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Tonight's project: added the Super Wing Commander cockpits to the WCCIC's cockpit reference page!
Don't forget the SWC Dralthi! I do three versions: no alarms at 100%, all alarms active and then one with damage states:
I've also added Wing Commander III and I'll start looking at the console ports at some point. Find all of these and more in the WCPedia here!
Nov
…Little discovery: the firefighting truck seen fleetingly in the Wing Commander movie is a rented Saracen tank. Now I have an excuse to own a tank.
More of the truck from AD!
AD: Don't forget to ask for the spray foam kit when you order yours! Off-camera, this vehicle is shoring up the breached bulkhead. It was shot at least twice with multi-cam setups to only show us the tires.And its cousin, the fuel truck:
AD: I think this also settles that they used the same truck as the fuel truck in the movie, but dressed it differently with extra panels, wheel covers, and more tanks. You can spot it very briefly and a handful of flight deck scenes. You get a decent look at the back of it in an unused angle of Maniac's reckless landing, which apparently almost crashed into the fuel truck.
Concept art from the movie's set folks! You can see it's supposed to be an unmanned repair truck that sprays self-sealing goo
Aug
FekLeyrTarg was just on a roll this year, so we let him run with yet another cool tech demonstration! He's combined a green screen, the Privateer 3D models archive and some AI-generated scans of his head to create a nifty clip of him flying a Centurion. Not a bad effort at all! There's lots of potential here!
Produced for the Wing Commander CIC's 24th birthday, this is a proof-of-concept of using an AI-generated depth map on a subject in a 3D-generated environment for extra depth and lighting information. Once again, the models used are from the Privateer 3D Archive.
Oct
…Content: Updated the Elachi computers during the “Mycelial Realm” Task Force Operation, to only allow one person to use them at a time. Animation: Resolved an issue that caused the player’s neck to stretch awkwardly when using the Feminine stance. Character: Survival Outfit Updates: Coloring the shirt no longer will color other parts of the costume pieces. Armpatches for Klingon and Romulan factions tinting correctly apply full saturation. Armpatches for Klingon and Romulan factions tinting scheme changed to allow for more tinting across the entire costume piece. Armpatches for Klingon and Romulan factions redone to have proper contrast and details. Armpatches for males no longer clip during running. Survival Jacket for males no longer clip during running. Resolved an issue that caused Romulan and Reman characters to have invisible torsos with certain upper body
Dec
We're at that time of the year when most Wingnuts get busy with holiday business and fan project activity briefly slows. Nevertheless, Pedro managed to share this new screenshot of the WC4 Fan Remake going ultrawide. It looks pretty darn sharp, and all of that gorgeous screen real estate will come in extra handy during a dogfight!
Been out of action with flu, work craziness and most significantly moving, I haven't even had chance to set up the server again yet so I'm afraid I've made very little progress... but with the extra desk space I got a new monitor so I can start testing Ultra Wide resolutions and HDR.
Nov
…80s Baby recently posted their review of the Wing Commander movie in honor of the film's 20th birthday. Back in 1999, the author was fortunate enough to stumble on a double feature of Never Been Kissed and Wing Commander bundled together. She recounts her review as a memory of the events all those years ago. The recollections meander about as much as the reviewer did when the NBK credits rolled, but it's honestly not the worst WC Movie review I've ever read. At least there's no nerd complaining about sound in space! Check out the full article here.
Ah, memories. They can be hazy and hard to trust, but some of them — some of the lucky ones — stay trapped in your brain as crystal clear as the day the experience happened right before your eyes.In 1999, I was living it up in one of the best cinematic years of my generation. I feel like I was at the movie theater every weekend that year, with extra
Apr
This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Monte Carlo or Bust! (1969) which, according to Chris Roberts, inspired the climactic battle at the end of the Wing Commander movie. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!
Mar
…We have a small treasure for you today! We've acquired a set of storyboards used to develop the Wing Commander Academy intro sequence. This covers the original animation created for the intro. Like many cartoons of the era, Academy's intro was a combination of high quality bespoke animation mixed with a series of quick clips from the show. These storyboards even include several intended shots that didn't make in into the final version! Let's take a look...
These first three pages do not appear in the final version (although the transport shot is similar to one we will see later). It would've been interesting to see Thrakhath's dreadnaught so early, too!
It's not clear what "photo ID inserts" would've been but we're guessing it would've been images of the real Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson and Malcolm McDowell.
You can find another breakdown of the Academy intro which shows the origin of the reused clips here.
Feb
…This is the second in a series of updates that will highlight five fascinating items from our first search through the Video Game History Foundation's new Digital Library. We're sure there are countless treasures to uncover, so be sure to dive into their collection and post what you discover to the forums!
For our second VGHF update we're looking at another artifact from behind the scenes of game development: the Computer Game Developers' Conference 1997 Conference Proceedings. This is an academic-style publication that prints articles based on the presentations given at GDC, an industry convention that focuses on the hows and whys of game development. This one is material presented at the April 25–29, 1997 GDC and it includes an article by Wing Commander III and IV script writer Terry Borst about his experience with interactive writing and those games specifically!
There's a lot here to enjoy but one
Nov
…If you're like us, you may be experiencing exorbitant levels of anxiety at the moment. Fortunately, we noticed that Volt Silicon just posted a soothing AdLib / OPL2 recording of the Wing Commander 2 soundtrack. As one of my favorite games in the series, these iconic tunes always take me back. They're a soothing trip down memory lane for when you need something to calm the nerves!
Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi is a space combat simulation game developed and published by Origin Systems in 1991. As the sequel to Wing Commander, the game transports you into an interstellar war between the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi, a warrior race of feline-like aliens. While maintaining core gameplay from the original, such as space dogfights and managing wingmen, this installment places a greater emphasis on narrative, featuring structured missions and captivating sprite-animated cutscenes.
Jul
…It's July, so that means this is the final month that Wing Commander Arena will be offered for sale by Microsoft! Although the game will remain playable for the foreseeable future, potential players will need to purchase their copy now to be able to download it to their Xbox 360 later. The game has been heavily discounted to just $0.99, so there's no reason not to pick a copy up just in case! It's also a really good idea to read LOAF's excellent Arena FAQ to get all of the details straight. To go along with this countdown, here's a couple of videos that AD recently found that show Andre BigBoss hunting achievements. The first clip shows what it takes to organize 16 players for the big "TCS Tiger's Claw" unlock. I very much admire the effort and appreciate how this sort of thing is preserved for history, since modern streaming infrastructure didn't exist back in 2007. I believe the clips are
Dec
…Master O dropped by to spread the word about a new alternative to DOSBox. DOSBox has been a tried and true workhorse of the retro gaming community for nearly twenty years, but updates have been very sparse since about 2010 or so. Although the program works fairly well to get games like Wing Commander running on modern systems, technology has continued to evolve and there's an enormous opportunity to add modern quality-of-life improvements. That's where DOSBox Staging comes in. A new team of developers have picked up where the old program left off. There is much improved support for modern video and sound setups, better controller and joystick integration, plus compatibility with a host of modern operating system features. The latest 0.81 test versions even add support for Voodoo 1 emulation for 3DFX graphics. You can try it out here. Be sure to share your experience at the CIC Forums!
If you
Oct
…As we mentioned last month, LOAF, AD and team are working through an exhaustive overhaul to the CIC's original video archive. Our Holovids video index was pretty great for its time, but this takes the concept to an entirely different level. Right off the bat, you can see how branching plot choices work along with alternate video clips and dialogue script. With that text, you can understand exactly what was being said, even through the muffled parts. Alternate language French, German and Spanish editions are also included as are alternate quality sources where available. Plus, there are an enormous number of behind-the-scenes clips, deleted scenes, reviews and more. Want an extensive array of print reviews? That's included too! If that wasn't enough, a complete rundown of in-flight comms from both the story and gameplay are now available. Incredible! Today's update is all about Privateer 2,
Aug
…There's some unfortunate news concerning the Xbox 360 and Wing Commander Arena. Microsoft has announced that the console's digital storefront will be closing in July 2024. This means some 220 games, including Arena, will no longer be available for sale in any form. Wing Commander's debut on the Xbox was part of a new digital-standalone push dubbed Xbox Live Arcade. The results were quite impressive given a variety of constraints such as a 50 megabyte download cap and $10 asking price. Arena was the platform's first 16-player game and made heavy use of features like matchmaking and online leaderboards. Although Arena never received a proper physical release, the "demo" of the game was included on the cover disc of the November 2007 issue of the Official Xbox Magazine. These demos could be "unlocked" into the full game, but that function will presumably be removed as well.
Since the game was
Jul
A few days ago, we shared Michael Pretli's slick take on the Midway class heavy carrier. It turns out that he's also built a Murphy destroyer! It's also quite a looker.
My second gem from 2010 I want to preserve here, also done in Truespace 5.xMy rebuild of the Murphy-Class Destroyer featured in the Wing Commander Prophecy games, though I added quite some additional greebles to it since the original model in the limit game engine from that time was rather undetailed. To give it a more offensive looking capability I added addtional torpedo tubes and a fixed bow weapon to it. The ship also features a small landing bay for shuttles and a few fighters.
May
…
The crowdfunding campaign for the Deluxe vinyl pressing of the WING COMMANDER score is in full swing, and the project has now passed 25% of its goal with more than $3800 pledged so far. To get even more fans to join in on the excitement, if a few more people add to the total this weekend and get us over $5000, LOAF will do a live Wing Commander Movie commentary.
The Wing Commander vinyl record campaign is at 25%! To sweeten the pot in absolutely no way, I’ll do a Twitter Space watch-along of the movie if we get to $5k this weekend.The $75 Deluxe Edition seems to be the most popular so far, but a standard LP is just $35! Learn more about the project here.
Supercade's exclusive new LP editions of the Wing Commander Orchestral Recording Project will mark the first time George Oldziey's orchestral score is available on vinyl. Working with a celebrated independent record press, we'll be sure these records
May
…Two new starports have been added to Marlinist systems, following a successful delivery initiative last month.
The use of pre-built infrastructures and mass-produced components has allowed the orbital stations to be assembled rapidly. The starport names and locations are Fairfax Legacy in the Hyades Sector SU-C a14-1 system, and Ackwada Monument in the Hyades Sector LX-T c3-30 system.
The Marlinist Parliament welcomed the new starports, stating that they "will lay strong foundations for increased commerce with the interstellar community".
As a result of a recent diplomatic arrangement, two million Marlinist refugees have been offered transport from the Alliance to the colony systems. They are being processed and granted citizenship at the new starports.
A campaign to rename the two existing starports, Stillman Hub and Tilman Point, was discouraged by Sirius Corporation. These stations were
Feb
Time for the latest (October 1999) celebrity news straight out of Germany!
Mar
Li Huang of Improbable Cadence has a musical treat for us today. He's put together a digital fan reorchestration of the original Wing Commander theme by Dave Govett/Team Fat. It uses the Roland MT-32 MIDI as a source of inspiration. The track's a faithful reproduction that really amps up the tone throughout! Listen below or grab the high quality mp3 here (5 megs).
I recently finished a rendition of the WC1 theme.
Jan
A familiar favorite is still out on patrol. Klavs is plugging away at his Hornet when he has time, and it looks better than ever. This relatively recent iteration moves away from his previous unibody design in favor of a space frame that's a bit more skewed towards the original model. Since we last saw it, this version has more realistically textured hull plating and great little accents like warning labels and the Confed logo. It's a real joy to look at!
Slowly picking away at the details on this thing!
