2015.032 (February 1, 2015)

Wing Commander Explosions Digitally Dissected

Last week danr put together a nifty video that showed off the differences a pilot would see playing the original Wing Commander games with and without expanded memory enabled. By all accounts, EMS definitely kicks the graphics and effects up a notch. But Owyn_Merrilin asked, "Is it weird that I actually like that explosion better than the ones you see on a system with enough EMS? They kind of remind me of the explosions in WC2, but smaller." And Dondragmer came to the rescue with a thorough technical explanation describing exactly why someone might have such a preference:

No, it's not weird, and it may be because you're noting a limitation in the regular WC1 explosion.

The WC1 explosion (on the left or top) only has 6 cels. The game stretches this by displaying each cel for multiple frames - 1, 2, 3, 3, 4 and 6 frames respectively, for a total of 19. The cels are scaled up between frames to make some movement happen. This is clever programming to overcome limited memory and art resources, but still feels a little odd to watch.
In comparison, the low-memory flak burst (on the right or bottom) has 10 cels, each displayed for 1 frame. It may be smaller and shorter, but it is smoother.
Let's watch them in slow motion, the way our 286-using ancestors did.

For completeness, let's look at WC2.
The WC2 fighter explosion (below left or top) has 17 cels, and the WC2 capital ship explosion (below right or bottom) has 12 (ending with the whole screen flashing yellow, then white, then fading back.)

I extracted the WC2 sequences with the Wing Commander Bitmap Navigator. While WC1 and WC2 store their explosions in GAMEDAT\OBJECTS.VGA, the programmatic enhancements to each (the scaling in WC1 and the fading in WC2) mean you probably can't just use editing tools to swap explosion sequences between the two games.
With all that said, I still have a soft spot for the 6-cel WC1 explosion and its scaling tricks. However, there's no question that every other explosion used in WC1 and WC2 animates more smoothly.

2015.031 (January 31, 2015)

Another Dralthi Expands the Lego Fleet

Voidshaper has put together a pretty good looking Dralthi with digital Lego tools. Wing Commander fans have a long history of building some slick Lego spacecraft, which is impressive given the limitations of the building blocks available. Dralthi fighters are one of the most popular creations. Renders like these make you wish there was a Lego Wing Commander game!

Attempted to build a minifig-able Dralthi. The stubby cabin is tricky.

2015.030 (January 30, 2015)

CGM Looks At Celebrities In Games

CGMagazine's Kate Richards recently posted a piece about celebrity actors in videogames. From Norris to Spacey: Celebs in Video Games touches on voice acting, the full motion video craze of the 1990s, and finally the shift to motion captured animation. Check it out here.

Many 90s games also used full motion video as a way to create realistic theatrical cut scenes. Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom and Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun feature famous actors in real-life video sequences, which serve as cutscenes in the games...
Then there's fighting your way through space on the TCS Lexington in Wing Commander IV, between cut scenes of once-retired Colonel Blair (Mark Hamill)'s attempt to find and destroy the threats arising on the Border Worlds. Blair should consider himself lucky that Admiral Tolwyn (Malcolm McDowell) called him back to the military. His plan to become a farmer on a desert planet probably wasn't working out too well. WCIV's cut scenes account for nearly two full hours of celebrity-stuffed, full motion video action. Amazing.
The newest way to include celebrities in games is with motion capture and performance capture technology... This method not only features the voices of celebrity actors but the digitized movement of their bodies and facial expressions. Now celebrities can be fully active in video game cut scenes, like Hamill and Jones were in Wing Commander IV and Tiberian Sun, but act as the playable main character throughout the game as well with the digital capturing of their physical attributes and expressions.

2015.029 (January 29, 2015)

Confed Dreadnought Reimagined as Sleek Powerhouse

Klavs is back with a big new addition to the Terran arsenal. His fresh take on the Confederation class dreadnought smooths over some of the hard hull edge lines and fills in sections that were originally more tapered on his first Concordia render. The somewhat unnecessary full-length topside runways have been shortened to be more proportionate to the hangar deck, but key features like the forward radar tower and keel-forming phase transit cannon are just as prominent as ever. Hopefully there's some sharp green highlights coming in its near future!

2015.028 (January 28, 2015)

Big Flat Universe Update Enhances Playable Alpha

There's great news for Flat Universe fans! A new playable test of the top down Wing Commander shooter has been released with a ton of neat features. There are additional ships, animations, customizable missile loadouts and more. Pilots can also practice in free flight mode to get a better feel for the game. The accompanying reference card and ship schematics have been updated as well. Load up Daedalus Station and scroll down to grab the game for Windows, Mac OS or Linux. Have fun and be sure to let the Maslas Brothers know what you think!

Some of the most interesting features of the latest update:

New patching system. No more downloading and decompressing huge packages. Just start Flat Universe and our server will update your copy with the latest version.
Two new exciting ships have been added: Raptor and a Shuttle.
New animated Take Off sequences from Daedalus station.
Fly around our spectacular home system, "Destiny", on a free flight mode.
Now you can select your own missile loadout.
Missile Decoys are now available. No more extensive use of afterburner to avoid missiles.
and last but not least
Finished turret AI. Now you can kill it before it kills you. A test flight will convince you. And as always, we need your feedback! Your opinion counts more than you can imagine. Have Fun!!!
the MaslasBros

2015.027 (January 27, 2015)

Video Highlights Benefits of EMS in WC1&2

danr has put together a neat video that shows off some of the differences between pilots that played WC1&2 with and without expanded memory. In our modern world of DOS emulators and glide wrappers, carefully tuning a struggling PC to get the best experience is a bit of a lost art. Getting games properly running in the early '90s required a pretty good working knowledge of boot disks, conventional memory optimization, loading device drivers into extended memory, taking advantage expanded memory and more. And the rewards for a good setup were great! Full EMS usage enabled things like the moving hand on joystick, cockpit damage, faces for the communication VDU, richer explosions and WC2's speech. Wing Commander Academy actually required EMS just to run, but by later games, simply having the necessary amount of extended memory RAM was sufficient - until Prophecy introduced hardware acceleration modes.

Going to be making a few WC1 related videos for the anniversary, since I've not done this much before, figured I'd test out the software and my microphone with this oddball curiosity video.
Inspired by a thread from earlier this week, this one's aimed mostly at the kids that don't remember seeing Wing Commander in low memory environment, or even in EGA. The music I've used is from the Amiga version.

2015.026 (January 26, 2015)

WC RPG Positioned For An Exciting 2015

In the latest update on the status of his massive Wing Commander RPG Wiki, capi3101 has laid out the plan for the year ahead. Work continues to round out the "stat blocks" for members of the Kilrathi Demon's Eye Pack that will appear in the Elegy of Sivar expansion. This comes after the successful completion of most character histories. capi is also trying to gauge feedback to see what kind of accompanying art fans might be interested in. Check out the latest post here, and visit the CIC Forums to help provide input. The holiday season can understandably hinder progress on any project, so it's great to see everyone bouncing back into the swing of things for the new year!

2015.025 (January 25, 2015)

Extensive Walkthrough Chronicles Super Wing Commander

GaijinGG has sent in a nifty time capsule that will be a nostalgic stroll down memory lane for some Wingnuts and a peek into another world for others. He's scanned in his personal strategy guide for Super Wing Commander that was written way back in 1996. It's a very useful tool for anyone thinking about playing through the game, especially since an official strategy guide was never produced. Detailed mission stats can be a big help for mission planning and knowing when to conserve missiles. Gameflow sequences have also been summarized from the perspective of his character. This includes the exclusive "SM1.5" expansion that takes our crew to the Tartarus, Cairo, Anchorage and Jakarta Systems. They're exotic places where the Claw hunts down the shipyards that made the Sivar, but some aspects of SM2 were reused for the new expansion as well. Fascinating all around! Download the guide here (9 meg zip).