Howard Day
Random art guy.
Yep. Incoming WC3 Dralthi cockpit.(Quick reply while i'm at work)
(Howie, if this does work out, would you be interested in coming up with some Kilrathi art at some point?)
Exciting stuff!

Yep. Incoming WC3 Dralthi cockpit.(Quick reply while i'm at work)
(Howie, if this does work out, would you be interested in coming up with some Kilrathi art at some point?)
Exciting stuff!
Great, thanks! Looking forward to itYep. Incoming WC3 Dralthi cockpit.
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Wow. That's pretty amazing, so WC2 was already using the IFF format...Within OPTIONS.V00 you'll find 6 uses of the text "FORM", followed by 4 bytes (looks like the length of the following structure), followed by "HOTRSTRC", some more bytes, then "FORM" again, 4 more bytes (length again), and "HTXTSYMB".
I always was impressed by the way that the exhausts in WC1 and WC2 displayed independently - so yes, it's hardly surprising if it's fiddly to get them positioned right.Other than that: engines. Made some progress on this. I suspect i'm going to have to go back to the 3D model and compute 2D projections from the 3D coordinates of the engines. At this point, i'm fairly sure that the game needs 2D engine coordinates for each of the image angles, but I'm currently working on a script for testing this theory.
Looking at some specifications on IFF, you're quite right, and it's the same format used SERIES.S??, CAMPAIGN.S?? and GAMEFLOW.S??.The format you describe seems to be standard EA IFF format, which is widely used in the more recent WC games (WC3, WC4, WCP), but apparently also used a bit in WC2. The best approach may be to "decompile" the IFF file to text, change it, and reassemble it.
Just browsing with a hex editor, I can't see any sign of IFF chunks in the Academy files. Two interesting files that are in WCA are "HOTRECT.PAK" (presumably the coordinates for hotspot rectangles in the interface) and "DISPLAY.PAK" (just because it's so huge). However, there is no obvious text in either file. I seem to recall previous discussion about how WC1 compressed some of its files, and the first step towards editing that was to "unpack" MODULE.000. For people familiar with existing Wing Commander compression algorithms, are these "PAK" files using anything familiar?Wow. That's pretty amazing, so WC2 was already using the IFF format...
Perhaps it might be a good idea for you to start looking at Academy from this angle? You know, even simply being able to add more ship-buttons into the mission editor in Academy would be huge progress.
Unlike the later games, the FORM data is wrapped inside a VGA container, yes. The instance (in WC2) where I encountered FORM data was on animation sequences (ex. JAZZRESC.V00), where there's a FORM PAL CMAP defining a new palette at points of the animation.If I understand the specification, a file that uses IFF for its outermost wrapper should start with a 4-byte chunk identifier, and every other chunk identifier should also be 4 bytes. The WC2 files start with a scatter of other data, with FORM identifiers scattered through them. Is the outer wrapper still the format used by the VGA files?
Yep, the data is compressed with a form of LZW.Just browsing with a hex editor, I can't see any sign of IFF chunks in the Academy files. Two interesting files that are in WCA are "HOTRECT.PAK" (presumably the coordinates for hotspot rectangles in the interface) and "DISPLAY.PAK" (just because it's so huge). However, there is no obvious text in either file. I seem to recall previous discussion about how WC1 compressed some of its files, and the first step towards editing that was to "unpack" MODULE.000. For people familiar with existing Wing Commander compression algorithms, are these "PAK" files using anything familiar?
As an aside, you can just imagine, had Armada and WC3 not gone down the 3d route, that sooner or later someone would have come up with the idea of a sort of phony 3d, with a single ship put together out of multiple sprites positioned independently of each other, with independent collision checking. Probably a waste of time for fighters, but potentially a very interesting thing to do for capships, in order to improve their collision detection and allow them to be bigger and more detailed on-screen than they were in WC1/2/Priv. Alas, this possibility died with the rise of 3d, instead of coming up with weird and creative ways of faking 3d, they could just do it normally...I always was impressed by the way that the exhausts in WC1 and WC2 displayed independently - so yes, it's hardly surprising if it's fiddly to get them positioned right.
That's actually a very interesting idea.As an aside, you can just imagine, had Armada and WC3 not gone down the 3d route, that sooner or later someone would have come up with the idea of a sort of phony 3d, with a single ship put together out of multiple sprites positioned independently of each other, with independent collision checking. Probably a waste of time for fighters, but potentially a very interesting thing to do for capships, in order to improve their collision detection and allow them to be bigger and more detailed on-screen than they were in WC1/2/Priv. Alas, this possibility died with the rise of 3d, instead of coming up with weird and creative ways of faking 3d, they could just do it normally...![]()
Just tried it out. Looks good, even with the misplaced engine flames and all. It's the first time I played a WC2/Academy mission in ages, so I can't say it feels great (it would probably help if I bothered to set the correct framerate and allIn the meantime, however, since the Hellcat already has stats, i thought it would be fun to upload what I have so far, so you could take the ship for a ride and see how it feels in WCA. Just keep in mind that the engine exhaust placement is not final, and still has to be adjusted. As for the VDU guns, i ended up changing the gun icons to the WC2 mass driver icon, for both the MD and Neutron guns. The Neutron gun icon of the crossbow was just too wide. Plus, this helped "unclutter" the cockpit area a bit. I think the end result is good!
It looks nice and flies quite well. I like the loadout and stats you went with--it's got just a touch more weapon power, shields, and armor than the Rapier while being just a little slower (speed in between the Rapier and the Sabre). Giving it only short-range guns and thus forcing it to get in close (and expose itself to enemy bomber turrets and the neutron guns on Grikaths and Sathras, which makes the added bit of shields and armor feel necessary) keeps it from feeling overpowered compared to the Rapier and Sabre.
As an aside, you can just imagine, had Armada and WC3 not gone down the 3d route, that sooner or later someone would have come up with the idea of a sort of phony 3d, with a single ship put together out of multiple sprites positioned independently of each other, with independent collision checking. Probably a waste of time for fighters, but potentially a very interesting thing to do for capships, in order to improve their collision detection and allow them to be bigger and more detailed on-screen than they were in WC1/2/Priv. Alas, this possibility died with the rise of 3d, instead of coming up with weird and creative ways of faking 3d, they could just do it normally...![]()
Funny you should mention Comanche Maximum Overkill. Apart from the voxel terrain, it did the multi-part bitmaps trick. It's most obviously used to have moving rotors on the helicopters, including the two counter-rotating rotors on the Kamov Ka-50 "Werewolf".That's actually a very interesting idea.If polygon-based 3D did not take off the way it did, I wonder if other approaches would have been considered. For example, imagine WC1 with terrain support. A hybrid sprite / voxel engine (essentially expanding the WC1 engine with a voxel component) could have been very interesting, with sprites being used for fighters / capships as usual and voxels being used for terrain (not unlike Comanche Maximum Overkill). I'm guessing of course, but i think it could have worked very well!
Hey that's awesome! I could definitely imagine Wing Commander sub-components implemented like that in a fake-3d engine. And the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that a voxel-based terrain would have worked very well in a WC2-like engine.Funny you should mention Comanche Maximum Overkill. Apart from the voxel terrain, it did the multi-part bitmaps trick.
Glad you liked it! Yes, those are the standard neutron guns, not the turret ones.Just flew a mission, very nice! It didnt seem too strong due to the limited gun energy and short range of the guns. Question: those are the standard neutron guns, not the turret neutron guns, right?
Just a quick follow-up on this: after experimenting a bit, it turns out there's a byte on the stats chunks that seems to have a direct influence on how the angles are interpreted. This is good, as it means this functionality is most likely not hardcoded into the EXE as special cases for a couple objectsFor anyone looking for the orientation system, there are a few other image sets that are unusual because they have less images. SHIP.V23 (Terran Starbase), SHIP.V24 (Terran Supply Depot) and SHIP.V26 (Kilrathi Starbase) are rotationally symmetric, and only have 3 images where other ships have 7. However, because the Supply Depot has 7-fold symmetry on the ring (except that two of its spokes have white tips), and 4-fold symmetry around the hub, it doesn't rotate smoothly if you look too closely.
Make sure you unzip the files into the Gamedat folder, that should do it.Hi all, I have an original WCA install (not from GOG), and I also have the mod installed that added the Kamekh and Fralthra to the game. I have taken the two posted files and installed them, and oddly seen absolutely no effect on the game.