Wing Commander

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Defiance Industries' tabletop Clydesdale was a big hit last week, and he's quickly followed it up with a miniature Dorkathi. The fun doesn't stop there though! He's also finalizing the Gilgamesh destroyer and Confederation dreadnought models for his digital TacOps remake. And Kilrathi counterparts are in hot pursuit! I just love how realistic this looks - right down to the crisp shadows and reflections.

The Empire of Kilrah, your one stop shop for those really aggressive looking transports. William Tell and associated Gilgameshians are ready to go. Working on the Ralatha.

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Mac is flexing some of his new expertise with Rapier in this fun new wallpaper. It arranges Klavs' original Rapier, Rapier G and Excalibur in a fearsome trio. There's some moody clouds in the background with complementary lighting. As an extra bonus, there's also some fun behind-the-scenes shots that show off how Mac got the Rapier flying in the WC Saga/Freespace engine. You can also find his full video on the Rapier here.

I've been spending this Canadian Thanksgiving messing with Blender and Photoshop doing #wingcommander stuff before the feasting commences later.

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Here's an excerpt from the end of Privateer 2 where we see the player (and others) escape Kronos' doomed flagship. Unfortunately only the published 320x200 version survives so it can be hard to see some of the neat details. Let's try and identify the ships!

Since the player can choose from 18 different ships there was no way to know which they'd actually fly the last mission in. To hedge bets, the escaping fleet includes four of the most likely options. First out is a Drakkar!

Then we've got a Danrik in an all-grey livery. (And that's a good choice because you were probably flying a Danrik here!)

Then there's a Shaman...

And out in front but not identifiable until you get to the second shot is the game's signature Heretic!

Cinematics not knowing what ship to use wasn't a problem exclusive to Privateer 2, either. Wing Commander Prophecy gives the final hero flyby shot to the Devastator instead of the

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Rehsin

, the WC1 modder who added

Hobbes as your wingman

, is back with a special treat! He's created a mini Christmas campaign in the Vega Sector. Simply unzip the

package

into WC1's gamedat folder to decorate the sets and enjoy a revamped Enyo series. There's a tree in Shotglass' bar, a sack of presents in the barracks and Christmas lights in your Hornet cockpit. Almost as good as

coal

(a "classy, mythical substance" in the Tri-System) in your stocking!

The package includes new graphics and four new missions for Enyo System. Missions are optional for install.

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When the

Kilrathi Saga

bundle was released, it was met with a mixed reception. While it provided an accessible method for playing the classic trilogy on faster Windows 95 computers, it also contained a few technical glitches and oddities. One notable change is that the

Wing Commander III

port had its MIDI soundtrack swapped out for WAV audio recordings of the same, and not particularly high quality ones at that. Today, playing the originals through DOSBox provides a much better overall gameplay experience on modern hardware. But just as the Kilrathi Saga remains a must-buy item for collectors, we do want to preserve the KS WC3 music for posterity. Forums member

Darkmage

kindly exported the raw WAV music from the game's data files, and

Whistler

converted them to MP3 format for your convenience. You can listen to a sample track below and download the entire package

here

(9.1MB). It's a far cry from the MIDI

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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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We spend a lot of time in the world of science fiction here at the CIC, but when history is made in the real life realm of science and technology, we like to take a moment and recognize how incredible it is that the imaginary events of yesterday are actually happening today. As you've hopefully heard, the Perseverance rover successfully touched down today on the surface of Mars. Like its sibling in 2012, the maneuver was accomplished as the rover was gently lowered by a levitating aerial crane. The fact that this time the "rover" was a one ton beast the size of a car makes it all the more amazing. On top of the ability to search for signs of life on the surface, this probe packs a flying helicopter for the first time. This will provide unprecedented views and mobility for a craft on another planet. I can't wait to see what we learn in the weeks, months and years ahead! Congratulations to all of

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DefianceIndustries has yet another hot new capships based on a design from Wing Commander Academy. This one is the Achilles, which is an interesting design that seems to serve several roles in the Confed navy. He's addressed the larger variants by making a nifty modular hull that potentially detaches from the main body. I'm surprised we don't see this concept more often, since it seems so useful. Speaking of Achilles, that underside is sure light on turrets...

Another WCA ship for your amusement. The Achilles destroyer/transport/fighter carrier (CVE maybe?). It looks like a Durango and a Wake had a naughty, naughty evening; the kind where they both had a bit too much Vak'qu and in the morning the Wake quietly slipped out the back without leaving so much as a piece of dry toast for the poor Durango - and this happened a few months later. Since the carrier is kind of a different bird (but the artists

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Wing Commander has once again appeared live in concert! This time the WC1 music was performed by the Malmö Symphony Orchestra at the February 9

Joystick 11.0

convention (

translated

). Did anyone happen to make it there in person? We haven't found a first hand account yet, but it could have sounded like the video below from the graduation ceremonies of the

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

in Stockholm. Crazy enough, these two instances weren't the only

Swedish orchestra

to play Wing Commander in the last few years. Sweden's apparently the place to be if you want to hear live classical WC tunes!

Welcome to the eleventh edition of Joystick, Malmö Symphony Orchestra's annual music music concert!

Experience a magical evening filled with powerful, imaginative music from the world of computer and video games. Today, the genre is well-established and is found in many orchestras repertoires worldwide.

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The Vega Sector fleet continues to grow.

DefianceIndustries

has turned his attention to the Tiger's Claw, and he's taking an interesting perspective on it. The goal is to merge some of the differences between the in-game sprite and the line art from Claw Marks. There are lots of different versions of the Tiger's Claw that show up here and there, and each has its own interesting aspects, so this is pretty cool to see!

The WC1 parade continues. Line-art accurate Bengal for all. You'll notice several differences between the line art and the final Sprite model. The three biggest ones I found are the tapering at the bow is more pronounced, There are only 5 engines instead of 6, and overall the vessel isn't very tall, it's more squat than the final version. But, I kinda dig the '80s ball style turrets and the more detailed stern. I'll texture it when time permits.

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Interesting error in Wing Commander Academy that I never picked up on before: the Kilrathi soldiers in the last episode all have Confed marine laser rifles!

Here’s the correct Kilrathi rifle design used in the rest of the series:

If you'd like to learn more about Kilrathi rifles, check out this

news post

!

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ODVS has another exciting experimental clip to share. Wing Commander 3 hasn't been a huge focus lately as he has primarily worked to refine his enhanced WC4 & Prophecy video. There isn't yet a method to reinsert the WC3 cutscenes into the game, but that hasn't stopped Owen from testing out his latest techniques to drastically improve the quality.

It's funny what decades of nostalgia will do to memories. If someone were to jump to the middle of the clip and happen to start at a sharpened scene, it's easy to think that's just what the game used to look like. Then the much lower fidelity original portion scrolls in and it's a shock how blurry everything was. Modern AI/Machine Learning techniques have finally been able to insert the missing detail our brains accounted for all these years!

I took some of the methods I worked out during the creation of my Wing Commander IV HD Pack and applied them here

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Klavs is back with a little teaser that might look familiar. We always say you can’t have too many Rapiers, and Klavs has taken that advice to heart. He's surely spent more time refining its sleek spaceframe than anyone on the planet, so we'll soon be treated to another F-44 masterpiece. Enjoy the preview below!

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Alright it's 1 AM and there's no action on Twitter so you're pretty much stuck with this post about the news mechanic that was from Wing Commander III. That's right, I've got... BARBARA MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP!

If you've played Wing Commander III you may remember Barbara Miles from the intro, where Mark Hamill's Colonel Blair watches a news story about doomsday evacuations on an enormous iPad. Now that's what I call a bezel!

The script for this is neat and doesn't mention 2001: BLAIR IS SEATED AND LOOKING AT A SMALL “NEWS-SCREEN” (SIMILAR TO A SUBNOTEBOOK OR PDA) ON HIS LAP OR IMBEDDED IN THE SEAT IN FRONT OF HIM. (THIS IS THE EQUIVALENT OF HAVING BEEN GIVEN A NEWSPAPER BY A FLIGHT ATTENDANT.)

This brief bit is a fun example of how folks writing novelization add themselves to a script. The scene plays the news story straight but Andrew Keith adds an inner monologue where Blair thinks the idea is

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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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Science fiction is known for showcasing futuristic means of communication, but LOAF was recently going through footage from Wing Commander 4 and wondered, "What's going on here?" There's all kinds of screens shown off from interactive surfaces to floating holograms to old school '90s CRTs. They all sort of fit in context, but there's certainly some odd variety!

The screens of Wing Commander IV: Star Trek viewscreen, Star Wars hologram projection, Malcolm McDowell coffee table and 32" Panasonic CRT.

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Wojo dropped off a picture of a couple new Lego Wing Commander creations, and these are pretty sweet. There's a chronically under appreciated Scimitar on the left and a very structurally accurate Drakhri on the right! Everyone loves the Dralthi, but we've seen a million of those, so it's wonderful to see the Drakhri properly represented here. I don't even think everyone will realize its silver and yellow color scheme is totally on point. In fact, they're both pretty color accurate. Not bad at all!

Imma just leave this here then...

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Comic Book Ads

has spotted a neat advert for Wing Commander 4. It's a derivative of a

print

we saw a number of years ago that spelled out various magazine accolades. This variant highlights just one from Next Generation Magazine,

"One of the most eagerly awaited games of 1996."

That was certainly true! (although it was originally due out in December 1995) It's interesting to see the other minor differences: Tolwyn's profile is cropped further away, the fonts are overhauled and it's listed as "Available now on PC CD-ROM!" It seems like the version with the three quotes came later, since they're all citing actual reviews, and there's a small red logo denoting the Macintosh version, which was released four months later in June 1996.

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Here's a neat Privateer 2 preview that

Pix

recently found. It's from the September 1995 edition of PC Home. This was just before the game officially became a Privateer title, but the article draws the connection that The Darkening's existence owes itself to Wing Commander 3 & 4's live video success. There's also an interesting Q&A with Clive Owen - plus some cool set pictures. Check out Owen & Jürgen Prochnow leaning against a tongue!

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Veteran composer George Oldziey of Wing Commander fame recently shared that he was tapped to lead orchestration of the new Netflix movie We Can Be Heroes. He once again teamed up with noted director Robert Rodriguez for this one. The two have worked together on numerous films from Spy Kids 3-D to Grindhouse. The new movie looks like it'll be a popular action film for families, so it's definitely on my watch list. Bits and pieces of George's Wing Commander vibe tend to shine through, so that's always fun to listen for as well. Check out the trailer below!

Greetings all! I just wanted to let you know that a new family film by Robert Rodriguez, We Can Be Heroes, will be premiering on Netflix this Christmas Day. I had the joy of being the lead orchestrator on the project as well as scoring several cues. The bulk of the score features the music of Robert's son Rebel whom I had the privilege of