Wing Commander Prophecy: Secret Ops Model Update Pack

[DefianceIndustries]

So I got all of DS's bug ships into the game. So far no issues. I played through Ella 4 (or is it 5) The mission where you have to escort the plunkett and two murphys back to the Cerberus. Anyway there's a huge furball when the capships jump in. Bunch of Mantas, 2 Devilrays, felt it would make a good test. No issues at all, the game performed like it would with the low poly models. Now there aren't any high poly tigersharks, panthers, or capships yet (but there are a few Excaliburs), but so far the engine is handling what I can throw at it nicely. I failed to get a decent shot of the Manta B, but it's in there.

As a happy bit of serendipity, the spec maps add a really nice touch to the manta. There are times when the fighter is out of direct light and it looks like a hole against the stars, you can't see it except for the targeting reticule. Then it'll roll or jink and the spec catches the back lighting and you can catch some of the iridescence. it's a neat effect anyhoo. I'll try and get a video of it.

Great work @Dark Sentinel!

Obligatory screen shots incoming:

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Well, 1024x1024 may be an overkill? Did you try like 512x512? IIRC, original resolution was 256x256?

Bear in mind that these are 8-bit BMPs turned MATs so they aren't large files to begin with. They average around 1MB. So any later model GFX card worth its salt will laugh at the Vram needed to keep them going. I'm only running a paltry GTX 760 right now and I'm not seeing any frame rate issues at this point.

 

[Triple-B]

The HUD still displays the low res model. Is this still to change?

 

[Dark Sentinel]

Well nope, HUD model there is also new. Take a closer look at cockpit and engines.

 

[Triple-B]

look at the screenshots of in game play

 

[DefianceIndustries]

look at the screenshots of in game play

It's actually the high res model but the game doesn't apply any lighting effects to it. It's just flat lighting. if you look at the Excalibur screen shots you can see its the same as well. plus I backed up all the original meshes to a separate folder as I replace them and remove them from the mesh folder entirely.

 

[PopsiclePete]

Awesome ! Those alien ships finally look in-game as they should have ! Keep it up guys !

 

[Whistler]

The quality is so night vs day! I wish I had some talent in coding or graphic arts to help more directly. Most I can hope to do is testing on my different rigs: a 560 ti on Vista x86 and (very soon) a 980 ti on Win10x64.

Damn, I love this community's spunk. (Sorry for the Eisenism)

Thanks to everyone contributing to this project!

 

[DefianceIndustries]

The quality is so night vs day! I wish I had some talent in coding or graphic arts to help more directly. Most I can hope to do is testing on my different rigs: a 560 ti on Vista x86 and (very soon) a 980 ti on Win10x64.

Damn, I love this community's spunk. (Sorry for the Eisenism)

Thanks to everyone contributing to this project!

Your (and the community's) encouragement is what gave me the impetus to try it in the first place; that's a significant contribution right there. besides, I'll always need playtesters.

 

[Whistler]

I'll always need playtesters.

Ready to squish some bugs.

Take that how you like.

 

[Quarto]

look at the screenshots of in game play

As Defiance said, the model is high-poly, it's just that it's not lit properly - which is of course a good thing, because the whole point of that little HUD window is to be able to always see the ship you've got targeted, regardless of how dark it might be. It's a futuristic fancy real-time 3d rendering component of the HUD .

 

[Triple-B]

ok guys, if you say so I trust you.

It just looks like vanilla WCP, thats why I wondered

 

[PopsiclePete]

If the tiny, unlit version looks like vanilla WCP, that's a good sign, it means the model is really faithful to the original

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Okay - finally got a quick break to finish the F/A-105-C Tigershark. I'm pretty happy with it. I didn't add the missiles in the launch tubes because the cost in triangles really wasn't there for the visual effect. If I want to get crazy at some point, I'll model the pods with and without missiles. Then the mission programmer can set flags to determine if the fighter has missiles left and render the appropriate model accordingly...don't know if that's possible actually and it seems like a bunch of effort for a non-critical effect. I'm posting the Blender renders now. I'll post in-game shots in a bit when I finish the conversion. Enjoy!

 

[Shades2585]

Wow! Looks great!

 

[Quarto]

I didn't add the missiles in the launch tubes because the cost in triangles really wasn't there for the visual effect. If I want to get crazy at some point, I'll model the pods with and without missiles. Then the mission programmer can set flags to determine if the fighter has missiles left and render the appropriate model accordingly...don't know if that's possible actually and it seems like a bunch of effort for a non-critical effect.

Looks great! But if you start wasting time on things like missiles in pods before addressing my ever-so-important comment about making cockpit interiors and pilots visible, I will be very upset .

 

[wcnut]

Looks great! But if you start wasting time on things like missiles in pods before addressing my ever-so-important comment about making cockpit interiors and pilots visible, I will be very upset .

Perhaps as a distant future project we can get something similar in standoff?

 

[DefianceIndustries]

Looks great! But if you start wasting time on things like missiles in pods before addressing my ever-so-important comment about making cockpit interiors and pilots visible, I will be very upset .

Oddly, I was thinking about that today actually. I'm not sure if the PART chunk would work for animated pilot heads, unless one of the other coordinates is some kind of degree stop. I'll have to play with it. My guess is that (at least in the uses I've seen) it's basically a dumb rotate. So while it might be funny to have Confed's pilots all extras from The Exorcist (not to mention give a new definition of "keep your head on a swivel, pilot!") it may not work. Instead maybe we make the head an EPOD chunk. It wouldn't be free rotating animation, but it would swivel in the direction of the ship's turn, making it appear as if the pilot is looking into the turn. Just a thought.

But admittedly, I'd be a total slacker if I did the missile pod ahead of the cockpits and pilots, not to mention that wrench everyone wants in my Durango model...jeez!

 

[DefianceIndustries]

The Tigershark has been converted! Below are some screen caps of the model in the game.

I learned a valuable lesson today however, and one that will definitely go into the FAQ of my tutorial. If you use edge-split and the mirror modifier, then random faces on the mirrored side of the mesh become normal-flipped. Meaning that they appear transparent in the game. It's not all of them, and it seems to be a function of the degrees identified in the edge split as to which faces get flipped. The short answer here is: don't use mirror and edge split together, unless you have no other option and want to spend an hour or so toggling between WCP and your modeling program finding faces to flip. FUN FUN FUN!!!

 

[Quarto]

Perhaps as a distant future project we can get something similar in standoff?

If some fan of Standoff wants to do so, sure! Good luck getting Eder to do any more WC modelling, though, he's pretty busy with other things.

Oddly, I was thinking about that today actually. I'm not sure if the PART chunk would work for animated pilot heads, unless one of the other coordinates is some kind of degree stop. I'll have to play with it. My guess is that (at least in the uses I've seen) it's basically a dumb rotate. So while it might be funny to have Confed's pilots all extras from The Exorcist (not to mention give a new definition of "keep your head on a swivel, pilot!") it may not work. Instead maybe we make the head an EPOD chunk. It wouldn't be free rotating animation, but it would swivel in the direction of the ship's turn, making it appear as if the pilot is looking into the turn. Just a thought.

Yes, I do think you're right, an EPOD is the way to go. A 360-degree rotating pilot head might be somewhat freaky indeed.

But admittedly, I'd be a total slacker if I did the missile pod ahead of the cockpits and pilots, not to mention that wrench everyone wants in my Durango model...jeez!

Well, funny you should mention that wrench... now, there isn't really that much opportunity for this in WCP, since there's no fly-through hangars in there, but I can tell you that if I were importing a fly-through capship such as the Durango into WCP, I would certainly populate the deck with a bunch of doodads, stuff like barrels, missile racks, and so on. Of course, it would be highly desirable to implement them as some kind of destroyable object, and then someone would have to hack the game to make that particular kind of object untargettable, so that you wouldn't ever have to go through two million useless components just to target the bridge. So, if you were importing such a ship into WCP, then really, that wrench is kinda useful. I don't know why they wanted it in Homeworld though, since there's no flying through hangars there .