^ - -^ Origin's original documentation.

Discuss the Wing Commander Series and find the latest information on the Wing Commander Universe privateer mod as well as the standalone mod Wasteland Incident project.
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Post by snow_Cat »

^ - -^ the Hornet in the landing bay is landing. The animation sequence is
  1. the ship approaches the filler crane,
  2. inside the 'bay' it slows and two 'approach clear' flares are sent up
  3. the ship is caught by the crane and lowered to the deck triggering a frenzy of activity.
^- - ^ the hanger is shown before and after each mission. as it is cockpit open and the maytag repair man is helmet free I assume that it is in a pressurized area and that the red stalls are some form of magazine platform (connecting to the landing deck/hangar via those green tracks?).

^ - -^ Also, anybody think that it's problematic that the (red tag) munitions crew runs away when you land instead of disarming your payload?

^ - -^ If I could get WC II onto my hd I could do a video capture of the cinematics.

^- - ^ I'll do a quick scratch at the vga files tonight, but no promises.


^ - -^ WingCommander Standoff has a nice model too.

^- - ^ I got lucky and found a nice person in Korea with WC2 on his shared HD.
^ - -^ Ironically the disc is named 보물, or 'treasures'.
^- -^ Thanks... anonymous person who prolly' will never see this nor have any idea hint of happenings going ons...
^ - - ^ thank you.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

snow_Cat wrote:^ - -^ the Hornet in the landing bay is landing. The animation sequence is
  1. the ship approaches the filler crane,
  2. inside the 'bay' it slows and two 'approach clear' flares are sent up
  3. the ship is caught by the crane and lowered to the deck triggering a frenzy of activity.
Sorry, what's the "filler crane"? You know what? I think what I should do is get myself WC, DosBox, and play the damn game once and for all...
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Post by snow_Cat »

^ - -^ the crane animation is a whopping four frames (.8 seconds), and in all honesty it looks like you smack into the thing and fall to the deck.
^. . ^ That would explain why the deck crew run away.

^- - ^ I got WCNav from HCl's Wing Commander Editing Site to extract the raw graphics from WC, WC2, Academy, and Privater. ^ . .^ sadly I still need to crack the compression routines to get into wc2.

^- - ^ more graphics to follow.

^ - -^ These pretty profiles were extracted from Wing Commander using WCNav then stitched together.
  • Hornet Profile
    Image
  • Rapier Profile
    Image
  • Scimitar Profile
    Image
  • Raptor Profile
    Image
  • Commander Hayclon's office
    Image Image Image Image
  • Hangar decks
    • Ceremony/ presentation floor
      Image Image Image Image
    • Catwalk/ debriefing area
      Image Image Image Image
    • Bay
      Image Image
    • landing bay
      Image Image
    • launch tube (there appear to be no sides)
      Image
  • Briefing room
    Image Image Image Image Image Image
  • outrigger
    Image Image
  • launch hall
    Image Image
  • bar
    Image Image Image Image Image Image
  • in-flight computer
    Image Image
  • eject helmet
    Image

    • unused or recognized
      Image Image


    images hosted by photobucket.com
  • Wing Commander II
  • K'TithrakMang
    Image Image
^ - -^ Was unable to crack Origin's compression routine. Will try again tomorrow.
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Post by Dilloh »

@chuck or snow_cat
Looking for the whole Kilrathi Saga?
http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=2093
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Post by snow_Cat »

^ - - ^ I know Mr.Underdog has it all, but I feel that taking anything more from his site would be unfair after having taken so much.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Thanks, snow cat; soon as I get home I'll add those screens to my collection of Claw references. Looks like enough to start modelling the Bengal's interior, already.

Dilloh/snow_Cat: I downloaded the KSaga and it works. How does one play the darn game, tho? I can't score a single hit in mission 1 and get blown out of the vacuum... Do I need a joystick?

P.S.: Videocard arriving tonight; can't wait to get back to modelling.
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Post by Dilloh »

A joystick helps seriously, but try to slow down your CPU with dosbox by sticking to the suggestions from the DOSBox forum. Myself, I use the D-Fend frontend to make life easier.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Okay, I wasn't using dosbox, but I guess I will look into it.

Bad news; my new videocard doesn't fit in my mobo; it hits the northbridge's heatsink... It's a HUGE videocard, though it would probably fit if my northbridge heatsink was the original one; but the fan had died, there was no replacement; --it was riveted to the board and glued to the northbridge, so I had to use a drill to get it out, and replace it with a heatsink I could attach to the mobo with screws, and the only one I could find was rather tallish.

FREE ADVICE: Don't EVER buy an Asus mobo. And whatever mobo you do buy, make sure the nortbridge fan is client-replaceable, and get a replacement or two with the mobo, or refuse to buy the mobo.

I'll see if I can get a new mobo next weekend. And I hope I can find a socket 939, or else I'll have to get a new cpu also... :evil:
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Snow cat, I got all the pics saved. Thank you.

Question: Are there any station interiors in WC?

How about Concordia interiors? (Not the second TCS Concordia, Confederation class dreadnaught; I mean the Concordia class carrier.)
I guess there might be from WC4's TCS Lexington...
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Post by snow_Cat »

^- - ^ There are a number of station interiors, however I will need to play through the game as I have been unable to crack the compression routines in WC2.

^ - -^ Origin FX might be able to play the cut scenes, however I am tired and will try that tomorrow.

^ - - ^ I'll wait until I've finished the first WC before I post pics for
  • Terran Research Colony, McAuliffe VI.
  • Kilrathi Military Installation, Brimstone System.
  • Human Colony on the water planet, Hurricane, Port Hedland System.
  • Primitave (Mopoks) alien village, Rostov System.
  • more...
"K'TithrakMang" StarSlipCrisis.com
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Excellent! Great plan. (McAuliffe... yummy...)
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Post by snow_Cat »

<_ _ > *dooze*

^ · . > wa? :?

^- - ^ Sorry. Does the Kilrathi ambassador know three of her breasts are exposed? :|

^ - - > ... :shock:

< -.- > ...I see. :roll:
^ - - ^ In other news apparently Origin published a' "Wing Commander Scenery Disk" That I would like to get my paws on.

^- - ^ Also, while my mother is at work I'm using her gaming rig to upload the floppies for WC1 and 2 to my workstation. This might get me around the compression issues in the 'deluxe' edition, but I make no promises.

^ - -^Additional scenes from Nifelhelm and Tartarus to follow.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Snow Cat, your research is starting to bear fruit. Thanks to the original Concordia model you found, in that WC4 models zip, in your first or second post, I was finally able to get going with a pretty accurate Concordia model.
Far from finished yet; --it's about 6k tris in this picture; it will probably be 8k or 9k when fully greebled--; but just for a foretaste, here's a shot of the WIP:

Image
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Post by snow_Cat »

^ . .^

^ · · ^ impressive.

^- - ^ I was going to offer to send you the DOS binaries to use with your Kilrathi Saga data files.

^ - -^ and add these links ^- - ^ but instead I'll see if I can find some juice, thirsty.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Alright! Thanks. I've raided all the links for meshes. Even got a Black Lance station; not that we'd need it, but something to look at for station-ary inspiration...

Well, it's morning time, and after my coffee, I'm going to install my new mobo and new videocard. Wish me luck.
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Post by snow_Cat »

^ - - ^ mew. *cheerful*

^- - ^ I currently have DOS binaries for WC 1/SM 1 (?), SM 2 (1.3) and WC 2 (?) that will work with the gamedata from the windows 32x 'Kilrathi Saga'. If you want to use DosBox to play the game.

^ - -^ Also, I have nearly completed SM2, expect images in a couple of days.
^- - ^ I'll try to source SO 1 and 2 after.


edit: ^ - - ^ nearly forgot. When using DosBox flip your mouse over when you launch to avoid 'drifting'. Because DosBox 'trains' the mouse coordinates to a XY position after the game recenters it the game thinks you are trying maneuver. by flipping the mouse there is no new 'mouse input' and dosbox dosn' train the cursor from center.

Alt: lock the mouse to DosBox using ctrl+F10. Many players (myself included) find the mouse a powerful tool in the absence of a joystick, allowing the issuance of multiple commands (ie: pull up and fire) without the game forgetting how to do one without the other.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

OT:
Mission accomplished. That was $440 for the video card, $150 for the mobo, and then $70 for a new fan for the cpu. Good one, tho; Zalman 7700 copper. But I was certainly not planning to spend $660 when all this started. Anyhow, even Blender's edit mode looks better now; this videocard rocks. It's an XFX GeForce 8800 GTS, the cheaper one, with 320 megs. Highly recommended.
The amount of work was nothing to sneeze at, either: I have a flat box, by Antec, reminiscent of the old day flat box PC's, before towers became popular. Nice box, but really small. Changing the mobo was like a half hour deal just to pull out the old one and push the new one in. The mobo kept getting caught in the wires, and I had to slowly pull out wire bundles all around the mobo for 1 or 2 milimeter advances at a time. Finally I got it in, put in the screws, plugged all the cables and the videocard, put the cpu in the socket, and realized I needed new thermal paste. So I went to the store, but I changed my mind; I figured the old fan had done a year's duty, so might as well get a new one; and the only one was this Zalman monster thing for overclockers. I said 'heck' and bought it; but once at home I realised that to install the Zalman I had to put a new backplate under the mobo; wouldn't just snap into the existing heatsink bracket. So, out the board had to come. Then booting blues till I got the cables right, then bios blues, then 4 drivers to install for the mobo and one for the videocard, and half a day went by. And then, I had NO internet. Tried a million things with the network setup, and no chicken. So finally I pressed the reset button at the back of the cable modem, and voila!
Life would be so much easier if there were no computers... But I guess they can't be uninvented; and we're addicted.
/OT

Thanks, snow Cat; I'm not understanding this stuff of dos binaries. So I guess Kilrathi Saga doesn't work on dosbox? I need the original dos binaries?
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Post by snow_Cat »

^ - -^ Most versions of Kilrathi Saga use the OS graphics-environment to overcome FPS issues on popular systems circa 1998. The OS graphics-environment can be emulated using the +DMPI (+etc) build of DosBox with mild difficulty. Unfortunately because of limitations in the way that KilSaga uses the OS there is a significant frame-rate limiting problem with newer machines. There were a number of patches to fix it but I have not bothered searching.

^- - ^ I have the original DOS discs [and CDs somewhere] and because Origin did not change the original data libraries used in Kilrathi Saga these binaries can be substituted. And using DosBox the emulation speed can be more closely controlled.

^ - -^ I think that 'compatibility mode/emulation' of win95/98 might also work. At any rate my copy of KilSag reports 'Cannot run in DOS mode.' in vanilla DosBox 0.65 and my dos binaries run fine, albeit with a bit of aliasing.


^- - ^ and when you say 'mission 1' is immediately after a briefing, or immediately before entering your callsign?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Afrer a briefing; not that I did too well on the simulator... Only succeede on the simulator in two of a dozen tries.

Yeha, I didn't know there were 'versions' of Kilrathi Saga. So, what do I have to do?
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Post by Dilloh »

Myself, I use to run parts of the Saga version I posted without any emulation on xp... I just tried WC1 as well as SecretOps and it runs smooth, though I currently don't have any boxes to check out if sound works.
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Post by snow_Cat »

^- - ^ I'll pack the binaries for you to try tomorrow.

^ - -^ Followed by the first batch of WC1 SM1 and SM2 images.

More links:
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Thanks, snow cat; I'll wait for you then. Good links.

Today I've been programming all day; trying to make this texturizer. Haven't got to any graphical parts yet; all it's doing is, well, it's a command line program, but I didn't want to have to type a lot of parameters every time I call it, so I make it read its parameters from a text file, to which I gave the extension ".ize". So, I set up a file association for .ize to my program, so you just create an empty text file "textur.ize" or "Demon.ize", throw all the input textures in the same folder, and then double-click the ize file. If the file is empty, it fills it with default parameters and opens it up in notepad for you, so you can customize and save, and double-click it again.
It deduces the working directory from the file path of the ize argument.
So then it checks that all the textures are there, that they are square, that the size is a power of two, no smaller than 128, and no larger than 2048.
And that's all for now. At least I got through the most boring part; file io, configuration and exception handling. Tomorrow I'll start working on scaling and conversion to/from the internal, floating point color format.
Now I'm going to play a game for a bit, till bedtime ;)
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Post by snow_Cat »

^ . .^ delays... delays...
^- - ^ This is taking longer than expected because of magic disappearing files...
^ - - ^ One minute I'm saving my work,
^ · · ^ then 'pouf' its gone!
  • Terran Research Colony, McAuliffe VI.
    Image Image Image Image Image Image Image
  • Kilrathi Military Installation, Brimstone System.
    Shotglass wrote: Hey, Maverick. Get you something? Been awfully quiet ’round here since we jumped into Brimstone. Scuttlebutt is that there are four Kilrathi bases on Brimstone II, an’ we’re lookin’ at some serious action, really soon.
    Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image
  • Human Colony on the water planet, Hurricane, Port Hedland System.
    Image Image Image Image Image Image
  • Primitave alien village, (Mopoks), Rostov System.
    Shotglass wrote:Here we are at Rostov system, Maverick. You ever hear much about it? Her third planet’s a jungle world, with a native race of primitive sentients. That means the Confederation won’t colonise officially, except for scientific missions. Of course, that just leaves the planet open for unregulated settlement. Grey towns is what they call these unauthorised colonies. They’re full of the usual spaceport scum-and-villainy crowd. There’s a little place on Rostov III I know, Rita’s Cantina. Great place to visit, but don’t go in uniform! If you go, tell Rita ol’ Shotglass sent you, she’ll look after you while you’re there.
    Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image
  • The Goddard Colony (After the devastating attack by the Kilrathi secret weapon...)
    Image Image Image Image Image Image Image
  • The Kilrathi (Illudium) Slave Mines
    Image Image Image Image
  • The Throne Chamber of the Emperor of Kilrah
    Image Image Image
  • Fnchirr Settlement, Northern Continent, Firekka.
    files missing...
  • Sharrrhi Settlement, Southern Hemisphere, Firekka.
    Image Image Image Image Image Image Image
  • Lkhi Settlement, Nothern Hemisphere, Firekka.
    files missing...
  • Nanjing Colony, Chengdu system.
    Shotglass wrote:So, Maverick. Here we are in the Chengdu system. Ever been to the planet Nanjing, before? Wonderful place. Not a single higher animal native to the planet. But it makes up for that with bugs… big ones. They got six-foot-long huntin’ insects in the forests. Colonists call ’em bugbears, and they stay clear of them. No idea why anyone’d settle here. They say there’s lots of hydrocarbons, but it just don’t seem worth it to me, with all them bugs!
    files missing...
  • Kilrathi High Command Kharak Tar, Venice system. (orbiting water world with ancient ruins sinking into ocean)
    files missing

    images hosted by photobucket.com
^- - ^ remaining WC1, SMs1,2 data to be re-captured following first sweep of WC2
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Thanks, Snot Cat; got them all. This is growing into a neat collection of reference images. I think I'll model the McAuliffe colony. Simple enough and might be good to do some cinematics. For "Priv3", I was planning to have Burrows visit Chengdu and Venice, as well as a set of missions in Firekka (Firesky Shipyards missions, where Burrows gets his first mini-carrier ;) ), so, when you get around to those missing shots, I'd love to have them.
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Post by snow_Cat »

^ - -^ *blinks*
^ - - ^ Will do, but beware that these are orbiting/space shots.
^- - ^ Also I have almost cracked Privateer's compression scheme- it is a variant on the fast-back code (the earliest published pseudo-'open-source' compression routine), but I am stumped by what the procedure-codes might be.

^ - -^ A 'CIC:PopsiclePete' created a utility called MenuEdit that specific to the IFF (PALT) files that would allow me to begin mining Privateer and RF with decompressed pal files.
^- - ^ But he has moved sites and the program is no longer available.

^ - -^ (I have the ability to insert raw palette-data into wcnav without recompiling.)
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