Confederation [Work in Progress]
- Thread starter AllTinker
- Start date
Knight26-77
Rear Admiral
But the viewer was a nice touch... Awesome work.
In regards to the higher-res models, I believe @Howard Day was working on something like that a few years back. YOu might be able to ask him, or @Klavs81 if they could render there's at all the required angles. Getting them into game at that point is the trick, but again, Howard and the guys who did the old DX (IIRC) mod might be able to help you there.
In regards to the higher-res models, I believe @Howard Day was working on something like that a few years back. YOu might be able to ask him, or @Klavs81 if they could render there's at all the required angles. Getting them into game at that point is the trick, but again, Howard and the guys who did the old DX (IIRC) mod might be able to help you there.
Klavs81
Rear Admiral
This is really just a matter of setting up a consistent camera/lighting/rotation for each model. If you let me know what the requirements/orientation/order/resolution are I'd be happy to do a test! It would be fairly easy after that at a rate of about one a day.
Awesome stuff! I'd love to contribute!
ChrisReid
Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
It may be true it was a distraction, but I thought that window was very cool!
AllTinker
Captain
Thanks guys. 
The problem was that I didn't look at the cutscene in context and just started doodling. I didn't even look at/remember the text for that scene, which sets the tone very clearly. Ah well - I'm looking forward to doing some custom art down the road; my first thought is perhaps expanding Secret Missions 1.5 a little with a new cutscene or two.
Awesome! A high-res addon is absolutely something I want to see happen - it would definitely be its own project, and I'd probably just be a relatively minor contributor, but I'm very keen to help make it happen. Once Confederation is out it should be pretty easy to do some tests and figure out the finer details!
Just generally, there's so many different upgrade approaches which could easily each be their own big project:
One of the few "remaster" things I've played with are replacement digital sound effects, but I quickly ran into the aforementioned consistency issues. More modern audio clashes badly with the original visuals, but would be something I'd be keen to try again for a matching high-resolution / 3D visual addon.
Improving the rendering of the WC1/2 music is another thing I'd like to see explored. Originator will export MIDI files stripped of the Origin MIDI (OMI) metadata which trips up standard MIDI software. Arranging it to use General MIDI would allow Confederation to render it with SoundFonts. I know @EmuMusicFan was looking into doing this, but I'm not sure how that's gone so far - it's a lot of work.
The problem was that I didn't look at the cutscene in context and just started doodling. I didn't even look at/remember the text for that scene, which sets the tone very clearly. Ah well - I'm looking forward to doing some custom art down the road; my first thought is perhaps expanding Secret Missions 1.5 a little with a new cutscene or two.Awesome! A high-res addon is absolutely something I want to see happen - it would definitely be its own project, and I'd probably just be a relatively minor contributor, but I'm very keen to help make it happen.
Once Confederation is out it should be pretty easy to do some tests and figure out the finer details!Just generally, there's so many different upgrade approaches which could easily each be their own big project:
- For WC1, render new sprites matching the WC2 style, the end result being some anti-aliasing and an overall quality bump over WC1's sprites, but still with quite bright pixel-art-ish colours.
- For WC1/2, render new sprites matching the Privateer / Super Wing Commander style - obviously SWC covers most/all of what's needed for WC1. The models/textures are obviously quite simple; more muted visually than the prior styles; bit more of a grungy "realistic" feel.
- Render new sprites at higher resolution with more detail (e.g. based on @Klavs81 and/or @Howard Day's amazing work). Doubling the number of rotations would make sense, e.g. above/below plus 9 bands of 24 rather than 5 bands of 12.
- Use 3D models, matching the low poly + detailed pre-lit texture look to unify with WC3/4.
- Use 3D models with more modern poly counts, normal maps etc. More in the vein of WC4 Remake.
One of the few "remaster" things I've played with are replacement digital sound effects, but I quickly ran into the aforementioned consistency issues. More modern audio clashes badly with the original visuals, but would be something I'd be keen to try again for a matching high-resolution / 3D visual addon.
Improving the rendering of the WC1/2 music is another thing I'd like to see explored. Originator will export MIDI files stripped of the Origin MIDI (OMI) metadata which trips up standard MIDI software. Arranging it to use General MIDI would allow Confederation to render it with SoundFonts. I know @EmuMusicFan was looking into doing this, but I'm not sure how that's gone so far - it's a lot of work.
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What exactly is working gameplay-wise right now? I am asking because I have seen many a project goes down deep into a rabbit hole of visual customizations too early and thus eventually over-extending, leading to all that hard work never seeing the light of day.
I mean that only as a word of warning born from hard experience. However, it is your project of course, so just ignore me at your convenience.
I really adore your work on this.
I mean that only as a word of warning born from hard experience. However, it is your project of course, so just ignore me at your convenience.
I really adore your work on this.
Klavs81
Rear Admiral
Okay, try this? I did a quick render test of the Tarawa: Link
I've got a rig that'll keep camera movement and consistent lighting, it's really only a matter of about 20 minutes to get everything rendered out for a single ship.
Question, is it possible to overlay multiple texture sets? I could render out a version that's JUST the lighting from the engines. In the old Escape Velocity Nova days, we had an 'exhaust' pass and a 'ship' pass. In photoshop terms it would be a 'screen' blending style but no idea if the engine could handle that. All sorts of cool lighting effects you could do with that potentially! Running lights, flickering fires from destroyed ships, etc.
Camera FOV is 20° which gives some perspective but keeps it from being totally orthographic.
Second Question: What's the maximum sprite size? I rendered out the Tarawa at 1024x1024 but obviously it's scalable.
I've got a rig that'll keep camera movement and consistent lighting, it's really only a matter of about 20 minutes to get everything rendered out for a single ship.
Question, is it possible to overlay multiple texture sets? I could render out a version that's JUST the lighting from the engines. In the old Escape Velocity Nova days, we had an 'exhaust' pass and a 'ship' pass. In photoshop terms it would be a 'screen' blending style but no idea if the engine could handle that. All sorts of cool lighting effects you could do with that potentially! Running lights, flickering fires from destroyed ships, etc.
Camera FOV is 20° which gives some perspective but keeps it from being totally orthographic.
Second Question: What's the maximum sprite size? I rendered out the Tarawa at 1024x1024 but obviously it's scalable.
AllTinker
Captain
Thanks.
Well, most of the engine tech/core gameplay for WC1/2 is working, but it's very lacking in the details. Things like the cockpit instrumentation and systems damage, that sort of thing. It's partly because I'm not overhauling the visuals (beyond widescreen) that I'd like the gameplay to be in quite a complete state before the first spaceflight videos and then first release. The first release will have many things missing, but the core gameplay should all be there.My programming attention will be on Originator for a short while longer, but I've felt motivated to knock over the last of my widescreen extensions; having one less thing on the list to finish would be nice.
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AllTinker
Captain
Nice, looks great! It does look like there's a couple of repeated/missing angles though... I definitely think it'd be worth going for top, bottom, then 9 vertical rotations between (18 degrees each) with 24 horizontal rotations (15 degrees each) for such a detailed ship. It does mean 218 total renders though.
Absolutely! An emissive texture layer is no problem at all. It could also be masked so engines could turn on/off and such.
The maximum is really only limited by the GPU in the system (i.e. generally 16K), but I believe anything beyond 2048 would have pretty diminishing returns... Honestly 1024 is probably fine for capital ships, maybe 512 for fighters? But higher resolution can always be downscaled later of course.
Klavs81
Rear Admiral
Tarawa Update
Okay! I think I've got all the frames that you would need, let me know if this works! Based on Howard Day's work I reduced the FOV to 8°, which will eliminate the forced perspective look but still provide a little bit of depth.
Firekka cutscene extensions look amazing!
Okay! I think I've got all the frames that you would need, let me know if this works! Based on Howard Day's work I reduced the FOV to 8°, which will eliminate the forced perspective look but still provide a little bit of depth.
Firekka cutscene extensions look amazing!
Knight26-77
Rear Admiral
Darkmatter
Rear Admiral
These are amazing! Did I read something on page 1 about "not being an artist? I must have read that wrong, because building out to widescreen by that degree is not so easy!
I'm glad it was mentioned above, because I didn't want to make a new thread asking about 1 search, but I was wondering what was the end result from the experiments to increase the resolution of the ships in WC1 (especially) & WC2? I know you guys were able to double the res, but hit some hard coded limits beyond that. Are those higher res ships up somewhere to be used in game? I'd love to try them out!
I'm glad it was mentioned above, because I didn't want to make a new thread asking about 1 search, but I was wondering what was the end result from the experiments to increase the resolution of the ships in WC1 (especially) & WC2? I know you guys were able to double the res, but hit some hard coded limits beyond that. Are those higher res ships up somewhere to be used in game? I'd love to try them out!
AllTinker
Captain
You might be thinking of this (for Kilrathi Saga)? As far as I'm aware, that's about as far as that experiment got.
My widescreen and art-fix sets are really just example mods for Confederation (which isn't released yet; Originator totally derailed my plans there). I'd love to see other mods for high-res sprites and/or 3D models eventually once Confederation is out - we have some really talented modellers here so I'm very optimistic about what we could create. I'm still keen to continue my voxel ship set at some point too...
My widescreen and art-fix sets are really just example mods for Confederation (which isn't released yet; Originator totally derailed my plans there). I'd love to see other mods for high-res sprites and/or 3D models eventually once Confederation is out - we have some really talented modellers here so I'm very optimistic about what we could create.
I'm still keen to continue my voxel ship set at some point too...EmuMusicFan
Commodore
The wide screen scenes are for Confederation, the (unreleased yet) port of WC games for modern platforms, not for the original games.
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Pedro
Admiral
Just looking at these again; I feel like I’d like the images to extend vertically as well on on super wide so they take up the whole screen.
The nice thing about a super wide monitor is things always feel cinematic
Ofcourse I realise that’s probably a bunch of extra work for a very small subset but thought I’d mention it before you do the entire lot just incase it’s feasible
The nice thing about a super wide monitor is things always feel cinematic
Ofcourse I realise that’s probably a bunch of extra work for a very small subset but thought I’d mention it before you do the entire lot just incase it’s feasible
AllTinker
Captain
If I got rid of the letterboxing for the midgame cutscenes I'd want to get rid of it entirely... And there's a lot of art in WC1 which is designed to be letterboxed. 
Figuring out how to have the text appear nicely over the art is a minor issue, but yeah, apart from the backgrounds I'd have to extend the character portraits, a whole tonne of sprites and so on. I'm thinking it may be better left to a complete art overhaul (i.e. new art from scratch), given the amount of work it would take... But who knows, it's not like it's impossible or anything. Not something for the initial release, at any rate.
In terms of stuff I haven't done for the widescreen mod, there's only one thing now: the side views of the ships in the hangar, and they're very difficult. I experimented with some cheat methods, e.g. a big clamp holding the ship, or other stuff in the foreground to hide the missing part... But nothing has really worked too well. Looks like the way to do it is to do it.
Here's another couple of things for the heck of it; the extended 'Claw for the landing animation, and the victory animation (the first frame of it at least; the whole animation is good to go though).
Figuring out how to have the text appear nicely over the art is a minor issue, but yeah, apart from the backgrounds I'd have to extend the character portraits, a whole tonne of sprites and so on. I'm thinking it may be better left to a complete art overhaul (i.e. new art from scratch), given the amount of work it would take... But who knows, it's not like it's impossible or anything. Not something for the initial release, at any rate. In terms of stuff I haven't done for the widescreen mod, there's only one thing now: the side views of the ships in the hangar, and they're very difficult. I experimented with some cheat methods, e.g. a big clamp holding the ship, or other stuff in the foreground to hide the missing part... But nothing has really worked too well. Looks like the way to do it is to do it.
Here's another couple of things for the heck of it; the extended 'Claw for the landing animation, and the victory animation (the first frame of it at least; the whole animation is good to go though).