Take WCP Higher (September 28, 2006)

Bandit LOAF

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Here's a special treat: a full resolution version of the Wing Commander Prophecy intro, including the Kilrathi Prophecy, the destruction of the TCS Devereaux and Casey's arrival on the Midway. This new version is a high quality MPEG, much as you might find on a modern DVD -- as you can see in the comparison below, the difference between it (left) and the game (right) is astounding! Not only that, but the aspect ratio is slightly different, revealing a little bit more picture. You can grab the movie here (211 MB .VOB file) -- and watch out, expect more high resolution Prophecy scenes in the near future.







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Original update published on September 28, 2006
 
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Nice.

Wow. Where did it come from?

I remember a lot of people asking for a hi-res DVD version of Prophecy back then, but I don't remember there ever being one.
 
Unregistered said:
Wow. Where did it come from?

I remember a lot of people asking for a hi-res DVD version of Prophecy back then, but I don't remember there ever being one.
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It was produced and was supposed to ship with creatives dxr5 kits (as wc4 had with the dxr2 kits) but a last minute decision shelved the finished WCP DVD so it was never mass produced (The CIC has reported on it before). Maybe the CIC has finally managed to get a copy (If so, YAY for us!).
 
WOW !!!! awsome find there, one can make a proper WCP movie with something this good. although i must say the live action scenes felt more like something done for a B grade sci-fi series as compared to the grainy yet more movie-like clips for the 3-cd game. is it possible for you guys to mirror these files ? ive been trying to work on a WCP movie for some time now but the main downer was always that the FMV quality sucked. with something like this and some live actions ingame sequences with full rez & 3dfx emulation wcp can be the best quality wing commander fan movie possible.
 
An immediate question pops into mind - would it be possible to patch the prophecy game code to play those dvd vobs instead of the usual movies? Or will the prophecy dvd executable be released and hi-res patched?
 
Mincemeat said:
An immediate question pops into mind - would it be possible to patch the prophecy game code to play those dvd vobs instead of the usual movies?
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Yes.
 
hurleybird said:
Sweet. Now we only need high-res scenes for Wing 3 and Priv 2 :)
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I don't think the footage shot for Wing Commander III would allow for a higher resolution game. (Wasn't it shot on videotape, and then they switched to actual film for WC4 / Prophecy?)
 
LeHah said:
I don't think the footage shot for Wing Commander III would allow for a higher resolution game. (Wasn't it shot on videotape, and then they switched to actual film for WC4 / Prophecy?)
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I think you're correct. It was not shot on film. I remember the big deal that was made when WC4 made the switch to 8mm or whatever.
 
Dundradal said:
I think you're correct. It was not shot on film. I remember the big deal that was made when WC4 made the switch to 8mm or whatever.
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Videotape can be remastered. It never really looks right though - it always looks "live" and makes things look very cheap. Also - you can't remaster something past the capacity of the original recording. You can't make videotape look like hi-def.

There are five or six episodes of the original Twilight Zone that stick out like sore thumbs because they were shot on videotape (Season 2, I believe - one of them being that ultra-disturbing episode where Billy Mumy talks to his dead grandmother on the toy phone, and she's telling him to kill himself). The new TZ sets have those episodes remastered alright, but only in as far as videotape can be, which isn't saying much.

However - and this is just speculation, since I don't know anything about the process of matting greenscreen SFX onto something as weird as videotape - you could probably update the digital effects and backdrops in the game to something more... "modern". I'd hate to see that happen, as WC III has a certain nostalgic charm that would be marred by such a George Lucas move. Not to mention, it would be ultimately useless since the actors would still be relatively low-res and would not look right against newer backdrops.
 
Interesting...

This is pretty cool, but now I'm a little confused. I offered the exact same intro (in H.264 format) a few weeks ago, but was told the site wasn't interested in it.

Talk about a brush off. :eek:
 
Padawanmage said:
This is pretty cool, but now I'm a little confused. I offered the exact same intro (in H.264 format) a few weeks ago, but was told the site wasn't interested in it.

Talk about a brush off. :eek:
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... because it's not the same -- this is a DVD-quality version from another source, not the compressed low-resolution version from the game.
 
LeHah said:
I don't think the footage shot for Wing Commander III would allow for a higher resolution game. (Wasn't it shot on videotape, and then they switched to actual film for WC4 / Prophecy?)
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as far as i can remember they were experimenting with both film and videotape for the shooting of WC3 but decided on tape then. there were a few scenes shot in film and i recall the people at the Origin mueseum talking about them after acquiring them ( there was a pic or two of wc3 scenes on a developed film from that article i remember )
 
hurleybird said:
Hmm... in that case would it be possible to patch the wing3 game code to play the higher quality 3do videos?
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You'd have to find a decompiler to remove the video, find the compression to stick it all onto X number of discs (depending if its the original or the KS version) and then a patch for it to run the "new" videos.

In other words, too much work!
 
Foxtrot said:
WOW !!!! awsome find there, one can make a proper WCP movie with something this good. although i must say the live action scenes felt more like something done for a B grade sci-fi series as compared to the grainy yet more movie-like clips for the 3-cd game. is it possible for you guys to mirror these files ? ive been trying to work on a WCP movie for some time now but the main downer was always that the FMV quality sucked. with something like this and some live actions ingame sequences with full rez & 3dfx emulation wcp can be the best quality wing commander fan movie possible.
Click to expand...

you are making a WCP movie? If so, we could maybe help each other along with it since I'm making one too. (See my sig.)
 
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