A Look Back at 2018

As the calendar crosses over into another new year, we took a look back and were once again amazed at all of the happenings in the world of Wing Commander. You guys were busy! And so were we - here's a look back at some of the highlights of 2018.

Lastly, the CIC celebrated its 20th year at wcnews.com! We launched our nifty Prop ID line of backstory articles, tested out the in-browser Game Cabinet, re-mirrored some of our old layouts, hosted more original art, and kicked off our infamous meme series. Sadly, we said goodbye to some very talented people such as Christopher Stasheff, Micael Priest and Stephen Hawking. But we organized our memorials so that it was easy to find our various tributes. Fortunately, on a positive note, we're still here and more excited than ever to kick off the new year. We can't wait to see what 2019 brings, and we're working on some of our own surprises to unveil soon!

Vision Engine Reaches New Graphical Heights with Glowing Emit Maps

So...it isn't often we jaded MUP-pers get really excited over something, but this is one of those times. The dynamic graphical duo of Pedro and PopsiclePete have been hard at work performing dark magics and alchemy on the Open/GL patch and have given us a gift long sought after: Emit maps!

Up to this point we've had to be creative in how we do things like glowing windows and engines in the MUP. Kevin Caccamo 's awesome Wing Blender tools for Blender allow us to fake emitting surfaces by letting us use shadeless textures. But that means in things like capships we have to ensure that emitting surfaces are attached to other destroyable objects or fake it with a hidden CARGO chunk. Nephilim models were especially difficult because they aren't symmetrical. So we have to do really wacky stuff like use transparency functions on the windows and create a second "emit mesh" that lives just beneath the hull so when you view the model head -on the emitting mesh shows through the hull - and the emit mesh has to be attached as a destroyable chunk like CARGO so it can stop emitting once the ship dies. Because Vision inexplicably doesn't support destroyed base hull meshes or even texture swapping on a destroyed main object, some of this is still necessary. However for ships like corvettes and fighters, this is a huge win!

Why? a couple of reasons: 1) for some reason rounded objects like the engine on the barracuda (being one of the most obvious offenders) as well as the gun pods on the Nephilim fighters don't emit properly using the shadeless texture approach and 2) we are limited to selecting faces and creating shadeless materials for those faces - with proper emit mapping we can actually bake real glows onto the fighters and ships. Hangars can actually look like they're lit by the overhead lamps, hull around intakes can now properly render soft glows, etc. it will add a new level of visual enjoyment to the MUP.

Here are some new shots of everybody's favorite Maestro-killer - the Barracuda, using the new emit maps.

Wing Blender Update Whips Up Models Twice As Fast

Anyway, if you've tried to use the importer, you'll know that it is sluggish as hell. I've been trying to work on that. I made a few optimizations to the importer recently, which mostly involve using flat typed arrays instead of lists of lists, and it turned out to be MUCH faster than what I had. With my most recent optimizations, I was able to cut the import time in half! Well, at least for the more detailed meshes. AST_S_01.IFF hasn't shown much improvement in terms of import time, but that's because the other bottleneck is the MAT reader, and I have no idea how I could optimize the MAT reader any further.

Features:

• Allows you to do most of the work on the model in Blender and then export it without the need to use external utilities to set the collision sphere, radius, or hardpoints.
• If a texture's filename is numeric, you will be able to convert it straight to a MAT file without renaming it. For example, if you have a texture named 424242.jpg, your model will reference 00424242.mat
• Converts Blender "empty" objects to hardpoints and other VISION engine mesh metadata.
• Collision sphere position and radius is automatically calculated, but can be manually overridden.
• Child objects can now be exported along with the main object.
• LOD mesh support

WC Modeling Tool Gets Bug Fixes & New Features

Today's post won't be much help if you're trying to blend wings, but the new update to Wing Blender will assist your Vision Engine modding! New version 2.1.1 fixes issues when trying to import models from multiple directories, addresses a bug where face textures don't appear and now recognizes light flag settings. All of this could come in handy if you're trying to import or export models into Blender for your fan project of choice - or even if you're just poking around!

Wing Blender is an import/export plugin for Blender 2.65+ that allows you to export a VISION engine (Wing Commander: Prophecy, Wing Commander: Secret Ops) IFF 3D model, or import a VISION engine IFF 3D model into Blender.

This means you'll be able to do most of your work in Blender, and then export it directly to VISION engine .IFF format without the need to use other programs to set or modify model metadata, such as the collision sphere, center/radius of each LOD, or hardpoints.

Annual Community Vote Begins!

Another year has quickly come to an end, but before 2016 slips away for good, we've got one more thing to do! As we all get bogged down in the day to day grind, it's sometimes hard to visualize all the tremendous things that Wing Commander fans do all year round. This is our chance to recap some of the projects that had the biggest impact over the past twelve months and help confer some much deserved recognition on the fans that work hard to keep the community engaged. It's not a complete list of everything that you all do, but based on your nominations and a couple of our own, here are the nominees for Fan Project of the Year for 2016!

• 
  Defiance's Eye Candy - Compared to some of the projects on this list, DefianceIndustries is a relative newcomer, but his models are absolutely superb. He's incorporating them into his own WC mod, but the ships also make their way into gorgeous wallpapers and other Wingnut's projects as well.
• Enhanced Soundtracks (WC2 / Privateer) - Jason Walton's remakes of the classic era's music really struck a chord with fans this year. They're a great blend of embellished notes that sound fantastic without straying too far from what made the originals great. His WC2 effort was just in time for its 25th anniversary and helped everyone ride quite a nostalgia wave for the game.
• Flat Universe - This top down fan game continued to impress players with new visuals, modes and more unveiled throughout the year. Multiple playable iterations have been available for some time, but Wingnuts eagerly await further upgrades in the future.
• Homeworld Remastered Mod - Flag Commander, the Homeworld mod, saw numerous substantial coding improvements over the past year. The project has significantly bounced back from structural changes to the core game and is taking advantage of engine enhancements to make the experience even better.
• Klavs' Fleet of Ships - The trove of models that Klavs released nearly two years ago continues to see wide usage across multiple fan projects. When time allows, Klavs himself still makes time to build a new ship or even create a fabulous wallpaper now and then!
• Ninja's Sketches - Ninja's epic drawings of Wing Commander scenes continue to be a fan favorite. He's known for cultivating a certain style in both his ships and Kilrathi warriors alike but still manages to find new ideas to inspire even more sketches.
• Prophecy Unlimited - gr1mre4per's exploits are a huge gift to fellow modders. If there's a limitation in the original Vision Engine, he's up to pushing it beyond what anyone at Origin even thought possible. The foundational research he does helps makes multiple other projects on this list possible!
• 
  Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack - Most of the visual assets fell into place in 2016, so we have a pretty good idea of how awesome the upgrade will look. Now we're ready to play the game in all its graphical glory!
• Sins of a Solar Empire: Alliance - The Solar Empire mod is another project that's been in work for some time, but Nomada_Firefox chose 2016 to reveal it to the community. He's assembled quite a few different elements from the Confed, Kilrathi and Nephilim fleets that come together in an impressive fleet warfare package.
• WC Saga Deutsch Mod / Saga Plus Pack - The German version of WC Saga has continued to see a steady flow of updates to improve and enhance the core game. It was also recently revealed that English speakers will get to enjoy the same treatment when these enhancements are packaged up for the original release.
• WC Toolbox - We're still waiting for the next great WC1 mod to be made, and when it is, it'll probably have UnnamedCharacter's suite of tools to thank. He further improved fans' ability to manipulate data in the first WC game as well as improved potential modders' ability to visualize how the engine is handling everything in flight.
• WCDX for Kilrathi Saga - Most people play the original WC games via DOSBox or GOG these days, but there was a time when Kilrathi Saga was the much sought after option. It wasn't a perfect solution though, but Stinger has helped make it nearly so by fixing a number of bugs and hiccups that the conversion to Windows introduced. WC2 is a much tougher animal to tackle, but he started investigating how to go about fixing elements of the second WC game in 2016.
• Wing Blender - This is another program that's helping modders be more productive out there. It reached full version 2.0 release and helps fellow fans import and export Vision Engine files so that they can be more easily manipulated. In addition to helping with mod creation, it's also helped extract some neat things from the art assets included with Prophecy.

• 
  Daedalus Station - This is the flashy home of the Flat Universe mod. In addition to hosting downloads and media related to the game, it's the place to get the in-universe magazine Destiny's Way, which is a pretty darn cool project in its own right.
• Pix's Origin Adventures - Pix is dedicated to all things Origin, and that includes making time to explore the Wing Commander series in unique and exotic ways. One of his specialties is recreating authentic Wing Commander experiences on less popular platforms to appreciate the differences that these bring.
• Spaceships Universe - This is the home of Arraen's WC strategy game. It provides easy, concise and accessible information for what his fan game is about, and then leads the viewer to some really nice screenshots and videos. There are even three language options!
• WCSaga.org - In addition to being the home of WC Saga/Deutsch/Plus, this site brings two major things to the table. It serves as a vibrant German language hub to provide a place for a large population of European WC fans to congregate. There are also a set of message board forums maintained, which is no small feat in 2016. Between managing different personalities and keeping up with security threats, most people leave this level of interaction to social media these days, but not WCSaga.org!
• Wing Commander RPG Wiki - The home of capi's various role playing games gets a steady stream of updates - especially compared to the CIC's own Wiki! In addition to downloads of the existing modules, there are a couple hundred growing ever-pages of detailed material that's being developed for the Kilrathi Elegy of Sivar expansion.

Wing Blender 2.0 Released

• Export child objects along with parent objects.
• Customize LOD ranges.
• Customize CNTR/RADI chunks of each mesh.
• More validation.
• Improved support for varying forward/up axes.
• More flexible LOD object naming schemes.
• Support for flat colour materials.
• Collision spheres and hardpoints in the scene root are ignored.
• Better handling of numeric and non-numeric texture filenames.

Wing Blender 2.0 Beta 2 Released

As a bonus, I made another attempt at converting the Vampire from Scooby Doo's (very) old FS2 model pack, and here's a few screenshots I took while trying to get the hardpoints working properly.

(2nd Screenshot): I thought I had it working correctly by now, until I added the hardpoint for the middle section. I then realized the EPODs were upside down.

(3rd Screenshot): That's much better!

Wing Blender 2.0 Beta Adds Many New Features

The first test release of Wing Blender 2.0 has been released! The program allows models to be easily imported and exported between the Blender app and Prophecy/Secret Ops Vision Engine for easy 3D model manipulation. Even if you're not planning to mod the games, it's interesting tool to play around with and explore the guts of the Windows WC games with. Kevin has also made a documentation page for more information on how to use the program. Grab the beta here.

There have been many significant workflow changes since Wing Blender 1.x, so you may want to read the documentation first. New features compared to Wing Blender 1.x:

Export child objects along with parent objects.
Customize LOD ranges.
Customize CNTR/RADI chunks of each mesh.
More validation.
Improved support for varying forward/up axes.
More flexible LOD object naming schemes.
Support for flat colour materials.

Good luck, and good (bug) hunting!

Wing Blender Updated, Now With Fewer Collisions

Kevin Caccamo has released version 1.6.3 of his Wing Blender tool. This latest version fixes a few issues that may occur when importing files, such incorrect positioning of certain spheres, and issues related to importing multiple models. You can download the latest release from GitHub, where you can also dive into the project's source code. A more detailed description and tutorial and documentation is available there as well.

Wing Blender is a helpful tool for exporting and importing models from the Vision Engine into the open source Blender 3D modeling suite, and back again. This potentially makes manipulation of the Prophecy and Secret Ops ship models much easier. For example, DefianceIndustries' Secret Ops Model Upgrade project used Kevin's tool to add glowing elements to the upgraded models.

New Version Of Wing Blender Accesses Exotic Files

This is a patch release that adds importer support for v9 meshes (CALLISTO.IFF, TERRAIN.IFF, PV256.IFF, SHDALIEN.IFF, SHIELDFX.IFF).

Unused Cruiser Found In Prophecy Files

OMG! Look what I found. This model is CALLISTO.IFF, which I was recently able to import into Blender, after some investigation into the v9 mesh format, and a few changes to my Wing Blender importer code.

WCSO Upgrade Adds Illuminated Features

Wing Blender Works With Even More WC Ships

IFF Import Tutorial

1. Obtain a VISION engine IFF 3D model from somewhere. You can extract an IFF 3D model from the game (or your favourite WC:SO mod, such as Standoff or Unknown Enemy) using HCl's treman. (You'll need to run it in DOSBox on modern systems, however.)
2. Extract the textures for this model. If you are using MAT files, place them in the mat folder, and the 3D model in the mesh folder. If you are using PNG, BMP, GIF, or another high-quality image format, place the images in the same folder as the 3D model, and give them the same name as the 3D model, except with numbers after them. For example, if the 3D model is named GRIKATH.IFF, and you want to use high-quality images as textures, name the images GRIKATH1.PNG, GRIKATH2.PNG, etc.
3. Run the importer script to import the mesh into Blender.

Wing Blender 1.5 Released

It's been a good season for fan patches! Kevin Caccamo has released version 1.5 of his Wing Blender app, previously known as Blender Commander. It allows aspiring modders to make ships in Blender and then more easily export them to Prophecy or Secret Ops. This new version adds a reverse feature where you can import a Vision Engine file to Blender to work with. You can also use this in conjunction with his MAT Viewer to more easily see your outputs as well. Grab the program and find further instructions here.

Wing Blender is an import/export script for Blender 2.65+ that allows you to export a VISION engine (Wing Commander: Prophecy, Wing Commander: Secret Ops) IFF 3D model, or import a VISION engine IFF 3D model into Blender.

This means you'll be able to do most of your work in Blender, and then simply export it to the game without having to pass the model through multiple conversion programs (3D Exploration, peoview, ModelC, etc.).

This project is the successor to OBJ2WCP, a crappy old OBJ converter written noobishly in Java.