Wing Loader (KS/WCDX) Loader & Voice Over Mod

Sure, but I cannot download the files. It says that there is an invalid certificate and is blocked. "Requested domain is not configured on this server."
it is a common issue due to windows certification and the antivirus giving false positives, just give permission.
 
@Destro The new update is out https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1230607#p1230607
can you check the changes later?
Hey @Bitterman I've done some testing with the latest dgvoodoo2 build. It works great. I had some small issues with getting it play nicely with Wing Loader and the HD videos but I found switching the resolution under the DirectX setting to "Desktop" and insuring that "Application controlled Fullscreen" is selected allowed the videos to work. There were only a few small things I noticed.

1) After an HD video plays it would not return focus to the game. I made some code in Wing Loader to force a re-focus to WC3 and this seemed to do the trick. Shouldn't be an issue in real world applications aside from Wing Loader.

2) It does show the main desktop window for a frame before playing the videos which is not present using DDraw. I believe this is due to it using true fullscreen. (I'm assuming) It shows the desktop first when a new window is created. I didn't see a borderless fullscreen option to test and Window->Streched was worse and with Windows Scaling caused scaling issues. But when does Windows Scaling ever work properly, right? lol Again, only really Wing Loader specific.

Other than that the game ran buttery smooth for me and I didn't see any black screen issues or anything major.

On an unrelated note. I fixed the memory leek that causes memory bloat when reloading scripts. Pointer returns through functions were the culprit. Also, I was finally able to get .MP4's to play inside Wing Loader with audio! It needs some optimization and videos will not close by itself when they are complete, but I'm finally not relying on .OGV converts of ODVS videos. Got tired of fighting deprecation with ffmpeg and started using libVLC. So yay!
 
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Hey @Bitterman I've done some testing with the latest dgvoodoo2 build. It works great. I had some small issues with getting it play nicely with Wing Loader and the HD videos but I found switching the resolution under the DirectX setting to "Desktop" and insuring that "Application controlled Fullscreen" is selected allowed the videos to work. There were only a few small things I noticed.

1) After an HD video plays it would not return focus to the game. I made some code in Wing Loader to force a re-focus to WC3 and this seemed to do the trick. Shouldn't be an issue in real world applications aside from Wing Loader.

2) It does show the main desktop window for a frame before playing the videos which is not present using DDraw. I believe this is due to it using true fullscreen. (I'm assuming) It shows the desktop first when a new window is created. I didn't see a borderless fullscreen option to test and Window->Streched was worse and with Windows Scaling caused scaling issues. But when does Windows Scaling ever work properly, right? lol Again, only really Wing Loader specific.

Other than that the game ran buttery smooth for me and I didn't see any black screen issues or anything major.

On an unrelated note. I fixed the memory leek that causes memory bloat when reloading scripts. Pointer returns through functions were the culprit. Also, I was finally able to get .MP4's to play inside Wing Loader with audio! It needs some optimization and videos will not close by itself when they are complete, but I'm finally not relying on .OGV converts of ODVS videos. Got tired of fighting deprecation with ffmpeg and started using libVLC. So yay!
send those to dege at the forum, would be nice to test even with WC4
Also, see if its possible to inject texture filtering and msaa into WC3 by using the ddraw fork since the tool permits it
 
This is amazing stuff! Really, really cool!

I would have to offer 2 small critiques, which of course, as the devs, you can point and laugh at my if you want. ;)

1. I found voice over the Blairs personal thoughts a bit unusual. Maybe it wouldn't feel that way if the vol on it was turned down? My initial thought was to remove that sound file, but lowering the vol may work just as well.

2. The whole Hotshot thing. As these are zero profit mods I doubt there would be an issue if a custom AI program from github was used to sample a characters voice to allow for my options, such as, being able to voice a players call sign.

3. OK, now I'm nit picking, but I find Angles deep voice a bit unusual. I'd have to hear the WC2 audio to compare. Thankfully this is actually a pretty easy fix in an audio program like Audacity, if the dev's are so inclined. I suppose it be a option that you add to the command line when you boot up the game.

Even if all 3 of my thoughts are 100% rejected, it still doesn't diminish in my mind the amazing work you guys have been doing here.

Nicely done!
 
This is amazing stuff! Really, really cool!

I would have to offer 2 small critiques, which of course, as the devs, you can point and laugh at my if you want. ;)

1. I found voice over the Blairs personal thoughts a bit unusual. Maybe it wouldn't feel that way if the vol on it was turned down? My initial thought was to remove that sound file, but lowering the vol may work just as well.

2. The whole Hotshot thing. As these are zero profit mods I doubt there would be an issue if a custom AI program from github was used to sample a characters voice to allow for my options, such as, being able to voice a players call sign.

3. OK, now I'm nit picking, but I find Angles deep voice a bit unusual. I'd have to hear the WC2 audio to compare. Thankfully this is actually a pretty easy fix in an audio program like Audacity, if the dev's are so inclined. I suppose it be a option that you add to the command line when you boot up the game.

Even if all 3 of my thoughts are 100% rejected, it still doesn't diminish in my mind the amazing work you guys have been doing here.

Nicely done!
Thanks @Darkmatter. Nothing to laugh at, I love to hear other opinions and thoughts.

I agree with Blair's personal thoughts. Sometimes I feel they are not needed, specifically during bar conversations. The audio was taken directly from the SagaCD with little modifications, except for the in flight coms as they were so low quality I needed to compress and normalize several times to make them passable. Lowering the level a bit might be interesting. I'll do some test's when I can.

I never liked the callsign Hotshot. I did have a grand vision of re recording all the voice overs using Maverick but that's a huge task that requires voice actors and as a one man developer I decided to put that on hold for now... AI might be something special for that though :) I was also planning to have the Super Wing Commander voices as an option... But they are really bad and stick out like a sore thumb, still open to the option, but not top of my list.

Angel's deep voice. I would be open to shifting her pitch down, but to be honest her voice doesn't bother me too much. But if it sounds good I wouldn't have a problem with that being an option.

I'm glad you enjoyed Wing Loader. New ideas and thoughts are always welcome as there is always more to do and I hope to bring a lot more to the table once I'm done adding the WC3 HD videos to the game. :) Cheers!
 
Playing with things like volume for narration could be interesting, but one of the beautiful things about this mod is it doesn't just add voiceovers - it adds the authentic original voiceovers from one official version of the game to another. That's really neat.
 
True. While it's hard to argue with "well, that's the official deal there." The only reason I even brought it up is because you guys have been pushing past official stuff (in the best kind of ways) and was thinking that her voice sounded low compared to WC3 definitely, as they use a real actor, but isn't it lower then WC2 Angle? I don't even remember because it's been so long.

I guess I was thinking about the 3 games as a whole. If it's been modded, should the voices be moved closer to a more standardized sound? Obviously they aren't going to be identical, and that's actually normal for peoples voices to change over time. I just found the deep Angel voice a bit jarring. Just my humble personal opinion.

I usually like to replay the games every few years, but life just gets more and more busy. :/
 
In the very far future, I'd like to do custom voice overs for WC1 all the add-ons and WC2 to hopefully match a bit better with WC3. But it's more of a dream than a plan at the moment, but the foundation is there so you never know. :)
 
I never understood why so many people hated the Super Wing Commander voices. I loved them.
Weary. Tired. People who have seen too much.
I personally don't think it's that awful, just doesn't fit. They are super compressed and hollow sounding and they just don't fit with the colorfull presentation of the original game.
 
Thanks @Darkmatter. Nothing to laugh at, I love to hear other opinions and thoughts.

I agree with Blair's personal thoughts. Sometimes I feel they are not needed, specifically during bar conversations. The audio was taken directly from the SagaCD with little modifications, except for the in flight coms as they were so low quality I needed to compress and normalize several times to make them passable. Lowering the level a bit might be interesting. I'll do some test's when I can.

I never liked the callsign Hotshot. I did have a grand vision of re recording all the voice overs using Maverick but that's a huge task that requires voice actors and as a one man developer I decided to put that on hold for now... AI might be something special for that though :) I was also planning to have the Super Wing Commander voices as an option... But they are really bad and stick out like a sore thumb, still open to the option, but not top of my list.

Angel's deep voice. I would be open to shifting her pitch down, but to be honest her voice doesn't bother me too much. But if it sounds good I wouldn't have a problem with that being an option.

I'm glad you enjoyed Wing Loader. New ideas and thoughts are always welcome as there is always more to do and I hope to bring a lot more to the table once I'm done adding the WC3 HD videos to the game. :) Cheers!
Thanks for the kind words. :)

What about the voice audio used in WC2 for in flight coms? There would be gaps of course, but a several pilots from WC1 appear in WC2. For those that didn't, if the Super Wing Commander voices aren't worth using, I think any alternative would work since we don't really have any canon baseline to start from anyways.
 
Thanks for the kind words. :)

What about the voice audio used in WC2 for in flight coms? There would be gaps of course, but a several pilots from WC1 appear in WC2. For those that didn't, if the Super Wing Commander voices aren't worth using, I think any alternative would work since we don't really have any canon baseline to start from anyways.
No problem. :p

I do have a plan to remove the speech files from WC2 so that it only appears as text. If I recall, there is a speech file that, if deleted, reverts the game to text only mode. Then I could use Wing Loader to replace all voices. Haven't tested this in years but I did get it working about 15 years ago. :p Maybe sampling voices from WC3 and then missing characters from WC2 or WC1 could make a nice bridge between two worlds using AI? I'll put some thought into it.

Also I'm not apposed to adding Super Wing Commander voices as an option regardless. It would allow me to at least get the scripts from SM1 and 1.5 done. After I get WC3 videos working, that will probably be my next task. Still have a few issues to work out on that task though. :D
 
No problem. :p

I do have a plan to remove the speech files from WC2 so that it only appears as text. If I recall, there is a speech file that, if deleted, reverts the game to text only mode. Then I could use Wing Loader to replace all voices. Haven't tested this in years but I did get it working about 15 years ago. :p Maybe sampling voices from WC3 and then missing characters from WC2 or WC1 could make a nice bridge between two worlds using AI? I'll put some thought into it.

Also I'm not apposed to adding Super Wing Commander voices as an option regardless. It would allow me to at least get the scripts from SM1 and 1.5 done. After I get WC3 videos working, that will probably be my next task. Still have a few issues to work out on that task though. :D
Actually, what I meant was, you could use voices from WC2 in WC1.
 
No problem. :p

I do have a plan to remove the speech files from WC2 so that it only appears as text. If I recall, there is a speech file that, if deleted, reverts the game to text only mode. Then I could use Wing Loader to replace all voices. Haven't tested this in years but I did get it working about 15 years ago. :p Maybe sampling voices from WC3 and then missing characters from WC2 or WC1 could make a nice bridge between two worlds using AI? I'll put some thought into it.

Also I'm not apposed to adding Super Wing Commander voices as an option regardless. It would allow me to at least get the scripts from SM1 and 1.5 done. After I get WC3 videos working, that will probably be my next task. Still have a few issues to work out on that task though. :D
You can stop the voiceovers in the intro by just not setting up the digital sound to soundblaster. If it's set to a card not capable of digital speech like an adlib it should just show you the subtitles
 
You can stop the voiceovers in the intro by just not setting up the digital sound to soundblaster. If it's set to a card not capable of digital speech like an adlib it should just show you the subtitles
True for dos, but I'm not sure if the same is true for the kilrathi saga version thought. 🤷
 
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