Hornet Bashed Up Real Good Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Howard Day has done some serious damage to his Hornet cockpit, and the results are amazing! The shattered displays and windscreen are so severe that they almost make you gasp. He's also working on how to introduce minimum functionality so that tiny bits of the broken elements still work through all of the broken glass, which is really cool. There's also already prework happening now on what the game's other cockpits will look like with a similar overlay.
Muwhahahah, I was right. I just did a pass on doing damaged versions too - these get dynamically masked in based on your ship taking core damage. I plan on having the typical LCD distorted display flickering going on + some white noise. The parts that are visible through the damage should still occasionally show information.

When last I left off, I was working on the two remaining screens - the MFDs. I have to code in the display that tracks weapons, and damage, and then the one that displays the status of the target, communications, and navigation. I think I have a good method to do all that stuff in a super modular way - I already wrote a shader that will let me re-use the same art assets for differently palettized color ramps (IE the Dralthi target image can have damaged areas appear red without me needing to give specific art for each damaged area), and also allowing different races ships to have different colored MFD art without having completely separate sets of information. I also sketched out how I'm going to handle the Scimitar cockpit (very excited about that!) and have done the base-level work on the Valtar and Dralthi cockpits. I'm going to turn the Dralthi cockpit into a step-by-step tutorial, I think.

Classic Ad Highlights Rare Premiere Edition Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Game Magazine Print Ads & RetroMags spotted a really cool page from the January 1995 edition of Next Generation magazine, which would have been on store shelves right when Wing Commander 3 debuted in December 1994. The core art is similar to the general WC3 sell sheet with some slightly tweaked screenshots. The big focus though is that this is an ad for the Premiere Edition. A similar big boxed edition entered the retail stream via Sam's Club, but the most prime version was just available through EA. You had to know about it to place an order, and a limited number of ads like this was the communications plan to let fans know it existed!

Experimental Cockpit Views Tested in WC4 Remaster Project Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's another peek at the immersive Hellcat cockpit Pedro is working to incorporate into his WC4 Remaster project. As the team works through the details, it turns out that the question is more complex than just adding in Defiance's cockpit art. There are several ways to do it, and each option has various advantages and disadvantages. You can help weigh in with your thoughts at the CIC Forums!
This is the camera Defiance originally intended (I'm now loading the cameras from the model files he provides so you don't get stuck with programmer settings). This would be the default view closely mirroring the original. The joystick and throttle were primarily meant for VR, so for any players opting for a more traditional view the hands/ legs wouldn't even be visible. We'll add them but will prioritize other things.

Anyway the reason I'm setting this up is my next focus will be the cockpit camera and it raises questions. Quarto suggests looking to WCP's cockpit - that rolled the cockpit without impacting the ship or the HUD. Again it's the most recent example of a WC title but it's still 2 decades old. Would anyone object to moving the camera instead of the cockpit and having the reticle adjust accordingly? This seems to be what RGO, Star Citizen and other titles do.

Just for my own knowledge (no promises on what options we'll add) but what cockpit settings would people use if available?

  • HUD only (classic style)
  • The above minimalist cockpit
  • WC3 style cockpit with joystick/ legs visible (note that in 16:9 this will mean even more lost screen space)

Howard's Hornet Cockpit Comes to Life Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's time for another exciting update to Howard Day's WC1-inspired engine. These new animations really show off how much features and systems have been integrated into this functional test. Most of the cockpit elements such as the radar, shield and armor display, speed indicators, gun capacitor and more are fully active. Even the legs move during intense maneuvers! The crackling shield display is especially cool, and we even get a glimpse of the ace Dralthi in the Hornet's sights. Howard's working on banging everything up for the damaged version next.
Auto pilot and Tape are both off in those - they both have little red lights like the lock warning going off next to them, but yeah! Basically everything except for the weapons display, damage display, target display, comms menu and navigation display are all done and working! Still work to go before this is at pairity with the basic Hornet cockpit. Then I gotta hit cockpit damage... which should be fun!

Countdown to Party Time - Five Weeks To Go! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The countdown continues towards the CIC's Birthday Party! There's now just five weeks until we celebrate 21 years at wcnews.com. We hope you join us in #Wingnut on the CIC's Discord Server. We are also planning a livestream to accompany the chat room event, which should make this one of our most fun events yet! The party takes place on Saturday, August 17, at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT). While this is always our biggest single event of the year, there's a party going on in #Wingnut every day. Stop by anytime and get acquainted before the cake arrives!

Starflight's Not Like Wing Commander Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Drunken and Gaming has posted a video about Starflight for the Sega Genesis as a part of their One Minute(ish) Review series. It all goes by so fast, but one thing's clear - the reviewer thinks Starflight is amazing and deserves as much credit as Wing Commander. I'm not sure how the Wing Commander Movie plays in, but that's also referenced somehow. There isn't any gameplay shown from either, so I found another video by Friday Night Arcade that shows off what it's like. It looks cool, but they don't seem particularly comparable.
Tony Viejo tells us about Starflight on the Genesis and how it’s like Star Trek, but NOT Wing Commander.

...on the Number of Spaceships in Privateer 2 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The good news is that LOAF is out of the hospital and happily recovering at home! However, he and Dundradal are not quite ready to get back to hosting new episodes of All Wings Considered. The plan is for the show to return at full force next week. In the mean time, check out Stephen_k's ode to the AWC segment on Privateer 2 ship identification! You can catch up on any episodes you might have missed here.
It has a lot of them

Homeworld Mod Adds Enhanced Spacescapes Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

L.I.F. has added some very pretty new backgrounds to Flag Commander, the Homeworld Remastered mod. He's purchased some sophisticated visualization software, and it allows him generate some very nice space scenery. He's even offered to help other projects generate their own fancy skyboxes if there's a fellow Wingnut in need. Let him know if you have a project that would benefit from this!
So, I... kinda, sorta... bought myself a wonderful planetarium software that allows the simulation of most of the known universe. It also allows the creation of skyboxes of very, very high resolution. Oh, and guess what, it came with a professional license that allows me to distribute the skyboxes for anything, even commercial projects. It goes without saying that Wingnuts and their fan-projects will be welcome if they need such tools to make their projects look even greater!

I've still got to finish working on the process to get the maps perfected, but this will be really useful to set up battles in more iconic places, possibly to recreate Kilrah and other battlefields. Or some more peaceful places to patrol. So, people, if you have a project that needs skyboxes, gimme a call and I'll see what I can do.

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