin product to include recorded speech. The demo was created by Origin Systems to demonstrate the game at Winter CES 1991 (January 10 to 13 1991) and was released to the public via BBS afterwards. At the time it was published Wing Commander II was scheduled for a Summer 1991 releasee. It ultimately shipped in September, making the eight months between the demo and the final product the longest such stretch in Wing Commander history. The demo is not known to have received a physical commercial release.
Differences
- The 3space engine section uses a version closer to the original Wing Commander. It uses Wing Commander's palette and several other assets (including the Dralthi and Star Post ships).
- Prince Thrakhath's Bloodfang model is a distinct version created for the demo and it looks significantly different from the final version used in Wing Commander II. The sprites can be imported into the original Wing Commander but it does not include assets like a VDU graphic.
- The scene is set at the "Imperial Palace", a Star Post, instead of at K'Tithrak Mang. K'Tithrak Mang is not mentioned in the dialogue.
- The scene includes a longer introduction in which Thrakhath flies to the Imperial Palace and walks past rows of Imperial Guardsmen.
- There is a 'talking head' view of an Imperial Guardsman announcing Thrakhath's arrival which does not appear in the final game.
- The medium and closeup backgrounds for Prince Thrakhath and the Emperor are different from the versions used in the game. Both pieces are digitized from paintings by Daniel Bourbonnais.
- The dialogue between Thrakhath is different although it retains the same general structure and many of the same ideas. It does not mention K'Tithrak Mang or the rebellion on Ghorah Khar.
- The voice acting is performed by different people. Prince Thrakhath and the Emperor are played by developers Philip Brogden and Siobhan Beeman in the demo and writer G.P. Austin and actor Edwin Neal in the finished game. The Imperial Guard, played in the demo by Martin Galway, does not speak in the final game and is only referenced but not seen.
Fresh off the boat from Australia! I love weird compilations so much.
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