Original Wing Commander 3/4/Prophecy/SO/Armada/ Proving Ground assets.

M3RcAden

Captain
Hey everyone,

I am a long time fan of Wing Commander and have played through 3 and 4 countless times, and have a serious longing for the Kilrathi War. I am a modder of Sins of a Solar Empire, a 4X strategy game and was thinking not to long ago how awesome it would be to have a Wing Commander mod for it. Now I have talked to a friend of mine, MajorPayne who was working on the Wing Commander Invasion mod for Empire at War and all of his assets are made by fans. I am curious, can anyone give me a link, or possibly a tutorial to retrieve, for the models from the above mentioned games? I mean actual ingame models that were used by Chris Roberts and the team, as I want to bring the feel of the original games to a RTS setting. Thank you in advance for any help you can give.

M3RcAden
 
I was able to import the Dralthi IV into Sins, and it doesn't look half bad. could someone please tell me how to get all the models extracted from the games? I am not trying to make any money off of this endevour, just want to play a good strategy game version of WC. I was able to get this model from a pack I downloaded some time ago, but most of the files are in .bfxm format, and I do not have a converter for them as of yet.

2015-01-04_00001.jpg
 
The ship files themselves aren't terribly hard to extract. The trick is to get them in a format the will be usable for you. For example here's an online viewer that makes use of the game meshes https://www.wcnews.com/shipviewer/ (if you check out the page source html you should be able to find the links to the IFF files themselves) The webGL app was made to specifically read the format. It's probably possible to make a converter though I'm not sure one exists.

There are tools for the prophecy ships though, and source models from the earlier games available as well (WC2/privateer http://download.wcnews.com/files/priv1/wc3d.zip )
 
Last edited by a moderator:
yes, I did notice that about the IFF files. I just have never been able to get them pulled apart into a usable format. When I talked with Major Payne back in the day, He used something called 3dExporation, and I have looked into it, but the iff importer for that is a specific version and I am unable to find what version it was.
 
got a few more assets from Wing Commander 4 into Sins today. Again, everything is still dependenant on being able to extract those files. I have the prophecyx3d download, is that what I need for 3d Exploration? Here are a couple shots of what I have.

The models you see I have found in an old folder and they look to be only some of the assets from WC4, but not all of them.

Longbow with the Victory(WC4 model and textures, just modified)
2015-01-11_00006.jpg


Dralthi vs a Longbow
2015-01-11_00010.jpg
 
That looks like a good start! It sounds like you already have a plan involving the specific assets from the games you mention, but just to make sure you're aware in case you're really struggling to get models, Klavs recently posted a neat collection of his own 3D designs of a wide variety of WC ships.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Oh Yes! I am fully aware of the amazing work that Klavs has done, and actually have both of his packs (Confed and Kilrathi). I just wanted to use the original game models so that I can spam the units without having to worry about slowing down any computer. :) I did notice a link to something else there, that I am going to try out. thank you!
 
Thanks to http://wcmdf.solsector.net/ I was able to find some more models that I am sure are from the stock games. Right now I have only added one of them in, that being the Hellcat, but they are all rigged up. Also set up the Longbow with some missles. I will post either later today or in the next couple days with my overall plan for this mod.

2015-01-14_00001.jpg

2015-01-14_00004.jpg


Longbow with added missile hardpoints as well as engine exhaust. (exhaust is still WIP)
2015-01-14_00003.jpg
 
I am sorry I haven't gotten back to this sooner, but I have been very busy the last few days with work and just had some free time recently to work on this project.

So my goal is this, since Wing Commander was all about the fighters, not the Capital ships, and their fight against the Kilrathi, most of the models in the mod will be fighters. Sadly Sins restricts us to having 15 manditory slots, so we can't pick this, choose this. Every slot has to have a roll. That being said, all of the 'frigate' and 'cruiser' classes of ships are being turned into fighters. Capitalships and the Titans will be the cap ships we have seen in the games, and thus we don't have to come up with too many extra designs. Like I said in my initial post, I would like to be able to use all the orginal game assets, as I plan to make everything spam like there is no tomorrow.
I found a pack, somewhere, can't think of exact location at the moment, that contained several of the WC4 models, this including everything I have posted thus far plus a few others. Here are a few of those others, added into the Sins mod.

2015-01-12_00004.jpg

2015-01-20_00016.jpg

2015-01-20_00026.jpg

2015-01-20_00037.jpg

2015-01-20_00034.jpg

Arrow, Hellcat, Excalibur,Thunderbolt, and Longbow all in-game, hardpointed and ready to rock.

On a side note, I did change the stock menu music with that of the WC3 theme. :)
 
it has been some time since I posted in this thread, and I am sorry to say that there was a hangup. My friend is still trying to get a good extractor working for the iff files, but until he can work something out, this is sort of at a stand still. Just yesterday, on a whim, I started working on a new mesh, not sure where I was going to go with it. Well, that mesh has its primary structure completed, and I can show you exactly where I ended up. :)

tcs_victory_by_epytronomega-d8ye1qn.jpg


To top that off, this morning I started work on the TCS Vesuvius. If I have to build all the models from scratch, I wont be heart broken. It just might mean that the players wont be able to mass spawn the fighters.
 
here are some updates. I added turrets to the Victory, have completed the Tallahassee and have a good portion of the Vesuvius. Next on my list, after I finish that mesh is to start and finish a Kilrathi ship or 2. Im starting with the Capitals as there are fewer of them to have to contend with.

tcs_victory_turrets_by_epytronomega-d8ykpf8.jpg


wing_commander_ships_by_epytronomega-d8yl7zm.jpg


tcs_tallahassee_by_epytronomega-d8yldj3.jpg
 
Kilrathi Corvette basic mesh completed. All that is left is to design and place the Turrets. Here it is, and let me know what you all think.

kilrathi_corvette_by_epytronomega-d8yulk8.jpg


EDIT: Here is a shot of the Corvette with her Turrets:
kilrathi_corvette_2_by_epytronomega-d8ywreg.jpg
 
Last edited:
Back
Top