We ended 2010 with a bang, started 2011 with a (although slightly smaller) bang and now -halfway on our way to 2012- there's still 'banging', but this time mostly in the form of hands, shaped like fists on my door and on my desk...

The year has been hectic. Although we wheeled in some new talent, 'old' talent also left. People whom had been with us for years left and the toll it has taken is apparent. Yes, some of the new guys (and girl) are just as talented or perhaps even more, but you take a hit when people leave, who know the company inside and out and we took the hit alright. Hard. Right on the nose. Twice.

Where our frontliners (Texture Artists and a handful of painters) used to solely focus on the core of our business (that would be Textures), supported by staff who lead the company, most of them now have dual roles. From basic overhead, to project management, from creating Youtube content to research and from Marketing to Support. Because this change happened gradually, over time and because it was a necessity (as is the mother of invention) opposed to being planned, along come the 'challenges' of all us getting comfortable within our new roles.

The last couple of weeks I've seen my attention shift from the frontline to -almost on a daily basis- talks, meetings and discussions with my team. Some lengthy, some exhaustingly lengthy, some ridiculously lengthy.

And if that isn't enough, with the DC-9 3D development phase nearing its end and with four 3D Artists on the team (and another 2 joining soon), guess what has to happen? Indeed :  talking and discussing our next steps with the ones on board, and creating, shaping, explaining and enrolling with the ones who are about to join.

All and all, there's been a lot of talking lately and although it apparently is part of my job description, I hope I can soon get back to 'work'...

If you ever read the AVSIM feature on McPhat Studios (if not, click and read it) and especially the part where we're called 'Dutch Masters', you would think our team consists only of 'Dutchies'. Where it started out as solely a Dutch outfit , this soon changed and with a couple of Argies (people from Argentina, yes I make up words on the fly), a Canadian, an Icelander, Brit and a couple of Yanks you could even say we've been overrun by foreigners. Masters we still are, but Dutch, you could hardly call us and the next team member I'm introducing doesn't quite balance that out in favour of us cheese eating, wooden shoes wearing, electronic music loving inhabitants of the world :

Luke van de Rest

The name may imply Luke's from 'The motherland', but he's not. He's from the one place on earth where women have sexy accents and people are always enjoying themselves : Australia. Don't ask me where it is exactly I got that mental picture of Australia, but it works out for me like that. It's basically England, but sans all the sour looking people, the hooligans and with a whole lot more sun. Or so I imagine.

Luke's role is to mould, create and shape the exterior 3D model of the DC-9 (dash 30). Initially supplied with the Super 80 source files, he soon decided to start from the ground up, getting rid of all the work previously done. The Super 80 may look good and has awesome performance, it also was a development once made for Flight Simulator 9. Besides, 3D Artists don't like working of somebody else's work/work flow. Or so I've been told.

The main reason for starting with a clean sheet, was that our assignment was to make the model not only up to today's standards, but it also has to last for at least a couple more years. Like the guys and girls at Microsoft proved ; Sometimes it's best to leave the old cornerstones for what they are and build from a fresh and new foundation.

With that being said, we gave Luke a pile of work that kept him occupied for a good few months. Me, asking for renders every other day (who doesn't love renders right?), didn't really speed things up, but it gave us a fair idea of the quality of his work :  He made the model look sweet like apple pie and with (how he likes to call it) the usual McPhat One-Two (as in textures), you guys are in for great looking exterior graphics.

As a closing remark, I'd like you to check out the first ever render of what you may expect not here in this blog, or on our website even, but at our freshly created Facebook fan page.

Don't forget to hit that 'I like' button guys!

Go outside and ask a random person what Photoshop is and in most cases people will know. You ask them if they ever heard of 3DsMax and they'll probably gaze at you in awe, then uttering something like : '3Dswhatnow?'.. 

In the past couple of years, we discovered that finding talented, skilled Texture Artists is one thing. With applications pouring in on a weekly basis, we've literally seen dozens of them. In the end, only a handful remained, cause the definition of 'talented' seemed to be a 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'-thing.

Finding 3D Artists is what one would call 'a whole different ballgame' though.  First of all, there's not that many of 'em. As Lead Designer, with a slight fetish for detail, I thoroughly enjoy textures, and although we texture guys sometimes (okay, all the time) think we're the centre of the creative universe, we only create on a two dimensional, flat plane. True creation is when you can add that third dimension.

So, I tried my hands on 3D'ing more than once and right away came to the conclusion why there aren't that many 3D Artists floatin' around as there are Texture Artists : Mastering (cause that is what we're talking about) 3DsMax is painstakingly difficult, awesomely time consuming and has a seriously steep learning curve.

Because we could count the applications for a 3D Artist position on one hand (alright, we had only 1 in 3 years), we had to go out and find them ourselves. The first one we picked up was... : 

Jamal Ingram.

Responsible for the Virtual Cockpit, Jamal's been with us and working on said part of the project for almost 8 months now. As he was at that time the only 3D Artist we had on staff, he was more or less on his own. No backup, no watercooler 3D talk, just him amongst 10 odd Texture Artists. Jamal is what we call a behind the scenes-no-nonsense-kinda guy. You won't see him on the public forums, you won't see flashy Work In Progress renders. Raw 3D, focused on the end product only. Being designers, (read as : Showboat Flash Ponies) we had to get used to his style. Alot. Why work hard, focusing on finishing, when you can stop and show off right?

Having worked on military projects in the past (even seen his work published by Flight1) and with a love for military jets, we gave him the absolute unfamiliar : A tube. An old tube. One that has seen more modifications, over the past 40 years than M.J. (may his soul rest in peace). It was a difficult task, getting to know commercial airliner instruments, what they do, how they should be animated, how they behave : 'Does that switch tumble?', 'Does it rotate?' 'Can you push it in?' or 'Can you perhaps push it in AND rotate?'

He's proven to be a skilful 3D artist, working on the VC for months at a time, silently, by himself but when the time came for Coolsky to Quality Control the work ingame for the first time, only a few minor changes came up. I guess it pays of being focused on the job.  

It is safe to say, we are nearing the end of building the 'virtual pit', texturing has slowly begun and teamed up with him, responsible for the VC textures is another little gem, Sara Louise Capon. But that's a different story (or should I say blog), for a next time.