Enhancement Patches for Wing Commander III and IV

[Noel Shourai]

A new version of the wc4 patch is up (v0.6.1).
I couldn't find the cause for the music stopping during space flight, although I suspect it's a thread timing issue in xanlib. In the end I replaced the music playing functions using libvlc as the player, which seems to be working well. Using libvlc also makes it easy to load alternate tunes in place of the originals. You can do this by editing the "wc4w_en_alt_music.ini" and entering the file path for the tune you want to replace. I've been using it to play George Oldziey's Orchestral Recordings. These sound fantastic in game although there are quite a few tracks missing, we'll have to pester him into doing a volume 3 to fill in the gaps.
I'll be adding this feature to wc3 in the coming weeks.
Edit: Be sure to re-download the "libvlc_min_pack_3.0.21" as well, as I've added a few extra plugins for music playback.


added to my list of things to do.

It's a bit on the ambitious side but would it be possible to have an option to restore the original MIDI music for Wing Commander III? Of course, I could probably get around that by recording the MIDIs on a SoundFont or synthesizer and then using that in place of the Kilrathi Saga music.

Using the original music in WC4 converted into OGG, the tracks seem to cut a little early (noticeable when I score a kill) but otherwise libvlc is working pretty well and seems to resolve the issue with the music stopping during spaceflight.

 

[Mash]

Hi All, just updated the wc3 patch. Links in the first post.

The main update in this version is the ability to adjust the brightness of the space background colour. This can be done in the ini by changing the "SPACE_COLOUR_BRIGHTNESS" setting. A setting of zero will make space black.
I really wanted to update the music in this release as I did with wc4 but I ran into some problems getting libvlc to play the original music(It uses a codec libvlc doesn't support). So I've put that on the back burner for now.

Also I've added a Privateer 2 patch to my repertoire. Still in the bug squashing phase, so is currently lacking the feature list of the other patches. Although HD movie playback is already supported.

It's a bit on the ambitious side but would it be possible to have an option to restore the original MIDI music for Wing Commander III? Of course, I could probably get around that by recording the MIDIs on a SoundFont or synthesizer and then using that in place of the Kilrathi Saga music.

I was thinking about that myself recently, I've put it on my list of things to do.

Using the original music in WC4 converted into OGG, the tracks seem to cut a little early (noticeable when I score a kill) but otherwise libvlc is working pretty well and seems to resolve the issue with the music stopping during spaceflight.

Let me know if you notice any other differences, I'd like to get it matching the original behaviour as close as possible.

EDIT:
Looks like there were some issues with the space colour brightness mod. I really should have play tested it a bit more. In the end I had to remove it as I couldn't find a workaround. I've replaced it with the option to set a different palette colour for space "SPACE_COLOUR_PALETTE_OFFSET" in the ini. Black is still an option but gradients of blue are out I'm afraid.