The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I admit it. The lure of Frungy money caused me to work on this.

In addition to working on Project 6014, I'm also working on a dream project of mine on the side.  To create an Ur-Quan Masters HD mod. Taking the existing game, and creating a modern version of the game with high definition graphics.

The original pic:
(http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/script/images/0/03/ZoqFotPikComm.png)

And my pic (click to go to the deviant art page, you can download a larger size):
(http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/267/f/e/zoq_fot_pik_by_dczanik-d2zf50k.png) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2zf50k)

Truly amazing work! Kudos! Your artwork leaves much desired for a new HD rendition of the game. I definitely would like to get this ported over to my droid x when complete so that I can take it easily on the road with me. Always have a phone on me... not always having a laptop on me. :)

Thanks! Yes. I want the game on as many platforms as possible. Some may not like having an HD version, but to those people, I think the existing UQM fits their needs perfectly.  For new players, or those wanting something that doesn't look 18 years old (damn. that makes me feel old), then I think this mod would be for them. For those wanting something new, well, there's project 6014.  ;D

A graphical update would bring in new players who are deterred by the aged graphics.
An add-on pack with updated graphics is high on my wishlist for UQM.
And this certainly looks good.
Don't underestimate the amount of work involved though.

Oh no. I have a firm grasp just how big this project is.  UQM has 16,000 png files. Now imagine if there was a magical 'auto size' button in Photoshop that raise the resolution and added tons of detail. That's still a button I have to press 16,000 times. If each pic takes an hour. That's 16,000 hours. Or 667 days of continuous work. Most of the pictures are not bad though. Just simply a resize of another pic.

Melée Ships consist of 16 angles for the ship at 3 different levels. That's 48 images. But you need weapons firing at 16 angles to, at 3 different zoom angles. Add a secondary weapon fire and you have  144 pics. 3D modeling and rendering as a 2D sprite seems like my best option. Sounds impossible, right? No. I've created a ship in 1 night and put it into the game the next day .

But there's Melee captain's animation, and icon images too. What kills me is stuff you don't think about. UI graphics, Bio-Critters, mineral graphics, etc. It's a ton of work.  But I think I can do it. By myself though, this is a 3 year project. If anybody can help out message me.

Right now. I'm just focused on the comm screens. I've done 2 which I've shown, and 2 which I'm still not happy with. Still, a lot more to go.

I can understand being skeptical. I've seen too many promising projects die on here. I've already have a lot of experience with the engine working on the 6014 mod. Best case scenario it takes 2 years to make.   I'm making it or die trying ;)

Actually, if it was just a button, you could probably write a script to do it for you.

Making it HD could be done with a shortcut, perhaps. Erol Otus maybe still has most of the SC2 artwork paintings still lying around somewhere? Probably we could ask him for the material?

I'd love that. Any idea on how to get ahold of Erol? His website doesn't say much.

You don't have to, Photoshop has great support for batch processing of files, If you want to enlarge all pictures in the UQM folder and subfolders by 197%, want to improve the result by running a "sharpen"filter, and want to rotate each one by an certain amount, you would only need a few mouseclicks (and a lot of processor time) to have it happen.  Basicly -anything- you can do in photoshop can be automated so you can quickly process large numbers of files. I could not imagine life without this function.

More info at this link:

http://www.creativemac.com/2002/04_apr/tutorials/psbatch.htm

Thanks for the link. I was just talking about a hypothetical magical button that turned a 320x200 picture, into a fully rendered picture to illustrate how much work is involved. Upscaling works, but frankly, looks like crap when dealing with such low resolutions. UQM uses different upscaling techniques too.  But, there's no detail. Just fuzzed pixels. Not to discount the great work they've done... but it's never going to replace quality original artwork.  Though, I can't imagine not using them as temporary placeholders.

The Timewarp project did manage to redo all of the SC1 and SC2 ships and make a nice collection of planets, there's a nice RAR of them on the PNF somewhere.

EDIT: link: http://star-control.com/fan/resources.php

Wwe dont need to upgrade the graphics until the resolution is higher, and dont need higher resolution until we have graphics. We might as well resize them and plug them in as placeholders, and add in important graphics as they are redone.

This is beyond wonderful! I especially like how you did the Fot (the shy brown one in the middle)!

Now I have a question. Have you made the Thraddash yet?  :D

No. I haven't!  Right now, I'm thinking about starting with the enemies/friends you encounter first.  The Ur-Quan + Dynarri, Commander Hayes, Fwiffo, and Ilwrath.  I really doubt Hayes was scanned artwork.  And I feel anything I do on him, might look awesome.  But my artistic take on him, might ruffle some fan's feathers since It wouldn't look like pixel art.  We'll see.

Well, my pixel art wasn't the thing, so maybe moving away from it will be met well by community.

Perhaps you could reduce the number of images by using a rotate function instead of having separate sprites for each ship angle? I'm not sure how easy this is, since I've never used C. Does SDL have any useful sprite manipulating functions?

The timewarp graphics are suitable enough for everything you want in ship sprites and more :).

The problem with just rotation is the lighting angle. If it was lighted from straight "above", no problem, but the lighting in SC1/2 is from bottom right and  only slightly elevated.

you can use a combination of rotation and using the 64 ship sprites from timewarp to get a perfect lighting direction everytime.

A lot of folks don't like the fact that SC3 graphics were used by the Timewarp crew on a number of those ships. While using them might save time, it may not be the best option, but that's dczanik's call.

Incidentally, it's projects like this one and a few others that make me wish I had the artistic talent to contribute. Best of luck.

I never knew that.. Which ones are you talking about?

I actually think there will be scope for anyone with some decent photoshop skills to help out. I'll be putting my hand up to help at some point. I think its a great project and I'm surprised noone's bothered before

But that's something I just don't get: It's deep space, so why is there a particularly bright source of light coming from the bottom-right? It's unrealistic and doesn't make the graphics better enough to solicit 16 separate sprites per ship (not to mention the different zoom levels, which really should be done by scaling down the larger sprites).

Ah but its not deep space. Combat occurs around a planet, which is presumably orbiting a star, which is a presumably a light source. It makes totally sense of the shading to come from the same direction on all objects in the arena

It's most obvious with the Cruiser, but several of the others also recycle SC3 graphics.


There was a hi-def ship graphics thread (http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=2899.0) on this forum some years back, but nothing ever came of it. There may be older projects as well, but I can't remember them if so.

It's still not enough improvement to solicit all those extra images, which means more work and more space (the space part might be problematic for an HD mod as well, though it probably would mostly just be an annoyance). Perhaps the lighting could be added dynamically if it's really necessary, by brightening the pixels that are closer to the light source? This might take some work, but it would mean less image editing would be needed while at the same time creating the desired visual effect (at least, if done properly).

To be honest, the fact that each ship has 48 separate images to account for different directions and zoom levels is probably my biggest reason for not attempting to create a mod of UQM. It would be WAY too much hassle to edit all those images independently.

As long as you make Hayes look calm and vaguely militaristic, I'm happy.

SC3 screencap showing all included SC2 ships:

(http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/5881/sc3ships.png)

All TimeWarp sprites of SC2 ships in SC3 (apologies for the purple backgrounds on VUX and Orz)

(http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/4053/timewarpsprites.png)

 
Chmmr and Mycon are (probably coincidentally) similar, none of the others look the same.

Right, I already thought that weren't the SC3 ships in timewarp ;). Don't bullshit us, Draxas :D.
The chmmr model is one of the first made back in the day by Tsing, by the way :D.

I could have sworn they looked the same. Ah well, sorry. 'Course, I haven't played Timwarp in ages, and SC3 in even longer.

That aside, I can't say I'm particularly fond of quite a few of the Timewarp models either. Because there were so many different artists on the project, there's no cohesion to the look of the ships either; while a lot of the SC3 models don't stay true to the source (and some of them look quite terrible), they do at least look internally consistent with their art style.

Most of the timewarp ships were just created 'to get the job done'. Some artists have however taken quite a bit of creative freedom and changed how the ship looked from above.
It doesn't really bother me, back in the day I was just glad that someone had made HD-versions of SC2 ships.
That being said, if someone can make 3d-models in the same art style all around, go for it. If you can't.. leave it be.. because it's waay too much of a hassle ;).
Although an alternative could be to get a good 2d-artist on the team who can deliver the same SC2 'cartoony' look for all the SC2 ships (look at what Arne has done for example). But a disadvantage would be that you'd lose all the shading ;).

I just thought of another possibility: Those models date back to really early, as much as 1998 or something... With the current software and high-end systems renderings could be substantially improved ofcourse ;).

Well, given the skills I have in 3D, I think I can actually make some better 3D Models, and make them in higher quality too. Timewarp, and SC3 stuff looks good, but show their age by today's standards. And I always thought Timewarp veered off the original too much in the Kohr-Ah ship design.

For those with 4 minutes to kill, here's a video of a 3D sculpt I made. So you can see, I can do 3D too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv5SlnG4FTY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv5SlnG4FTY)

One thing I'd like to have in a newer version of  UQM  is it to be a lot  more open to modding.  Let people add an override text file, that allows the game to use a custom directory for ships.  Obviously for fairness, this file would be disabled for online play.  There's a lot of artists like myself who would love to add some of their art to the game, but the work involved to add a custom ship, and share it with people is just too much. And, it would be fun to do things like replace the Earthling Starship with the Enterprise. :)

The Earthling Cruiser already IS the Enterprise. Plus two nacelles = minus copyrights lawsuit.

Now, I must admit to not being that into all that 3d stuff, but as far as I know 3d sculpting is pretty different from regular 3d modelling. For one, the amount of polygons your model will end up with is enormous, and due to the way these models are made it's insanely difficult to "get rid" of the excess polygons. On the other hand, making organic shapes (life forms) becomes a lot easier than when using regular 3d modelling..

Dragon has made some pretty models for the SC1 ships, and about half of the SC2 ships as well, although I still haven't managed to get the SC2 models up.

Well, polygons are not an issue.  It's rendered as a 2D Sprite.  I'm not going to use Mudbox to sculpt an Earthling Cruiser.  But, I'll probably use it for the Mycon ship. The best tool for the job. I was just demonstrating I can do 3D stuff too. 

You want other 3D examples but made in 3D Studio?
Kilrathi Fighter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHQu_ljkqEM)
3D Homer (http://czanik.com/gallery/albums/3d/realhomer.sized.jpg)
Like Tron? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-lSKCjBDpw)
Terminator Endoskeleton (http://czanik.com/gallery/albums/terminatorfanfilm/1_23_2005.sized.jpg)
Truck outrunning an HK Tank (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU1hEm5rbt8)

A lot of stuff in Star Control 2/UQM is so easy it would almost be a joke to create in 3D Studio. The Spathi Eluder? It's spheres and some cylinders.  I'm not the greatest 3D Modeler, but I think I can outdo even the best 3DO models.

Ah, right. I should've checked the other videos on your youtubes. My bad. :P
That terminator looks nice.

That's where we differ in opinion. I always thought that the most beautiful model in Timewarp was the Kohr-Ah. It was actually an incredible improvement :). Also, I like to encourage creative freedom as much as possible. The ship is still recognizable as the kohr-ah marauder and from the look of it it still has the same functions.
You can do anything you like, but in my opinion it's better if you work on things that haven't been done by the community before. Those comm screens are great, keep working on them :).


It's the goal of UQM to do just that in the future, by  getting an easy format (probably XML) to describe the universe, ships, dialogue etc in. But for now, don't get your hopes up of that happening soon ;). I'm actually surprised cedric got as far as he did without getting stuck, because so awfully much has to be done in so much lines of code. Even getting the animations running properly is done half in code, half in some ANI file, and ofcourse the actual images ;). This is the only way in which the unique feel of SC2 can be achieved, but I'd like to see these animations become a bit more artist-friendly so you can edit these with an editor rather than having to go into code and textfiles.

Luckily its not just me otherwise I would have been stuck a looooong time ago. I’m fortunate to have three excellent programmers on the team. Nothing seems insurmountable with those guys on board, at least not to my naïve eyes. 

No, but I do have a sprite rotation routine I wrote (both OpenGL and pure SDL) lying around here somewhere. There are probably lots more somewhere around the 'net.

Very nice work - the Kohr-Ah too.

--Eino

I've now rendered then out as well, if you head over to this thread at the SCDB (http://star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=323&start=0) you can find the full details there.

Or you can just grab the file here (http://filevo.com/swzvuabhfoo2.html).  Renders are 512x512 and each ship has 72 frames of rotation.  eg:
(http://i.imgur.com/xAfBd.png) (http://i.imgur.com/chQee.png) (http://i.imgur.com/ZrZMQ.png)

Quite often mine don't look better (see Mycon Podship in particular) however the problem with the Timewarp images (or maybe it would be better say the decision taken at the time) is that they're really, really small.  About 50 pixels across vs 500 so on modern screens running HD they can't be zoomed in for close combat without looking pixellated.

I've answered Angelfishes comment here and at the SCDB because there've been a couple of comments about using Timewarps sprites in the HD project and my opinion is that I don't think they'll work unless they're re-rendered at larger resolutions.

Well, with a lot of help by Zenzmurfy, we're about 2/3rds of the way through all the ship models ourselves.  Your models did inspire me to work on my Mycon Podship last night.  Since there's no way I can please everybody, I plan on opening up UQM-HD so you can use alternate ship models. So the more models, the merrier! :)

(http://www.star-control.com/community/download/file.php?id=150)

And since I haven't been updating lately, I give you my Vux with an homage to Zarla's artwork.  
(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/286/2/7/ur_quan_masters_hd__vux___zex_by_dczanik-d30nooq.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/#/d30nooq)

Another nitpick: The little red sliders on the command console in the VUX comm screen look a little... flat, they don't pop out like the other switches/knobs. Other than that, superb! The Podship model is especially good, especially for a WIP.

 :o That podship is just... amazing.
Like a cross between a beaten planet and the Death Star.

Can't wait to see what the texture will look like when it's finished.

Regarding the Mycon Podship, "Amazing!" and "Excellent work!" are all I can currently think of to say. They will suffice for the moment, I'm sure...

Wow. Lack of updates from me on the HD project. For that I'm sorry. But I haven't stopped working.

Comm Screens status:
24 Comm pics.
10 "Finished" and Released, 6 "Finished" (not yet released), 4 Almost finished, and 4 not started yet.

Released comm pics:

1. Arilou (Coming Soon).

2. CHMMR (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d332q2u):
(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/323/b/f/the_chmmr_by_dczanik-d332q2u.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d332q2u)

3. Commander Hayes (Soon).

4. Dynarri Talking Pet (Soon).

5. Druuge (not yet, Possibly a modified version of this pic).
(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/134/0/4/druuge_by_kwayne64-d3gaxec.jpg) (http://kwayne64.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3gaxec)

6. Ilwrath (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3231j1):
(http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/307/b/4/ilwrath_by_dczanik-d3231j1.png) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3231j1)

7. Kohr-Ah (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2z6mty):
(http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/264/8/9/star_control_kohr_ah_ur_quan_by_dczanik-d2z6mty.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3231j1)

8. Melnorme (soon).

9. Mycon (http://kwayne64.deviantart.com/#/d3l9dva):
(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/188/a/1/mycon___uqm_hd_version_by_kwayne64-d3l9dva.jpg) (http://kwayne64.deviantart.com/#/d3l9dva)

10. Orz (soon).

11. Pkunk (Not Yet).

12. Spathi - Fwiffo (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3kmjil).
(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/182/4/e/the_spathi___fwiffo_by_dczanik-d3kmjil.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3kmjil)

13. Spathi - Safe Ones (not yet).

14. Shofixiti (soon)

15. Slylandro Probe (soon).

16. Slylandro Aliens (soon).

17. Syreen (soon).

18. Thraddash (soon).

19. Umgah (not yet).

20. Utwig (http://kwayne64.deviantart.com/#/d3ll6ab):
(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/191/f/5/utwig___uqm_hd_version_by_kwayne64-d3ll6ab.jpg) (http://kwayne64.deviantart.com/#/d3ll6ab)

21. Ur-Quan (Kzer-Za) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3k1nmt):
(http://www.star-control.com/community/download/file.php?id=289) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3k1nmt)

22. Yehat (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d31llif):
 (http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/299/8/f/the_yehat_by_dczanik-d31llif.png) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d31llif)

23. Vux (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d30nooq):
(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/286/2/7/ur_quan_masters_hd__vux___zex_by_dczanik-d30nooq.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d30nooq)

24. Zot-Fot-Pik (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2zf50k):
(http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/267/f/e/zoq_fot_pik_by_dczanik-d2zf50k.png) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2zf50k)

Ur-Quan is amazing! I mean, they all look good, but Ur-Quan stands out in particular.

Thanks. It's one of my personal favorites. I have a wallpaper sized of the Ur-Quan pic available here (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/#/d3k1nmt) too.  It looks really neat animated, and in-game too.

In case anybody is wondering, as far as release dates are concerned I'd like to have the game available by the end of the year.  I could release something everybody could play with sooner but that's going to require some help. We've got the game running at 4 times the original resolution.  But now there's a bunch of small (and easy?) bugs with melee.  For example, weapons shoot 1/4th their distance, ships 1/4th their speed, etc. But I've got a ton of work just doing the art assets. So if any programmers would like to help, let me know.

That sounds like a simple adjustment of some constants, or multiplying some of the constants by 4 before using them. Unfortunately, my experience with C is minimal and I recall Star Control II's code to be a bit difficult to navigate, so while I could do the former solution easily, I have no idea how to do the latter solution. Out of curiosity, is the HD mod based on 0.6.2 or the SVN? I seem to remember reading that 0.7 has cleaner code than 0.6. I guess that must also apply to this mod if it was based on the SVN.

Right. Nothing terribly difficult. It's currently based on the 6.9 code base. I haven't had a chance to see the differences yet between 6.9 and 7.0.

That probably would mess up some AIs though, they don't react well to having weapon range changed.

"6.9"? "7.0"? Those are different from 0.6.9 and 0.7.0! XD

 Oops.  ::)   Heh. Serves me right for sending messages through my phone while at the Gym. Yes. v0.6.9   I tried to get version 7.0  but my Flux capacitor is on the fritz.  ;)

I thought the HD Syreen was finished a long time ago?

This is some killer stuff, can't wait to see the rest.

Now are you upgrading only the races or is the entire game getting this kind of makeover?

No, I'm still working on the Syreen. You may be thinking one of my 6014 Syreen?

The whole game is getting the same graphic  makeover. Comm screens, UI, lander aliens, ships, etc. The Comm screens are just some of the most time consuming parts, so it's the part I'm concentrating on first.

Zenzmurfy is helping me out and  working on some of the ships.  Here's his Yehat Terminator:

(http://www.star-control.com/community/download/file.php?id=306)

(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs38/i/2008/351/9/9/Yehat_Terminator_2008_Dec_15_by_zenzmurfy.jpg)

But he's a pretty busy guy. So we're always looking for more people. If anybody is good at 3D, send me a message.

Just another update (am I able to edit existing posts?), this time... the Pkunk:

First the original:

(http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/script/images/6/60/PkunkComm.png)

And Kwayne (http://kwayne64.deviantart.com/)'s HD remake:
(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/194/4/2/pkunk___uqm_hd_version_by_kwayne64-d3o7uib.jpg) (http://my.deviantart.com/messages/#/d3o7uib)

And for the largest in-game pic of the Pkunk Fury:
(http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/script/images/a/ab/Fury_icon.png)

And Zenzmurfy's Pkunk Fury ship:
(http://www.star-control.com/community/download/file.php?id=307)
(http://www.star-control.com/community/download/file.php?id=308)
1st one is an enlarged view, second one is closer to in-game size.

That's it! Okay makes sense now. The art is simply amazing, I can't wait to see what these look like animated (Definitely going to take one once they are and make it into a screen saver)

A New game, a Upgrade to the Old game and all being done independently.....why do we even need the big companies? :)

Well. I'm still waiting for a TFB sequel :)

Anyways.  New pic. The original Hypnotoad! To spruce up the original (which just had a gray background), I added a light source from the bottom too. I could imagine the light pedestal being something to keep him warm.

Dynarri Talking Pet (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/art/Dynarri-Talking-Pet-228126991)
(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/196/1/c/dynarri_talking_pet_by_dczanik-d3rtjwv.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/art/Dynarri-Talking-Pet-228126991)

You can download a high-res version by clicking the link and clicking the 'download image' link.

Oh. I've got a general FAQ, and art link that I'm editing to keep everybody informed.

http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=552 (http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=552)

I'd do the same here, but I don't think this board allows me to edit my posts.

Yeah it does, or it used to. Now I have a closer look I can't see where to do it either. Maybe yell out in the technical section?

Wow, that seems to stand out as well.

On another note, yes, you can edit posts on this forum. I've done it countless times.

EDIT: Like right now. There's a "Modify" button (as well as "Quote" and "Remove") in the top-right corner of each of your posts. There's also an icon in the bottom-right of the post that you can click for quicker edits.

It goes away after a while, though. That's why I moved the Peeru fanfic over to SCDB - I couldn't fix errors in old chapters after a while.

It looks awesome, as do your others.  I'm not sure of the underlighting though...it seems like it might be a little too bright?  Or maybe it's that because there's no surface texture or reflection from it, it sort of gives the toad the illusion of hovering.

One of the reasons I'm a mod in the Cafe is so that I can update SC:BEL equipment threads and whatnot indefinitely, otherwise the right to edit your post vanishes after a week, or month, or some such.

The idea is to give people the chance to correct mistakes, but not to alter history.

Also, great work, dczanik.

Update on that Mycon Podship:

Mycon Podship (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/) by Damon (aka dczanik) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/):
(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/203/e/6/mycon_podship_by_dczanik-d41anex.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/#/d41anex)
(http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/311/a/d/mycon_podship_by_dczanik-d32c9wi.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d32c9wi)

This is a more "in-game" size:
(http://www.star-control.com/community/download/file.php?id=309)

That Spore projectile will go away. I don't like it.

For a "progress so far" you can check out:
http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=552 (http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=552)

New Comm Image: My re-imagined Slylandro Probe...

Original:
(http://captainhawkins.info/pics/sc2/sc2probe.gif)

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/204/0/a/slylandro_probe_by_dczanik-d41ekgi.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/art/Slylandro-Probe-244224018)

Never liked the 2D look of the original. Decided to update it. Click the pic if you want to download a larger image.

For a "progress so far" you can always check out:
http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=552

IT is the great and powerful OZ! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain telling them to putting a lightning bolt up your ass.

Love what you did with them though I think I would loose the background for a more solid blue. The current one makes them very god like in appearance instead of being crystal robots on a bridge.

OMG this is great!!

The red parts on the podship look more like plastic than lava to me. But otherwise, very impressive!

A thousand pardons if someone else has mentioned this here already and I will delete this post if it has.  I have searched and could not find it mentioned, so here goes.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/supplementary/multi_comparison.html (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/supplementary/multi_comparison.html)

Even though this method is not yet ready for real time use, it may help provide a starting point for up-sampled graphics.

That's some awesome artwork, dczanik.  I love the color schemes.  Maybe this will finally inspire someone to take UQM HD for current gaming platforms more seriously.  I can't wait to see more.

Bootman: I've seen that. Yet, I've yet to find a link on how to submit images to that.
Anthony: Thank you. And thanks for showing my Vux pic on starcontroller.com  I've read your blog since the beginning. Big fan.

If you can't wait to see more, here you go:


Orz (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/#/d46awfm):
(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/224/9/d/the_orz_by_dczanik-d46awfm.png) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/#/d46awfm)

Original:
(http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/script/images/0/04/OrzComm.png)

I really like the scales on the right Orz. You can see the detail on it when download the full image.  Click the pic, then click 'Download Image' on the next page to view it full size.

Again you can read a general FAQ, and the latest updates on the mod at star-control.com's forums here: http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=552

I'm getting close to getting all the comm screens done. They just need to be animated. 
That's 16 comm pictures  done: (Arilou, CHMMR, Dynarri, Ilwrath, Kohr-Ah, Mycon,Orz, Pkunk,Slylandro Gas Bags,Slylandro Probe, Spathi,Utwig,Ur-Quan,Yehat,Vux,Zot-Fot-Pik)

This week has been filled with mostly working on the Bio-Critters and working on Project 6014 (exciting new stuff happening!)

On my "To Do" List:
4 Almost finished (Hayes, Shofixti, Syreen, Thraddash)
3 not started yet (Druuge, Spathi Council (Safe Ones),Umgah)
1 "Finished" and not released yet. (Watch out for it next week): Arilou

Arilou (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/art/The-Arilou-253838852?):
(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/231/0/2/the_arilou_by_dczanik-d474nb8.png) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/art/The-Arilou-253838852?)

I like the new background. I think the old background was a product of the technology at the time. So, like the Spathi background I decided to update it. But I realize I'm battling nostalgia and what people are used to so I also made the original background (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/art/Arilou-Original-background-253828482?q=gallery%3Adczanik&qo=0). At least right now, the new background is staying (I plan on having mods where people can download alternative artwork). Practicing clouds, and I thought it would make a good background to use with the mystical Arilou. The Arilou was a challenge too because the image was so small. People filled in the gaps with their imagination. I found it difficult to keep the Arilou friendly looking but when going to higher resolutions, he started to look evil.

I understand some people like the feeling of nostalgia. But there's already 3 version of the game if you want that (Star Control 2 for DOS, the 3DO version, and Ur-Quan Masters).

I like the new background! I have my own opinions about the value of nostalgia when remaking stuff, but those should be obvious to anyone who's heard my remixes (one of the best examples being, ironically, the Arilou).

I like what you've made there, but I think the forehead could stand to be a little more defined.

I think it's okay for the Arilou to look a LITTLE evil.  They seem benevolent enough, but they definitely have their own agenda.
As for the backgrounds, I really like them both, actually.  I'm torn between which one I like better.  Good work!

I tend to agree with steve-o but not to make them evil but a little sinister would be fine. I always felt they care for the human race but they are using us towards some unknown goal of there's that we do not know of.

Of all your work, this one I think I am most looking forward to seeing animated right now. I am curious to see how the clouds move around them. Great job as always

Since I am bothering the P6014 team on if they think there date is going to hold..I figured, why not bother you too!

We still looking at an end of the year date?

Well, I am on the 6014 crew too. And the guys who are working on 6014 also help me with my game when they get a chance.  And by the sheer fact I've been unable to clone myself or build a time machine (I got the plutonium, just need the Delorean) ;)  the HD stuff is on hold.  I still plan on releasing something, but I'm afraid things like animations will be missing (or very sparse) if I have any hope of making the release date. My goal though is you will still be able to play the game, from beginning to end. The biggest hurdle is really the animation.  And I hate doing animation... But after the 6014 demo, I may have to take a break for a couple of weeks.  So, anything that's missing we'll fix in an update :)

Did you consider asking for help on, say, opengameart.org (http://opengameart.org/)?

Cool! Thanks. I just created an account on there.  I doubt that anybody can help us with Project 6014 in time, but that could really help me hit a January 1, 2012 release date for the HD stuff. As it stands right now, the game is playable from beginning to end.  It's just some aliens are just the original graphics up-scaled, and a lot are missing animations. 

My biggest problem has always been finding and keeping talented people. But that's sort of a problem with any project like this. We had an awesome 3D Modeler (Tyrian on the forums), that just sorta disappeared. No E-Mail replies or anything.  Fortunately, there's resources I can turn to like Dragon's models, PoNaF's model repository,  and I can just create my own. :) 

Like I've told others, before announcing this project I was determined this would not be another mod that would be announced only to have it die off. I'll get it done or die trying. So anything is just minor delays for me. 

Try not to die on me, if i have to do the art work after your death they are all going to look like the same stick figures.

OOOhhh. Opengameart.org !! That solves some problems on the RPG I'm building! Awesome!

That's an all too familiar problem for me too. Getting someone as a colourist for Groombridge Log was a real pain. When I finally got someone good, they just disappeared like you described. In the end I had to pay someone to get him to stay.

Funny you should mention that… is that alive? I haven't heard of an update in a long time.

Not to get us off-topic, I will only answer shortly this one time:

I haven't done anything in the past year, but yesterday I started working on it again. I don't know if I'll ever get to finish the next chapter. I'll report more when I have something to report.

I thought you guys might be interested:

One of the bio-critter lifeforms you encounter in the lander missions:

(http://star-control.com/community/download/file.php?id=358)

The frame count is the same as the original game. Not to actual game scale, but I like showing the detail.  And if we ever go beyond the resolution, well, we have the artwork already done.

Yes, on the HD project we are even doing the bio creatures. All 23 of them.  To give you an idea... with an average of 4 frames each, that's 92 drawings. Making it in 2 resolutions, that's 184 drawings. That's hundreds of hours of work.  :o

You're either brave or crazy, taking up drawing so many images without even using 3D models. Anyway, it'll look 10x more awesome because of that. :)

Probably more crazy than brave.  :P  We're also working on Project 6014 too.

There's 2 other artists working on this, so I think it's possible. Still, the game has about 15,000 .PNG images we have to reproduce.  With the 2 resolutions, that number shoots up to 30,000.  A lot of this can be automated, but there's no magical "make this better" button. 

To put this in perspective, if you were to do just one thing a week. Reasonable, when you realize not many people have much free time....
1 Bio Critter per week:  6 months of work.
1 Comm screen per week:  6 months of work
1 Comm animation per week: 6 months of work
1 Ship per week: 7 months of work.

That's over 2 years of work  :o.... and you're not even talking about programming, bullets, explosions, UI,  fonts, team communication, planning, etc.  There's a reason there was a large crew of people who made the original.  The original PC version had 10 artists working full time.  Sorry to pat my own back, but when this gets finished, that will be a pretty impressive amount of work  done in just our spare time :)  I can fully understand why so many are skeptical.

So, those that don't know, you can download and play some of the HD stuff RIGHT NOW in Project 6014.  We have a few more aliens to draw and animate (I hate the animating part).  We've got a lot to integrate from the 0.7.0 update and the 6014 stuff.  So coding is probably our biggest issue from a release. I'd like to get some of the bugs sorted out from the 6014 release first.

Until then.  Art-O-RAMA.

Some stuff by Kwayne:
Melee Screens:
(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/338/f/c/hd_melee_captains_by_kwayne64-d4i47sv.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/favourites/#/d4i47sv)
(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/338/a/4/life_o_by_kwayne64-d4i45fl.gif)
 (http://kwayne64.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4i45fl)

Some stuff by me:
Chenjesu:
(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/338/6/d/chenjesu_broodhome_by_dczanik-d4hw3wm.png) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/art/Chenjesu-Broodhome-271916230)
The Shofixti (Yes. I'll be ruffing him up in the future):
(http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/336/b/c/hd_shofixti_by_dczanik-d4hzwfs.png) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/#/d4hzwfs)

Some stuff by Zenzmurfy:
(http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/337/4/3/druuge_mauler_by_zenzmurfy-d4i3v7l.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/#/d4i3v7l)
(http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/337/8/b/pkunk_fury_by_zenzmurfy-d4i3w23.jpg) (http://dczanik.deviantart.com/#/d4i3w23)

Videos by Zenzmurfy:
http://www.youtube.com/user/zenzmurfy#p/a/u/1/XSZ5dsnHMNc (http://www.youtube.com/user/zenzmurfy#p/a/u/1/XSZ5dsnHMNc)
http://www.youtube.com/user/zenzmurfy#p/a/u/2/UyURZOGEME8 (http://www.youtube.com/user/zenzmurfy#p/a/u/2/UyURZOGEME8)
http://www.youtube.com/user/zenzmurfy#p/a/u/0/dqIH5N6Swyw (http://www.youtube.com/user/zenzmurfy#p/a/u/0/dqIH5N6Swyw)

Zenzmurfy and Kwayne have been sitting on some of this stuff for over a year, just waiting to show them off.  So if you can thank them for their hard work, I'm sure it would mean a lot to them.

The melee screens are amazing! I especially love the Mycon.

The Mycon comm screen changed a bit:
(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/078/6/4/mycon___uqm_hd_version_by_kwayne64-d3l9dva.jpg)

Hallelujah! ......And a Pkunk resurrects a dead thread.

I've spoken with my main programmer, and we agreed to release the HD game this year.  Probably Dec. 31st! (Still technically this year!).  Consider it an alpha since it might be buggy ;)  There's a lot of testing that needs to be done.

What won't be in it:
2x mode. 640x480 will have to wait until the next update. Sorry mobile users!
Also, multiple languages won't be in it.  With some help, we can put them in for the next version. If you can help me translate them, I can provide all the menu graphics for you. The dialog text for multiple languages already exists, just not the graphics.

What will be in it:
Not just a demo... but the full complete game with completely new art.
If I can get somebody to help me to implement it, Zenzmurfy is creating an alternate video intro and ending (like the 3do had).  You can choose between this or the classic slides Ur-Quan Masters uses.

Cool! I'm looking forward to it! :)

Oh My FUCKING GOD onpon. WHAT THE FUCK?? I sent you a MULTIPLE PMs like more than two months ago you and STILL didn't respond despite you making this post and NO ONE got back to me and needing help with the game. What the fuck? How is this community even alive? Is anyone actually working on anything or is it all some scam?

Dude...chill.  Nobody is getting paid here, so stuff gets done when it gets done, even if it takes years (and it often does).

It does not take years to type a few fucking sentences.

Um, sorry? I didn't get any PMs from you and I have no idea what you're talking about (don't recall that I was doing anything for you or even saying that I was going to). I haven't been hibernating from posting, either.

EDIT: My only interaction with you ever was is this topic:

http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=5275.msg69604

For some reason my outbox got deleted, I guess I haven't been on enough (ironically), but I was particularly eager to work on a project and I specifically remember contacting you and/or someone high up in the project hierarchy about sound and art, specifically planets, and I even posted on a topic or two a few times asking if anything needed to be done anyway. I had posted and PMed some people and I was waiting for days (or I guess checking every day or three) for any reply.

There's at least some evidence of what I'm saying here

http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4409.570

http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4409.555

In those topics it appears to be for sound, but someone could have at least said "no, we don't need sounds"

I guess I'm sorry for freaking out but this game is like one of my top 10 games of all time and it seemed like people ignored me.

Well, I'm not involved in P6014. I volunteered to help out once, but I turned out to be unable to.

Onpon just isn't cool enough to hang out with us.  His knowledge of Star Trek and Star Wars trivia is clearly sub-par ;)

Oh look. It's a desperate attempt to keep us back on topic. 

(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/293/a/f/spathi_council__the_safe_ones_by_dczanik-d5idpzz.jpg)

This is actually an older picture.  Can anybody tell from memory what's missing here? 

Yeah there's no electronic frame, like a metal upper and lower edge http://www.sa-matra.net/quotes/safeones/

For the New version of UQM I think there should just be one single screen size that's smaller than the largest because not only it will take up much less disk space because not only will you not have to make a super big image, but you also won't have to make 2 copies of it for the smaller screen versions. So I think we should have one screen size that's moderate in size and stick with it.

No, that's not it.  That graphic was added in later.  It's not in Ur-Quan Masters. Well, that technically it sort of does.  That's using graphics from the ending cutscene when the captain is speeding away from the

I'm not really sure what you're saying. What are you referring too exactly? What's wrong with the single screen idea?

That's the post I was referring to. 

I know what is, but from looking at that link rather than from memory. I did catch that they look less festive from memory, though.

Hello!

I just wanted to thank the team behind this project, in particular dczanik.

If I may ask, could you give us a percentage of HD-converted images out of the original 16000? I am just curious about how many you could do since this project started 2 years ago.

Thanks!

Comm images all done. Thraddash, Umgah, & Arilou just need to be animated. Each takes about 2 days.
Ships all done.
Weapons, and captain pics done.
All cutscenes done except one I need to add detail to.
Earth starbase is made, just need to change 1 texture so it's seamless in animated.
UI is done except for some 3do menus. Probably 10 items left.
Modules done.
Equip screen done.
Lander done. Hazards, and bio critters done. 
Out of the 16,000 images... Probably 15,850 done. The 3DO menu will wait until release 2. The comm images, starbase, and cutscenes pic should be finished by the 31st.

Nice work... less than 200 images to go! Yay!

Amazing!

Thanks, dczanik!  ;)

Fantastic work!
I'm very excited to see it all in motion once an HD version of the game is compiled and ready to go. =)

Ohhhhh so exciting.

Is it possible to use this HD pack with the other packs, music, voices, etc?

Right now the game is a separate download from Urquan Masters. But it still allows you to play with the original resolution. We've made a few changes to the game and plan for several more. Voices, remixed, etc. all work.

Out of the 16,000 images, I think we have all 16,000 done!  Even the 3DO stuff! There's a few that might not be as good as I'd like.... But for the most part, I think you guys will enjoy it! Our lead programmer has 2 bugs to fix, and we're releasing (unless more pops up).   We don't have a windows programmer so I'm doing that stuff. I've never made an installer that downloads files off the internet, so I'm learning that now.

Great!

Just one question: is it necessary to make an installer that needs download files from the Internet? Can't everything be packed into a single file? If it's the size that worries you, I'd not think about it. Google Drive, for example, is really excellent for storage and completely free.  ;)

Actually, no.  The problem lies with our hosting on Google Code. Now you would think with a company like Google, we would have more than 200 MB of upload space, but...we don't.  So, we have to break the files up.  This is just a pain in the butt... So, I've made the decision to join my Ur-Quan Masters brethren and host the files on Sourceforge.  I'm uploading the Windows version now. It's just a single zip file.  I'll post a link later. Everything is all in the "Ur-Quan Masters HD - Alpha1.zip".

At the risk of confusing some... On a completely unrelated known, I've thrown the add-on files into their own separate zip files, because the thousands of individual files takes forever to unzip otherwise.   They're in the content folder. The game will also run whether you keep those files zipped or not.  So, feel free to unzip it and snoop around. I just like the idea of people viewing how the game works. Maybe it will inspire people to make their own mods.  :)

I would much rather have a self-contained installer that doesn't tether the install to a website anyway.  What's the total size?

567 MB Zipped. Most of the files are compressed already so it's only 604 MB unzipped. That's including the 4x, 2x, original images, and voices.

It's literally taken years to do....but I've finally done it.

I'm proud to announce the first version of Ur-Quan Masters - HD  is ready for download on Windows.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/urquanmastershd/

It's just an alpha, and the 640x480 mode isn't supported yet.  We'll get to that in version 2.

Any bugs, for now, post them here:
http://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/issues/list

I'll post a feature list tomorrow. My mouse button isn't working too well.  Let me know what you guys think.  It's your support that has kept me pushing on :)

When I registered on Google Drive, I got 2 GB free storage space to start with.

Are you sue you can get the same?

EDIT: Just noticed your release! Great job!  :D

Also, it sounds like I'm boasting like it was all me. I've got good friends, and a great team that has helped out.  Team 6014 has put in a huge amount of work on this.  Bravo gentlemen!

And a cool Youtube video courtesy of Jim from Jimplaysgames.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PUsLMSLam0

My sincere congratulations to the whole team involved!

Cheers!

Did you need to modify the voice files?  If not, I'd suggest that you let people download the voice content pack from its official location (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sc2/uqm-0.7.0-voice.uqm?download).  That would make your download quite a bit smaller, and eliminate an unnecessary fork of the voice pack.

dczanik,

may I ask you what the next versions are going to accomplish?

I know that on top of fixing bugs, you'll want to make the 640x480 mode available. What else?  :)

Hmm...something that I just noticed:  It seems like the profiles of some ships are different than they were before.  For example, the Avatar is a fair amount narrower than it used to be.  That's actually going to make a material difference in the effectiveness and power balance of the ships, since a smaller profile will make it harder to hit.

Congratulations!!!!

I am *so* excited to see this finally come to fruition.

I am sharing it with everyone I know to spread the word.

This is easily, single-handedly the greatest thing that has happened to video gaming since possibly the release of Star Control II itself.

Congratulations once again on everyone's hard work, and thank you so, so, so much for doing this. I know it took years and years, and probably 99% of all fan-projects like this end up dead after a few months from lack of interest or motivation.

I cannot say enough nice things to the creators of this fan mod. Do any of you have any way to accept donations via paypal because I would gladly donate if it's possible.

Thank you thank you thank you once again for putting a fresh coat of paint on one of the best video games ever made.

The only frustrating part about this is that I can't download it and play it for another few weeks because I'm stuck on a boat that barely has enough bandwidth for these forums, let alone to download the HD Mod zip.

Thanks again!!!! I can't say it enough :)

Congratulations! Downloading now. Do you need me to upload this mediafire? I can and will if necessary.

I'd love this everywhere and anywhere! Unless there's problems with sourceforge and its 15 mirrors, I don't see any problems though.

And now, we've released for Mac!
https://sourceforge.net/projects/urquanmastershd/

Linux, should be coming soon.

Oh, awesome.  That looks fantastic - great job to all involved!


Were you going to be releasing sourcecode too?  Either as a patch or a separate tree entirely?

The source is available in the Google Code link:

svn checkout http://uqm-hd.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ uqm-hd-read-only

Trying this now. Looks fantastic.

Ah, doy, should've thought to look there when I saw the Google Code link in that post.  :)  Thanks!

The source code is also in the zip file.  We're going to start making a transition to sourceforge shortly.  Googlecode just has too many limits.   At the time, honestly, the idea of releasing the game felt more like a pipe dream so file size issues was the furthest thing from my mind.  Oldlaptop is taking care of the Linux stuff. Source is also available on Googlecode.

I posted a link on reddit.  I'd love to get some upvotes so others can find out about this game.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/15qhr3/urquan_masters_high_definition_star_control_2/

You guys are totally awesome!

Downloading now.

dczanik,

could you please give us some details about what will come next?

I am eager to read more updates about your plans for this fantastic modfication!  :P

Just downloading the file. Also, I made a topic about this HD mod on the forums of Pelit magazine, the biggest gaming publication in Finland, also a big Star Control 2 advocate.

My initial thoughts: it works and looks pretty good. I'm not sure if I like the red coloured menu graphics, though. The increase in resolution may have done something to the AI, e.g. Androsynths never seem to engage you in melee unless you harass them with projectiles.

Just tried out the actual game. Oh my god, oh my goooood. I'm incredibly excited! Looks awesome. Looks like we have a winner here!
(I can't help but post these stupid messages with very little amount of actual information. I'm just soooo excited.)

A high-resolution version (https://github.com/oldlaptop/Hires-Shiver-Balance-Mod) of the Balance Mod (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/User:Shiver/Balance_Mod) is being worked on, a working alpha of that will hopefully be ready by the end of this week.

Just registered to say THANK YOU.  This is one of my favorite games of all time.  I just played this for 10 minutes, and the art is wonderfully done!  I can't wait to go through all the redone artwork.  This is VERY MUCH APPRECIATED! 

Well, we've got Linux now. We are going to get a balance mod soon. I'll be working on the 640x480 mode so it can work on laptops, and mobile devices. Hoping to get it ported to Android and Chrome Web browser.

We've got a new programmer who is working on a prototype animation system to allow for smooth rotations. It will be able to turn on/off for you melee vets. It's still too early to say when it's going to happen.

Glad you like it!

The black/red motif was just a way to seperate the look from UQM, and Project 6014. I went with the red slave shield and the Kohr-Ah for a red/black look. I plan on overhauling the GUI In the future to make it look less dated.

Never noticed the Androsynth problems. Anybody else having these issues?

I'm afraid those packages aren't quite complete.  :-[  I need to re-do the game data packages, since I didn't realize the HD mod changed UQM's base content package. I also need to find some way to get the ~600mb of data files onto Sourceforge, since I can't upload something that big over my Internet connection. I hope to have it all finished by the end of today (GMT -0500) or tomorrow at the latest.

Ive noticed a few gliches in species animations:

Yehat captain constantly blinks his eyes in rapid, looks silly.

Melnorme eye iris goes dark after doing that pupil switch thingie.

If I notice anything else ill let you know.

Looking forward to player's feedback so that found bugs can be squashed in Alpha 2 (or Beta1?  ;D)!

Oh yeah another thing, when you go to pick up the planetary objects, like the moon base or the sun device, the blue text cuts off from the right side, at least for me. Im playing in fullscreen.

Tanakas ship is not slow, and has no limpets on it. Its just a normal shofixti ship.

The scene where Zex dies is not blacked out, I imagine its similar with the spathi council intro and the intimate scene with Talana.

Was surprised to hear the utwig given another voice, who and when?

Hi Armass, I am one of the UQM-HD MOD team and I worked with Damon on the quality and testing.
We are aware of the device / lander  text cut-off bug, it's been corrected but we are waiting for the next release to package it. 
Thanks for your interest in this wonderful game!

So, is there any chance of this becoming integrated with the main UQM release at some point in the future? It really sounds like this will be the ideal way to play the game once the bugs are gone, so combining it with our remixes and making it "official" would be a great way to breathe new life into the whole project.

I would love nothing more than to see this become part of the official release as an add-on. I will provide the UQM team anything they need in order to provide for that.  That is, if they are interested. 

So.... Are you guys interested?

Hello

Fantastic Job! Congratulations!. Will download en test later  9 i am working now)

I will also create a topic on the Mass Effect forums.

If it was possible i would sent pizza's and 6 packs of beer to Dczanik :)

@ TiLT

Exactly what I was thinking too.

I'm not on the core team, but I've had code reviewed and accepted by them, so I can perhaps make a few suggestions:

• Browsing your archive, it looks like checkins r745, r746, and r747 (and probably others) change the original behavior of the game in ways unrelated to the HD graphics.  Remember that the primary mission of the core project is to maintain a faithful reproduction of the original game, so they can't take any changes that would modify the original behavior.  This means that the more non-essential changes there are outside of the content directory, the harder the job will be, because they'll probably have to rip those out.
• Make sure you've read the instructions in the file 'Contributing', and that any changes you do make to the source code adhere to the guidelines there.
• The easiest way I can think of to do this would be to make a separate "MERGE_TO_CORE" branch of UQM-HD that only has the source changes absolutely necessary to make the HD content work, and then to bring that branch up-to-date with the changes from the core SVN since 0.7.0.  That will produce what is hopefully a not-overwhelmingly-large diff set that could be reviewed, cleaned up to meet the contribution specs, and eventually merged and checked in to core.

Personally, I think it would be best for the HD graphics to be merged as an option which can be activated by using an "HD" add-on. Then UQM stays faithful to the original entirely (even including the collision detection, which I'm sure makes a small difference) and yet people can still play it in HD if they want.


I suppose he/she already knows this, but I just want to throw this out there: it's not enough to just make rotation smooth. With angle limitations, vanilla UQM sort of makes slower-turning ships feel tub-like in that after turning one notch, you have to wait a bit before you can turn it back. If rotation is smooth, this won't exist any more, resulting in a disproportionate benefit to slower-turning ships, so another change is needed to return this tublike feel to slow-turning ships (probably a small amount acceleration in rotation speed).

The problem is that some of these changes have nothing to do with playing in HD.  For example, UQM-HD r746 adds extra ZFP colony worlds.  That might be a nice flavor addition to the game, but it's a change from the original, and it's unrelated to the HD graphics.  IMHO, changes like that belong in their own mods, like the UQM-Extended Edition, and not in the core code.

But my opinion doesn't matter.  From the rules for submitting changes (http://sc2.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/sc2/trunk/sc2/Contributing (http://sc2.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/sc2/trunk/sc2/Contributing)):


I think that's pretty clear.

And this is the main issue. As a contributor to just the UQM codebase, we are severely limiting ourselves to what we can do.  I agree with UQM's mission.
The UQM team can take our code and pick what they want. They can take the art, and use what they want. I just don't know if there's even a desire for a high resolution version of the game. Despite some of our best efforts, it's always going to look different.  But the offer is there if they're interested.

And there's about 7 minor changes, (like exploding lunar rovers) just thrown in a week. Easy to take out.


And we've done that. It's there though  if they want it.


Yes. We've discussed this, and quite a few other technical details. It's why our lead programmer didn't even want to touch it. It's a giant can of worms.  Nothing is even set in stone at this point.

[/list]

Well, I for one really hope that the HD graphics can be brought in to the core, and it would greatly surprise me if the core team wasn't interested in doing something like what they did with the soundtrack remixes.  The reason I'm raising these points is that I think the odds of it actually happening will be maximized if the contribution guidelines are followed.

I still haven't had a chance to try the mod yet, but I just wanted to weigh in on the issue of including the HD Mod as an official "Ad-on" pack of Ur-Quan Masters.

I think it would be nice to have it as an ad-on pack, but I don't think the team making the HD Mod should be responsible for making it suitable for that purpose. Let the core team take their source and "cleanse" it so that it meets their criteria, and then put it as an optional download on the installer.

That way the HD Mod team can keep working on whatever adjustments and fun extra stuff they want, and there won't be any arguments over what is or isn't necessary to include in the "official HD Mod" and no one will get their feelings hurt.

Plus, it's a little brazen for anyone to be saying, "Hey you guys should take out all this stuff you did so it can become an official download option."

Well, historically, it's been far more common for the core team to wait for people to submit patches than it has been for them to pro-actively pull code from other mods.  

dczanik said:
I'm just offering suggestions on what he could provide to boost the odds of this happening sooner rather than later.

I would like to see the HD mod as an add-on which can be installed through the official installer, and to have the required changes to the code integated in the vanilla tree.
However, there is not much activity in the core team at the moment, and I don't think that this will change in the near future. Brief bursts of activity is the most which can be expected for now, and there are various things which we have waiting to be done.
So regardless of on whom it should fall to prepare the patches to be included in the vanilla tree, unless we are provided with ready-made patches which could be applied (independently) it's unlikely that the HD code will be included in vanilla UQM any time soon.

I personally think that it would be good to have some new blood in the UQM vanilla team who have more time on their hands, but before we would be prepared to give someone SVN write access, we would want to see that they deliver code of sufficient quality, and that they fit in philosophically (i.e. share the same goals for the project).

I've talked to the lead programmer, and right now he's just not interested in doing all the porting work. We'd need another programmer.

We have a Facebook page!  Hit that Like button for us!   :)
https://www.facebook.com/UrQuanMastersHd

Fair enough.

Has anyone else noticed that some of the surface report text gets left out, e.g. some lines of text seem to be too long to fit inside the text window?

The bug can be easily repeated by starting a new game, flying to the moon and investigating the moon base. Resolution tested on: 1280x960.

Yep. That's a bug we'll fix. Bug list is here:

http://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/issues/list

I too would also like to see this as an option in the main build. I don't see that it would be that difficult, once the bugs are ironed out and the non-HD-specific changes are removed. One additional graphics menu option I guess, plus the same commandline option. But far be it from me to judge - I think you've done great, and it's worthy of applause.

Me too. Trust me, I'd love to see my artwork in as many people's hands as possible.  But, it's a volunteer army.  If somebody doesn't feel like spending all those hours doing it, I can't make them.

So, if any other programmer would like to volunteer their time, I'd love it.

Also, Team 6014 is getting requests from people to give us money.  We're not accepting money. We do this because we love Star Control & The Ur-Quan Masters.  In lieu of giving money to Project 6014, or the HD project, we ask you donate some money to a charity of your choosing.
If you're unsure where to give, try:
http://www.childsplaycharity.org/

We already have one awesome board member, Drewtwo99 donate. I'd like to publicly thank him for that. You are awesome!

Actually, donations could be spent on commissioning extra artwork/music or renting server space.

Well, right now, we have less need for money than a children's hospital. :)

In case anybody is interested, you can download the music for the UQM-HD trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PUsLMSLam0) 
from the creator, the legendary "The Mister Cat" here:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/109003827/The%20Mister%20Cat%20-%20UQM%20HD%20Trailer.mp3

I love this game and love the HD Mod, it looks great.  I was wondering if anyone is able to help compile the De-Cleansing Mod for use with the HD Mod for Windows.  I'm one of those people that enjoys visiting every planet and gathering all resources, but there just isn't enough time.  I've tried compiling it but can't get it to work and can't figure it out.

I'd appreciate any help, thanks!

There's so many things changed that it's a little trickier than taking the source code for the de-cleansing mod and compiling it for the HD game. It's actually easier for the de-cleansing mod to port it over to the HD game. That being said, putting the de-cleansing mod (and other mods)  into the HD game is on our to do list.

If anyone has Photoshop and wants to help me create a translation package for the graphics, let me know. No artistic skills needed. Just know how to use Photoshop.

Does the GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/) count? :P

That would be better. I'll send you a file later.  Let me know if it works for you.

I am familiar with photoshop.

I'll make an alternative suggestion.  Even if you guys don't have the time/manpower to prep patches to the main tree, it would be a really good idea to branch the UQM-HD repository, so that you've got a vanilla version (where new changes related to the HD resolution would go) and a strawberry version (where any new changes unrelated to the HD resolution would go).  You could set up the strawberry version to always pull the vanilla changes, so it gets them all.  I suggest this because otherwise, the UQM-HD code base will probably continue to diverge from the core line, and we risk it turning into a full fork, which I don't think is in the best interests of the UQM community.

@dczanik

Can we get updated windows builds? I want to beta test for you but can't compile under windows.

Click "view the raw file"  to download the .exe here:
http://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/source/browse/trunk/uqm.exe?spec=svn956&r=956

ah good thank you!

Hi, Elestan!

You are more than welcome to come aboard and help us implement either making the "strawberry" changes a new option tree into the setup menu - or branching the repository.

We are seriously understaffed on the programming side. Without additional workforce improvements like these are sadly pushed to "some time in the future".

Just wondering, is there any word on the smaller HD version?

I'll be out on a business trip for 2 weeks in February so it probably will be in March.

I'd love to, but I only have a little time to spend on UQM.  My current project is helping the core team port to a newer Windows compiler, since the Visual C++ 6.0 that it currently uses is so old that you can't find it anymore.  Then I hope to implement something to make it possible to mod ships without being a programmer.  After that I might be able to put some time into merging the HD mod, but that's a fair distance (months or years) into the future, and if in the meantime UQM-HD isn't merging upstream changes from the core, and is mixing other non-HD changes and refactorings into the HD code, then it makes an already hard task even more daunting and less likely to happen.

This is a question (really, two questions) on project definition and goals for the UQM-HD team:

1)  What are the goals for UQM-HD 1.0?  Is this a single-purpose project to bring HD graphics to UQM, or is it intended to be some kind of "Extended Edition" that also adds a bunch of other stuff?  These two options are actually in tension, because every non-HD feature added makes it harder to separate the HD changes needed for the core.  If the project's goals aren't clearly defined, then it's unlikely to reach them very quickly.

2)  Is the project a development branch, or a fork?  If it's a branch, then it has a responsibility to merge the upstream changes from the core team, to keep the two projects in sync.  Merging code isn't as fun as adding cool new features, but it's really important in open source projects to keep them from fragmenting.  Forks are easier to do, because they don't require that ongoing maintenance work, but they run a higher risk of actually causing harm to the community from which they arose.  Quicker, easier, is the dark side.  :-)

My opinion is that the best course for the UQM community at large would be if UQM-HD stayed focused on perfecting the HD capabilities until they were complete, and made a 1.0 release of those features first, before opening up the door to other changes.  Obviously, since I'm not working on the project, my opinion has only as much weight as Dczanik and his team choose to give it.    But it's well-intended, and I hope that any UQM-HD developers that are considering spending time creating some new non-vanilla feature will take a moment and consider possibly doing some of the less glamorous but very important merge work instead.

1) As the lead programmer, I've opted to go for Extended. There are several small annoyances in the vanilla game that I'm very happy to have fixed in UQM-HD.
Like:
showing the value of biologicals when picking them up. Or partially scavenged minerals' remainders staying on the planet surface. Or the monochrome white lightnings and earthquakes now having a proper fading to grey. Or nameable savegames. Or logging the QS-HS hole coordinates into the QS starmap. Or when exiting a system on autopilot, automatically exit facing in the correct direction in HS. Or asking the player's name when starting the game.
And I see nothing wrong in throwing in some extras like SC1-style ship info screens available in the supermelee menu.

2) I am getting very proficient in tweaking the UQM code. However, I am not at all proficient in pulling code from a different tree, say vanilla UQM, and trying to match it with ours without breaking anything.
So it saddens me to see that there are a lot of people even in these forums who most probably would be by far more capable than me in managing a source code project - merging and branching changes between two source code trees... and yet very few of those people are willing to put in even an hour or two into something that would take me weeks to accomplish, and probably only hours for them to do. Talk is cheap, labor is priceless.
So until someone actually steps up to actually offer us some help, a fork this is.

Regarding nameable saves: I'm pretty sure that's something vanilla UQM is supposed to have in the future.

To be frank, relying on volunteers to come along is not very reliable. It's perfectly normal for projects to mostly be one-man shows; even entire operating systems remain like this in some cases. If you take the attitude that someone will need to volunteer for the UQM HD code to get merged with mainline UQM, either you'll get lucky, or it will never get done. The only way to be sure it will happen is to take it into your own hands somehow; either go past your comfort zone and do it yourself, or raise some funds to pay someone to do it.

I've been meaning to try and do some of this kind of thing sooner or later, in particular creating a branch of uqm-hd without all the extra added features which make merging with vanilla UQM problematic. One problem is that uqm-hd code is in SVN, which I'm not really all that familiar with (and is fairly bad at handling branching/merging in the first place). Sourceforge should make it quite easy to set up a DVCS mirror though.

You know the main ship seems kinda skinny compared with the old one. Any chance of making it a tiny bit wider?

New build, if you have the time.

Well, I can assist any way I can. I've added comments of  'strawberry' to anything extra.  It's really not much.  Unfortunately, Google doesn't seem to let you search the comments (you think GOOGLE would have a better search than that).  There are some gray areas though. Technically a new feature added, but they don't really change the game IMO.


r966:  Added old hyperspace map from 2135. Press F7 to view.
r961: Modules, jets and thrusters are now placed correctly in the ending anim instead of a generic ship image.
r952: Ship info screens added.
r787: Outfit screen now prints unaffordable prices in red with parentheses
r699: Implement a basic fuel warning system for lander
r676: Now also the regular + and - zoom the starmap in and out instead of just the keypad ones. This should help people playing on laptops without keypad.
r656: Added a very simplistic point of no return circle.
r619: Partially scavenged mineral deposits' graphics now change size upon collection.

Like 966:  You're adding the starmap, that used to be a big printout in the original game. People downloading the game don't have the luxury of a giant star map.
Looking at our list of changes our biggest ones are the lunar rovers exploding, and you can find the ruined remains of a ZFP colony.



That's up to Zenzmurfy or another 3D Modeler.  But, no, he has to completely re-model it. I'm quite aware of this problem, and the effects it has on gameplay. I've found it not a huge deal in the single player game, and in multi-player you don't fly it.
http://code.google.com/p/project6014/wiki/ShipSizes


I tried to get those dimensions to fit exactly on my ships. My Kohr-Ah has perfect dimensions, but my Chenjesu is 2 pixels wider.  It's very difficult to make them the same in 3D.

Obviously I can't speak for the main developers, but this seems to me to be something that they would be willing to accept in vanilla UQM.

If UQM is not just incredibly deceptive and it really does use precise, pixel-perfect collision detection, there's no way you're going to get that perfect in the HD mod, unless you use the original graphics as a mask for collisions That actually might be a good idea as an option. Probably not too important, though.

One thing I have noted before: particularly noticeable on the flagship, with the original graphics, it has different sizes depending on its orientation. It's a lot longer when it's at 45 degrees, and quite a bit shorter when it's vertical. I guess partly because the original SC2 was intended for 320x200.

Fattening the ship is more of an aesthetic standpoint. it's much too narrow for me. just thought i'd voice my opinion.

Aesthetics aside, that would still require re-modeling the entire ship. That's not even mentioning re-doing the intro, ending, modules screen, shipyard screen, orbit graphics, & melee graphics to match the wider ship.
That being said, I agree with you. It's just a huge amount of work, and even in the original game the ship varies a bit (it's silver in the intro, the modules go from 16 to 12, coverings, no coverings, etc.)

just the ship in the planet/system exploration. everything else seems a reasonable size.

The download page https://sourceforge.net/projects/urquanmastershd/ does not work, is there a mirror?

Thanks, oldlaptop. I would really appreciate it. The problem seems to be that none of the active UQM-HD programmers (read: more or less the two of us) are SVN wizards :-p

If moving to Sourceforge will make the merging easier, I'm all for moving into it!

Well, you could also look at it this way: Both Damon and I came aboard Cedric's P6014 as volunteers. As did Benjamin, Themistercat, Kwayne, Ariel and Chris to name a few. The whole UQM-HD project was spawned by P6014 in turn.

Cedric could have taken the attitude that he and his brother take the whole project into their own hands, doing everything on their own. Or then, they could have asked for talented people to come aboard to lend them a hand. I am fairly confident that by doing it on their own, we wouldn't have P6014 at all. Nor UQM-HD for that matter.

Well, when I talk about taking it into your own hands, I don't mean to not accept volunteers. I mean to not expect volunteers, so that even if it takes longer, you'll still manage in that scenario. If you decide that you personally can't do it and it will never get done unless someone else volunteers, time might be wasted if you ever find yourself with time to take a stab at it.

Maybe I'm worrying too much. It's just that I've heard "we need more volunteers" so much from both UQM HD and P6014 that I wonder how sustainable the development model is. I suppose on the flipside, someone is more likely to volunteer for an important task if no one's set to do it eventually.

src/uqm/misc.c: In function `do_damage':
src/uqm/misc.c:211: error: `invincibility' undeclared (first use in this function)
src/uqm/misc.c:211: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
src/uqm/misc.c:211: error: for each function it appears in.)
make: *** [obj/release/src/uqm/misc.c.o] Error 1

doing it myself...not doing it well.

edit of frustration....
F@#%! Can I get a windows build of the latest code.

I don't know if I'm doing this completely wrong, but it doesn't work. If it means anything, I have Windows 7 64-bit. I saw the "how to install" comment on the YouTube video, and unzipped the .zip file with 7-Zip, like you said. (However that took a while. First of all, the file on sourceforge was corrupted, so I had to repair that. But  3dovoice.zip was corrupted, and it wouldn't repair that.  I managed to repair it using WinRAR. I then replaced the old  3dovoice.zip with the repaired one, so it would finally unzip.) Then I went in the folder that was created, and there was no uqm.exe! I had previously installed the normal version, so I uninstalled that and unzipped it again, but the same thing! Any advice?

Greetings Yognaught_Joe! If you've gotten a zip error something probably got corrupted when you were downloading.  Re-downloading doesn't always help because browsers like to cache files.  There are plenty of download mirrors:
Just go here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/urquanmastershd/files/alpha-01/Ur-Quan_Masters_HD-Windows-Alpha1.zip/download?_test=updater&utm_expid=65835818-0

You can try choosing the alternate mirror download.
Other mirrors:
http://www.g4g.it/2013/01/12/star-control-2-the-ur-quan-masters-v0-7-0-and-hd/#more-18890
http://www.moddb.com/mods/ur-quan-masters-hd/downloads/ur-quan-masters-hd-alpha-1

Hope that works for you.


Defender, that's always a problem when downloading the latest development version. Bugs happen. I'll try to post a later .exe for you. But, right now, it's not working for me either.

Dang! We added an "invincibility button" for debug builds to make it easier to playtest.

It seems I forgot to make the build work also when doing a release build, not just for debug builds. I made a fix for that just now (in SVN r969). See if it works now!

http://pastebin.com/embed_js.php?i=inNg6QXT
NO GO.

and with network disabled:

In file included from src/uqm/restart.c:44:
src/svnversion.h:1:30: warning: no newline at end of file
src/uqm/restart.c: In function `DrawRestartMenuGraphic':
src/uqm/restart.c:85: error: `resFactorWasChanged' undeclared (first use in this function)
src/uqm/restart.c:85: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
src/uqm/restart.c:85: error: for each function it appears in.)
src/uqm/restart.c: In function `DoRestart':
src/uqm/restart.c:231: error: `resFactorWasChanged' undeclared (first use in this function)
make: *** [obj/release/src/uqm/restart.c.o] Error 1

i can build .7 and .8 source and figured out the balance mod. this however is becoming a pain. when you guys do bug fixes, do you not test the update by building against the updated source? just curious.

Just want to confirm, you are compiling an exe. I haven't had a chance to compile and upload an exe myself.

yes, or trying to at least. not doing so hot and losing hair in the process.

Of course we do.
The problem is that I'm working on OSX and don't have a Windows computer handy at all, so I am unable to test my fixes against Windows-specific problems... the looks of which at least that pastebin output of yours seems to be. I recall that someone had similar problems when compiling on a certain version of MSVC, but I don't remember which version was the one that was giving problems.

What I don't do though, is test compiling the fixes against every possible config option every time (e.g. network on/off, joystick/on/off, opengl on/off, zip support on/off etc.), so sometimes bugs like the  'resFactorWasChanged' not being recognized slip through the cracks. Good catch, by the way.

That particular variable should have nothing to do with network support, but with the network support disabled, the library 'options.h' didn't make its way into restart.c, which causes this error. I've now added the library into restart.c in revision 972. Try again, but be warned - the supermelee stars look pretty darn ugly now - work in progress :)

Got it downloaded a bit later after I posted. I was checking out some stats on downloads seems like there was quite a huge influx of downloads on the 16th an onwards both for the HD and normal edition. Maybe it's thanks to the Yogscast which are doing a let's play of it on youtube. Their first video of the series aired on the 16th. They have a nice subscriber base of over 3 million people :) Good coverage

It is; it was a feature in the original PC game.  If you're planning to implement nameable savegames, I'd encourage you to work with the core team to implement it there, instead of in UQM-HD.


Precisely.  This is much like what happened when Google took Linux to create Android.  Google added a bunch of new stuff, but while they did open-source it as the license required, they didn't coordinate enough with the core Linux development team to make sure that the "vanilla" parts of their changes could be integrated cleanly into the core distribution.  As a result, they created a split between Android and the rest of the Linux distributions.  Eventually, they realized that such a split wasn't good for either community, and the Android Mainlining Project (http://elinux.org/Android_Mainlining_Project (http://elinux.org/Android_Mainlining_Project)) was created to try to get things merged back together again.

I like all of these changes...in fact, I already have a couple of them (biodata values and autopilot direction correction) implemented in my own mod (ref http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=5233.msg69264 (http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=5233.msg69264)).

You could run these changes by the core team.  If they say that they're willing, in theory, to accept a particular change into the core, then it gets classified 'vanilla'.  Otherwise it's 'strawberry'.

Yep, that's perfectly reasonable line of thinking. It would be lovely to get volunteers, but we are not stopping to work waiting for someone to knock on the door.

Right now, for me, it''s pretty much either implement the working 640x480 mode (and fix bugs as they're discovered), or start the merging/branching work. I opt for the former.

I actually got the idea for many of those changes from that very post of yours. Hope you don't mind!

Some of them we already had (the better mineral collection handling), some were inspired by UQM EE (the biodata value showing), but some were totally borrowed from your brilliant ideas (like the ship heading to the correct direction when leaving IP to HS, I think that's a great - and logical improvement).

Not at all...ideas are free.  I'd be happy to contribute the code patches for my "strawberry" features as well once HD is merged to core.   ;)

It will probably be most effective if you just start with a copy of the current core SVN, and then start creating incremental patches just to let the game handle the 2x or 4x artwork.  I wouldn't initially worry about the fancy stuff like rotating and moving planets and new planetary surface feature generators.  For the code-generated on-screen graphics, I wonder if it would be possible to put a layer in between the client and the graphics engine that just scaled up the drawing operations to work on 2x2 or 4x4 blocks of pixels instead of individual ones.  That could allow things like the shipyard and outfit screens to work with minimal changes to the client code.

Just wanted to post to say awesome job! I'm looking forward to the completion of the full game. I've been wandering the galaxy finding Rainbow Worlds and poking my head where I probably shouldn't and enjoying every minute of it.

Out of all the remakes/continuations of old school games this is probably my favorite.

Did a speedrun of UQM HD the other day just for kicks. Most fun I've had in a while.

Awesome! If you (or anyone else)  can, try to record it. I actively study the "let's play" UQM games on Youtube  to see where we can improve. Like we just put in the classic star map that came with the game because I noticed new players had little idea where to go without the Star map that came with the original game.

I must admit, I prefer the Monkey Island remakes more. I look at my game and keep seeing the flaws. I really like that in the MI games you can swap between the original and HD mode at any time. Guybrush looks a little weird though. Superbutcherx and I were chatting about remakes we'd like to see. I'd love to see the Wing Commander and X-Wing/TIE fighter remakes on par with something  like  Star Citizen.

Anyways really glad you enjoyed it!

I like the graphical update you have made to this game, but I have to voice that I don't like some of the other gameplay changes like the moving planets and moons and would like to see a setting to disable/enable them (for every new game).

There we go!  Haha! I was amazed  it took so long, but it's official now. Every single thing we've ever implemented in Project 6014 has had ONE person that didn't like it.
EVERY piece of art, every character, ship, storyline, the hi-res mode, has had ONE complaint, except nobody complained ever  about those rotating planets!
It almost always starts off with, "I like the game, but I don't like X".

Not an attack, or making fun, you just can't please 100% of people.
I agree 100%. It should be an on/off feature. 


Some of our greatest hits:
1. "Hi-Res mode mode is a terrible idea"
2. "The 3D models for the ships suck."
3. "The fonts suck"
4.  "You don't deserve to call yourself an artist"
5. "The (16 angle) ship rotations look retarded"
6.  "You're changing the art too much. It needs to be exactly like the original"
7.  "You guys need to be more bold, and update the crappy 1992 look."
8.  "The art for the intro is shit"
9.  "The UI looks like some generic crap from the 1990s"
10. "The Syreen are too sexual"
11.  "No fat chicks! Get rid of her!"
12.  "The game should be in 3D"
13. "The ISD sucks and should be removed"
14. "The Lurg sucks"
15. "It's too easy"
16. "It's too hard!"
17. "You need to have more humor in the game!"
18. "There's too many stupid jokes in the game!"
19. "The Explorer sucks"
20. "The Explorer is overpowered!"

I could go on, and on, and on....
That's not even the people complaining about features we didn't include too. Widescreen support, re-sizable windows, supporting X resolution, better internet multiplayer, support for 4 players, etc.

Not bitter. We've learned to grow thick(er) skins. You can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time.
I find it a bit humorous. There's literally nothing that hasn't received one complaint.  :)

Were those complaints all for project 6014, or for HD MOD? I wouldn't really understand the hate for project 6014 and its changes as it's "completely" new game with different story and you should have the artistic freedom to change some things.
As for the hate for the "god awful" old gamemechanics (like newer games don't have "features"), people doesn't seem to understand that it's based on 20 year old sourcecode and you can't just "make things better". Some people would be more happy if they were blissfully unaware of this project and would only have UQM.

For Project 6014.

I admit, sometimes I feel like, "Hey. It's a free game. If you don't like it, you don't have to play it. It's open source, make your own game." 

But we all want to see the best game possible. A lot of the criticism is valid.

Everything you guys have done with UQM-HD is F*CKING AWESOME! Keep up the great work!

About the skinny precursor ship I complained about earlier...I changed my mind, it's really not that bad.

building for windows is broken for me but meh...NOT patiently waiting for alpha 2 or beta 1. *taps index finger impatiently*

not that that really helps, right?  ;D

You should check out Wing Commander Saga. It's a free standalone mod on freespace open engine, pretty damn awesome. If you are into space sims, the freespace community is very active and has dozens of quality mods to play now if you haven't already. SC is still few years away.

I've been meaning to ask could you hurry up with the removal of time limit for UQM-HD?  ;)

Wing Commander Saga looks awesome. I've downloaded it. But I'm so busy I haven't had a chance to really play it more than 20 minutes . I have a business trip to get ready for and people asking for the beta. But remakes and new games are different beasts. Similar but not the same.

I'd just like to let everybody know, our wonderful self-aware artificial intelligence, skynet oldlaptop is working on creating a vanilla version of the Ur-Quan Masters HD, so the Ur-Quan Masters team can easily implement the HD graphics without all the extra goodies. 

https://sourceforge.net/p/urquanmastershd/git/ci/e3511925a881273b9ecb97d8bf8395b712a3da8f/tree/

Well, at least I think he's an A.I.   He has yet to prove otherwise. ;)

Just wanted to thank you for the HD work! It is excellent.  :)

Is there a way to stay informed on further updates other than this forum? Maybe a fan page or twitter or tumblr (my preference...) google+ or anything? Also what if we want to contribute our own png files? Like if we see something that could use a "highlight here" or a "shadow there", we could touch it up further...  can we send them to you?

Thanks again for the amazing job.  ;D

Like my Facebook page!
https://www.facebook.com/UrQuanMastersHd

I admit, Some of this stuff was rushed.  The sun device device was only a placeholder until this could get finished:
(http://uqm-hd.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/content/addons/hires4x/lander/energy/sundevice-003.png)

(Trust me. This looks so awesome animated)

I try to set aside ego for all the artwork. So, if you want to send me anything you've improved...please go right ahead.   If your stuff is better, it's going in. We're also working on this other thing called Project 6014 :)
We could always use more artists.

Awesome; I look forward to seeing this happen, and I'll try to help if I can find any free time to do so.  Getting HD graphics working in a mod is an awesome accomplishment, but IMHO the real party only happens once they've been merged into the core distro, such that *every* future mod will have HD capability built-in.

Great news about creating a vanilla version of the HQ mod!

I am hoping to see it on the 0.8.0 release.

We may have a possible workaround for those with lower resolutions (at least for windows). Check out the post here:
http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=808

using  you updated exe r989 and all the stars have lettering numbers attached to them.

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/2672/28573389.jpg

also is there a way to extend the end game date using any debug/cheats options?

Because we're redoing the star graphics.  This is why we don't release unfinished stuff.  :P


Not yet.

i thought it was finished, sorry my bad.

I finished the game yesterday, it was fun to play the HD version for sure :) Found a few bugs but figured they'd probably been reported already so I didn't write anything down. From memory though the flagship animation was bugged at the end and didn't eneter the endgame cutscene at the correct location and there was some voiceovers missing. Is there a link to the posted bugs and I'll check to see if I found something else new? Oh yea the auto pilot is a bit bugged also and doesn't go to the correct location to enter true space from time to time, I believe the last time I played UQM there was a 'snap to' on the starmap to the stars so you didn't have to aim pixel perfect with the croshair on starts which you pretty much have to do in the HD version. That could also have been the original dos version I don't know but I do remember you didn't have to aim so carefully with the crosshair.

I did find the Dreadnought AI a bit weird, I just felt they weren't nearly as aggressive against Avatars as I remember them to be. I was just breezing through them in an Avatar which I find strange. I remember them putting up more of a fight before. Now they were just trying to get away from me most of the time. Not sure if there was any in game AI setting I was missing?

One point about the HD graphics they still look sweet scaled to 2560x1920 on my screen, good job with the artwork! The rotating planets did throw me off a bit though, I couldn't remember all the item locations from memory haha. With the old non rotatating I had memorized where the stuff was :D

Our bugs list:
http://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/issues/list

I believe users's most encountered bugs are already  fixed for the upcoming beta.
Kohr-Ah & Ur-Quan AI was a bit dumbed down due to changes in the code. We've fixed that.
The ending is something I really need to work on. That was rushed.  The captain in the bed looks retarded.  ::)

In the issues list (http://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/issues/list), only open = non-solved issues&bugs are shown by default.

You can see also the already-fixed ones by selecting "all issues" from the search drop-box, and then clicking "search".

Good thing you spotted the strange Ur-Quan AI behavior. AI bugs have proved to be quite hard to track down and even harder to fix  :P.

Is it worth doing the scaling down of the graphics or should I wait for the smaller version?

Not sure. Try it and give me a report of your results :)
You can see screenshots here:
http://star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=18504#p18504

We need your help!

We're looking into adding a commentary mode for the HD game.  Sort of like a game or DVD commentary some games have.  Something that offers trivia, quotes, & interesting information for those that haven't been reading this forum for 10+ years.  ;)

There's been over 20 years of information that has been out since Star Control.  We don't have the time to scour the forums and wiki pages to find all this information.  It may be possible to get this into the game for the Beta, but we need a lot of info - quickly.

I'm trying to collect all the information here:
http://www.star-control.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=813

I just wanted to say, such a fantastic job you have done with the HD mod!   I can't imagine the amount of hours you put into this, but it really shows!  You will be please to know that in principle, your workaround should work in OSX and linux as unix operating systems are no stranger to commandline interfaces ;).  There are just a few extra hoops i had to jump through to get it working satisfactory in OSX.

my laptop can only do 1440x900 which is too small on the vertical.

I tried messing with the .plist file as sometimes you can put command-line options there, but it didn't work. Granted I'm not expert enough in all the intricacies of the .plist file, but for some reason, it would launch the executable "The Ur-Quan Masters HD" no mater what you labeled the executable file as in the plist file (including additional command-line options afterward and would only treat it as the title in the menu bar.)  My guess is it's hard-coded somehow.

What did work for me is creating a textfile putting:


and saved it as "The Ur-Quan Masters.txt"

I then went to Get Info via selecting the text file pressing cmd-I and then removed .txt extension

Then go to the Terminal and to make it treat this file an executable via "chmod +x file"

Then open the .app bundle and go to Contents->MacOS and rename The Ur-Quan Masters HD executable to The Ur-Quan Masters HD2.

And then finally, plop the new executable file in .app->contents->MacOS.

Voila, opening the .app will launch with the appropriate commands.


I'm sure there is a far more elegant method somehow, but this worked for me.

Hello,

After my addiction to Mass Effect  I did go back To Sc2. So i started the HD Mod.  (Looks Great!)

I just started a new game (HD-Mod) and i was happy surprised.

What i am planning to do is a walktrough/letsplay  on Youtube.

I will never forget the first time i played the original game in 1992!
I still have the original CD box and starmap.

And yes i was one of the very few who did beat the Ur-Quan in my first play trough :)

I still consider SC2 the best SF game that was ever created!

I never ever before did a letsplay ore walktrough on Youtube so forgive me if things go wrong.
I dont intend to promote myself.. but by making a walktrough playing the HD mod i hope more ppl will discover Sc2 and this beautifull HD Mod.

I would like to hear your opinions while i am playing the game.
My internet connection is not fast and i i wont use a mic.
Also i do have a very busy job so i dont know how frequently i will do vids.

I am recording with fraps.. so i have to convert my frapped games to mp4 before uploading.

I would like to have some feedback on this forum about :  shall i do a complete walktrough on Youtube ??

many many thanks to Dzanic ( and team ?)  for creating this mod!

It looks really beautifull!

You all take Care.

Emphyrio
(aka Iceage)

Ps uploading test video now it is  27.784 kb and it will take about 30 Minutes before upload is ready.
All tips are welcome.

Take Care

Sorry for my English (its not my native language)  ( I am Dutch  Eu)

Edit test video is uploading->
 http://youtu.be/w2OAZw89O70

Hello people.

Help needed.. I played after my video 1 and used Fraps.
I recorded without a pause... But when i look were fraps files are saved i see this->

(http://i50.tinypic.com/35n98xs.jpg)

As you see it is not 1 big file while recording (about 30 minutes but  it is several files all 4.142 Mb
i did not press pause .

I was thinking i would get 1 big file that i could convert and upload ,
I looked in the fraps settings but cant find anything...

Strange ( (:
I would like to have my play uploaded in 1 vid But its all fragmented now.
any ideas's ?

Ill upload the second part as a test.

maybe this is not the correct forum that i ask questions about recording and fraps  ( Sorry).
Take Care

Use a video editor. If you were on GNU/Linux, you would be able to use OpenShot or PiTiVi, but for Windows, I'm not aware of any decent gratis video editors (you'll just have to use Movie Maker unless you fork over whatever sum they charge for the commercial ones). Though it does seem like there's a kickstarter project to port OpenShot to Windows and Mac OS X: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/421164014/openshot-video-editor-for-windows-mac-and-linux

Hey I was just wondering if the following URL has the most up to date version: http://sourceforge.net/p/urquanmastershd/git/ci/e3511925a881273b9ecb97d8bf8395b712a3da8f/tree/

I'm beginning to tinker with modding and I'd rather work with the newest version so it's relevant longer.  Also, I know people are working on bugs and the like, so any ETA for the next update?

And thanks everyone who contributed!

Latest version of the code is located here:
https://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/source/checkout

The GIT stuff is usually about a week or two behind.
If you want to join us, we could always use the help.

We're looking to release when our bug list, drops down to zero :
https://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/issues/list

We're hoping to get this as bug free as possible. So, ETA?
Since I have the most to do, probably...3-4 weeks?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoblDy49iYcOdEQzTU42d21ZVVRTZGM3U2EtZVNkS0E&usp=sharing

We've fixed about 220 bugs from the alpha.  Our testers might find additional bugs. 

If it seems like the release should have been out sooner, it should have been! Of course we do this in our free time, and a couple of important things just completely decimated my free time (Bioshock: Infinite & watching Game of Thrones)   ::)   

I think that there's an expression that goes something like "better to release something with a few bugs now than to never release anything at all". ;)

@IcaAge:

Avidemux is the freeware video editor I use these days to split and merge video files on Windows.  VirtualDub is another from ages past, though it seems somewhat finnicky in Windows 7 (I don't think it's been updated in quite a while.)

Thanks for the response!  I'd love to be able to help but I have no programming experience.  Well, just a little, but not enough to be of use.  I'll hopefully be able to teach myself a bit over summer (just doing a bit of teaching) and be able to contribute in a few months.

...Said by the guy who never has to support the game.  ;)
We released something.  It's the Alpha.  It has a "few" bugs.

I realize that you guys arn't done yet.  But in the off chance that this is something that needs to be actually looked into.  I'm having difficulty compiling the latest source code from the google code page on OSX  I'm using os 10.8.3.  And the latest Xcode 4.6.2

it ends with this


is it possible this is some depreciated function?

Hi, Darklord. I'm the programmer guy in UQM-HD and yup, I get the same warnings when compiling on OSX. I've just been too darn lazy to do anything about it as it hasn't hurt compiling the game.

I've actually thought all this time that it is an SDL specific thing and that we couldn't do anything about it  :-X. But thanks to your input, I started looking it up and found a solution: http://forums.elysianshadows.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8394.

It is a warning about a function that has been omitted from OSX headers since OSX 10.4 I guess. However, the function still exists, so all that was required was to declare that particular header by ourselves in src/darwin/SDLmain.h. Problem solved :)

Lol well my problem was i forgot to type in install afterward...  :-X  But at least something good came out of it.

Definitely :D Those warnings were annoying. Glad they're gone now.

BTW, you don't happen to have a retina display, do you? I've heard some people complaining that the fullscreen mode doesn't work on retina Macbooks. It would be cool to be able to test the game on a retina computer properly, but currently I'm too damn poor to afford one...

Unfortunately no,  my macbook is about 5 years old.   But I'll take one if you got one :)

I thought I should let you know that i  installed the 3do movies into uqm-hd and that they work with 2x and original graphics modes, but not 4x for some reason.  
(It's interesting that they can ship uqm with its sound and data files from the 3do but not the movies files? Oh well)
Of course the spinning moves don't work but then no one ever did work on that on the uqm side of things.

The sound/data files were done by TFB, and the copyright reverted to them when Accolade was going under along with the code. The 3DO movies were done by a different company which Crystal Dynamics employed, as far as anyone knows either this company or Crystal owns them still.


Interesting... I thought that ship spins were supported as of UQM 0.7.0. Do they fail for you in normal UQM as well?

Interesting that Crystal Dynamics didn't do the voices even though they were only used in their 3do port.

Anyway.  I didn't realize that they were suppose to work.  i was going by the outdated http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/The_Ur-Quan_Masters_Technical_FAQ#How_do_I_use_the_3DO_intro_and_victory_movies_in_the_game.3F And havn't seen any changes in the game.  How are you suppose to bring up the ship info?
[edit]

Oh it does work, and alt was the button.  I just started pressing random buttons while in super melee and did it. Again they only play in 2x or lower

I've created a preliminary Android port of UQM HD mod (http://sourceforge.net/projects/libsdl-android/files/apk/Ur-Quan-Masters/Ur-Quan-Masters-HD-0.7.0.23.apk/download), could you please test it and report bugs? I'm planning to put it to Google Play when HD mod will release Beta 1.
1280x920 gives 7 FPS on my Galaxy Note, and sometimes 2 FPS during battle, 640x480 runs smoothly though. UQM uses internal SW video surface for rendering, and the code is way too complicated to switch to proper HW-accelerated rendering, so it will be slow on most devices. I'm sure there are devices that can handle 1280x920 (Nexus 10 should be fine).
Also, what about new on-screen controls? Are they easy to learn and use?

I have a Galaxy Note 2 (http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note_ii_n7100-4854.php) phone.
Performance: 4x, was about 12-15 fps.  2x: Seemed perfectly fine. Should this be the default?
Graphics: Slightly stretched out. Little graphic anamoly being moved up higher. Probably due to the on-screen controls.

I'll test out with a Galaxy Note 10.2 tablet tonight.  I'd test here, but work would kill me for using the bandwidth :)

                   

So, should I make 640x480 the default? That will also reduce downloaded data size from 500Mb to 150Mb, and I can make 4x graphics an optional download, like voice and music remixes.
Could you please give more detail about graphics anomaly, preferably a screenshot? (it's Power+Volume Down buttons on Galaxy phones). I've moved game menu higher, so it would not collide with on-screen buttons, and also made horizontal crew/energy panels in melee, so that second player can see them. Two-player melee is still experimental, and I would like to hear some opinions about it.

Edit: I moved 4x graphics into separate package, please re-download the file (http://sourceforge.net/projects/libsdl-android/files/apk/Ur-Quan-Masters/Ur-Quan-Masters-HD-0.7.0.23.apk/download), uninstall it first for best results.

Just tried it on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Note_10.1). I'll upload pictures later.
4x Performance was probably in the 15-20 fps range. Slightly faster. Though I did not remove background programs on my phone.
The running the video in a seperate thread produced graphic errors.

2x (640x480) is probably the right choice until hardware acceleration can be implemented.  4x should be a separate download. I have the latest (or close to the latest) android phone and tablet you can get.  Unless you want a lot of low ratings, I think 640x480 is the best option for now.

Landing on a planet produced the lander graphic, but it wasn't wiped away after exit.  There's an issue with bringing up the lander menu higher. The HD game has an option to show you mineral values that takes that extra space.  You can probably replace that with the 1x, or 2x version of that file so everything can fit better.  The starmap also produces a help section where it shows you the keys you can use on the map.

Two player is awesome.  Haven't tried it with another player, I'll do this tomorrow. Looks fantastic.

I got to get back to work on the last touches on Beta 1 :D

I've tried to change lander info position in the code, and failed :( so I won't touch it for now. UQM UI code is way too complicated.

With help from superbutcherx, I was able to move UI elements that got obscured by on-screen controls (radar in hyperspace, lander info while on planet, ship/module info in starbase). 640x480 mode is now the default, with 160Mb download, and there is optional 1920x960 package, which is 360Mb.
I think it's almost ready for release. The regular UQM app will now show a dialog to download UQM HD on first start, so they will be released simultaneously.
The only thing that may cause bugs are translation packages, I've used my old UQM 0.7.0 packages, and some fonts might be missing (please re-install app if you're updating, because my old content packages are missing translated fonts).
New .apk file (http://sourceforge.net/projects/libsdl-android/files/apk/Ur-Quan-Masters/Ur-Quan-Masters-HD-0.7.0.01.apk/download), source archive (https://sourceforge.net/projects/libsdl-android/files/apk/Ur-Quan-Masters/), my Git repository (https://github.com/pelya/commandergenius), also I did few changes in uqm.key and menu.key, here's my repackaged content package (http://sourceforge.net/projects/libsdl-android/files/Ur-Quan%20Masters/uqm-hd-content-640-1.uqm/download).

interesting! would it work with a kindle fire?  I get a "Failed connecting to data.zip" after its done downloading

Yes it would, and thanks for bugreport, I've forgot to add that file. Please try to install updated package (http://sourceforge.net/projects/libsdl-android/files/apk/Ur-Quan-Masters/Ur-Quan-Masters-HD-0.7.0.01.apk/download).

Nice it works now!  Thank-you!

I saw the code,  you guys are so close to the beta.  Congratulations!  :)

I gave it a try pelya.  You guys are right, the 2x textures are the way to go for now, even on this thing which isn't a phone.  The controls take some getting use too. I keep having trouble moving forward after turning.  With the virtual joystick you almost have to tap the direction to travel twice.  Aside from that, my only complaint is that there isn't a good way to skip through long intro sequence yet.

Speaking of intro sequence,  I know this isn't an issue with the android app so much as the urm-hd near beta side of things.  I just compiled the game an noticed the same thing on my mac.   I'm not sure if it's because I messed with the resolution settings, but once you get off of the default settings, the opening slides shrink and are in the top left corner.  They don't seem to be scaling properly. :(

Do you have any ideas how to make them better? My previous Android UQM port was even worse - you could rotate the ship if you only used the tiny central part of joystick, otherwise it would turn on thrust, this worked only on 7' or larger devices.


Well, I've got complaints about on-screen buttons during intro sequence, so I've hidden them. You can try pressing Menu key, if you have it on your device.

oh that worked, there is just no clue to do that.  I think it would it make sense to have the whole screen as an invisible button for that instance so just a tap will move on. Is that possible?  Touch the screen would be the first thing anyone would try to do.

   As to a better method of control I'm not sure.  With tablet/smart phone ports, i always find control rather poorly.  To make it work at all is quite an accomplishment.  :) And your implementation where you have the ship facing in the direction where the joystick points is smart,  and the best you could do with that, but it's still awkward.
I think the best implementation is to look at the way the pocket edition of minecraft does it with a virtual directional pad.   You see, the joystick doesn't really work because the controls themselves aren't really analog.  You are in fact simulating keyboard commands so it would be better to have digital controls.  Ergo, a directional pad would be more natural.

 This is just personal taste, but I think you should default to the 3do pictogram scheme for menus and lander. To me the console has more in line with the tablet then the pc so it's best presentation for the android.   you just have to move the icons up a bit. as they arnt lined up and are under the 2 buttons you have

Please try this build with "classic" dpad (http://sourceforge.net/projects/libsdl-android/files/apk/Ur-Quan-Masters/Ur-Quan-Masters-HD-0.7.0.01-PC-style-joystick.apk/download)  (no need to uninstall previous build this time). If you think it's playable with dpad-style joystick, I'll make an option to switch between two, like in my UQM port (in fact, people keep asking "how to make joystick like dpad", and I keep telling them there's an option in game settings).

And I'm too lazy right now to fix other bugs, sorry  ::)

Hey! I understand completely.  Thank-you for considering my thoughts. :)  I'll be glad to give it a try when i get home tonight.

Yah, too me that controls a lot better,  though I think i'd prefer actual simulated buttons, and not the joystick.  it would remove all ambiguity on what you are pressing and where you need to put your thumb.  Just my opinion. :)

With the stardock news I am wanting to play sc2 again.  Saw this thing and looks amazing.  Sounds like the beta is right around the corner so debating if should wait for that or just start on the alpha.  Thanks.

First off, thank you for your work pelya, so much!  I really enjoyed playing through the entire campaign, on my Nexus 7, during a long flight last week. Is there a donate button? And Who could have imagined the Star Dock buyout going down during the same week! lol.

As for the Android controls, my Nexus 7 solution was simple. Disabled the touch stuff and used a WiMote over Bluetooth for everything. The wireless, light weight controller with physical buttons made it a blast, with the screen Velcro'd to the seat in front of me. ;-) Only problem was typing in star map locations.

I understand that's not an accessible solution for everybody though.

Other options: PS3 also uses BT, and Xbox Controller with a GTG SUB adapter, and wireless. Both Work well on my N7. Bluetooth keyboard or dedicated android gaming controllers are around too. Lots of time to play with this stuff 16 hours in coach. :-)

Not sure if it's a bug, or unique to my setup, but I can't use the d-pad on my Bluetooth controller in the HD version. It worked fine in the old version, on the market. I can also use the d-pad in all the menus, but it won't work to maneuver the ships. I noticed there was an option to disable the on screen keyboard in the previous version, but that's not in the HD version. Maybe it's related? Maybe I'm missing something obvious? :-) already searched the in game and pre game menus, but can't figure it out.

Thanks for your work, either way!

Why can't I ever get mods to work?

Thanks, I'll fix that before release.
BTW the mod development seems to be stalled, the last thing to do was Russian translation.

UQM HD Beta 1 available for download (https://sourceforge.net/projects/urquanmastershd/files/Beta%201/), or so it seems. I wonder why there was no announcement here.
I'm going to update my Android port with new data packs, fix few bugs along, and finally publish it to Google Play and maybe to Ouya store (they require several lame changes, such as not showing PC button names anywhere, so I'll have to disable part of options menu).

Edit: I've published it: Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.googlecode.uqm.hd), .apk download (https://sourceforge.net/projects/libsdl-android/files/apk/Ur-Quan-Masters/)

.....And, I found a reason to get an Ouya.   :)

Hey there,

I must say this Mod is a marvellous peace of art, thanks a LOT for making it. After UQM came out years ago I had to replay it and now after finding the HD-Mod I had to play it all over again. Great work!  8)

One thing: I tried to play Melee over the network with a friend of mine but it didn't work. It connected for a split second then disconnects again. We both run Windows 7, and it definitely was not some kind of network problem with router/firewall or anything else (Ports were routed, firewall even disabled, also tried via hamachi).
The debug.exe showed some kind of socket error in the stderr.txt which led to this page:
Setting keep-alive on socket failed
https://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/source/browse/branches/uqm-import/sc2/src/libs/network/socket/socket_win.c?spec=svn401&r=401

When we used the newest uqm.exe from here (http://uqm.stack.nl/files/snapshots/) it worked (with low-graphic mode then of course).

Maybe there is some recent bugfix which needs to be ported into the HD version. I'd LOVE to play Melee over network on HD  :)

The game engine develops very slowly - I remember the UQM devs could not merge the patch for 64-bit OSes for over a year., so UQM-HD has forked the codebase to keep things moving, but still the development is very slow.
The network part of game worked some time ago, but it direly needs some love - the 'enter server IP address here' dialog is the ugliest way possible to do network  connection, it should at least auto-detect all games in local network, and ideally have a master server to list all internet games. It's not likely someone will implement masterserver, and LAN games will probably be fixed no earlier than in 6 months.

Any plans to include the remixed music in the HD version? IMHO these are well in advance of the originals, and certainly more "HD"

I'm not sure why the remixed music isn't there.... You can download it or copy it from UQM.  I think it may just be missing files... If there's a programming bug, I'm just not aware of it.

Some friendly advice and constructive criticism, to take or leave as you see fit:-

The Good:
* Graphics amazing, mustve taken a phenomenal amount of time and work.
* Some of the tweaks are very good
* Fonts for the most part are well-chosen and make a difference
* Everything looks a lot cleaner
* Rotating planets is a nice tweak
* Being able to see the type of planet from the solar system is a nice tweak
* Great improvements to galaxy map

The Bad:
* Unrefined (monolithic - the ~700MB one) installer - installs all source as well as additional unused dlls, some dlls not installed correctly (msvcr100, had to be renamed). About 100MB wasted space.
* Earthquakes virtually invisible now, particularly on grey planets.
* Lander text (what you see when a lander discovers something) difficult to read, almost indecipherable.
* Fullscreen mode doesn't actually change to the video mode selected, it fullscreens current screen mode (in my case 1024x600) and places the screen inside that (to the right on mine).
* Music remixes missing. You shouldn't be using the 3DO mixes, you should use the UQM remixes - they are higher quality, less abrasive than the originals and certainly HD by comparison.
* "currently selected" option on main menu difficult to see - not a lot of differential between selected and unselected option
* "selected" option in settings menu (from main screen menu) difficult to differentiate between selected and non-selected options.
* "+" and "-" buttons don't work on starmap, at least on my computer (maybe they work on the numpad?, my laptop doesn't have one of those).

I'm sure I'll find more stuff as time goes on. It's an amazing effort, though I wish it could've been integrated into the main distro as some 'quality control' stuff as above needs fixing. I guess the other thing I miss is that not having crappy lo-res graphics doesn't allow me to delude myself that this game is as good by comparison with other current games as I thought it was  - bringing the graphical side of it into the 21st century makes me realise how many other aspects are lacking by comparison.
On the whole a great job.

Cool! Glad you like it. Thanks for the critique.

To go over some of the issues:
* The installer, well, that comes from lack of a Windows Programmer. I created the .exe installer. It was either that or a .ZIP file. I wasn't able to get the UQM installer to run :(  I never intended to be the guy to create the installer.
* Earthquakes: This is one of those things where it works just fine on my machine. Though I have really good contrast ratios and a high resolution. But others have complained, so it is an issue.
* Lander Text. God, it is awful isn't it?
* Missing Music. I have no idea why this is.I think there was a problem on my machine when downloading the code.
* The "currently selected" is the same selection as UQM. I'd like a change in the future too, but that required additional coding.
* + and - work fine for me. Anybody else having problems?

There's still a lot of work to make it work like a modern game but it requires quite a bit of extra programming.

I could help at some point, but not now unfortunately - got too much going on.
You're probably right about the 'currently selected' on the submenus in options, I think I noticed that with the non-HD too. That's pretty minor tho'

[UPDATE: Have tested on my main machine and can confirm "+" and "-" only work on numpad, not regular keyboard ie. beside numbers. Running XP on both main desktop machine and netbook. Also fullscreen doesn't work on main machine either - it doesn't actually go into fullscreen at all, stays in windowed mode. Never had problems with regular build.
Somewhat surprisingly, 1280x960 mode is larger than 1280 - my main machine's default res is 1280x1024, but the UQM screen in 1280x960 mode extends off both sides of the monitor.]

On my laptop, + and - don't work because it lacks a NumPad.  Only the + and - on my desktop's NumPad work.  Using Windows on both machines.

Was getting into planetary orbit a problem in the original game?  I find with high engines & jets, I will easily fly right over a planet but I won't enter orbit because I didn't hit dead center.  Haven't played non-HD UQM though.

From memory only numpad + & - worked in regular non-HD urquan masters as well... but I'd have to load it up to double-check.
If that is the case, it is a bit of an oversight on the regular team's part.

I checked the planet landing thing - he's right, you do have to be unerringly precise - can't remember whether that was the case in the original or not.

Liked the 'leaving mineral globs behind when you can't pick it all up' thing - although in the original it became a bit of a 'meaningful choice' in the sense of gauging how much space you had left and how much you could fit in.

Wanna say thanks for all the beautiful work, too!  It's awesome to play SC2 in a modern resolution, and I know oodles of effort had to go into this.  :D

Nope. In the original I never had a problem with that, more with the speed and low turning meaning that I aimed bad and was too slow in correcting...

For zoom: Numpad +- were the only ones working in the original SC2.

Yeah, I have trouble with that too.  Accursed Newtonian physics!

Anyone know what code files are involved with key bindings?  Or with the star map?  I doubt it'd be too much effort to allow non-numpad + and - keystrokes.  Wouldn't be my first time programming.  Laptops are a lot more popular now than ye old days of MS-DOS, so it makes sense to correct.

There's no need to change the code. The key bindings are all stored in config files. Check your .uqm directory; I think the relevant one is called "keys.cfg", but I'm not sure.

Link not working. Please upload somebody.

MisterCat changed it. If you PM me your e-mail address I'll send you the file.

Unfortunately most modern keyboards don't have numpad controls.

Found one small bug - possibly a hangover from non-HD UQM as well-
sometimes pressing enter on the starmap (when zoomed out) when directly over a solar system for some reason selects a nearby solar system instead. For example, try selecting Sol while zoomed out.

BTW, thought the double-circle in starmap for the 'how far you can travel while being able to travel back) was nice touch.

That's specific to the HD mod.

Please defined "most modern keyboards."
Unless you're talking about a smartphone or something, I have yet to see a computer without a numpad.  I'm sure there are probably some, but "most?"  I'm thinking not.

Rather than "most modern keyboards", I'd say it's more like "most Apple keyboards and perhaps some non-Apple laptop keyboards". Though yes, smartphones and such also lack one.

Apple is even reverting to keyboards without a numpad on its desktop computers, though at least there it's a peripheral and can thus be substituted with an extended one (which Apple does still make).

Wow. This took me forever to get to:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/109003827/music/The%20Mister%20Cat%20-%20UQM%20HD%20Trailer.mp3

I'll be updating the links on youtube shortly.
Also, we got some programmers!  We're currently trying to squash as many bugs in Ur-Quan Masters HD. If there's something that hasn't been solved, post here:
https://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/issues/list

Sweet! Lander blaster kickback is fixed. I can slaughter alien wildlife again!

You're welcome  ;D

With so many constant numbers to be multiplied in the code, one was bound to slip through the cracks...

Got a stupid newbie question. I downloaded uqm-hd source code and tried compiling it the same way I compiled "base" uqm, but cannot get it done. (mingw+msys on Windows 7)
I get complains about "build/unix/build_functions:line 164: svnversion: command not found
and after that :
obj/debug/src/libs/graphics/drawable.c.o Error 1
I admit programming is not my strongest area, but usually I can understand clear instructions and get things done  ;D
But clearly something very obvious is wrong with something somewhere...

svnversion is a tool related to the SVN version control system that we use for keeping track of the changes to the source code (and other files). It adds the revision number that you see upon starting the HD version in the lower right corner of the start menu.

I would wager that you don't have svnversion or your mingw building system can't for some reason find it even if you had it. At least on OSX, if I type "svnversion" on the command line, it outputs "exported" or appropriate revision numbers if svnversion is, indeed, installed.

You could either make sure it is installed, or then, remove the lines that invoke svnversion from build/unix/build_functions, and other places where they might be. I'm at work now, though, so I can't check all the places where the svnversion commands might be hiding...

I saw the trailer for the HD-mod 2 weeks ago and downloaded it immediately.

First I would like to thank those for all the hard work they’ve put into this. The game looks and plays amazing. You probably heard this a thousand times, but the rotating planets (around the stars/planets and their own axis) are a real pleasure to watch. Especially those gas giants. The artworks are amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed playing this game on my 24 inch screen. It is too much to praise every detail on how good it looked, but trust me, I enjoyed it all.

But

There are a few things in my opinion that would make the game even better:

* First things first: When I was able to travel a bit further, the first place I visited was a certain starbase to see that which all SC2-fans wants to see when they first hear about SC2 in HD.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v683/Pikant/Talana.png) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Pikant/media/Talana.png.html)

That part within the red circle doesn’t seem natural to me. Seems to me the “space-plastic-surgeon” still has some work to do.

* I liked the space nebula at first. It really gives a nice touch. But after a while I turned it off cause it’s a bit overwhelming. It’s more like space fog then space clouds.  It made me go blind when I was looking for hard to see planets.  Maybe some random patterns would be better with more open spaces in between.

* I really like the music you hear in the Menu. Too bad it stops playing when you enter the melee-menu or load game menu.

* When I handed the perfect Ultron to the Utwig, the last few lines were missing (text).

* Don’t know if this is a bug or not and if it can be fixed. When I fight the Sa-Matra with an Arilou ship, it sometimes get transported into the asteroid shield and then explodes.

Then there is something else.
* I saw you could enable a cheatmode (more like an easy mode) which enables you to prevent a certain event. So I was wondering if you could also implement a “Hard Mode” for the veterans.
As a “SC2 veteran”, the thing I enjoy most  about Star Control 2 now, is the scavenging for minerals and bio data, and then build and tune your battleship. But within a year in-game of searching for minerals with eventually 12 cargo units, I’m full tech and fully pimped and the game isn’t much of a challenge for me anymore (wish I could erase a certain part of my memory so I would have to re-discover everything in SC2). And even then I haven’t searched even 1/20 of the total starmap. I think it would be great if there was a “Hard Mode” where everything costs twice as much. You get half the refund for selling parts and biodata is worth only 1 credit. This would mean you have to spend more time gathering minerals.

* Maybe a Survival mode where you can only use your main ship to gather minerals to build a fleet. And with that fleet you have to defend yourself against waves of enemyships every period of time.
Something where you have to do your best to gather the minerals to repair, research and buy new ships.

This is about all the feedback I had to give. I’m really grateful for all the work you’ve put into this.  In the meantime I’m still trying my best not to download project 6014 until it’s finished.

Hello, Pikant!
UQM-HD programmer here.

Thanks for the feedback! We really appreciate it.

- Whilst I'm a lowly coder guy I can't say much about the space plastic-surgeon stuff... But as for the nebulae, some of them are a bit too bright to my liking also. Especially one of the green nebula variants. One tends to get lost in it.
I've been thinking that maybe darkening the nebulae a bit could help? That's something even I could do. Or, if I can coax Damon the graphics master to whip out some new nebula graphics, even better!

- The main menu music could be extended to the melee menu. Maybe not the load menu, as it would intrude the "original game" feel IMO. What I mean is: Some people have been a bit cross about the in-game-keys graphic in the starmap or the mineral value chart on planets as they don't belong to the "original game". Whilst I'm totally ok with them. However, I feel somewhat apprehensive about extending the music to the load game menu, for some reason. Strange folk we are, we humans  :)

- Good thing you reported the missing Utwig text problem. Although we have fixed it already, it wouldn't have been found if there hadn't been another player like you that took the trouble to report the bug to us recently :). (By the way, here's our official buglist: https://code.google.com/p/uqm-hd/issues/list . You can report any new bugs you find there also. This forum is great for reporting stuff, but once they're in that list they shall not be forgotten. Which might sometimes be case when there's a lot of activity in this forum).

- The Arilou ship behavior with the Sa-Matra is definitely a bug. It might be caused by the new graphics modes because I haven't witnessed that behavior in 320x240. Also, recently upon starting a battle, a VUX ship jumped right inside a planet in 1280x960 mode! Got to take a look at these.
(Even if these have occurred in the original 320x240 version I think that behavior is just plain stupid and I wanna stop it  ;) .)

- The "Hard mode" is a good idea. I got to take a look how easily that could be implemented!

- However, the survival mode is out of scope for us in UQM-HD. I think the Star Control Timewarp has something like that, was it called "GOB"?


We are currently preparing a "Gamma" release of UQM-HD with (hopefully) all the bugs found after releasing the latest Beta fixed. We are hoping to release it before the start of 2015.

After deciding to replay this again I purchased a copy from GOG. Then I've just found this HD version and am loving the idea of improved graphics....

One question though. Can I load the saved game files from the current version that I got from GOG into this version? I really don't want to have to restart the current game of which I am 3 days into if possible.

Thanks.

- P.S. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK -

Based on the screenshots, it looks like GOG sells the old SC2 DOS binary. Given that, I'm pretty sure the answer is "no". UQM is based on the source code of the 3DO version of SC2, which is quite different from the DOS version to begin with, and it's changed a lot over the years. I don't think they use the same save format.

If I'm wrong, though, someone can correct me.

UQM is better in almost every way than the DOS version, by the way. It would be better for them to sell copies of UQM re-branded as "Star Control II" than the DOS binary. I suppose they probably sell the DOS binary because the data files (images, dialog, etc) are under a non-commercial license, and people other than TFB have contributed to it, making it infeasible to get permission to sell copies. (This is a major problem with non-commercial licenses.)

I am astonished someone still sells copies of SC2...

Also: three in-game-days, or 3 real time playing days?
Either way, I assume it's much easier to simply take that GOG try as practicing experience and restart in UQM-HD.
You'd be surprised how different the game will flow, as you'll do things in a slightly different order.


During the original SC2 time, I always fought the final fights against the Ur-Quan with my mother ship, and the fight against the "boss" with the Chmmr. I found that easy enough, and got quite good at it.
But the boss-fight with a Pkunk is a piece of cake compared to the fight with a Chmmr.
It took me last week for my second UQM playthrough to find that out. I wanted to test how many ships from them I can bring, and found the fight so damn easy. The "boss" is too easy like that.
But then, if I remember correctly the "boss" isn't even using its own weapons, only the weapons and defence installed by the current owners of the trophy.

AFAIK they are selling SC as well. For what purpose, I can't say, because AFAIK SC is an almost totally inferior version of essentially the same game. (See Europa Universalis to Europa Universalis II).

Why not get an upgraded game for free  ;D

Star Control II wasn't merely an upgrade to Star Control. Star Control is a strategy game. Star Control II is a space opera adventure game. They're two completely different games.

Are you quite sure this is a bug? If I'm not mistaken, the possibility of accidentally teleporting into the planet is intended to be one of the downsides of the Arilou's teleportation ability, so based on that I'd expect teleporting into the asteroid shield to be possible as well.