Hard Light Productions Forums

Hosted Projects - Standalone => Wing Commander Saga => Topic started by: Tolwyn on March 01, 2007, 03:19:49 pm

Title: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 01, 2007, 03:19:49 pm: The Wing Commander Saga team is happy to announce a breakthrough. We have finally found a way to implement Wing Commander-style autopilot sequences in Saga. Gone are the days of long, time-accelerated trips. Now, Saga has the ability to offer the flyby sequences that were a central part of the Wing Commander ethos, offering a much shorter wait time between nav points and also a cinematic flair that has always been a trademark of Wing Commander.

We have decided to make something special to showcase this new feature. We have created a loose remake of the first two missions in Wing Commander 3. Our demo package features the original voice-overs of Mark Hamil, Jason Bernard, and the other classic WC3 actors who were highlighted in the first two missions. Briefing and launch sequences are also included. You can grab the package here (http://www.wcsaga.com/downloads/prologue/wc3_demo.rar).

(http://wcsaga.hard-light.net/team/Tolwyn/pictures/autopilot_s.jpg) (http://www.wcsaga.com/downloads/prologue/wc3_demo.rar)

To install the WC 3 Autopilot Tech demo, unrar the file into the Prologue folder. Then, from within the game, go to the campaign select screen, select Autopilot Tech Demo, and then start the campaign by hitting the continue button.

We have also put together a video clip showcasing the new flyby sequence. You can get it here (http://www.wcsaga.com/downloads/movies/autopilot_flyby.avi).
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: nutshell42 on March 01, 2007, 04:37:09 pm: The new autopilot is great, really, really great.

And I love the old cutscenes and missions in their new graphical glory.
/me hugs you :D
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: JSeb on March 01, 2007, 06:33:20 pm: wow!!! incredible work... id pay so much to replay wing 3-4 in your engine...
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Mongoose on March 01, 2007, 11:52:29 pm: Great work with those cutscenes; from the little I've seen of the WC games, you completely nailed the autopilot look. Though, as a series newbie, I was rather amused by the sight of Mark Hamill conversing with what looked like a Sesame Street character. :p
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Cobra on March 02, 2007, 04:38:18 pm: Sweet, you finally got it down. :D Will you be replacing those sequences in the Saga prologue with these?
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Starman01 on March 02, 2007, 05:09:41 pm: Probably, no ETA on this patch yet though :nervous:
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Cobra on March 02, 2007, 09:00:40 pm: Gentlemen, I'm impressed. From my limited experience playing WC3, I think I can safely say this is the closest anyone can EVER get into recreating WC3, minus the whole "click to talk to someone" thing, and without writing a new engine.

[EDIT] Although I was disappointed that I couldn't see the TCS Victory fleet in the flyby though. :(

[EDIT2] Any chance you can set the delay so that you can still see the fleet until the camera pans to the left, and vice versa when you're coming back? ;)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: KeldorKatarn on March 02, 2007, 11:21:33 pm: The flight sequence is generated so that is is practically in midflight. So it is not taking place where you start the autopilot nor where you arrive.. more like in the middle somewhere. That's why you don't see the victory.. but don't worry.. you'll see some capships in those sequences in the final release ;)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Cobra on March 02, 2007, 11:57:47 pm: Actually, that's not the case at all, I ripped open the missions to take a look at how they did it. They used very clever use of SEXPs, and it didn't have anything to do with two ships in the EXTREME distance. ;)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: KeldorKatarn on March 03, 2007, 12:22:40 am: Let's just say we've found more than one way to code this ;)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 03, 2007, 02:30:57 am: Yes, Keldor is right, we have two ways of doing this. Though, I might say, if we could get 2 - 3 additional sexps, the whole thing would be much, much easier :)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Mehrpack on March 03, 2007, 08:42:04 am: Quote from: Tolwyn on March 03, 2007, 02:30:57 am
Yes, Keldor is right, we have two ways of doing this. Though, I might say, if we could get 2 - 3 additional sexps, the whole thing would be much, much easier :)

hi,
nice work, looks cool :)
but maybe a bug, if i take the way home, every time the controls are look and i have to press alt+a to get free controls.

i think so a feature is a nice feature for FSO as well. i mean you can so make parted mission without the normal red alert, imho.
im there really hopefull *g*

Mehrpack
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 03, 2007, 09:08:37 am: Which mission? Can you reproduce the problem? Did you wingman survive?
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: karajorma on March 03, 2007, 12:30:00 pm: Quote from: Tolwyn on March 03, 2007, 02:30:57 am
Yes, Keldor is right, we have two ways of doing this. Though, I might say, if we could get 2 - 3 additional sexps, the whole thing would be much, much easier :)

Which SEXPs?
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Mehrpack on March 03, 2007, 05:57:47 pm: Quote from: Tolwyn on March 03, 2007, 09:08:37 am
Which mission? Can you reproduce the problem? Did you wingman survive?

hi,
both missions, yes my wingmen`s survive and was only if i autopilot back to the carrier.

first time i had think, i had two times press alt+a, but in the second mission its was the same.
i moving on with max speed, and my controls are ingored, so i try to press alt+a again and i had controls back.
its not a big problem, but the first time its was surprising.

Mehrpack
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Cirdec_aka_Ace on March 04, 2007, 09:36:50 am: AFAIK, I'm going straight to test that new feature ! ;)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: IceFire on March 04, 2007, 10:24:32 am: Quote from: Tolwyn on March 03, 2007, 02:30:57 am
Yes, Keldor is right, we have two ways of doing this. Though, I might say, if we could get 2 - 3 additional sexps, the whole thing would be much, much easier :)
Much easier would be good...the number of events you need to make this work are a bit nightmareish for me :)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 04, 2007, 10:58:49 am: well, what we need is a SEXP, that will disable physics - e.g. so that the ships willhave no inertia and will ignore acceleration/decel. delay. Right now ships "wiggle" a bit, when you use player's/ai ships. And caps can't accelelerate that fast.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: KeldorKatarn on March 04, 2007, 11:23:32 am: Quote from: IceFire on March 04, 2007, 10:24:32 am
Quote from: Tolwyn on March 03, 2007, 02:30:57 am
Yes, Keldor is right, we have two ways of doing this. Though, I might say, if we could get 2 - 3 additional sexps, the whole thing would be much, much easier :)
Much easier would be good...the number of events you need to make this work are a bit nightmareish for me :)

Well, we have also a version that takes a few less SEXPs to activate, but more to work. So that one's harder to write but easier to use for the FREDer.

But yeah.. some SEXPs who deactivate physics or some for easier camera control would be nice.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 04, 2007, 11:26:12 am: and maybe a sexp, that will allow us to set higher speed for ships involved in cutscenes. I've tried

every-time
- true
- set-object-speed-z
- 200

but it didn't work for me.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 04, 2007, 12:36:41 pm: Can you reproduce the problem? Because I can't. I would like to send you a modified mission file to test, if the problem persists. The problem is that we are using parts of the old autopilot code to display nav points. If we could disable old autopilot somehow...
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Starman01 on March 04, 2007, 12:38:18 pm: Quote from: Tolwyn on March 04, 2007, 12:36:41 pm
If we could disable old autopilot somehow...

... but still display navpoints somehow on the HUD....
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 04, 2007, 12:42:37 pm: the problem here is the old nav carry. I would like to try to limit it to the player only, then the problem should vanish completely. I can't remove nav-carry completely, but if it is the player's ship only.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Starman01 on March 04, 2007, 12:46:12 pm: Maybe it works, never tried that.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Mehrpack on March 04, 2007, 12:49:53 pm: hi,
i would only say that i have replayed the first mission and the same thing on the end.
but its look that you guys have find it?

Mehrpack
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 04, 2007, 01:08:55 pm: could you pm me your mail? I would like to try out a fix, but I can't test it myself :)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: IceFire on March 04, 2007, 06:05:40 pm: Quote from: KeldorKatarn on March 04, 2007, 11:23:32 am
Quote from: IceFire on March 04, 2007, 10:24:32 am
Quote from: Tolwyn on March 03, 2007, 02:30:57 am
Yes, Keldor is right, we have two ways of doing this. Though, I might say, if we could get 2 - 3 additional sexps, the whole thing would be much, much easier :)
Much easier would be good...the number of events you need to make this work are a bit nightmareish for me :)

Well, we have also a version that takes a few less SEXPs to activate, but more to work. So that one's harder to write but easier to use for the FREDer.

But yeah.. some SEXPs who deactivate physics or some for easier camera control would be nice.
Just in looking at the code...it looks...I could be wrong...that there's a half dozen relatively complex events that you need to setup to make this work. It LOOKs fantastic...but I tried to set it up on my own and failed miserably (granted I haven't spent good time in FRED for a couple of years now and there are so many new things). Is there hope in the future to better integrate this so its just really easy to set up? :)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Mehrpack on March 04, 2007, 08:41:39 pm: Quote from: Tolwyn on March 04, 2007, 01:08:55 pm
could you pm me your mail? I would like to try out a fix, but I can't test it myself :)

hi,
sure, but i dont hide my address: its [email protected]

Mehrpack
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Starman01 on March 05, 2007, 11:52:49 am: Quote from: IceFire on March 04, 2007, 06:05:40 pm
Just in looking at the code...it looks...I could be wrong...that there's a half dozen relatively complex events that you need to setup to make this work. It LOOKs fantastic...but I tried to set it up on my own and failed miserably (granted I haven't spent good time in FRED for a couple of years now and there are so many new things). Is there hope in the future to better integrate this so its just really easy to set up? :)

Agreed, on the first view it's very complicated. We have two different versions (this one here is featuring version 1). While this one takes a few simpler SEXP per Navpoint the other has the SEXP only once in the mission, but is much more complicated (longest SEXP EVAR :D )

But technically, it's more a copy and paste issue in both versions :)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Cobra on March 05, 2007, 01:43:10 pm: Ugh, and I still can't figure out how you used those variables. :D
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 05, 2007, 02:03:09 pm: Shall I post a short explanation as to what these SEXPs do? I meant to write a tutorial on this issue anyway.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Cobra on March 05, 2007, 02:13:33 pm: I'm sure Prologue fans and mission writers will just LOVE that. ;)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 05, 2007, 02:23:19 pm: Okay, this is just a short explanation as to how setup your mission with the autopilot code. The SEXPs shown in this pictures might not be up-to-date as I made them a couple of weeks ago.

First of all, you need to copy two variables into your mission file:

"AutoNavTime" and "FlyByActive" (http://wcsaga.hard-light.net/team/Tolwyn/autopilot/01.jpg)

In the "Init Mission" event (comes true on start up) you need to setup your proxies used for autopilot flyby

Image 01 (http://wcsaga.hard-light.net/team/Tolwyn/autopilot/02.jpg)|Image 02 (http://wcsaga.hard-light.net/team/Tolwyn/autopilot/03.jpg)

In the SEXP, which unhides Nav X, you need to do following

(http://wcsaga.hard-light.net/team/Tolwyn/autopilot/04.jpg)

What follows is copy&paste for each navpoint, all you need to do is to modify FlyBy variable accordingly.

(http://wcsaga.hard-light.net/team/Tolwyn/autopilot/05.jpg)

(http://wcsaga.hard-light.net/team/Tolwyn/autopilot/06.jpg)

(http://wcsaga.hard-light.net/team/Tolwyn/autopilot/07.jpg)

I hope this makes understanding the SEXP chain a bit easier. I wish I could post a template for you guys to use, but I am building missions with "Codename: Hermes" dataset and it is not compatible with the prologue.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Clark on March 06, 2007, 07:49:05 am: Thanks! Excellent demo, I immensely enjoyed playing through the missions. I almost wish you would recreate the whole of WC3 this way :)

I hope a lot of this simple, but fun, missions will also be included in the complete game, and not only the longer, scripted missions of the prologue. Those patrol missions are the heart of WC i believe, and with the new autopilot system it isn't frustrating at all navigating these points anymore.

Great work!

/C
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 06, 2007, 07:52:45 am: Don't worry - there will be quite a few missions like in good old Wing Commander. For instance, I am currently working on a simple seach & destroy mission. But that is another story...
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Hobbes on March 06, 2007, 01:27:59 pm: excellent work mates i implement the autopilot demo and saw my old skills as pilot Hobbes lol
iHope i get back my feeling to flight :D
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Vash on March 06, 2007, 04:11:05 pm: very nice, but nobody metioned the cutscenes between the missions with the actors (although it's probably from the original game) that was cool too, it gives things like this just that little extra. exelent work
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Wanderer on March 07, 2007, 11:13:39 pm: You got highlighted... Though 'campaign release'?

(http://www.hard-light.net/images/highlights/wcs-campaign_release.png)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Turey on March 08, 2007, 12:12:24 am: Quote from: Wanderer on March 07, 2007, 11:13:39 pm
You got highlighted... Though 'campaign release'?

(http://www.hard-light.net/images/highlights/wcs-campaign_release.png)

I was thinking the same thing! [/Kerrigan]
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Starman01 on March 08, 2007, 11:53:23 am: Quote from: Wanderer on March 07, 2007, 11:13:39 pm
You got highlighted...

(http://www.hard-light.net/images/highlights/wcs-campaign_release.png)

That's sweat. Two highlights at once for WCS, we are honored :) Thanks Goober ;) and also the rest of the community for support and
interest
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Darklord42 on March 08, 2007, 05:46:32 pm: I knoticed somehing. When Hobbs was seriously dammaged when he collided with an enemy fighter, durring the autoplilot sceen there should be sparks flying out the back of his ship or random shots of elecricity moving around his ship and yet. He is perfectly healthy in the autopilot sequence. Not that I am complaining, you guys did an exelent job and I enjoyed playing thoes missions more in saga than the origional wc3. Much more interesting dogfights for one thing.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: karajorma on March 09, 2007, 03:51:18 am: Looks like someone forgot to set the dummy ship's hits-left to whatever the real ships actually have. :)

I'm only gloating cause I noticed I'd made the exact same mistake in one of my missions a couple of days ago. Fortunately I was lucky enough to have spotted it in time but I could very easily have been where you guys are now. :D
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Darklord42 on March 09, 2007, 09:43:27 pm: I definatly wouldn't mind an entire remake of wc3 with your engine ;)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: karajorma on March 10, 2007, 03:31:12 am: While I like the idea of remaking WC3 I'd rather see a new story first :)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Darklord42 on March 10, 2007, 07:33:24 am: Good point, There is enough of a challange with what they are doing already. Hopefully this auto pilot thing in the end will make it easier as it is probably a good bet that most of your bugs were happening when you were turing up the time compression in the old code, and trying to get that to work properly. Even after your release It was still a little buggy. For instance, if youaccedently hit autopilot before Major Baws sends the message that you have all left the astriod field, then it would throw evreything off and baws would never reach that point despite you turing autopilot off agian.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Kazan on March 22, 2007, 09:27:41 am: if i ever get time i'll try to promote this from sexp-level feature to code-level feature
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Starman01 on March 22, 2007, 11:50:59 am: That would certainly be a major improvement, as well as much much more userfriendly :) :yes:
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on March 27, 2007, 07:36:20 am: it would be sufficient to be able to disable autopilot between navpoints :)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Sonneboy on July 13, 2007, 07:13:33 pm: First of all: Wonderful job! OMG I've missed this game so much and now it is here - even looking better than ever!
Thank you, Thank you - THANK YOU!

*Anyway:
I played the Prolougue (and loved every bit of it) and this autopilot/WC3 demo (loved it as well!).

I agree, that the initial time incrementation autopilot featured in Prologue was a bit tedious. (= AutoPilot 1 =AP1)

The "new" autopilot (AP2) is a spitting image of the WC3 one!!! Good job!

However - and I'm probably going to take some heat for this - one thing that used to annoy me, playing WC3+ was that when you Auto pilot, you get plunged right into the action, with no or little time to adjust your configurations.

In that perspective, I kinda like the AP1 style, because you can see that you are approaching the fleet and not just "jumping" in there.
The fact, that you have some time/distance to "configure" the energy-allocation before plunging into combat is a bit more... realistic???.

The feeling I'm trying to describe is best explained if you recall the mission in Prologue when you return from the "Zartoth patrol", as the cats ambush the Lexington.

There you get the sence of approach (from afar), have time enough to get ready, cycle the targets and selecting approach vector.
With the AP2, it would feel like I just jumped in there, guns blazing...
Truth is, that the pilots of Alpha wing (any wing) have several thousand 'kliks' to fly while observing the action ahead - getting prepared and making plans while getting closer. This would, ofcourse, be killer to the game-flow if no Autopilot was there, since traveling a 1,200.000km patrol at speed 80 would be... insane.

So what I am getting at is, that if one could combine the two - getting the theatrical/movie-style feel with the fly-by-cam (AP2) but also being able to get the feeling that you are flying a long time and distance to get there (AP1) by seeing the approach to the target area/fleet site.

Anyway - this is just my humble opinion. It is insignificant compared to the bohemuth of a job you guys are doing!
(But if you do not voice your opinions - they aren't heard, right?)

Stay cool and may progress be with you!

Cheers,
Sonneboy

P.s.
THANK YOU!!!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Harbinger of DOOM on August 01, 2007, 10:02:12 pm: ~~Link is down........ can someone please re-upload?~~
Nevermind, I got it off the site.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Drakon on August 03, 2007, 11:11:23 am: Lol, it took me until today to realize that the wc3_demo file isn't the same thing as the autopilot demo video. When I try to download the missions though a window pops up saying that IE wasn't able to open the internet site. I tried downloading then from the link provided on the Saga section of CIC with the same result. When I try refreshing or entering the link's destination myself instead of clicking the links I get the classic 404 Object not Found screen. Is there any other way for me to download the missions? :)

Edit: I guess I made the same mistake. wcsaga_autopilotdemo.zip from CIC worked. My copy of WC3 is for Macintosh so finally being able to play even a couple of the missions on my PC is truly awesome. Thx m8s. ^^
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Vidmaster on September 19, 2007, 08:35:54 am: that link on page 1 is not working anymore :rolleyes:
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on September 19, 2007, 09:29:33 am: you can still download it from our download section.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive th' Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Vidmaster on September 19, 2007, 10:04:02 am: i know, I just wanted to notify you. Then why not change the link here in the forum to be working again ? ;) ;) ;) It can't hurt.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: CaptJosh on May 20, 2008, 05:04:07 pm: Well, I got my ass handed to me in the mission, but the autopilot sequence works beautifully.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Ioustinos on September 29, 2009, 09:58:09 pm: Do you need to limit the ship selection for auto-pilot to work correctly? I've been thinking of trying to add this auto-pilot feature, but I don't know if it's possible to set the dummy ships to whatever the player chooses to fly. As in, if the player decides to fly the Ares rather than the Herc II, the auto-pilot scene would still be the Ares, unless I'm missing the way to fix this.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Tolwyn on September 30, 2009, 01:30:10 am: The original template uses proxies, so ship selection is a no go. Our current super duper secret template uses actual ships for cinematic cutscenes.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Ioustinos on September 30, 2009, 03:21:48 pm: Well, isn't there a teleport sexp or something similar? I wonder if I could use that instead.

Thanks for the reply regardless.

EDIT: I think it's the set-object-position. Is there a more appropriate thread I should be posting in for this sort of discussion?
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: karajorma on October 01, 2009, 08:22:04 am: Simply change it to whatever ship class the player has.

when-argument
-list of possible fighter classes
-is-ship-class
--<argument>
--dummy
-change-ship-class
--<argument>
--dummy
Title: Re: RELEASE: Relive the Glory Days with New Autopilot Feature
Post by: Ioustinos on October 01, 2009, 11:42:37 am: Aha, can't believe I missed something that simple. Thanks. Testing now.