The pre-alpha version of StarCraft was still very similar to Warcraft II in terms of user interface and style. After receiving much criticism on the 1996 E3 for this lack of technological improvement, Blizzard started to rework the game engine. This included changing the interface from the distinctive Warcraft II-sidebar to the now common bottom bar. Further improvements included pre-rendered sprites and backgrounds using 3D Studio Max. An isometric view was used, unlike Warcraft II’s top down perspective. – [info from wikipedia]
Thanks to MicroChirp for the contribution!
Images:
[images from www.sclegacy.com]
Video:
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http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/tough-times-on-the-road-to-starcraft has some additional information: in short, the project was sidelined while attention went to Diablo, and the game was reworked once work on it restarted.
Thanks Robert! :)
Here’s a couple of later prototype screenshots and concept art dated 1996 (seems like “Zerg” was spelled “Zurg”): https://www.mediafire.com/?b6sa2zp2r9atc9t
Forgot one: http://www.csoon.com/issue14/shots/f_strcf1.jpg
Thanks as always for all your contributions MicroChirp :)
Yes, they renamed the Zurg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4G566MKLEE
Interesting note: in all those screenshots that use the pre-rendered 3D isometric graphics, in the portrait window of the bottom bar we see a CG portrait of a character wearing glasses and a hat, smoking a cigarette. Though this character portrait appears nowhere in the game, in the intro cinematic to the original Starcraft we see a character that closely resembles him sitting at a shipboard computer station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob4hQsTkWLg
Given that the CG portraits in all those beta screenshots are not animated (they appear to be on the same frame in all of them, a very unlikely coincidence in the case that they were animated) it’s likely that Blizzard originally used this character as a generic default portrait for the Terran units, and then when the actual character portraits were created, the devs decided not to let a good model go to waste and just re-used him for that intro cinematic.
More from 1996: https://web.archive.org/web/19961220200733/http://www.next-generation.com/news/071396c.html