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Howard Day is branching into new territory with the introduction of a pirate fighter for his Wing Leader project. He's settled on the Talon, which makes a lot of sense. There's some wonderful variation in paint schemes and weapon loadouts to mimic some of the chaotic design seen by pirates elsewhere in Wing Commander. As much as I like the blues and greens, the purples and oranges really pop here! You can help provide feedback and see some earlier work-in-progress photos at the CIC Forums.

This weekend I spent some time making a set of Pirate fighters - based on the F-38 Talon, these are supposed to be Wingleader-styled versions.

The custom loadouts for these are:
Type A: Photon Blaster, Meson Cannon (scavenged Kilrathi weapons)
Type B: Laser, Meson Cannon
Type C: 2x Laser
Type D: Mass Driver
Type E: Meson Cannon, Neutron Cannon
Type F (Boss/Ace): 2x Laser, Mass Driver

I'd love any feedback on these.

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It's been a good month for fans of Wing Leader! Howard Day has another new ship and a handful of new prototype features to share. First up is the Strakha stealth fighter. It's inspired by Arne's Android Arts sketch of the ship with some additional WC3 elements brought in. Howie's also recorded several videos that show off new features such a cloaking effect to complement the new Strakha. There's also a preliminary communications systems that allow the pilots to talk with each other. On the graphical side, separate visual effects for project impacts against the hull rather than shields have been added, among other similar tweaks that make the gunplay pop.

So now that the Strakha is done, I needed to work on the Cloaking effect. Solution? Cloaking Devices for everyone! Wheee! Eventually, the drive flares will be hidden as well. I also re-figured out how to capture Wingleader properly in 60fps, so I

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Howard Day has an exciting new Wing Leader update! His latest addition is the Strakha fighter. It's a pretty ship with an exotic cockpit to befit its unusual role. Watch the video to see the wonderful cloaking effect. It goes black and white similar to prior games, but there is a lot more visual flair to it!

In Wingleader updates, I got the first pass on the Strakha cloaking cockpit interior effect working - taking some inspo from the One Ring. :p Also, I did make and implement the gradual LED fill on the gun/fuel lights. Custom SFX for the cloak, too- Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/DVjHBuWTss

— Howie Day (@howieeday) August 9, 2024

  

In Wingleader updates, I got the first pass on the Strakha cloaking cockpit interior effect working - taking some inspo from the One Ring. :p Also, I did make and implement the gradual LED fill on the gun/fuel lights. Custom SFX for the cloak, too- Enjoy!

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Howard Day has added a new feature to Wing Leader: HUD brackets! These now function as a target lock for your designated enemy. The Hornet looks as you'd expect, and Howard's also jazzed up the Dralthi display a bit to give it a unique feel. The new feature looks great, but this is also a wonderful opportunity to check out the latest build of this superb looking fan game!

Some #WingLeader time last night got the code for the HUD brackets almost completely working, with some scaling to resolve. I've also re-rendered the sprites for the Hornet and Dralthi, as well - using the latest materials. Some new explosions, as well. Cleared out some of the debug art, got some clipping enacted on *when* the brackets can appear, and made the locked version steady, not flashing. I'm pretty darn happy with this.

How about some #ScreenshotSaturday #WingLeader Dralthi cockpit footage? There's new Kilrathi HUD

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Here's a couple of impressive videos that show off Howard Day's latest graphical wonders in Wing Leader. The first clip is a neat trick where the dashboard text translates from Kilrathi into English as you swap into the cockpit view. There are also some additional sparks and fire effects that accompany damage and destroyed objects. Pretty stuff!

Wing Leader update! Thanks to some goofy-ass string coding and the use of the "Circle Number" Unicode character set (⓪ ① ② ③), I've got auto-translate working in Kilrathi cockpits! Every time the camera angle switches, the text changes to English. It's pretty nifty.
Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/wueZ8H49vT

— Howie Day (@howieeday) September 20, 2024

Wing Leader update! Thanks to some goofy-ass string coding and the use of the "Circle Number" Unicode character set (⓪ ① ② ③), I've got auto-translate working in Kilrathi cockpits! Every time the camera angle

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Here's something new and different in Howard Day's Wing Leader project. We've seen a lot of the pilots and their helmets lately, and Howard took this one step further to merge these characters with the exciting cockpit scenes shown off a while back. Check out Angel in the green VDU! To flip the camera around, the fighter seats have also been bulked up and fit a bit better with their flight suits. There's also a neat test of a pilot in the briefing room. You can see they're all the same person, but a lot of work goes into getting the scaling and light tones right. It's cool to see these difference pieces come together!

Bulked up the seats, fixed the padding stitching and wrinkles to blend/look better, added more helmet art, rank insignia on the respirators, and seatbelts!

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We've gotten some good

looks

at the static Dralthi cockpit in

Wing Leader

, but now

Howard Day

has given us our first look at the fighter in action. The alien VDUs and display readouts look especially fantastic. Battle damage and other finishing touches are also already incorporated. This is another 60fps video, so you can see again how smooth it looks below!

Dralthi updates! Enjoy!

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Yore Computer dug up an old August 1990 ACE Magazine preview of Wing Commander (then Wing Leader!). We tend to refer to '93-'94 era mag scans as quite vintage, but this is particularly ancient in WC terms. As this is such an early preview, it also's also an uncommon appearance of some of the game's early concept art. There's a very nice Hornet, Scimitar and Jalthi on the second page. Otherwise, it's always fun to read these time capsules that talk about groundbreaking 3D graphics and stellar cinematics. Newer players today might see the original WC games as nothing but retro, but they were truly impressive at the time!

LOAF has some additional sharing on this topic:

It's always a treasure to see Wing Commander I concept art that didn't wind up in Claw Marks! Unfortunately it's very rare. A couple more from the game's original press kit:

A couple more that surfaced in a CGW supplement promoting The

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There's another exciting batch of Wing Leader updates this week! Howard Day shares the details in a trio of updates below. The cockpits themselves look more lived-in and vibrant with a variety of tweaks concerning inertia, reflections and even a cool bubbly fluid ball effect on the Kilrathi designs. There's also a neat new way that the engine handles first to third person engine transitions as well as a revamped logo for Howie's alternative to Origin Systems. Watch the action live in the game's engine here.

New custom reticle for the Valtar, tuned the cockpit reflections, added some inertia to the pilot sprites, started adding a ton of sound effects, and did what I think is a pretty slick exterior camera transition. Lemme know what you think!

Last night Wing Leader update from me - new custom reticle for the Valtar, tuned the cockpit reflections, added some inertia to the pilot sprites, started

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Today we've got even more new material from Howard Day's Wing Leader project to share. In a pair of new videos, you can see several new special effects. The Firekkan fighter on display has some fancy reflection in place that shows off the cockpit glass. And it's refined a bit further in the second clip with additional haze. The look of the guns in action has also been amped up! You can watch the AI engage in space combat within the game's engine in real time here.

Here's a update to the Wingleader cockpit glass reflections - going far more graphic/streaky and subtle. Lemme know what you think!

Okay, here's a update to the Wingleader cockpit glass reflections - going far more graphic/streaky and subtle. Lemme know what you think! pic.twitter.com/qM4Q6bTibH

— Howie Day (@howieeday) July 20, 2024

  

I've started to add some gun SFX to Wingleader, and did add a little bit of glass haze to the cockpit

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Howard Day

took some time out of his busy post-

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw

launch schedule to release an update to the online

rolling demo

for Wing Leader! Much like the actual

WC1 demo

, this isn't a playable artifact, but it shows live assets interacting in the game engine. Even moreso than any trailer, this gives fans a first hand up-close look at what the game will actually be like live. The battle is pretty intense - all those Dralthis start to make me nervous, but fortunately they have both Firekkans and Confed opponents to contend with! Load up the rolling demo

here

.

The live demo's been updated! Includes the intro, menu (static for now) and initial fighting in a Dralthi! as soon as you die, tho, it switches back to Hornet.

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It's only been a few days since our last update, but

Howard Day

already has a pile of exciting things to share in his

WC1-inspired engine

. For starters, he's dubbed the project

Wing Leader

after one of the initial concept names for the WC series. There's also a few new animations, and they show off the beautiful debris field that emerges from a destroyed ship. Finally, here's your first peek at the cute little Salthi! He's given it a single engine to better suit the Kilrathi light fighter's small

nimble

stature.

First look at the Wing Leader Salthi. Different from her canon version: she's only got one engine and has two photon cannons rather than lasers. I'm trying to make the various Kilrathi ships feel different, rather than the Salthi, Dralthi, Krant all feeling like fighting the same ship. I'm also looking at ways to only make them turn left.

New art for the photon cannon coming soon. Expecting

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There's been lots of gorgeous character and shipboard art for Wing Leader shown off over these past few months, but people are also interested in the project for its space combat. Howard Day has made some tweaks to the spaceflight engine and created some great examples of the latest build's gameplay. You can see everything from both the Kilrathi and Confed fighter perspectives below. The dogfighting is intense, fluid and explosive. Check it out below!

Doing some code refactoring about how the AIs control the ships. They're no longer able to turn faster than the player - and a bunch of hacks have been actually re-coded to work in a more straightforward, honest way. I've also been working on Reticles. As you can tell, these now shift around a bit as you maneuver. Makes the whole thing feel 1000% more dynamic.

Bonus video! This one's got the front/left/right/rear directional cockpit view enabled.

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A frequent question we get is to ask what's up with Wing Leader, Howard Day's impressive tech demo in the Unity engine. It's been in suspended animation for a bit, but Howard recently posted some shots of what it looks like with Mattias_G's CRT shader in place. It gets quite a retro vibe! He's also been playing around with some character models. His Hunter and Angel are below. I especially like the recreation of the flight suits. Howard was careful to point out that this wasn't a restart of the project, but it's always good to see him tooling around with Wing Commander stuff!

Here are some more direct side by side shots of the shader enabled.

My very early take on some talking heads for Wing Leader. Rendered in 3dsmax 2022, using Fessler's index painting technique!

This time with "Angel" Devereaux! The face model is by Damon Czanik. Straight renders outta 3dsmax.

#Wingleader Video with the CRT

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In his latest round of updates,

Howard Day

has a whole lot of new polish to show off. His

Wing Leader

LCD/VDU filter has been tweaked to look even better, and the background objects have gotten a dazzling overhaul. While the videos and animations for the project already look amazing, Howard notes that he's building the engine for 60 FPS and most everything so far is only showing off the game in 30 FPS max. Prepare to be amazed when you see the real thing!

Wednesday Wing Leader progress! I'm really close to pushing out an update to the Rolling demo. I just want to polish it a litttle bit more. The background art was *too* colorful, so I made it more natural, and subtle. No more purple stars and bright neon purple galaxies!Just thought I'd post some fun videos. Enjoy!

BONUS: Here's an awesome peek at Wing Leader running at 60 FPS!

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Howard Day

has developed another really cool effect for the

Wing Leader

project. The big video below shows off some fancy LCD distortion for use when your VDU takes a hit. Howard says he's working on further improvements to make it look even better in the future. There are also some enhanced backgrounds that now dot the spacescape, and the game's nifty chase cam helps show them off here as well!

Wednesday Wing Leader progress! Wrote a LCD distortion shader for the cockpit last night! Looks pretty gruesome. Also added some background artwork to the scene and more star types-really helps to make the game more colorful.

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Howard Day has finished fully implementing a new ship into Wing Leader. Formerly available as an adversary, the game's first person rolling demo now has the ability to load a Salthi and play from the Kilrathi fighter's point of view. This even includes extensive cockpit damage! Catch a new video of it in action below.

Got the Wing Leader Salthi Cockpit all hooked up! Looking pretty awesome, very happy with the results. It's very much a glass cannon speedster. It came together quick, future Kilrathi cockpits should be as fast or faster. Enjoy!

Got the Wing Leader Salthi Cockpit all hooked up! Looking pretty awesome, very happy with the results. It's very much a glass cannon speedster. It came together quick, future Kilrathi cockpits should be as fast or faster.
Enjoy! pic.twitter.com/YuBupLeDA5

— Howie Day (@howieeday) July 14, 2024

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Destro has come a long way with Wing Loader, but what comes next? Although the program is most famously known for adding speech to WC1, it also fixes bugs and adds features to a number of WC games. Now Destro is taking a break on those types of updates and planning a path forward for more original content. He's made a video to highlight what's been done so far and hint at what's next. Check it out below, or grab the newest version here.

Hey everyone! It's been a minute! I figured I'd give a brief update on what's new and what I've been up too.

Now that Wing Loader is out there and WC3 HD videos are patched into the game, I want to take a step back from Wing Loader for a bit as I realize I've been working on this one app for about 4 years now! Don't worry, I'll still support it, add features and be active in the community but I want to get back to what Wing Loader actually was built to be... a

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Today we've got an exciting update to Wing Loader to share! Destro is back with a major overhaul to the project. As you may recall, Wing Loader is a mod to The Kilrathi Saga to fully add original (Sega CD) speech to the PC version of WC1. As the years have gone by, the scope has expanded to add things like the new Secret Missions from SWC and the bonus SM1 intro from the SNES. A huge upcoming development will be the addition of enhanced WC3 video to a future release. In order to facilitate that update, Destro has significantly streamlined and improved the functional code of the existing material. You can download the latest update here (350 meg zip) and follow the latest at the CIC Forums. You can also find detailed installation instructions here.

Version 0.90 - (Engine Re-Write) Released!

Wing Loader aims to create the most definitive version of Wing Commander possible by supporting the most

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Destro has returned with a spectacular announcement for the future of Wing Loader, which is a program he built to add audio speech to the Kilrathi Saga's WC1. The next evolution seeks to add high resolution video to KS WC3. The videos already exist. ODVS massively upscaled and enhanced the footage from WC3, WC4 and Prophecy a few years back, but at the time, it was only possibly to integrate these cutscenes into the latter two game. Destro's patch will finally close the loop and make it possible to enjoy the improved video in the game. There are many challenges to overcome still, but his success with WC1 shows that he has what it takes to make this happen! You can download the latest working version of Wing Loader here.

Hey everyone! I hope you are all having a great summer so far! This is my busy time of year but I'm keeping my head up and messing around with the next big feature of Wing