Friday Update, January 27, 2012

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by kalimba

I did not mentionned boycotting, neither if it would change our lives , in fact no game should ever (!) , I only commented your post questionning the fact that 1C may have been in the dark regarding the quality of their own product at release.
And that they may have been " surprised' by our reaction to COD at release in North America.
Now how people reacts or feels about this situation, is very personnal.
But how people express those reactions on this forum concerns everyone here...And how people express their opinions about other people's opinions
is usually what goes wrong here ....

SAlute !

I know what you were questioning, my answer just had a broader spectrum and didn't accuse you in particular, as far as the boycott issue.....well I hope you are not going to deny there has been tons of 'I won't buy the sequel because they broke my heart'....etc, most of it being incredibly 'short sighted', and as for changing lives I know and oviously you know it doesn't, but some others have behaved like theirs are over.

so expressing oppinions on oppinions here is a bad thing? and sarcasm?.......better ban everyone here then, in terms of how it's expressed.....well if anyone cared to look they will notice my initial answers are more objective purely to give a different way to look at things, but because I'm always at odds with the 'whiners' I get met with total hostility, trust me I'm by no means a great user of profanity and insults.....but sarcasm I can't help.

[Force10]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

well I hope you are not going to deny there has been tons of 'I won't buy the sequel because they broke my heart'....etc,

I don't think that has been said. I have seen people say that they won't buy the sequel unless they fix COD first, which is completely reasonable IMO.

[adonys]

I've just doublechecked with one of our professional modelers, taking the RATA/109 as our subjects, and we've reached the following conclusions (assuming you have all the documentation already gathered and available, which usually is the job of the designers):
- 1 week for the external frame (modelling & unwrapping)
- 3 weeks for the internal cockpit (modelling & unwrapping)
- 4 weeks for texturing (1 for external frame, 3 for internal cockpit)
- additional 4 weeks for tweaking, etc

That's a timeframe of around 2-3 months per model, with a single man working. Working with two men (one modeler, one texture artist) will cut this time frame in half (of course, the texture artist will have to wait for the first model to be ready, before starting the cycle)

...

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by Force10

I don't think that has been said. I have seen people say that they won't buy the sequel unless they fix COD first, which is completely reasonable IMO.

Ok but it is a redundant statement, they are trying to fix it and working on the sequel is not preventing it, and alot of people have been under the impression that a working COD will only happen if they buy the sequel, this is a weird bit od sensationalised speculation.

Originally Posted by bongodriver

I know what you were questioning, my answer just had a broader spectrum and didn't accuse you in particular, as far as the boycott issue.....well I hope you are not going to deny there has been tons of 'I won't buy the sequel because they broke my heart'....etc, most of it being incredibly 'short sighted', and as for changing lives I know and oviously you know it doesn't, but some others have behaved like theirs are over.

so expressing oppinions on oppinions here is a bad thing? and sarcasm?.......better ban everyone here then, in terms of how it's expressed.....well if anyone cared to look they will notice my initial answers are more objective purely to give a different way to look at things, but because I'm always at odds with the 'whiners' I get met with total hostility, trust me I'm by no means a great user of profanity and insults.....but sarcasm I can't help.

I hear you...I am ok with that Bongo...But I am not saying that it is a bad thing to express opinions on opinions, I am saying that it is HOW it is done sometimes that may be the culprit of many endless threads and insults. I am a free expression defender myself...I think that anything can be said to anyone, but with good taste and respect... And not yawning when you are out of arguments Sarcasm is ok with me. But on an international forum, it may be misinterpreted sometimes...But again, free expession first...we fix things if necessary !...
What is funny ,is that in another thread I defied anyone to resist buying a brand new 100% working COD's sequel even if COD was not patched
to our satisfaction...It may well be the case !

SAlute !

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by adonys

I've just doublechecked with one of our professional modelers, taking the RATA/109 as our subjects, and we've reached the following conclusions (assuming you have all the documentation already gathered and available, which usually is the job of the designers):
- 1 week for the external frame (modelling & unwrapping)
- 3 weeks for the internal cockpit (modelling & unwrapping)
- 4 weeks for texturing (1 for external frame, 3 for internal cockpit)
- additional 4 weeks for tweaking, etc

That's a timeframe of around 2-3 months per model, with a single man working. Working with two men (one modeler, one texture artist) will cut this time frame in half (of course, the texture artist will have to wait for the first model to be ready, before starting the cycle)

...

so assuming they have 1 person per plane (maybe they have 2 planes per person?)

2-3 months for the basic textured model....animations too?

how many more months for the FM, DM etc and the tweaking time for them?

then add the research time to that (it should be included)

[Dano]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

so assuming they have 1 person per plane (maybe they have 2 planes per person?)

2-3 months for the basic textured model....animations too?

how many more months for the FM, DM etc and the tweaking time for them?

then add the research time to that (it should be included)

Indeed. It's not like you can just drop a completed model in and it magically works.

[drewpee]

Maddox Games is a business not a hobby. Bills need to be payed. COD may have been released early to keep the project/business running. They need to play politics to survive. They need to eat. Two years ago the frenzy that was created with the rumors that Storm Of War may be close to release would have made the bean counters pretty confidant they would survive an early release of the game with all its faults. The project might now have the finances to continue with IL2s evolution.

I for one hope Maddox Games can achieve their goals and they are "huge goals". Buying a cutting edge game as a work in progress for me is better than not having the game at all. I wish the developers all the best. In the end we will all be the winners.

[Sutts]

Originally Posted by adonys

I've just doublechecked with one of our professional modelers, taking the RATA/109 as our subjects, and we've reached the following conclusions (assuming you have all the documentation already gathered and available, which usually is the job of the designers):
- 1 week for the external frame (modelling & unwrapping)
- 3 weeks for the internal cockpit (modelling & unwrapping)
- 4 weeks for texturing (1 for external frame, 3 for internal cockpit)
- additional 4 weeks for tweaking, etc

That's a timeframe of around 2-3 months per model, with a single man working. Working with two men (one modeler, one texture artist) will cut this time frame in half (of course, the texture artist will have to wait for the first model to be ready, before starting the cycle)

...

I think you've forgotten all that complex internal wing/fuselage structure haven't you? I've done some modeling work for a real mosquito wing structure using information from original plans. I really think you're underestimating the time it takes to figure out proper dimensions and how everything fits together from the sparse documentation available.

If this was a fictional model you could approximate pretty easily and get away with it....we'll stick the throttle here and the flap controls there...jig them around a bit until they look about right and so on. However, modeling a complex historical aircraft in such incredible detail takes more time than that and suggesting otherwise is a bit of an insult I reckon.

If you study the CloD cockpits and internals you can see they're very faithful to the real aircraft. The throttle quadrant etc. aren't just thrown together to look something like - they're dimensionally accurate objects. Repeat that for all the cockpit fittings and controls, then the wing spar, ribs, gun bays, weapons, fuselage formers, engine and ancillaries and you have a hugely complex job on your hands.

It's not necessarily the time it takes to chuck the stuff into 3D Studio...there's a lot more to it than that.


EDIT: To be fair you did remove the research effort from the estimate with the statement "assuming you have all the documentation already gathered and available". I can't stress enough how difficult and time consuming this part of the job is to get right. I do still think there is far more to modelling a CloD aircraft than any other sim aircraft to date. If you look at the complete model with internals you can see there is very little of the original design that isn't included in some form or other. Each little detail can be a research job in itself.

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by drewpee

Maddox Games is a business not a hobby. Bills need to be payed. COD may have been released early to keep the project/business running. They need to play politics to survive. They need to eat. Two years ago the frenzy that was created with the rumors that Storm Of War may be close to release would have made the bean counters pretty confidant they would survive an early release of the game with all its faults. The project might now have the finances to continue with IL2s evolution.

I for one hope Maddox Games can achieve their goals and they are "huge goals". Buying a cutting edge game as a work in progress for me is better than not having the game at all. I wish the developers all the best. In the end we will all be the winners.

in a nutshell