2012 has seen a rocky start for us here at McPhat Studios.

And by 'rocky' I mean 'Earthquake-buildings-collapsing-all-around-you-rocky'.

The past couple of weeks we've been busy -mostly- with troubleshooting one after the other unstable DC-9 Virtual Cockpit compile. Where one problem got resolved, another one surfaced. I spend most of yesterday -my usually relaxing Sunday- on troubleshooting faulty gauges, trying, testing, tinkering, discussing an issue that was not there a day before. Frustrating.

And here I thought we'd be doing some artsy stuff, creating 3D cubes and tubes, smooth them out, slap some textures on them and be done with it.

While we're making great progress and are already able to show some of the awesome results we're getting, developing the graphical side of the Coolsky DC-9 has proven to be much more than a challenge. Maybe it was wishful (or should I say ignorant) thinking that it would be a smooth ride, who knows? All I can say is that I spend most of my time deep frying my brains, trying to figure out solutions and taking mandatory time outs once in a while to keep myself from throwing in the towel.

And by 'throwing in the towel', I really mean "Getting shot between the eyes for the 11th time in a row by a 12 year old kid named Noobkiller playing BF3-Rage-Quitting"..

One of the things I've been mostly proud of in our short puny existence is not just the graphics we've been able to pull out a 5 -going on 6- year old platform, but also the fact that we never missed a deadline. Ever.

If it meant working in the weekend and nights, we did it. If it meant running on a 4 hour sleep cycle for weeks, we did it. If it meant going round the clock, not sleeping at all. We did it, or at least I did.

And for some reason I always thought having your own business equalled working less hours...

We're running late. Late late, passed deadline late and although the end is near and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I bet we'll see one or two bumps in the road in the coming days/weeks...

The first couple of years it was just me and the other texture guys. We did our thing, opened Photoshop every day and bragged about who had the better skills. Nicknames were being thrown at each other (guess who Captain Raster-Ize and Captain Merge-A-Lot are) but they usually meant no harm. If anything, they brightened up the day. We were the Masters of the Universe, ruling the world with smart objects, masks, dual brushes and layer styles. Could there be a better profession than being a Texture Artist? Was there a better program than Photoshop? What was more fun than brushing your way through the day?

Nothing. Right?

Wrong.

The time ; A year ago. The gate to our Photoshopped Fortress opened and in came the first couple 3D Artists. A new breed of people entered our domain. For the first time I looked at my work, often tediously detailed and crafted with much love and care and compared it to theirs and for the first time I saw the limitations of working on a flat, 2D canvas creating flat, 2D artistry. Did theirs look cooler? Did that extra dimension really added 'that extra dimension?' I knew the answer, but choose not to think about it. In the mean time, Nicolas -my fellow Lead Designer and Texture Artist in crime- made the switch and gradually started subbing Adobe's Photoshop for Autodesk's 3dsMax and is now in charge of the 3D Artists, where as I 'still get to play' with the Texture Artists.

All went well, the feeling gradually disappeared. In the end, it was 'us' -Texture Artists- pimping up 'their' 3D models. They needed us. They needed us badly. Or at least, that's what I said to myself. I was comfortably back on my Photoshop high horse, looking down, raining havoc in the form of beautiful textures on the footsoldiers I called 3D Artists. We'd Gaussian Blurr the hell out of Chuck Norris and still had time to rasterize The Rock in the mean time. 3D had nothing on Textures. Nothing. Textures still were the highest form of creativity.

Right?

Wrong.

The time ; Not too long ago.  We decided to bring back some life into our YouTube channel, which sole existence seemed to revolve around an oh so badly manufactured three year old Windows Movie Maker made, with an even worse aspect ratio E-Jet clip. We hired an After Effects wizard to do our intro and outro and at the same time, in came two new guys. Video Editors. The discussion -fumed by our two already inhouse Vegas experts Snorri and Juan- lighted up and my Photoshop stronghold started to tremble again.

I opened up Vegas to check out what the fuzz was all about and soon got 'the (motion) picture'. Things were moving a long a time line,  no longer was the canvas a stationary, flat and 2d plane. A story could be told. Music and sound could be mixed, effects, transitions, colour correction, layers, blends. All that good stuff.

It was like Photoshop... but... better...

I sometimes envy the guys that get to work with 3 dimension, I envy the guys that get to work with moving footage, sound and music, but in the end it are our our bump and specular maps that you see shine, pop and glow on the models in our videos.

Right?