OMG. This looks fantastic!!

I just found out about XWVM and I seriously cannot remember being hyped about a game as much in the last 10+ years!

The original X-Wing was one of the first PC games I played and I *really* loved it. I have not played it for years but still have the "Collector's CD" standing on my shelf :-)

Too bad I missed application for the private test... Is there a way to get notified when new testers are included?

How can a developer get involved? I'm not the most advanced coder, but I've got a copy of Unity and interested in pitching in.

We will post notifications here. And sometimes we accept late applications.
The codebase is quite big already and it requires quite a good understanding of OOP, C#, Unity's APIs, and how X-wing works.
Do you have any experience with game programming?
Since we are still reasearching the original game, we are still putting things in place and designing the architecture of the XWVM flight sim engine, so the code is refactored often and in a big way. Once we have a clear and fixed understanding of everything that we need to support, the code structure will become more stable. I think that will be the sweet moment when we could welcome extra hands to help with missing features and bugfixes.
Before that, I just fear that not a perfectly coordinated coder team could make it worse.

Awesome photo of the Death Star. Any more new models to be shown yet? Looking forward to seeing the Mon Calamari cruiser. Keep up the good work folks.

We are really short on ship models. We need more model artists. :(

Darn. If I new how to do this stuff I would volunteer, but unfortunately I don't. Keep up the good hard work XWVM team.

Hello Azrapse!

A lot of time has passed, I mean a LOT!
So, I do not really know the development of the project, but I saw you have info on:
- How the training course works
- How projectiles work, even with locking, and probably with how lock affects the warheads behaviour.
- How energy distribution and transfer works.
- I see you worked a lot with the AI. Nice job!
- As I hear you really did implement DS music near capital ships, I like that. And the FL music with mission failure. I'm not fond of that, but I am not against it. Maybe an option later to turn that off.

And maybe countless things more I can't recall. :)

A saw a lot of things this weekend.
- The weapons charge indicator got blue for ion cannons. Yeah!
- The planets! The explosions! Just kicks ass! I guess craft disintegration will come later.
- The targeting display! OMG! That glow, just like the movies! :) I suggest this glow added to the CMD for the blue wireframe crafts. Like in RoTJ, middle of the movie when Tydirium approaches Endor and asked for the code (which is older, but it checks out).
- I see the shield status indicator is changed. Where is that idea came from? I like it though.

My main question is: where is the development discussion? I see this forum, I see there is moddb, bitbucket, FB page. I guess it is very hard to listen all sources. There must be a main one.

That is all for today.

Oh, you just commented on FB you need my help...

Hey guys

@Azrapse - This looks absolutely stellar - I'd very much like to get into the beta, if and when you add more people to it.

One thing I'd like to check - do you guys think it would make sense to add a HLSL type shader (ala MAME) to the game?
Seeing as this comes from the early '90s it could add a nice touch - HLSL, if you're not familiar with it, allows you to easily add scanlines (for the younger bunch, Google it... ;) ) and screen curvature effects, etc.

Example image attached, hope it'll show up.

Anyway, great work, can't wait to see this come to fruition!

Cheers
Rip

Hi.
I think that kind of filter fits low resolution graphics more than HD or ultra HD. Perhaps someone wants to play XWVM at 320x200 resolution. But I doubt it will look very good.

One of our testers recently tried out how does XWVM hold up at an HD resolution with lots of capital ships. There is still a long way to go (nevermind ships clipping each other), but I think this is starting to look quite cool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSEivi22fXw

As someone that grew up at the time I never understood the love for scanlines, especially in a game like X-wing in which the low res is already quite an obstacle to gameplay (not as much as the sprites messing up perspective in Wing Commander but still).

Scanlines and blurred pixels fit games from the late 80s/early 90s because those graphics were made designed to be seen on those old CRTs. Sometimes the artists chose certaing pixel patterns knowing that they would be blended together by the low definition and scan lines, to achieve certain effects or colors with their limited palettes.

I think, in the case of X-wing, it was the other way. Ships were 3D models that, by definition, aren't designed for a particular screen resolution. The higher the resolution, the better the game looked, since you could see ships from farther away and tell what were they.
I don't think anyone that had the TIE Fighter CD edition played the 320x200 mode while the 640x480 mode was available, other than lack of CPU power.

Scanlines are supposed to simulate the separation between physical pixels in those old monitors. But nowadays we use HD resolutions with no appreciable scanlines.

It's hard to believe that we used to play these games at 320x200!

The "crazy" video is pretty cool, although whoever is flying the capital ships needs to be fired immediately. :)

A WIP-render of the cutscene variant of the probe:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/xwvm/images/probe-cutscene-variant-wip#imagebox

After watching that video - yeah, the new high-res models and interface look phenomenal and likely won't benefit from the shader(s) I mentioned. Spectacular work, can't wait to give it a thorough workout.

Hello gang, how goes the updates and modeling? Is everyone all excited and ready to see Last Jedi about a week from now?