Some of what David Fox was up to, after developing Rescue on Fractalus.

[AtariNerd]

https://youtu.be/oLmFwsZsS7U

 

From the video description, from David himself:

 

"This is a mostly unedited video of Lucasfilm and Hughes Training prototype Location Based Entertainment project, Mirage, a multiplayer pod experience. Lucasfilm's skunkworks group, Rebel Arts and Technology (RAT, 1990-1992) was responsible for the exterior and interior industrial design of the pod, as well as the game design (my role), art, Amiga heads-down display system, and sound (both the MIDI based surround sound system and the actual audio). Hughes was responsible for the simulation software, and the actual hardware, including the collumating mirror (so your eyes are focusing 100s of feet away, making the environment feel enormous), 3 video projectors, and installing/configuring the Evans & Sutherland ESIG 2000 image generator.

 

The game we were working on took place in the Star Wars universe, and was called Mission (Vernost was the planet). For people who know my early game, Rescue on Fractalus!, you will recognize elements here... flying fast through craggy canyons, and sucking up "Ceela", a special fluid found only on this planet (instead of rescuing pilots), and transporting it to one of the tankers. All the while, avoiding or engaging the enemy TIE fighters (operated by other players).

 

The project was initiated in 1990. In 1992 Lucasfilm withdrew from the project (and closed down RAT). Soon after, during the 1992 IAAPA in Arlington, TX, people were shuttled to Hughes so they could experience Mirage. Unfortunately, Mirage was ahead of its time... the tech was just too expensive, and over the next three years, Hughes was unable to find any buyers for the 8-pod system. Of course, this level of graphics, with antialiasing, animated textures, fog effects, can easily be done on any of today's GPUs or consoles."

[+skr]

Bunsen knows a little bit more about this project. And me too. I am the head of content & technology at the Planetarium Hamburg/Germany, where we run "Digistar 6" from Evans & Sutherland (E&S), which basically is the current version of Mirage. And we also do games with it. So called fulldome games. I work with E&S for about 12 years now and I am in Salt Lake City regularly. Next time I´ll be there again for 4 weeks from September on. This time I try to get more information about "Mirage", which was not known to me back in the days when I started working with Digistar 3.

 

As Bunsen had contact with David, I´ll also try to reach out for him.

 

I´ll keep you updated.

Edited July 23, 2019 by skr

[_The Doctor__]

I read it for the second time skr... but if you bring back some nice information, we'll not longer be bored. :)

[+skr]

I am just making contact with the people involved in the project and hopefully can tell you some interesting things when I´m back from the US by the end of October.

[Bunsen]

I emailed David about this topic...

[Mclaneinc]

Really nice to hear what programmers / devs that entertained us back then moved on to, some quite specialised stuff back then which now looks primitive but its stuff like this that helps invention flourish.

[+skr]

4 hours ago, Bunsen said:

I emailed David about this topic...

`Thanks, Bunsen. I am just in the process of identifying the people that were involved from E&S and will meet them personally in September, if possible.

Edited July 25, 2019 by skr

[oky2000]

It's a real shame there never was a 16bit home computer update of Rescue on Fractalus written as expertly as the original Atari 800 version, say using the full capabilities of an Amiga 1000 or a 8mhz 68000 of the 520ST. Not really the point and click adventurer type so I lost interest in Lucasfilm Games after The Eidolon.

[ClausB]

skr, what did you find out in September?

[Gunstar]

On 2/4/2020 at 3:11 PM, oky2000 said:

It's a real shame there never was a 16bit home computer update of Rescue on Fractalus written as expertly as the original Atari 800 version, say using the full capabilities of an Amiga 1000 or a 8mhz 68000 of the 520ST. Not really the point and click adventurer type so I lost interest in Lucasfilm Games after The Eidolon.

I was also very disappointed in Lucasfilm efforts after the big 4 Atari 8-bit games. I probably would have upgraded to an Amiga or ST had they come out with re-visited or new content like the first four games, they would have been the killer apps that made me move to 16-bit. Instead I kept using 8-bit (except game consoles) until I finally went PC around 2000 (there were 4-5 years were my 8-bit was in storage and I didn't have a computer at all). Non of Lucasfilm's or, ahem, Lucasart's games since have interested me at all.

 

But I'd rather have seen 64-bit Jaguar remakes of the first four in the 90's. The home brew Jaguar game of 'Fallen Angels.' a clone of RoF, is great, but an expanded and budgeted commercial release from Lucasarts would have been so much better, in as much as new content, I think, instead of the same exact game with just updated graphics. Even new version today might prompt me to by one of the current consoles instead of sticking with ones over a decade old now...

[Heaven/TQA]

well... source code of RoF was at Factor 5....
 

 

 

[Mclaneinc]

I'm not sure if it was Julian or one of the other Factor 5 guys that came on here many many years ago and released the source and some full with loading screen versions of a couple of games that were not about then as unprotected.

 

It may have been just the Atr's that they posted but there was a discussion about Masterblazer with the Factor 5 guy. It was a LONG time ago so I may be slightly wrong on details but the atrs I mentioned were posted here for sure, the source I'm not so sure. It may have been talk of the masterblazer source code for the demo part..

[Heaven/TQA]

well... actually one of the AA game coder was envolved in the Amiga Masterblazer version...  but NDA does not allow him to share the source... if my memory is right he has/had a print out.

[Mclaneinc]

That's a shame but NDA's are not a thing to be crossing..

 

And I searched like hell on here and no sign of the thread with the Factor 5 guy, I wonder if there was a cull of the records at some point because I know the thread existed as apart from being part of it I went to one of the shows and met the guy on their stand and thanked him for the images.