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If I had a vote I'd say you should at least use the macintosh/windows95 versions of 2d art as placeholders till you find some sort of other solution. Certainly so you know what to code your briefings around. Honestly though. I don't think you should bother remaking everything in 3d. Find a good 2d artist to remake the elements. Depending on how it's done, I'm sure you would find the results satisfactory and not quite as difficult.
Post edited May 29, 2017 by herecomethe2000
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rkinkjr: Hey XWVM team, one of my favorite missions in this game is from tour 1 and I believe mission 3. Correct me if I'm wrong there. I love the evacuation of the rebel fleet and the Star Destroyer popping up behind the rebel fleet. Definitely will be nice with the planet in the background. I can just see those ships in my mind with updated movie quality graphics. I know it will be awhile before we see that mission, and I know you guys are working hard and are really doing a great job.
I loved that mission too! The line of rebel ships fleeing from Briggia(?), and then the Star Destroyer appears over the end of the line and starts munching thru the slowpokes. :)
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herecomethe2000: If I had a vote I'd say you should at least use the macintosh/windows95 versions of 2d art as placeholders till you find some sort of other solution. Certainly so you know what to code your briefings around. Honestly though. I don't think you should bother remaking everything in 3d. Find a good 2d artist to remake the elements. Depending on how it's done, I'm sure you would find the results satisfactory and not quite as difficult.
2D doesn't always scale well to arbitrary resolutions or especially aspect ratios. Also, there's some interest in making things VR-compatible; having 2D briefings would be counterproductive to that goal.
An option for an alternate GUI would be nice. I seem to recall a screenshot posted of an alternate mission selector. That works.

For missions, a XWA-style generic HUD would work. Sure, a cockpit would be preferred, but at least allowing other missions to be playable and tested prior to receiving art would be nice. (Yes, I know, there's likely more than cockpit art needed for the other missions to behave as intended.)

For playing, I'd prefer no cockpit to an unfinished placeholder (assuming that getting a completed cockpit would be a blocking dependency for releasing a new ship to fly with). I would, of course, switch back to the cockpit as soon as it's finished for each ship.
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agentrob: An option for an alternate GUI would be nice. I seem to recall a screenshot posted of an alternate mission selector. That works.

For missions, a XWA-style generic HUD would work. Sure, a cockpit would be preferred, but at least allowing other missions to be playable and tested prior to receiving art would be nice. (Yes, I know, there's likely more than cockpit art needed for the other missions to behave as intended.)

For playing, I'd prefer no cockpit to an unfinished placeholder (assuming that getting a completed cockpit would be a blocking dependency for releasing a new ship to fly with). I would, of course, switch back to the cockpit as soon as it's finished for each ship.
We kind of have this already. The Y-wing has its new cockpit, pending polish, but the other 3 rebel ships have got temporary cockpits (taken from XWAUP) that serve as placeholders until we create our own. All rebel ships are currently flyable, and other than the 4 Death Star missions in the game and the training maze, soon most missions will be also playable (even if broken because of missing AI behaviors or need of rebalance).
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herecomethe2000: If I had a vote I'd say you should at least use the macintosh/windows95 versions of 2d art as placeholders till you find some sort of other solution. Certainly so you know what to code your briefings around. Honestly though. I don't think you should bother remaking everything in 3d. Find a good 2d artist to remake the elements. Depending on how it's done, I'm sure you would find the results satisfactory and not quite as difficult.
JKing is right. Since we want to allow VR headsets at a later point, there is not much sense on using 2D backgrounds. Also, we cannot just copy/paste the art from a particular edition of the game and include it with us. We aren't allowed to copy copyrighted files. (Also, even when this is totally personal opition, I find the concourse art in the Windows98 version truly offputting).
Aspect ratio is one factor to consider, but also resolution and color. They were 640x480 pictures with 256 colors. Today they would look really weird sitting next to HD models of starfighters and planets.

A kind collaborator, Chris Weasley, has provided us with 3D art for the briefing room, that I have attached to this post. It's a first draft, but I think it is very promising.
Attachments:
brief1.jpg (41 Kb)
brief2.jpg (44 Kb)
brief3.jpg (18 Kb)
Post edited May 30, 2017 by Azrapse
Those mission briefing room shots look good. Reminds me of an aircraft carrier. I also saw the new y wing cockpit shot on the other site, That looks really good too.



Those briefing room shots look real good. Reminds me almost like an aircraft carrier. I also saw the new design fir the y wing cockpit on the other site. That looks really nice too. If that's what you are going to use.
Post edited May 31, 2017 by rkinkjr
Well there are plenty of 2d menus that work just fine with VR, WarThunder's menu, while not spectacular is certainly serviceable. I don't think you are going to get away with everything being 3d. Your menus certainly aren't going to be 3d.

All that said, that briefing room is fantastic. A LOT of potential there. I agree, far better then a simple 2d briefing overlayed on your VR goggles. Just spit balling and approaching from a VR perspective, but 3d cutscenes might be too much work. What about that briefing room and some redrawn 2d cutscenes on the view screen? Similar to the mock home theater. That would solve all the issues JK mentioned while still being VR compatible, and definitely more feasible in scope for your small team.

As you say, the requirement to support all versions of XWing would mean they would need to be redrawn from scratch, but you would be amazed the level of detail a good 2d artist can achieve.
Post edited May 31, 2017 by herecomethe2000
Thinking out loud about cutscenes...

I can think of some different approaches (most of which have been mentioned at some point in this thread...):
- Decoding the original cutscene files and re-rendering in real-time.
Arguably the most faithful approach. Would also potentially allow for 3D by rendering with different z depths for layers, and offsetting positions for left and right eyes. Has some obvious downsides, being of low resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio.
(I am assuming that the original cutscenes are comprised of multiple animation layers, rather than per-pixel animation).
- Recording the original cutscene files as video files and playing.
The easiest technical solution, but I would think it was a no-go due to copyright implications. (distributing the cutscenes as part of the XWVM download)
- Recreating the cutscenes with new 2D elements (either entirely, or using the flight engine for space scenes and superimposing new elements as needed)
Probably the best all round approach - elements can be remastered to take account of different aspect ratios (maybe a 2.21:1 ratio like the films would be cool?) and in lovely high definition. It would also provide a visual separation between cutscenes and the rest of the gameplay (an advantage, in my book).
The downsides are the effort to create, and the choice of artistic interpretation could be divisive (although any of the options here are likely to be that for some people).
The flight engine could potentially be used to render the space elements, but I personally wouldn't advocate this as the clash of styles can be quite jarring (for a lesson on how not to do this, see the Playstation version of Rebel Assault II).
As with the original cutscenes, there could be an option here to make these 3D by playing layers accordingly.
- Live action
Requires lots of resources and sufficiently talented people to execute. In my view, the margin for error in something like this is a lot higher, as the acting requirements are more demanding for onscreen work and people have generally high standards for live action. There are also technical challenges involved, including green screen, plus creature work (thinking of Ackbar in the opening cutscene). Again, many 90s games are a testament to how not to do this.
- Recreate entirely in-engine
Although some aspect of the space elements would be easy to recreate in engine, there are some inconsistencies in the original cutscenes (e.g. the speed of fighters) which would require some work if re-rendering in the normal engine.
The character work could be challenging, especially the animation to lip sync and have expressiveness, and to have models of sufficient detail. Also: uncanny valley for human characters.
Post edited May 31, 2017 by scotsdezmond
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scotsdezmond: Thinking out loud about cutscenes...

I can think of some different approaches (most of which have been mentioned at some point in this thread...):
- Decoding the original cutscene files and re-rendering in real-time.
Arguably the most faithful approach. Would also potentially allow for 3D by rendering with different z depths for layers, and offsetting positions for left and right eyes. Has some obvious downsides, being of low resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio.
(I am assuming that the original cutscenes are comprised of multiple animation layers, rather than per-pixel animation).
- Recording the original cutscene files as video files and playing.
The easiest technical solution, but I would think it was a no-go due to copyright implications. (distributing the cutscenes as part of the XWVM download)
- Recreating the cutscenes with new 2D elements (either entirely, or using the flight engine for space scenes and superimposing new elements as needed)
Probably the best all round approach - elements can be remastered to take account of different aspect ratios (maybe a 2.21:1 ratio like the films would be cool?) and in lovely high definition. It would also provide a visual separation between cutscenes and the rest of the gameplay (an advantage, in my book).
The downsides are the effort to create, and the choice of artistic interpretation could be divisive (although any of the options here are likely to be that for some people).
The flight engine could potentially be used to render the space elements, but I personally wouldn't advocate this as the clash of styles can be quite jarring (for a lesson on how not to do this, see the Playstation version of Rebel Assault II).
As with the original cutscenes, there could be an option here to make these 3D by playing layers accordingly.
- Live action
Requires lots of resources and sufficiently talented people to execute. In my view, the margin for error in something like this is a lot higher, as the acting requirements are more demanding for onscreen work and people have generally high standards for live action. There are also technical challenges involved, including green screen, plus creature work (thinking of Ackbar in the opening cutscene). Again, many 90s games are a testament to how not to do this.
- Recreate entirely in-engine
Although some aspect of the space elements would be easy to recreate in engine, there are some inconsistencies in the original cutscenes (e.g. the speed of fighters) which would require some work if re-rendering in the normal engine.
The character work could be challenging, especially the animation to lip sync and have expressiveness, and to have models of sufficient detail. Also: uncanny valley for human characters.
Our collaborator Andrea has managed to decode and replay the original cutscenes. They are in 16:10. It's not really widescreen, but close enough. (Original cutscenes were always 16:10 since they run at 320x200 resolution, but those 90's monitors squished them to 4:3 making pixels not square).
There are still some minor issues with them but I am extremely happy we managed to keep the original cutscenes.
We can replay them in a canvas in the game, so we can have something like a projector screen or whatever.
In any case, this feels to me like a sensible first step to take concerning cutscenes. The bare minimum and the sufficient condition.
If we want more, we can come back at a later point, without the pressure of not having anything to fall back to, and have them raycasted, rendered in the game, live action madness (didn't we learn from the 90's that FMV sequences were almost universally cr*p? :D ), or whatever people would like to pour their time onto doing.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

This GOG forum is going to be the first to try out what have have been making for the past 2.5 years. It's natural, since it was the place where this mod was born first and grew to what has become today.

I will be soon updating the first post in page 1 with a link to apply to alpha test the mod. We need testers to extend our hardware support and to help find the most critical bugs.
We need people able to install the mod, find their X-wing installation, and have the patience to test the game as it is, reporting all issues, bugs, and problems found.
We appreciate if you have extra knowledge of the game, or extra non-standard hardware like TrackIR headset, advanced joysticks or gamepads, older computer or graphic card, and other edge cases.

For now, we are focusing only on Windows.
Post edited May 31, 2017 by Azrapse
Hey there, sorry for posting twice during my last post. For some reason it wasn't going to the next page and it was acting like it wasn't taking it. As for last announcement/post. I am super excited to see this, you guys have been working really hard at this to make it happen and I've been waiting for an updated x wing classic version since the release of x wing alliance upgrade, which I think they did an awesome job as well. I play about 3 mmo's right now including Swtor, but X wing gaming series have been my favorite games to play since release and I'm glad to see that they are still in our memories and getting redone. Can't wait to see the demo release. Thanks again XWVM team.
Post edited May 31, 2017 by rkinkjr
Great news! Track IR and an X-65F should qualify, shouldn't it? :D
My joystick is not exotic, but I'm happy to help!
Well, I can test compatibility with CH products gear and 4:3 resolutions and old radeon HD 7770 cards.

I have little spare time lately because of my job, I usually even refuse to play early access games unless they have an acceptable level of polish because of that, but since I played these games for years and I want this project to succeed I'm glad to help.
Don't forget to sign up via the application form Azrapse linked on the first post.
Looking forward to working with you, people. :)
Looking forward to the checking out the alpha! Definitely submitted my application.

Regarding cut-scenes, I'm glad at least to start with you can use the original files. A thought I have for improving them would be to use the 3d engine to render the space scenes in real time, and simply show the ship where dialogue is taking place instead of trying to either make 2d or 3d artwork or live action. Initially it can be done just with subtitles, with the possibility of adding voice-overs as well later.

To make it more interesting, maybe close up zooms on the bridge of the ship where appropriate while there's dialogue.


Oh, and regarding the briefing room - I love the WIP preview! Definitely has the claustrophobic aircraft carrier vibe I was hoping for. Keep it up.
Post edited June 02, 2017 by countbuggula