The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

How would you go about using stock images and audio instead of the 3DO videos?

this is probably gonna be for the people who dont have the original cd, i might as well let them join in on the fun ;D

I was gonna create my own audio for the description because i have heard some bad reviews of the voice for the original. (doing the voices will be easy, finding pics that are good enough for the description is gonna be hard)

I'm gonna be making a recording soon, i'll post it up when i get the chance.

We've actually been thinking of using the SC1 ship description images here. The problem is that SC2 contains ships that SC1 didn't have, for which no such images exist.

Well Clay looks like a gifted artist, maybe if we ask real nicely he will help us in that area ;D

hey how does this sound for the ship spin voice?

http://www.dickweed.0nyx.com/soundz.htm

Maybe different voices for each ship?
Maybe each race could do the description? (that would get kinda difficult for the chmmr, mmrnmhrmm, chenjesu, "slylandro"(do we use the actual species voice or the ships voice?))

What if you found the original bitmap for this background?  http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/files/images/sc2specs_wallpaper.jpg (http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/files/images/sc2specs_wallpaper.jpg)

All those are on PONAF, I believe. The SC1 ships are, of course, taken from SC1. The SC2 ships are fan-made.

http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/sc2/shipspecs/

quite a few of those are horrifyingly ugly.

Haha.. I'm the one who made these, although that was quite a few years ago, and I can agree that some are horrendous.  I HAVE gotten better since then, though... and a lot of the ship images were actually taken from various people's 3D renderings on the PONF.

I could redo them from scratch in the near future... Maybe even (as a challenge) in 8-bit pixel art, to make them as close as possible to the style of the SC1 originals.

Another nice option would be to re-create the SC1 ship-specs in the form of 3D renderings (scaled down to game resolution), then add similar ones for the SC2 ships.  Too bad I have absolutely zero experience with 3D (well, other than the UT2004 map editor).

Also, the stats boxes don't use the hollow boxes to indicate abnormal or irregular capabilities. For example, the Druuge should have a 'hollow' high energy regeneration and max speed.

I think most of them are OK. I didn't like the Thraddash, Chmmr, or Flagship, though... they tried to go for texture, which just isn't the point for these images.

As you said, it's in the models. Those models may be fine for other purposes, but not this one.

I knew that after looking through the renderings at SC3D ;D

is there anything stopping us from using gif animations of the videos?

that would cut the work right in half ;D

Copyright, copyright, copyright. We could use the original DUK videos if we wanted to (the game is capable of it) but we need permission from the copyright holder- and I don't think it's TFB.

The SC2 3DO videos were made by PCA Graphics (http://www.pcagraphics.com/), but it seems unlikely that they hold the copyright (has anyone contacted these people?).

ugh, i hate copyrights.

It makes no sense to have a copyright for a game that isnt sold anymore, i shake my fist at whoever owns accolade. ;D

i remember seeing a webpage that described the copyright of Star Control 2, does anybody remember that link?

Perhaps you're refering to this page (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Star_Control_Trademark). But it's about the Star Control trademark, not the copyright.

well i guess the copyright to the videos might be PCA Graphics like novus said, maybe i will try to contact them to see if they know anything about it.

This has a similar ring to the recent discussion of emulation in the Cafe. Simply put, if a game is under copyright, the owners still have the ability to make money from it. Nintendo is notorious for this; the 27 re-releases of The Legend of Zelda likely wouldn't have happened if the game went public domain after it first went out of print. We're just fortunate that TFB are compassionate masters, really; they could easily have hung onto their copyright for SC2, and this whole project would never have been possible. But in this strange alternate universe, if they released a remake of the game for retail, who here wouldn't buy it? I know I would.

well i havent recieved a reply yet from the only working e-mail address on the PCA Graphics site...

the thought occured to me that the vids aren't copyrighted anymore, since the name "Star Control" isnt actually mentioned in any of the vids (maybe the credits vid does) that Atari nor PCA graphics hold a copyright to it.

Of course I could contact TFB and ask them if they remember who holds the copyright. ;D

That sounds extremely unlikely; copyright doesn't just disappear like that (except possibly if the firm holding the copyright disappears).

I would imagine that PCA Graphics was making the animations as work-for-hire, which would mean that whoever was paying them would claim authorship (and by extension, copyright) if their contract permitted it. Since if TFB owned the copyrights to these we would certainly know by now, my best guess is that the copyright now rests with Accolade -> Infogrames -> Atari.

extremely unlikely but possible ;D


Has anyone asked TFB yet?
if so than i guess the topic about using the vids is closed :(

damn stingy copyrighters...


.:: EDIT ::.
How much did the source change with the new release?
i'm asking cause i want to put the ship spins in it and "remake" the mods for the new release.

The 3DO release didn't go through accolade (except for the rights that TFB had to license back from them).
The sequence would be Crystal Dynamics -> Eidos -> SCi.

I updated the ship spin patch a few days ago to match what was in CVS at the time, which is essentially the same as v0.5. The patch should apply nicely to v0.5.

thanks novus

.:: Edit ::.
I'm very pleased with the looping of the background noise "spin.ogg", it loops better than the 3DO  :D
and as you can see, you can still use ".ogg" instead of ".wav"

And save 2 MB out of about 50 required for the ship spin stuff. ;D

eh, i prefer my audio files to be compressed.
The only time my audio isn't compressed is when i'm recording music. :D