Original X-Wing engine rebuilt project

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Re: Original X-Wing engine rebuilt project

azrapse
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Post by azrapse » Fri Nov 11, 2016 10:18 am

K-j wrote:If the Rebel Alliance were equipped with Jango's smart missiles, they probably could've just flown themselves through the trench and straight down that exhaust port! ;)
I guess, after all, the Death Star was well designed against all kind of threats, and the exhaust port had some kind of sensor jammer that rendered homing projectiles ineffective. That is why all torpedoes fired at it with a target lock from the computer missed, and Luke's dumbfire torpedoes hit the spot. Perhaps even Jango's missile would have missed! :/

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Post by K-j » Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:40 pm

I've not heard of exhaust port radar jamming before. The Empire didn't consider a one man fighter a threat to the Death Star, or they've had a tighter defence; Wedge thought the target being ray-shielded so having to use proton torpedoes, and only two meters wide, it would be impossible to hit, even for a computer.

My money would be on Jango (Revenge Of The Fett). ;)

(Sorry, back on topic...).

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Post by azrapse » Thu Nov 24, 2016 10:41 am

Some screenshots of our latest developments:
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Post by Marcos_Edson » Sat Nov 26, 2016 3:16 am

Looks awesome! One question, when destroying a fighter or other small craft, does it look like the old X-Wing? I mean, when fighters and craft like the shuttle broke apart and blew up, it seemed to have a way more "film-like" impression, so to speak, than XWA. I really loved how a TIE could lose one of its wings, start spinning out of control with electric sparks all around before exploding... :)
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Post by azrapse » Sat Nov 26, 2016 8:36 pm

Marcos_Edson wrote:Looks awesome! One question, when destroying a fighter or other small craft, does it look like the old X-Wing? I mean, when fighters and craft like the shuttle broke apart and blew up, it seemed to have a way more "film-like" impression, so to speak, than XWA. I really loved how a TIE could lose one of its wings, start spinning out of control with electric sparks all around before exploding... :)
But XWA also had that about ships breaking into pieces, didn't it? If you have seen the video we posted long time ago, we have that some components (wings, and similar) break off and spin around, while the rest of the ship flies straight, also spinning. Do you mean that?

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Post by Marcos_Edson » Sun Nov 27, 2016 4:14 am

I´ve watched the video again and it seems to have the X-Wing feeling I was trying to explain. :)
From memory, the mechanics when fighters die in XWA is a bit different from previous games, almost boring, I'd say... :D
And I don't remember if this could be changed on difficult settings but I remember XWA being quite relaxed about collisions, I remember dying coutless times in X-Wing when the cockpit of a dying TIE would unexpectedly hit me. :lachtot:
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Post by azrapse » Sun Nov 27, 2016 12:36 pm

Marcos_Edson wrote:I´ve watched the video again and it seems to have the X-Wing feeling I was trying to explain. :)
From memory, the mechanics when fighters die in XWA is a bit different from previous games, almost boring, I'd say... :D
And I don't remember if this could be changed on difficult settings but I remember XWA being quite relaxed about collisions, I remember dying coutless times in X-Wing when the cockpit of a dying TIE would unexpectedly hit me. :lachtot:
In X-Wing, collisions were basically lethal. If you disabled them, you couldn't complete missions.
In TIE Fighter, collisions were lethal too, but you could disable them and you would be penalized with a few points. Similar to asking for reinfocerments, I think. They weren't totally disabled, though. You bounced out of control and got some damage, and still it was lethal against capital ships.
In XvT and later, collisions were like the "disabled" ones in TIE Fighter, without point penalty.

I cannot remember very well how collisions were in XWA, but I guess they kept evolving the concept of non-lethal collisions.

How do you like them best?

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Post by Marcos_Edson » Tue Nov 29, 2016 1:31 am

To keep the spirit of the original game,I guess going mostly lethal seems right. That said, I don't remember if Y and B-Wings could actually survive a collision with another fighter, at least with shields at 100% or above, those ones were quite tough in the original game, I remember a particular mission were we had to rescue some hijacked Y-Wings and I would hit them with a proton torpedo to quickly get their shields down for disabling... :)
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Post by azrapse » Sat Dec 03, 2016 1:14 pm

Gameplay video

Features added since the last one:
- Mini intro with the Lucas Arts and Totally Games logos from the original games, as well as the text crawl.
- Hyperspace sequences, including arrival and departure from star system.
- Astronomical backdrops: local star, planets present on the mission file.
- Space dust.
- Engine glows and sun flares.
- New models for all ships.
- Sound effects for engines, weapons, instruments, hits, explosions, etc.
- Functional, rotating turrets for the capital ship.
- Map instrument.
- Proton torpedo launcher and torpedoes.
- Mission goal tracker instrument.
- Full mission logic cycle working. The mission can be completed or failed. And it starts all over after dying or jumping into hyperspace.
- New mouse cursor design.
- Better combat AI.
- More accurate ship explosions.
- Time acceleration instrument.
- Throttle instrument.

And some more...

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Post by Marcos_Edson » Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:48 am

Looking great! Love the "coming out of hyperspace" moment! :D
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Post by K-j » Tue Dec 13, 2016 4:41 pm

Yes! We can get a much better idea of your progress seeing the video, and it's looking absolutely amazing! :shock:

I also really like the way you recreated the effect of exiting hyperspace, with the planets and craft come zooming into view all of a sudden. Lens flare and engine glow looking great. Though I really like the effect, I think the spread of the proton torpedo trail is a bit too high as it obscures your view too much when it's fired? You could just reduce flare amount but still keep the effect the same?

Man, those Nebulon B's could be tricky, especially when they shifted position. They could be tougher to bring down than ISD's sometimes. That gameplay video is great, thanks for sharing.

Will there be an option to disable the shield info and such from the HUD floating square on the current target, so in that respect we can just use the original screen like the old games? Will there be an option to use original MIDI? (questions, questions). ;)

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Post by azrapse » Tue Dec 13, 2016 7:16 pm

K-j wrote:Yes! We can get a much better idea of your progress seeing the video, and it's looking absolutely amazing! :shock:

I also really like the way you recreated the effect of exiting hyperspace, with the planets and craft come zooming into view all of a sudden. Lens flare and engine glow looking great. Though I really like the effect, I think the spread of the proton torpedo trail is a bit too high as it obscures your view too much when it's fired? You could just reduce flare amount but still keep the effect the same?

Man, those Nebulon B's could be tricky, especially when they shifted position. They could be tougher to bring down than ISD's sometimes. That gameplay video is great, thanks for sharing.

Will there be an option to disable the shield info and such from the HUD floating square on the current target, so in that respect we can just use the original screen like the old games? Will there be an option to use original MIDI? (questions, questions). ;)
Thanks for the nice words.
I am glad that you liked the hyperspace sequence. I wanted to replicate the scene in Return of the Jedi where Lando pulls the Falcon out of hyperspace and you can see Endor and the Death Star II approaching really fast. I think that makes it feel like there is a big galaxy out there, and that the missions don't happen in abstracted sandboxes (even if they do in reality. :) )

The main goal of these videos is to gather feedback from you all. We need to know if you would like something changed or done in another way, or have some insight about particular gameplay problems. We will consider tuning down the torpedo trails. I don't think torpedoes use flares at all, though.
Also, if enough people request it, we will add option to disable the ship stats on the selected target reticule, or totally remove it if it is universally criticized.
About MIDI, it will be harder. The current iMuse system replicates the MIDI tracks with pre-synthesized chunks, then chained following the original musical state machine defined in X-Wing.
If you want to listen to the MIDI tracks themselves, it's trickier, because not only Unity doesn't support them by default (I guess some paid-for pluging could exist), but also, you would need to configure some sound font or something. It's becoming harder and harder in the latest versions of Windows to find where the MIDI configuration is. I think you cannot even find it in Windows 10 anymore without third party tools.
I think our simulation of iMuse is close enough to the original's. It's one of the features I am most proud of, in fact.

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Post by K-j » Thu Dec 15, 2016 11:46 am

Yeah, that's the hyperspace scene that immediately springs to mind as you've recreated the effect very well. "It's a trap!"

Oops, my poor choice of word there, I didn't mean flare effect, just the trail of the proton torpedoes, so you can still see the warhead cone shape and torpedo trail, and still have good visibility:
TIE Protons.jpg
Ah I see, so MIDI is now just the audio controller dictating when the music audio files will play to coincide with gameplay (much like the Rockband games, I think). I guess it's not completely impossible to have other music files made from other soundfonts, but that would be user end and have to be exact music file lengths and stuff I guess for the timing to be correct? Not that I think there was anything wrong with the music in the video, on the contrary I thought it was exceptional. I only mentioned it purely as I've been spending time creating a soundfont for the old games' MIDI, and would love to see how it blended with the huge graphical enhancements you're producing.
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Post by azrapse » Thu Dec 15, 2016 4:45 pm

K-j wrote:Yeah, that's the hyperspace scene that immediately springs to mind as you've recreated the effect very well. "It's a trap!"

Oops, my poor choice of word there, I didn't mean flare effect, just the trail of the proton torpedoes, so you can still see the warhead cone shape and torpedo trail, and still have good visibility:
TIE Protons.jpg
Ah I see, so MIDI is now just the audio controller dictating when the music audio files will play to coincide with gameplay (much like the Rockband games, I think). I guess it's not completely impossible to have other music files made from other soundfonts, but that would be user end and have to be exact music file lengths and stuff I guess for the timing to be correct? Not that I think there was anything wrong with the music in the video, on the contrary I thought it was exceptional. I only mentioned it purely as I've been spending time creating a soundfont for the old games' MIDI, and would love to see how it blended with the huge graphical enhancements you're producing.
You are right that the trail can obstruct visibility too much. We will see how to tone it down. There is a change from the original, however. The torpedo isn't a cone, but the ones from the weapon selection screen in TIE Fighter.

About the iMUSE system, the soundtrack is basically a graph or, more appropriate, an automaton (nodes and transitions). There are different themes and every theme has several nodes telling wich track to play and in which order (sometimes, randomly chooses one alternative among several choices). Different game events have particular tracks assigned (incoming imperials, incomig rebels, target down, etc), and the automaton describes how a theme should transit from and to an event or another theme. For example, when passing from the actionless cruise theme into the dogfight theme, a particular track is played that makes the musical transition right.
All these tracks are just names like CR01, CR02 (standing for Cruise theme track 01, Cruise theme track 02, etc), that the game matches to OGG sound files in the data folder.
These sound files only have three restrictions:
1- They must have a period of silence at the beginning that the game skips. Let's call it header padding.
2- They must have 3 periods of "silence" at the end, they don't really need to be silence, but just trailing for instruments to fade off in a non jarring way. Let's call this trail padding.
3- There must be a normal version of all the midi tracks, plus another version of all of them with the wind instruments muted (or brass instruments, I don't know the exact musical term. It's those instruments that you blow air into them to make them sound).

How long are these header and trail paddings? Well, now it comes the tricky part because I know almost nothing about music, I just tell you the details that our in-house musical expert Tarvis figured out and I programmed:
- The flight iMuse tracks have 137.8 beats per minute.
- The header padding is exactly 1 beat.
- The trail padding must be exactly 3 beats.

The part about having two different sets of tracks, one with the wind muted, is because the original iMuse system could do nice tricks with the MIDI files, muting or fading some instruments depending on the game state. For example, when the action is far away, all the wind instruments in the Cruise theme are mute. As you get closer, they start sounding.
You can see an example of this in the video when the player is close to the Frigate. When the player faces the frigate, the theme has wind instruments. When the player faces away, the wind instruments are muted.


So, all in all, if you create a set of synthesized track with the right paddings and another set with the wind muted, you should be able to replace our tracks with your own. We could also have optional different soundtracks. The orchestral one we have, plus some retro chiptune version, for example.

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Post by Fek'LeyrTarg » Thu Dec 15, 2016 11:04 pm

The German magazine GameStar has released a report about XWVM:
http://www.gamestar.de/news/pc/3306732/x_wing.html

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Post by Vince T » Sat Dec 17, 2016 1:41 pm

Hah nice!
I've been reading that magazine for years now!
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Post by K-j » Sun Dec 18, 2016 11:32 am

Thanks for the insightful post azrapse. I always thought it was an impressive musical system they invented back then, and it's pretty cool how you guys have figured out how to utilise it for modern gaming.

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Post by Fek'LeyrTarg » Sun Dec 18, 2016 2:12 pm

Good news: XWVM now has its own ModDB-page:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/xwvm

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Post by Armchair_Admiral » Fri Dec 30, 2016 2:52 am

Considering I got all the old X-Wing games off GOG as holiday presents (and currently doing a playthrough of X-Wing 1994 version to boot), I'm really interested to see how this mod turns out. From what I see so far, it's looking good! Projects like this make me wish I had some sort of game/mod development expertise.

Since the X-Wing games uses the same basic flight engine as SWOTL, I am curious to know if it would be technically feasible to implement various aspects of SWOTL into a future XW mod? Things like a SWOTL-style campaign mode or atmospheric combat? I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question (again, I'm not the game developer sort).....

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Post by azrapse » Fri Dec 30, 2016 10:23 am

Armchair_Admiral wrote:Considering I got all the old X-Wing games off GOG as holiday presents (and currently doing a playthrough of X-Wing 1994 version to boot), I'm really interested to see how this mod turns out. From what I see so far, it's looking good! Projects like this make me wish I had some sort of game/mod development expertise.

Since the X-Wing games uses the same basic flight engine as SWOTL, I am curious to know if it would be technically feasible to implement various aspects of SWOTL into a future XW mod? Things like a SWOTL-style campaign mode or atmospheric combat? I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question (again, I'm not the game developer sort).....
Funny, I have been thinking on the exact same thing since we started. An open-ended campaign mode. And further use of surface missions beyond the Death Star.
Of course, that would come after the rest of the game is in place. But it's one of the secondary goals I have always had in mind. ;)

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Post by Armchair_Admiral » Sat Dec 31, 2016 1:47 am

azrapse wrote: Funny, I have been thinking on the exact same thing since we started. An open-ended campaign mode. And further use of surface missions beyond the Death Star.
Well, great minds think alike, eh? :D

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Post by Fek'LeyrTarg » Mon Jun 19, 2017 9:45 am

Just a quick heads up that we're still working on the project in full force, with many new members joining our team and new features being implemented.

As a matter of fact, a new gameplay video was uploaded yesterday:
https://youtu.be/5UOGaDhnAhM?list=PLbgw ... 0Pp9WjpoSf


Don't forget that you can follow us on ModDB, Facebook and the GoG-forums as well:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/xwvm
https://www.facebook.com/groups/512806878928876/
https://www.gog.com/forum/star_wars_xwi ... y_interest

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Post by Marcos_Edson » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:35 am

You guys are doing an amazing job! :)
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Post by Fek'LeyrTarg » Sat Jul 01, 2017 10:43 pm

Marcos_Edson wrote:You guys are doing an amazing job! :)
Thank you. That encourages us to keep going. :)

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Post by Fek'LeyrTarg » Fri Aug 11, 2017 10:43 am

Anyone interested in applying for the preAlpha-Tests?
http://www.moddb.com/mods/xwvm/news/pre ... -available

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