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Explore the Evolution of Gaming Graphics
TechRadar has run an article on the evolution of video game graphics. They cover a lot of history and go into some of the tricks and trends used at different points in time. Various screenshots show how certain games have and have not aged well over the years. There is also some good conversation on the usage of three dimensions (in both 2D and 3D-accelerated environments). Wing Commander's role gets an honorable mention. Check out the whole article here.
The main reason for this was that sprites offered more detail than the polygons of the time could handle. Much like the early days, it was fine to have simple iconic shapes for spaceships and the like, which is why X-Wing's instantly recognisable ship silhouettes worked so well. However, early games didn't even have texture mapping (instead relying on simple colours and shading based on the position of the area's light source) and 3D characters were awkward-looking, low-polygon affairs.
With sprites, if you could draw it, the computer could handle it. When making Doom, id actually modelled several of its more complicated characters in clay then photographed them from multiple angles to maintain consistency.
The first Wing Commander games used a clever trick to fake space, simply moving and scaling sprites in front of the camera to add depth. It fell down when approaching capital vessels, but made for instantly recognisable ships and graphical assets that sat comfortably alongside the character portraits used in menus and cut-scenes.
[ChrisReid] [# 9543] [Show comments]  
Making the Game: Hugh's Tasks
Here's another look at a Wing Commander Prophecy programmer's day job: this checklist shows exactly what Hugh David was to accomplish in June, 1997 -- everything from writing code to start ships moving to working out the coolest way to display a jump effect in-engine.
These updates are thanks to John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel, who provided several CD image archives of material used by the Wing Commander Prophecy development team!
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Hugh's Tasks
Download (32 kb)
Date: April 23, 1997
Project: Wing Commander Prophecy
Donated By: John Guentzel
Pages: 8
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[LOAF] [# 9517] [Show comments]
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