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ODVS has put together a new promo for the WC4 Fan Remake, and it's a little different than most that we've seen. Watch it and let him know what you think. The team is also potentially looking for another programmer. If this might be something you could help with, hit the comment link below!

Are there any C++ / C# programmers out there left to recruit? We have two musicians but only one programmer. It's our only real bottle neck.

We're looking for tools. Now whilst many of the tools are in C# like all game engines the core is in C++ interop is going to be needed even for those.

I'll outline some tasks I think we could bounce to others here:

• AI Behaviour Tree - New behaviours for space combat (Tool C#, game behaviours protocol buffers, behaviour implementations C++)
• Model material editor: Leaning towards C++ using IMGUI to avoid complexity. C# is an option but would require a lot of interopThe AI tool

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It's not every day that fans open a new Wing Commander website, so we're very excited today to unveil the new site for the fan remake WC4 Remastered! Pedro and DefianceIndustries have been doing the ground work to get the game's engine and core assets together for a while now, and efforts have recently been kicked into higher gear with the addition of ODVS' talents on video enhancement and 2D art. Now everything they've been working on has been collected in one central hub. The site is nicely appointed with subsections for background info, project status, media and more. They also have an elaborate links page, which is a wonderful throwback to old webpage days. Everything even works well on mobile devices. Visit for yourself at WCRespace.com!

I'm proud and excited to release WCRespace.com to the web! This is the official website for the Wing Commander IV Fan Remake project. Pedro, Defiance and I

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WCRespace has another nifty article on an interesting aspect of development. It talks about how cockpits will be implemented in the WC4 Fan Remake. While the game will offer an authentic experience that mimics the original game's full HUD interface, they are also modeling awesome cockpit setups. The various displays and readouts will be embedded appropriately, which will give people a compelling reason to stick with this more artistic and immersive mode. Check out the article here to find more detail on what the team's got in work.

The goal is to try and make each ship feel unique and to offer the player a different experience with each ship they fly.

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As the WC4 Fan Remake continues down the path towards being a functional game, there are lots of secondary elements that need careful consideration. Autopilot isn't something Wing Commander fans spend a lot of time thinking about, but it's critical in WC3/4 due to the spaces between nav points. The exterior autopilot camera is also handled differently than other perspective angles, so Pedro had to create a special camera configuration so that these sequences felt right. ODVS put together an awesome video to show all this in action! You can read more about the process at WCRespace here.

There was just one problem: all the action takes place at the second navpoint and we have to get there first! Unfortunately in Wing Commander IV the decision was taken to make space vast. Flying between waypoints manually isn’t the practical option that it was in WC1-2. There was no way around it; we had to

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The WC4 Fan Remake team has been outwardly quiet these last couple months, but they've been very busy! This was revealed today in one of their biggest updates yet. The TCS Lexington has been massively overhauled with incredible new geometry, textures, detail and especially lighting, which is a new dimension for the team to play with. Things like capship turrets are now exquisitely modeled with accurate physicality and are fully destructible. The flight deck is also starting to come to life with plenty of environmental object filler. And there's even a flythrough video! As an extra cherry on top, variants of the recently revealed frigate model have also been shown off. Check out the full update at WCRespace.com here.

People may think that the lighting doesn’t match what was in the FMV; however this isn’t quite the case. We captured a number of scenes from the Lexington hangar and what we

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Pedro has released a handful of exciting comparison shots for the WC4 Fan Remake. The first pair of images features a scene first without and then with the new Adaptive Screen Space Ambient Occlusion technique. With the effect incorporated, you can see more nuanced shadows and lighting. I've blown up all the thumbnails in this post so you can easily see the differences, but you'll probably want to click into them full the full effect.

All has been quiet on the WCIV remake front. That doesn't mean we haven't been hard at work, just that it hasn't been very visual work.

Still with the CIC birthday coming up again we've taken some time out over the last month or so to correct that.Here's a peak at one of the new features, adaptive screen spaced ambient occlusion. Although a very subtle effect it adds a lot of definition to the models.

As most models are static a lot of this could be baked in to the

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The WC4 Fan Remake team has posted a bit of a roadmap that lays out their next steps to make progress towards something playable. The target for next year will be to release an enhanced version of the actual WC4 demo that originally came out in 1996. It's a big leap from exciting teaser trailer to something interactive, so they've got their work cut out for them in the months ahead! You can learn more about the project at WCRespace.

Originally we had planned to do a first playable using mission 1 of the game, however LOAF of the CIC gave us a much better idea; to recreate the often overlooked original Wing Commander IV demo. Most of us had never played the demo, but we were pretty excited for a number of reasons. ...

The switch to producing a public release is not one to be taken lightly; a video can hide a multitude of incomplete features, the same can not be said of a demo. We’ve already made a

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The WC4 Fan Remake team has a new update that touches on a variety of subjects. To start with, they've announced that the release of their playable demo will likely slide from this summer out to a later date in 2021. There are a few changes coming for it, but overall the main message is that lots of good progress is being made. To drive the point home about how complex this can be, however, the new article also has a detailed discussion about programming math that gives you a glimpse at the effort involved here. They could still use help in the 3D art and programming realms, so contact Pedro and the gang if that sounds like a role for you! Read the entire update at WCRespace here.

In order to minimize the delay one change we’re looking at is replacing the Intrepid model from the demo with the Lexington, which is already complete. The choice to use the Intrepid was always odd anyway as the gameflow

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WC modder

Pedro

- of

Unknown Enemy

and WCP

OpenGL

fame - has released an image that shows off some of the ships for his WC4 remaster project. The

effort

has been

hinted

at for some time, but as more high quality assets are completed by DefianceIndustries, the project as a whole becomes more feasible. After some extensive planning, Pedro is ready to soon get started on the programming side. He's using the

Usagi

engine due to its modularity and ability to recreate the feel of the game. Despite their popularity, WC3/4 have historically had fewer directly associated fan projects than Prophecy/Secret Ops. It's great to see the whole

breadth

of the series getting attention these days!

Defiance has been passing me models for the WCIV remake. Not too much to report, I spent most of my time getting the engine ready for a new project but it's about time to start.

I was hoping to more closely match the lighting

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We have purchased a little bit of Wing Commander history and are passing the information on to you! Artifacts from the Origin Museum are currently being auctioned on eBay which has the excellent effect of revealing some interesting Wing Commander material we did not know survived! In this case, a set of twenty seven polaroids from Wing Commander IV's Second Unit shoot which are full of fascinating behind the screens and lore information, including some better-than-ever looks at some of the game's different costumes and never-before-recorded identities of various background characters! We're studying each polaroid and collecting what we can about how it relates to the game and will be updating one at a time. Wing Commander IV's Second Unit shoot took care of things like shipboard transitions and comm videos. In the case of the latter, actors were typically filmed in front of a single small backdrop

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This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the first post in the series' introduction here.

Our next continuity polaroid is a familiar face: it's Bob-O-Matte! Eagle-eyed Wing Commander players will recall that Bob-O-Matte is one of the three Border Worlds pilots who is ambushed and destroyed in the cutscene that opens the Peleus 'jammer' series of missions. Despite his apparent death at the hands of a Confederation Excalibur, Bob-O-Matte appears again in Wing Commander Prophecy reading a tarot deck in one of the game's most unusual transitions. Bob-O-Matte's flying scene takes place in the game's Banshee cockpit set which is a simple triangular backdrop (shots of the instrumentation are reused from the more elaborate Lance cockpit set). As you can see in the photograph, only the top portion of the flight suit was necessary since the shot

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This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the previous posts collected here.

We're stepping away from flight suits for today's Wing Commander IV Polaroid post. What we have here is something intriguing: a young woman in a non-standard uniform with a nametag that reads "LOATS". The picture is labeled only "Com. Specialist" and features no visible insignia patches, making this one an interesting challenge... or not, because despite two typos the start to our seach is right in the manual connected right to the text under the photo: "Circle V Comm. Specialist - Saxon Trainer". The 'Circle V' must actually be 'Circe V', an embattled planet you (optionally) visit midway through the game and a short Google search revealed that "Saxon Trainer" is really Saxon TRAINOR.

Who, then, is LOATS? If you tend to side with Panther over Hawk then you may

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This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the previous posts collected here.

Today's polaroid led us to several interesting stories. Pictured here as "Confed Cap #3" is actor Charles "Chip" Esten. Since appearing as a featured extra in Wing Commander IV, Esten has gone on to a considerable amount of success including appearing as a series regular on ABC drama Nashville, playing Josh Porter on The Office and on multiple iterations of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Mr. Esten is very active today and even retweeted our request to help identify his polaroid!

The polaroid gives you a good look at a Terran Confederation Navy jacket complete with a name and rank that aren't visible on screen (JARVIS and Lieutenant Commander, respectively). Wing Commander Prophecy would later establish a different canonical rank for Lieutenant Commander (three

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This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the previous posts collected here.

You knew he was coming! Today's Polaroid is Border Worlds Pilot #2, Lester Barrie. Like Moose and Bob-O-Matte, Hacker appears briefly in the Peleus jammer introduction where his Banshee is shot down by a group of Excaliburs. His continuity Polaroid gives us a great look at a grey Border Worlds flight suit and a bit of a cheat the production used frequently: since Hacker was only ever seen from the shoulders up he doesn't have a full flight suit... just the top!

Mr. Barrie's story is a little different from many of the actors we've previously identified: while he had several guest spots in TV and small film roles in the 1990s, he gave up acting in favor of two other passions: standup comedy and preaching! Today he is Reverend Barrie, assistant pastor at the

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This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the previous posts collected here.

Last Thanksgiving, we wrote about a Polaroid of Moose and how the character represented three different people at once: the actor who played him in a cutscene, the member of the development team whose name and photograph were used for his wingman selection screen and finally the member of the Playstation team whose name replaced them in that port. Now, we've found a polaroid that represents FOUR different people! Meet Miner.

Unraveling the Polaroid meant once again dealing with a small problem: Miner is in full Confederation fighter pilot costume (next to the nose of the famous Confederation shuttle set!) and so his face isn't very visible. Luckily, the "Mike" and "Confed Pilot" scribbled at the bottom were enough to move the needle: the game's printed credits do

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This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the previous posts collected here.

Our Polaroid research continues to produce surprising stories: this time, we've found a justified star. Or at least... the star of Justified! While the label on the photograph reads "BW Pilot Garret 'Moose'", the actor in question is none other than Walton Goggins (credited as Walt Goggins). Moose appears in the Peleus jamming scene, one of the three Border Worlds Banshee pilots that are ambushed and shot down by a flight of Excaliburs. The Polaroid gives us a great look at a Border Worlds flight suit, which the production dyed grey from the original tan Confederation suits with some minor alterations (like the Union of Border Worlds patch on his left shoulder).

Credited as Border Worlds Pilot #3, Mr. Goggins would quickly go from nearly faceless tertiary

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This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the previous posts collected here.

Today we're giving you two Polaroids for the price of one! What's going on here? You're seeing two different pirate characters--Pirate and Pirate Ace--played by the same actor for their video loops. In the game, these appear as a total of six different video loops (three for each) that can have any pirate dialogue played over them (taunts, death screams, etc.). We can't confirm that the voice work, recorded later, was actually the credited actor, Todd Kimsey (despite being labeled 'Pirate #4' on both Polaroids, he's listed as only Pirate in the game's credits and no others appear in live action footage.) It's amazing how the amount of costume work you see in those photos ultimately becomes about five seconds of monochrome footage that ends up intentionally

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This is part of a series analyzing newly discovered Wing Commander IV continuity photographs. You can find the previous posts collected here.

When we picked up the Wing Commander IV Polaroids this was one I was sure we'd never figure out. It wasn't labeled and the picture wasn't especially clear. She could be a patron in the bar on Nephele (few of whom are visible!), a reporter or a politician from the Assembly scenes... or anywhere else! It turns out I did not need to fear: she's actually a character with a fairly major scene... the comm officer who sends a distress message from the Telamon System. Blair and Sosa listen in horror as she reveals the Black Lance attack:

If you can hear this, it might not be too late. Unmarked ships are attacking and many people are dying! We know planet FT957 is far from any other colony, but, if you have any Humanity, please, send help immediately! Otherwise, our world

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Dominus of Exult spotted another uncommon Wing Commander collectible, and he pinged LOAF for the scoop on its origin. "I believe it’s an Australian retail promo sent to stores to promote the release." We don't see this shirt very often, but it's a definite treat each time! And congrats to Dominus on the find - it's good to see you'll be entering 2022 in style!

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The WC4 Fan Remake team is back with a new report on the steady progress they have been making in recent months. DefianceIndustries has implemented a fantastic update to the Caernaven frigate - just look at that thing! Pedro has also upgraded the game's physics engine, better integrated menu updates and added improved video features. You can read all about these updates and the path towards a playable demo in their new WCRespace article here.

Until now we had been in what I would describe as pre-production. When we wanted to show off a new ship I would make a new entity definition by hand, completely ignoring the ship stats, missile stats, manually setting what classic model to use.

Now I intend to turn that process on its head and start dynamically generating entity definitions based on the data when you load the game. This is an involved process but if goes to plan it should mean that the manual