"A considerable investment... will well be worth the effort" Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

A photo of a sheet included with Wing Commander 2 is making the rounds on social media this week. It went viral after Kotaku ran the story, but the original image appears to trace back to Reddit and imgur. The WARNING cautions that WC2's state-of-the-art technology must be installed very carefully - or else! It also advises that the process could take several hours. While a couple hours of this was automated disk unpacking, going through the steps to enable expanded memory and free up more than 580 kilobytes of conventional mem could certainly take a while. And that doesn't even begin to get into sound card jumpers and IRQs... This wasn't the only system spec warning included with WC games. Certain versions of WC2 and Armada also included warnings about the CD-ROM, RAM and processor requirements looming in Wing Commander 3.

Holding The Fort For Wing Commander Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The beautiful Wing Commander universe map is just one example of artifacts that LOAF and Thomas Hennessy were able to capture recently. Here's another shot, and this time it depicts a very sharp TCS Concordia. There's also a bonus image of their clever 'light fort' setup!
Here's one of the photos from our light fort! Mega-cheers to @AngryJimmyFilms for creating a giant lightbox and taking blueprint shots!

Universe Map Sections Combined Into One Massive Image Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Earlier this month LOAF released a high res 20 megapixel shot of the Wing Commander universe map featured in the WC Movie's intro. But he and Thomas Hennessy held out hope that obsessive and meticulous Wing Commander fans were out there that could piece together dozens of individual close-up shots and produce one glorious ginormagantuan resolution image. Jetlag is that crazed fan, and he's put together a masterpiece that clocks in at some 275 megapixels (24594 by 11150 pixels). He's corrected for the rounding distortion and fixed various blurry sections to make it as crisp as can be. And while he wouldn't be a fanatical Wingnut if he weren't open to tweaking it further, for his sanity's sake, hopefully this is the final product!
This is a 12 megabyte sample at 6000 by 2720. Grab the full picture here (65 meg jpg).
I think I have the map in a pretty good state. I checked for broken lines and found and fixed one in the lower right. I also filled in the missing edges and masked out a lot of blurry text where two or more photos overlapped. It really takes a while to go over the whole map at 100% zoom. If there aren't any glaring issues I'll call it finished for now. I could mess with it forever trying to get lines straighter and overlaps better and stuff like that. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. Or if you want the ~600 MB TIFF/~1 GB multi-layer TIFF for some reason.

Star Traders Adds More Origin References; Cutting It Close On Final Day Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

As David Ladyman's Star Traders Kickstarter enters its final day, we've got a recap of Wing Commander-related items to catch up on. If you missed last week's livestream with LOAF, the full recording is available here. They spend over an hour talking about the ins and outs of Wing Commander game documentation, novels and strategy guides that Mr. Ladyman either wrote, edited or helped package. It turns out he's the person who hand-wrote the Mr. Kat letter from Graham in Voices of War! The campaign has also announced its Rogue character, which is patterned off none other than Origin founder Richard Garriott. They have also committed to naming one of the planets Roberts if they gather $15,000 in support from Chris Roberts fans. Ending contributions with a ten cent denomination (such as $40.10) signifies your support for this. With just about nine hours remaining, the drive still needs about $7,500 to cross the finish line. They will be hosting a final 8-hour livestream on Twitch to see it through to the end. If you were thinking about supporting this project, now's your last chance!
Greetings, Fellow Traders — Good Morning! We only have 12 hours to get the last $7500 pledged! Miku has graciously volunteered to host our Final Day Live Stream, from 2pm to 10pm Central — and perhaps a little later, for celebration! We’ll be bringing in fans from all over to chat and Ryan and I will be there to answer any questions that you have for us. We can only make Star Traders a reality with your help. Thank you very much, David & Ryan
Edit: They did it! The final tally is $50,850 - just barely past the goal. Wing Commander fans certainly made a big difference!

Space Sim First Look: Stellar Wanderer Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's been almost two years since our last Space Sim First Look, so let's take a look at Stellar Wanderer for iOS. This game was created by long time CIC forums poster c0mas, and it's a Privateer-style space opera with a main storyline and optional side quests. The player's ship can be customized with a variety of items, the credits for which may be earned trading, fighting or mining. Stellar Wanderer is currently only available for iOS (requiring at least an iPhone 4S, iPad 2 or iPad Mini), but may soon be coming to Android and Windows Phone devices as well. Version 1.07 includes a number of fixes and usability tweaks based on player feedback. If you end up giving it a spin, you can provide feedback on the forums.

Wing Commander Likely To Depart UK Netflix Soon Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

NewOnNetflix UK is reporting that the Wing Commander Movie will leave the service on March 31. The UK was one of the first areas to get the film on Netflix in April 2014, and two-year licensing contracts appear to be common. It may also give fans in other regions a timeframe to plan on. Many other European countries were able to watch Wing Commander starting in February 2015, and it was added in Canada and the US in June and August 2016 respectively. But for now, if you're in the UK, this weekend might be your last chance to stream WC!

Freedom Flight Coming As Baen Ebook! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Baen Books, the publisher behind most of the Wing Commander novels, has announced it is bringing Wing Commander Freedom Flight out as Baen Ebook later this year! A partial preview release is expected April 15 with full availability on July 5 at $6.99 in multiple formats. Freedom Flight was the very first WC novel released, and it's a fantastic tie in to Secret Missions 2 (as well as lead in to Wing Commander 2). A preview was included with WC2, which you can read here. We've been lobbying Baen to release the Wing Commander series in electronic form for more than a dozen years, so this is very exciting news! Hopefully additional novels will follow shortly! Find out more at Baen's page here.
Freedom Flight by Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon, Publisher: Baen Books
Forthcoming (1/2 Ebook available 04/15/16; full Ebook available 07/05/16)

Ralgha nar Hhallas, captain of a war cruiser, noble lord of the Kilrathi Empire—and a rebel. Captain K’Kai of Firekka, first of her winged species to leave her planet for the stars. Captain Ian St. John, call sign “Hunter,” hotshot human pilot—he thinks he’s just in it for the thrill of the chase. Rikik, K’Kai’s niece, hereditary leader of her clan—all she wants to do is follow in her notorious relative’s footsteps and fly the stars.

They were as disreputable a gang of misfits as ever flew between the stars. But together they would free a world!

Set in the world of the Wing Commander computer game universe.

Published: 7/5/2016
SKU: 9781625795281
Ebook Price: $6.99

Baen eBooks are available in the following DRM-free formats:

  • Mobi/Kindle/Palm
  • EPUB/Nook/Stanza
  • Sony LRF
  • Rocketbook
  • RTF
  • MS Reader
  • HTML/Online

Watch 1994 Mark Hamill Gush About WC3 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Stéphane Kauffmann posted a brief Mark Hamill interview where he discusses Wing Commander 3's film shoot. It's a really cool time capsule that captures his excitement at having just completed recording of something so different and new. This was recorded at the 1994 European Computer Trade Show in London and then included on a French magazine's cover disc, so we're lucky somebody saved this!
After playing in the first (fourth) Star Wars, Mark Hamill played in the videogame Wing Commander 3.

Confed Fleet Forges Ahead Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

DigitalOrigami put together this neat scene featuring a group of capships entering a star system. It features Klavs' highly detailed Wake escort carrier, Southampton destroyer and Bengal strike carrier models. I really like the angle on these as it reveals some very exquisite ship structure detail that isn't normally visible. It also reminds me of the scene players would see out the TCS Victory's forward windows from the WC3 bridge or lounge. DigitalOrigami isn't quite happy with everything yet, so you can help with suggestions here.
I'm going on kind of a slightly tense or dramatic approach, a task force scouting a new system kind of thing, not sure if I should have a few fighters or something (they'd be so tiny in this shot) or what exactly it is lacking. Any ideas would be appreciated.

I don't usually post WIPs as I blow through things way too fast, but in this case, I'm kind of stuck. This is an early idea that just isn't coming together for me. The lighting on the ships is wrong - I've since tracked it down to an errant directional light (modo has such lovely scene tools ). The background is from a "early access" piece of software on Steam called "Universe Sandbox 2" (which is tons of fun to goof around with - I've come up with some nice backgrounds and some really terrible backgrounds, but the software is about a year away from release according to the devs, so I'm hoping they add that next level polish).

David Ladyman Livestream Tuesday Night! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We've got a cool opportunity fast approaching to talk Wing Commander with Origin veteran David Ladyman. As his Star Traders Kickstarter hits the home stretch, he'll be sitting down with LOAF on Tuesday evening to discuss his vast career working on Wing Commander, Star Citizen and numerous other Origin games. He joined OSI shortly after the first Wing Commander shipped and made his mark on virtually every game from Wing Commander 2 to Prophecy as a writer, editor and documentation guru. Submit your questions here for the party! You can watch the discussion live here on Twitch at 6 pm Pacific US Time / 9 pm Eastern US Time / 1 am GMT.
Hey guys! I apologize for the late notice, but if anyone has any questions for David Ladyman (the man responsible for most of the Wing Commander documentation, as well as arranging deals like the Baen novels) then please post them here. We're going to do a live Q&A after work tomorrow to help promote his game Star Traders.

Fan Runs WC3 On Pandora Handheld Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

ekianjo has posted a neat video of the Open Pandora gaming console/mini computer running Wing Commander 3. The device begins with DOSBox and the game plays quite smoothly despite the overhead CPU power needed for proper emulation. There's just some minor stuttering when a fighter explodes on screen, which is pretty amazing for such a lightweight (both physically and spec wise) device. To this day I still expect a big lag before movies load and your ship launches into space because of my years running WC3 on a 486!

High Poly Swap Project Turns to Prophecy Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Having recently wrapped up the high resolution treatment for Secret Ops era ships, DefianceIndustries has now shifted his focus to increasing the poly count of Prophecy's fighter craft. The Vampire needs more work before it's ready to fly, but it's already looking much closer to the high resolution model from Prophecy's promotional art!
I rescaled the RCS pods on the fuselage to get it closer to the high-res model and finished adding greebles to the hull and engine pods. I also made some tweaks (long overdue I might add) to Dark Sentinel's awesome F-110 Wasp model. I added the missile and gun ports (I originally asked him not to add them when I was only working with 1,200 tri chunks) and modified the big rings on the side of the missile pods to make them look more like the original sketch. I've also got the start of a texture on it. So there! Enjoy.

Star Traders Adds Wing Commander Cameos Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The Star Traders project being run by Origin veteran David Ladyman has announced some neat easter eggs that will be featured in their aspiring board game relaunch. Cards that humorously reference both Wing Commander and Star Citizen elements will be added to the play deck. It's also been revealed that Chris Roberts and Sandi Gardiner will feature as embodiments of the "Maverick" personalities featured in the game's art and lore. With just a little bit more than a week to go, the campaign sits around 60% funded. They have a ways to go to make the project a reality, so if this looks like something you're into, you can lend your support here.
I have a long history with Chris, stretching back to my Origin days, and both Ryan and I have worked with him on Star Citizen for the past several years. So we are very honored to have his support for our project.

But we aren’t simply basking in the aura of Chris and his games — we are actively cross-promoting them, with a couple of Trader’s Luck cards referring to Wing Commander and Star Citizen.

Wide-Ranging Interview Covers Two Decades Of WC Fandom Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

If you missed last month's Big Box PC Game Collectors' livestream event, the recording is now available online. The group spends an hour interviewing Ben "Bandit" (LOAF) Lesnick about Wing Commander, working with Chris Roberts and making Star Citizen. There's a very helpful index in the YouTube description with quick jumps to subjects like the founding of the CIC, the least/most collectible WC artifacts and how the Academy show on DVD came to be. Joe Garrity from the Origin Museum is also there to add some color to subjects like the creation of Star*Soldier and the WC Movie Action Figures. It's a great discussion - check it out below!
Ben Lesnick is the world’s biggest Wing Commander fan. He founded WCNews, which is the premiere Wing Commander news site. Currently he is Director of Community Engagement and Content Strategy at Cloud Imperium Games, whose current project is the much anticipated Star Citizen.

Starship Tactics Is Upgrading Its Starships Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Arraen popped in to share some news with fans of his Wing Commander strategy mod, Starship Tactics. He laments the fact that development has now continued for more than two years, although that leaves out the fact that he had to suspend his work on the game through most of 2014 due to the war in his home country of Ukraine. The new screenshot below shows off two very different types of ships, but Arraen is planning to integrate more of Klavs' designs in the future, which might help some aesthetic uniformity. Most of the core gameplay aspects are complete, so after the ships get polished a bit, it's on to testing!
Work in progress. Now I'm importing Klavs81's models to game. For example this is his Venture corvette. I hope soon I'll have working alpha build and start active testing. It is almost 2 years of development now. From this perspective it's like a Star Citizen but unfortunately I don't have $100kk like Chris Roberts has :)

Super Wing Commander Cheats To Help Hunt Sivar Shipyards Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Gaijin has surfaced from a recent Super Wing Commander bender to share the Macintosh version's cheat codes with fellow fans. We've made various references to them over the years, but they've been mistakenly left out of our Cheats Section all this time and therefore may not be widely known. While the Mac SWC isn't the easiest game to get running today, it's well worth the effort to see all the unique environments, characters and ships - not to mention the new expansion between Secret Missions 1&2. If you invest in an older system that can run the game, but don't quite have the time to master another set of WC game mechanics, this is an easy way to speed up the experience! If cheating's not really your thing, then check out Gaijin's SWC strategy guide here.
I'm playing an ongoing game of SWC using a G3 Mac PowerBook (Pismo). I use the cheat (Shift-4 -> SWCBuster -> Enter and then click the on buttons) to see how high I can get with my score. Now at 4780 KIL for 392 SOR on the board. FUN NEVER ENDS!!! Hopping back and forth through the missions to maximize fun and score. BTW here is the full cheat for that game on Mac OS7-9:

    Cheat Dialog
  1. Type a "$" (dollar sign) at any point during the game. This brings up a password dialog.
  2. Type "SWCBuster". This brings a further cheat dialog. Case sensitive.
  3. The option have these meanings:
    • "Bangable" unchecked disables all collision damage (including those pesky asteroids and mines)
    • "Killable" unchecked makes you invulnerable
    • "Finger of Death" checked enables you to kill any targeted ship by pressing "s". This works only on the enemy.
    • "Pickable" checked lets you pick any mission or campaign in the game by cycling through the options in the rec room using the TAB or LEFT/RIGHT ARROW keys until Pick Mission or Pick Campaign comes up, and then using ENTER to select it. Missions and campaigns are numbered more or less in order of appearance and can be rotated through using the LEFT/RIGHT and UP/DOWN ARROW KEYS.

Big Interview Lays Out Flat Universe's Future Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Earlier this month Space Game Junkie followed up on their Flat Universe stream with an extensive video interview of the Maslas Brothers. This time they get a guided tour from the creators themselves! If you haven't played the game yet, this is another great opportunity to see what it's like to walk around your ship and live in the (flat) Wing Commander universe. There's some space blasting action mixed in, but the game flow sequences are really fantastic too. Check out the full video to listen in to their fun conversation and also hear a little bit about future feature teasers concerning aspects like multiplayer, planetary missions and more!
Dear WingNuts, as my brother have already informed you, yesterday we were interviewed by Brian Rubin from SpaceGameJunkie. We spent more than one hour talking about Wing Commander stuff and truly we had a great time with this guy. For those who are interested to know what was said, just watch the following podcast. Beware it's a lengthy one! We hope you like it.

Last Classic Confed Fighter Incorporated Into WCSO MUP Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's some new images of DefianceIndustries' slick Thunderbolt model cruising through space in the Vision Engine. When we last reported on the ship, there were several miscellaneous issues to be worked out, but those kinks have now been largely resolved. Now that the Thud is functioning properly, DI can shift is focus to the newer Prophecy-era designs that remain to be modeled!
Fixed the Tbolt turret issues. Turns out that the mass laser fire was caused by a PEBCAK error. When I exported the mesh, I somehow failed to check all the hardpoints. So the turret barrel actually had all the gun hardpoints that the base mesh had (all 9 of them in addition to the two for the turret) so it was a mega-turret of death! Once I cleared out all the hardpoints except for the two for the barrels, the ship started firing as expected.

I also fixed the rotation issue, the hardpoint that joined the barrel to the base mesh was off causing the barrel position to shift off the mesh as the turret rotated. There is still a clipping issue (see image) caused by the fact that the original barrels were mounted on the turret dome and not in a swivel mount beneath the cupola. I'll tinker with the rotation matrix and see if I can iron that out. (@gr1mre4per 's turreting tool to the rescue!!)

A couple of last errata on the Tbolt: The original WCP scaling was waaaay of on it. The Thud should have a length of 34 meters, but the original mesh is only 16. The new Tbolt is sized properly at 34 making it slightly larger than the Excalibur at 32m. I also tweaked the specular map a bit, the cockpit was waaaay to shiny for my taste, so I dimmed it up a bit.

Happy Birthday Wing Commander! Check Out Map In High Res Glory Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The Wing Commander Movie was released in theaters 17 years ago today, and to celebrate, LOAF and Thomas Hennessy have digitized the film's elaborate universe map. It all comes together in one whopping image that's nearly 20 megapixels big. But since we're Wing Commander fanatics, it was also carefully photographed in individual segments. While this delivers fantastic detail, it also leaves quite a task to someone brave enough to stitch together all the frames in Photoshop. There are about 30 different angles, although they've uploaded all 111 original images so everyone can see the raw material. If you'd like to try your hand at making one massive file, or if you'd just like to take a look at all the beautiful space art zoomed in, check out the photos on Google Drive or download here (500 meg zip). Hang tight while the photo below loads - it's 10 megs alone!
Happy birthday to the Wing Commander movie, which hit theaters 17 years ago today! We've taken several dozen high res detail photos of Chris' Wing Commander map... any Photoshop aces out there want a puzzle/project? It was created for the intro/credits of the Wing Commander movie, though you only see part of it (with glowing FX) there! I think it's super cool that it uses the same sector layout as the WC Prophecy Universe Map, but styled like it was made by explorers.

John Rhys-Davies Behind the Scenes of SQ42 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Last year, PC Gamer and GameStar magazines sat down with Mark Hamill and John Rhys-Davies on the motion capture set of Squadron 42, the single/co-op multiplayer campaign for Star Citizen. In those videos, the actors recalled their time working on Wing Commander, and they reflected on the practical differences between Wing Commander's green screen filming process and Star Citizen's state of the art motion capture technology. The YouTube channel for Roberts Space Industries also put up their own interview segment with Rhys-Davies, interspersed with even more behind the scenes footage. Chris Roberts makes an appearance as well, expressing his desire to bring back the people he worked with on Wing Commander 3 and 4, and that Mark Hamill and John Rhys-Davies were a great fit for two of the main characters.
Go Behind the Scenes of the making of Squadron 42 with a look at Randall Graves, played by John Rhys-Davies.

Elevate Your Podcast Game With Upper Memory Block Recollections Of WC Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The Upper Memory Block Podcast is a neat audio show that profiles awesome games from the DOS and pre-Windows XP era. They've covered almost 90 classic games in their four year history. One of their very first episodes covered the original Wing Commander. Joe, the creator, is a huge WC fan and it's just great to hear him gush about how fantastic the game is. It reminds me of the types of conversations I have with Wingnuts when I am fortunate enough to bump into them in real life. While this type of recording doesn't really share new information, it's always a fun trip down memory lane. He spends a good amount of time discussing the game's immersion factor, then moves on to gameplay and finally technical aspects and history. The segment is over an hour long, and the WC1 discussion begins about 8 minutes in. And if you like it, UMB also covered Wing Commander Privateer last year, which is another fun romp through the Gemini Sector. The Priv experience begins about 13 minutes in and once again covers the atmosphere, gameplay mechanics and background. There's also coverage of Righteous Fire and Privateer 2. You don't see a lot of podcasts out there that discuss The Darkening and he has some real problems with it, but it's still a welcome addition. Looking forward to the future, UMB is considering putting together a comparison between the PC and console ports in the WC series, which would be pretty neat!

Origin Game Designer Rob Irving Interviewed Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Matt Chat has been conducting a series of interviews with Rob Irving of Descendent Studios. In part 3 they discuss Wing Commander 3, simulation games, full motion video and 3DO game development. Rob Irving has a long history in videogame development, having served as game designer, developer, writer and producer on numerous titles for Origin and Sierra. His credits include Strike Commander, Pacific Strike, AH-64D Longbow, Wing Commander 3 and Prophecy, as well as design work on (cancelled) Privateer and Wing Commander Online projects. Before joining Descendent Studios he was attached to Chris Roberts' Star Citizen.

How To Build A Ralari In Five Steps Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

NinjaLA has a fantastic new Wing Commander sketch, and this time he's shared the step-by-step development process withe everyone. The first shot gets the overall shape down, and while it's a great representation of a Ralari on its own, the second image takes the detail up a notch with some great artistic flourishes. The third image makes it even more familiar with the capship's iconic coloring in place, and the fourth version sets it in space. Finally, step five adds in stars and shadows to complete the project!
kilrathi capital ships spotted in vega sector! I'll give you progress shots on this one.

Indiana Joe: Raider Of The Lost Archive Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum has put together this awesome little teaser for his upcoming video series on preserving classic game artifacts. Some cool stuff like Hobbes' animatronic head as well as some pretty rare Ultimate boxes are visible in the background. We can't wait to see what he has in store!
...this is the *only* scene. I created it as a promotion and an intro for a new web series I'm starting. While my upcoming videos will be (hopefully) interesting and fun, they won't be nearly as dramatic as this. :)

Origin Games That Weren't: Silverheart Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

In 1995, while he was finishing Wing Commander IV, Chris Roberts had another live-action video game in pre-production at Origin. Silverheart was to be a third person action-adventure game in a post-apocalyptic/medieval setting. It never materialized, but a tie-in novel outlined by English multiverse author Michael Moorcock was published in 2005. Now, director of photography Layton Blaylock is offering us a glimpse of what might have been with the test footage below. Thanks to Joe from the Origin Museum for the heads-up!
In an interview with G4 from several years ago, Chris Roberts provided some more insight into Silverheart's production history:

Roberts had also planned to work on a third person action-adventure title called Silverheart, set in a universe created by famed English fantasy author Michael Moorcock. “[Moorcock] was one of my favorite fantasy novelists. It serendipitously turned out that he’d moved to near Austin, so I’d contracted him to create this world and write a script for me. I actually had Silverheart in early pre-production while we were doing Wing Commander IV. Silverheart was going to be my project right after Wing Commander III.” Electronic Arts came knocking for a fourth Wing Commander game immediately after the third title in the series, however, which ended up pushing back Silverheart’s development.

Roberts negotiated to get the rights to Silverheart back from Electronic Arts while doing the deal for the Wing Commander movie, and planned to produce the fantasy game after Freelancer’s completion. “Of course I never got around to doing Silverheart, because I sold Digital Anvil to Microsoft and went off to do movies,” Roberts said.

A Different Grease Monkey Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Tim Eldred, character designer and storyboard artist on Academy TV, is also the creator of the Grease Monkey graphic novel and director of the Avengers Assemble animated series. The comic book's website has an extensive article on the history of Grease Monkey, detailing how he landed his first gig in animation while pitching the concept for an animated series to Universal Studios. A separate article contains a collection of drawings and sketches that were used to pitch the project various studio executives.
In the fall of 1995, Grease Monkey was pitched as an animated TV series to several networks and studios, including MCA/Universal. Producer Ralph Sanchez took a shine to it, particularly the artwork on my presentation boards, and he offered me a job on a series in development called Wing Commander Academy (based on a PC game starring Mark Hamill).
The timing couldn’t have been better. Things were getting rough in the comics industry because not enough had been done to broaden the audience (ah, you could cut the irony with a knife), and animation was the next logical stomping ground. I didn’t have any practical experience in animation storyboarding, but Ralph and Universal took a chance on me anyway, and I didn’t let them down. I ended up storyboarding several episodes of WCA and serving as a character designer for the series during the summer of 1996. The show debuted on USA Network that fall, and it gave me my first official screen credits.
Readers who are into classic Japanese animation or graphic novels may also be interested in this lengthy audio interview with Tim Eldred from about a decade ago.

256 Turrets Ought To Be Enough For Anybody Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

gr1mre4per is back with additional tweaks to his earlier efforts on improving and refining Prophecy's turret system. Fighter craft can now have up to 32 turrets, and capships can have as many as 256. The game originally uses a hardcoded refire delay of one second for capship turrets, but with these latest tweaks the delay times are taken from BULLET.IFF. This means Nephilim ships are now extra challenging to take out, because their refire delay drops down to 0.8 seconds. In addition, there is a Privateer 2 style randomized refire delay that creates the impression that a real person is gunning for you. Prophecy Unlimited began as a project to remove many of the limitations which the Vision Engine imposed to keep the game running smoothly on 1990s hardware, but has grown to include many tweaks and features. Find out more here.
  • Confirmed capship turret limit increase no longer causes a crash.
  • Capship gun turrets now use the refire delay from BULLET.IFF instead of being fixed at 1 second.
  • Privateer 2 style random refire delay on gun turrets. Impossible to chain all turrets together for a true P2 style. Refire delay calculated using refire delay from BULLET.IFF and a random number gen so high refire guns don't refire too fast.

Check Out The Krantor... Or Maybe Raptorant? Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

NinjaLA's latest sketch is a free form piece that doesn't draw on any particular ship for inspiration, but clearly his many years of creating Wing Commander art shine through here. While it looks unmistakeably Kilrathi, at some point some Confed influences bled into aspects like the wings. After putting this craft together, he's looking into making one of the larger classic Kat warships for his next piece.
I made this! #spaceship

New Secret Ops MUP Screenshots Land With A Thud Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

DefianceIndustries has both status mupdates and pretty pictures to show off for his Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack. He's finished the last pre-Prophecy ship with the addition of the Thunderbolt to the mix. It's got a pretty crafty paint scheme going, and down the line DI may look into some of the alternative liveries that we see here and there. While there's still something funky going on with how the turret functions, it's already imported into the game!
MUPdate time! Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone who's helped out on the project thus far (you know who you are!!!). Getting a Runner Up honor is awesome! So thanks again and also thanks to the community for the encouragement!

I'm back with more model updates. I'm rounding out the last of the "legacy" Confed ships with the HF-66 Thunderbolt VII. Here are some Blender renders. For the paint, I chose the WC4 version with some modifications: I liked Sean Murphy's lightning bolt nose art, and I also used the more traditional shark mouth paint on the Excalibur; but I felt that it needed a Confed roundel on it as the original doesn't, so I borrowed a bit from the WC3 texture. And speaking of, when I get some time, I'll add the other schemes so soon you can have your Thunderbolt in "Heart-of-the-Tiger" Grape and Spicy Piratical Cinnamon.

There's something fishy about how the turret acts in the simulator though, the barrel will detach from the mesh and when it fires, it shoots a crazed volley of laser fire, enough lasers to wipe out a Vampire in one hit. :) I'll get around to it tomorrow, along with giving it a proper entry in the ship viewer...

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