Wing Commander Toolbox

[Pedro]

My goal is to re-implement the WC engine in C89 with shims for all the platform specific stuff so that I can easily port it to a variety of platforms like my Sun Ultra 2 and Blade 1000, an SGI Octane, and a homemade ARM-based platform that runs NuttX. I've also got a side project going for a homemade CPU design that I intend to target with a simple C compiler and I'm hoping to eventually get it running there as well, performance permitting.

So basically, my goal is a clean, open source, easy-to-port, re-implementation of the WC engine.

It's a project that's been on my mind for years, but I recently ran across my copy of "Secrets of the Wing Commander Universe" while cleaning my office, providing the motivation to finally put the plan into action.

As a child I dreamt up all sorts of add-on missions/campaigns for the game, so if all goes well I would like to implement some of those, but that's a project for later, after I have a better feel for how the internals work.

The Wing Commander 4 project is actually being coded in such a way that it could support any of the games (hence why you see demos with WC3 assets despite our WC4 focus). The engine is multiplatform, and the long term dream would be to have all of the games playable from the same codebase.
From what you're describing it wouldn't be of direct interest as it's C++ and whilst it is multiplatform the development and tools are exclusively on windows so. Still PM if you're interested in any co-ordination for handling of file formats, parsing mission scripts etc.

 

[GuybrushSF]

Hi UnnamedCharacter,

I'm translating Wing Commander 1 in french with the fantastic toolbox
I've noticed some missing strings in wc.exe file. I can't find them in the WC.EXE.XML after unpacking.

It's an known issue ? (or it's me )
Thank you again for this Toolbox.

 

[cashgrany]

Hi all . I am turning to you regarding WC3. In my games folder I only have the DATA.DAT and OBJECTS.TRE folders I only managed to extract the OBJECTS.TRE and I only get 2 .IFF files. Why don't I have a DATA.TRE file? I specify that I have the Origin version of EA. Sorry for my bad English .

 

[Pedro]

Hi all . I am turning to you regarding WC3. In my games folder I only have the DATA.DAT and OBJECTS.TRE folders I only managed to extract the OBJECTS.TRE and I only get 2 .IFF files. Why don't I have a DATA.TRE file? I specify that I have the Origin version of EA. Sorry for my bad English .

The origin version mounts a disc image. For the remake project when it finds wc3 it makes a copy that disk image with the extension .iso and mounts it
You’ll find the full set of tre files in the iso

 

[AD]

Hi all . I am turning to you regarding WC3. In my games folder I only have the DATA.DAT and OBJECTS.TRE folders I only managed to extract the OBJECTS.TRE and I only get 2 .IFF files. Why don't I have a DATA.TRE file? I specify that I have the Origin version of EA. Sorry for my bad English .

DATA.DAT is the disk image(s). You should be able to open/extract files from it relatively easily. You can even straight up change the DAT extension to ISO and open it in windows explorer or a different disk image reader

 

[Marty2Life]

Hello to all the pilots out there.

I'm new to the forum and have known Wing Commander since the beginning of 1990.
I played the first part on the Amiga 1200 when I was a child. That was the OCS version.
Then the other parts on the PC.

I also have the packs and everything that belongs there as well as a 3DO + SWC and MAC and PSX.
..(A native port from SWC for the PC would be nice as well as Doom and Final Doom PSX ... but that's different)

Every now and then I observe and follow what is going on in the wing scene.

This is great with the toolbox

I'm working on my DOSbox fork, which is a mixture of Dosbox-X and Daum (Windows95 and 98 run in my Dosbox). Got all the parts in the Dosbox (yes also the Windows95 versions).

Now to my question. Since I am a German user, I would like to translate the PC Wing Commander 1 Dos version and / or the Kilrathi version into German. I have the CD32 (combi with Dangerous Streets).

It would be great if you would also support them in the toolbox. The problem is just the crunch files of the Amiga version (* .pkt) Entries start in the header with NJMP (they can be decrunched with the xfd system under Amiga).

Then the headers have TM6 and others *.pkt files have LZNP in the header. they cant decrunched.
My skill for such crunch files is not high enough and now I am translating "Hardware - The future is greedy" into German and scanning all my Amiga/Console/PC stuff in HD.

Before I die, I want to play Wing Commander 1 PC DOS and SWC (with subtitles) and Privateer 1 in German. Wing Commander 2 German Conversion runs with Speech and Subtitles at same time


Edit: I was able to decrunch the German Script from Amiga Wing Commander and beginning to translate. Doing a pause on hardwar ..

 

[EmuMusicFan]

Hello to all the pilots out there.

I'm new to the forum and have known Wing Commander since the beginning of 1990.
I played the first part on the Amiga 1200 when I was a child. That was the OCS version.
Then the other parts on the PC.

I also have the packs and everything that belongs there as well as a 3DO + SWC and MAC and PSX.
..(A native port from SWC for the PC would be nice as well as Doom and Final Doom PSX ... but that's different)

Every now and then I observe and follow what is going on in the wing scene.

This is great with the toolbox

I'm working on my DOSbox fork, which is a mixture of Dosbox-X and Daum (Windows95 and 98 run in my Dosbox). Got all the parts in the Dosbox (yes also the Windows95 versions).

Now to my question. Since I am a German user, I would like to translate the PC Wing Commander 1 Dos version and / or the Kilrathi version into German. I have the CD32 (combi with Dangerous Streets).

It would be great if you would also support them in the toolbox. The problem is just the crunch files of the Amiga version (* .pkt) Entries start in the header with NJMP (they can be decrunched with the xfd system under Amiga).

Then the headers have TM6 and others *.pkt files have LZNP in the header. they cant decrunched.
My skill for such crunch files is not high enough and now I am translating "Hardware - The future is greedy" into German and scanning all my Amiga/Console/PC stuff in HD.

Before I die, I want to play Wing Commander 1 PC DOS and SWC (with subtitles) and Privateer 1 in German. Wing Commander 2 German Conversion runs with Speech and Subtitles at same time


Edit: I was able to decrunch the German Script from Amiga Wing Commander and beginning to translate. Doing a pause on hardwar ..

Hello! Since you are maintaining your own DOSBOX fork, may I ask some questions?

The first one is about the translation you mentioned. Is it possible to detect the dialog text display program behavior of WC1 and WC2 at the level of DOSBOX and load the corresponding translated text display at the level of DOSBOX?

And, is it possible to detect the corresponding program behavior from the DOSBOX level when WC3 plays FMV and then react in the DOSBOX? I mean, it might be possible to use FMV with enhanced resolution this way.

 

[Marty2Life]

Difficult. But it's not impossible. One could build in a kind of monitoring for Wing Commander in the source and in the debug mode. Files can be caught by name. Similar and really just similar to the pinball hack. With this, Pinball Fantasies or Dreams or other MSDOS pinball games of the whole table can be displayed completely in MSDOS via DOSbox and you can play these games. Instead of 320x200 or 640x480 it is then 320x600. Wing Commander accesses the texts via the font file. There it should. One would have to intervene in memory management. But this will be hardcore ...

For the Higher Resolution in WC3 and Software Mode. I think this will be a hard Pixel Calculation. Because you go out of the standard here. It's a shame that Wing Commander 3 didn't get a 3DFX in DOS or Windows 95.

First Mission in German (MS-DOS ... yeah)

 

[EmuMusicFan]

Difficult. But it's not impossible. One could build in a kind of monitoring for Wing Commander in the source and in the debug mode. Files can be caught by name. Similar and really just similar to the pinball hack. With this, Pinball Fantasies or Dreams or other MSDOS pinball games of the whole table can be displayed completely in MSDOS via DOSbox and you can play these games. Instead of 320x200 or 640x480 it is then 320x600. Wing Commander accesses the texts via the font file. There it should. One would have to intervene in memory management. But this will be hardcore ...

For the Higher Resolution in WC3 and Software Mode. I think this will be a hard Pixel Calculation. Because you go out of the standard here. It's a shame that Wing Commander 3 didn't get a 3DFX in DOS or Windows 95.

First Mission in German (MS-DOS ... yeah)

Great achievement!

Does the original WC1 program come with support for EASCII or ISO/IEC 8859?

In fact, I would like it to have Unicode support, so that CJK text translation could be supported. Of course I understand that this is too difficult for modifying the original DOS program. That is why I was asking questions on the possibility of external language package at DOSBOX level.

Regarding the FMV with enhanced resolution... I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I expressing it wrong. I wasn't talking about increasing the rendering resolution of the 3D game play. What I was trying to say is that there are now FMV files in high resolution, and it would be nice to play these HD videos at DOSBOX level.

 

[Marty2Life]

Hello

I'm in the flow right now and have < 16 > Missions Left from the Main Campaign. Then i haved finished all Briefings.

That with the code page was a bit tricky. I had to switch the crunched output file in notepad++ between 1251 and 855 so that the wrong special characters had to be mass replaced in the correct umlauts and the ß explicitly.

Sentence by sentence .. you have the feeling that you cannot finish...

I had to modified the FONTS.FNT file with the Toolbox and huh .. i dont know EASCII or ISO/IEC 8859. I have seen it missing all last Ascii lettter at 128. these can be filled in "graphically". Then it looks like CP 437> 850. Amiga has ISO standard Ascii Table.

I'll hang on next the decrunched File.

Because of the FMV's. I see? yes i misunderstood you Yes, I haven't even got around to installing the DOS version of WC3 in Dosbox. Got the Kilrathi Saga, so (WC3'95 in Dosbox) going. The things are all in such a tre file.
When you get the films out of such a tre file. then have MVE. I dont know how the MVE technical works. After the extraction with WC3tools it is then AVI's

Video (Microsoft RLE)
ID                                       : 0
Format                                   : RGB
Codec-ID                                 : 0x00000000
Codec-ID/Info                            : Basic Windows bitmap format. 1, 4 and 8 bpp versions are palettised. 16, 24 and 32bpp contain raw RGB samples
Dauer                                    : 11s 67ms
Bitrate                                  : 19,0 Mbps
Breite                                   : 320 Pixel
Höhe                                     : 165 Pixel
Bildseitenverhältnis                     : 1,939
Bildwiederholungsrate                    : 15,000 FPS
BitDepth/String                          : 8 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 24.000

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : PCM
Format-Einstellungen für Endianess       : Little
Format-Einstellungen für Sign            : Signed
Codec-ID                                 : 1
Dauer                                    : 11s 67ms
Bitraten-Modus                           : konstant
Bitrate                                  : 352,8 Kbps
Kanäle                                   : 1 Kanal
Samplingrate                             : 22,05 KHz
BitDepth/String                          : 16 bits
Stream-Größe                             : 477 KiB (2%)
Ausrichtung                              : Ausgerichtet an Interleaves
Interleave, Dauer                        : 67 ms (1,00 Video-Frame)

Playing the HD movies under Dosbox would be too intense for Dosbox (the dos in the box). That in turn to patches that the films are then played externally would be possible. See GLIDos and Tombraider. However, that's stupid again when a new window pops up. That would have to be handled as a separate window in Dosbox.

A Program to Convert AVI's in MVE and put these in a tre does not exists yet?

 

[EmuMusicFan]

Hello

I'm in the flow right now and have < 16 > Missions Left from the Main Campaign. Then i haved finished all Briefings.

That with the code page was a bit tricky. I had to switch the crunched output file in notepad++ between 1251 and 855 so that the wrong special characters had to be mass replaced in the correct umlauts and the ß explicitly.

Sentence by sentence .. you have the feeling that you cannot finish...

I had to modified the FONTS.FNT file with the Toolbox and huh .. i dont know EASCII or ISO/IEC 8859. I have seen it missing all last Ascii lettter at 128. these can be filled in "graphically". Then it looks like CP 437> 850. Amiga has ISO standard Ascii Table.

I'll hang on next the decrunched File.

Because of the FMV's. I see? yes i misunderstood you Yes, I haven't even got around to installing the DOS version of WC3 in Dosbox. Got the Kilrathi Saga, so (WC3'95 in Dosbox) going. The things are all in such a tre file.
When you get the films out of such a tre file. then have MVE. I dont know how the MVE technical works. After the extraction with WC3tools it is then AVI's

Video (Microsoft RLE)
...

Playing the HD movies under Dosbox would be too intense for Dosbox (the dos in the box). That in turn to patches that the films are then played externally would be possible. See GLIDos and Tombraider. However, that's stupid again when a new window pops up. That would have to be handled as a separate window in Dosbox.

A Program to Convert AVI's in MVE and put these in a tre does not exists yet?

If all translations are manually modified, does that mean that a translation of another language would be an incompatible project?

And about the MKV, what I mean is that could DOSBOX fork launch some native H.264 decoder to play a corresponding HD MKV file (for example) when a certain MVE playing is detected? At best in an overlay, at least in a seperated video window? (The HD videos are enhanced from the PSX version.)

 

[EmuMusicFan]

A Program to Convert AVI's in MVE and put these in a tre does not exists yet?

Eh, do you wish to modify the content of FMV? 😀

 

[Marty2Life]

Not necessarily. Let it be the source correct from the code page
is messed up. Otherwise it should work as usual and if not with Notepad ++ and IDA or a hex editor check what is going wrong.

Then you would have to program such a Video decoder in DOSbox for the first time. Furthermore an overlay technique for the resolution. Such a Technic i use this for 3DFX games under DOS or Windows9x. So i can used the same Host Dosbox Resolution for the 3DFX too. For Example: My Desktop runs on 1920x1080. Dosbox runs the same Resolution but with calculated Pixel in Saoftware mode so 3DFX games such Tomb Raider, Quake 2 3DFX and other hundred of Win9x Based 3DFX/D3d-3DFX games use the 1920x1080 too

Then you have to see how you work with the code behind the overlay. Then there is the sound output. Such a decoder could be used via an external source like I did with CHD (mame Compressed Image / Compressed Hunks Diskmage). Wav, Flac, Mp3, Ogg are already in my Dosbox anyway. Most used for CDROm Bin Images. And we have to catch all Video Movie names in a table.

My Dosbox uses as background SDL2 v2.0.10. Then the Dosbox config for WC3 has to be expanded and restricted otherwise suddenly some of the others from the 1000 Dos games will react to it.

I look at the dilemma, but at the moment I am busy with the translation to Wing Commander 1 inc Addons, Hardware, Stalker and Doom Engine "Eternal" under DOS (programming with DJGPP under DOSBox) and other projects.

As I said I look at it and see what can be done there. I want the HD films even if in my WC3 version.

 

[Marty2Life]

Eh, do you wish to modify the content of FMV? 😀

Well, if you want a higher resolution and improve the picture you have to modify the MVE.

 

[Bitterman]

Im using Dosbox ECE for everything, mainly reshade

 

[Marty2Life]

Im using Dosbox ECE for everything, mainly reshade

Yes , I know Dosbox ECE, Is a little Improved Fork from Original. Nice ... but can't run Windows 95 with 512 RAM in combi with 3DFX @ 2K, 4K or 8K Resolutions and based to SDL 1.

 

[EmuMusicFan]

Yes , I know Dosbox ECE, Is a little Improved Fork from Original. Nice ... but can't run Windows 95 with 512 RAM in combi with 3DFX @ 2K, 4K or 8K Resolutions and based to SDL 1.

A small feature suggestion. 😜

Mono-only FM music can be enhanced to Surround OPL on the OPL3, and its implementation is very simple. Since the related topic is a bit far from the topic of this thread, please refer to the code if you are interested:

DERIX262/DERIX262.c at master · PalMusicFan/DERIX262

The Open Source RIX Player with OPL3 Surround OPL Support. - PalMusicFan/DERIX262

github.com

NOTE: It is GPL v3 code!

 

[Marty2Life]

A small feature suggestion. 😜

Mono-only FM music can be enhanced to Surround OPL on the OPL3, and its implementation is very simple. Since the related topic is a bit far from the topic of this thread, please refer to the code if you are interested:

DERIX262/DERIX262.c at master · PalMusicFan/DERIX262

The Open Source RIX Player with OPL3 Surround OPL Support. - PalMusicFan/DERIX262

github.com

NOTE: It is GPL v3 code!

That looks interesting. Thank you. I will take a look at it.

 

[Marty2Life]

Wing Commander 1
In the Intro.dat, the sentences may not be longer than 81 characters. Otherwise Wing Commander 1 will crash.

 

[Marty2Life]

Other Qestion

As a test, I compared the unzipped briefings(.000) from the Wing Commander 1 Dos version with the one from the Kilrathi Saga. Except for 2 entries, the file is the same.

However, there is a problem with the umlauts.

Is in the Wing Commander 1 executable file of the Kilrathis saga Ascii limited to 127 characters?

When I view the briefings in the game and previously edited the briefings file with Ascii letters from 128 . There are only question marks or graphic errors in the text conversations. Even if I now replace "Talk to SHOTGLASS" with "Rede mit ÄÖÄÜß" as a test in the executable file. Crashes WC1 KS. The Dos version is no problem and take ASCII to 255.

Look at the shots. I tried differents codepages (cp437 - the default, 852, 1250, Deutsch x-IA5)