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...

I can still remember the days when me and my pc (including screen, joystick, speakers and what not) would hop on the train for a 3 day, long weekend Flight Sim fest at my buddy Kevin's house. Three hours in the train, packed with my 'nerdgear' (I tried, there's no sexier name for it), ready for some serious on-line flightsimmin' and with 'serious', I mean : SE-RI-OUS. As in all-through-the-night-long-haul-kinda-serious. The real deal. At least, you know, virtually...

We would sleep for a few of hours a night -on the couch- just a couple of feet from our roaring pc's, cause you knew that when that dreaded 'beep' sounded it was 'IVAO' and we best be ready to answer... in a non-sleepy voice. The days were long. Planning the flight, staring at my screen for hours at a time with my headset on, landing and whilst the engines were spooling down, thinkering were to head on next.

After each and every landing, I would 'hit replay', usually in slow motion (who doesn't like slow motion), 10, 15 times. We always had a blast, cause flightsimmin' was IT. I am not afraid to say I sometimes left my pc on, while sleeping cause there was something soothing about hearing perfectly good running jet engines in the background.

Those days are over though. One could even say : Long gone. Girlfriends (there's something really confronting about a woman's disapproving and loathing look when she looks at you 'talking to another geek at the other end of the world, 'asking for permission to 'taxi') , flying for realsies and the X-box basically killed the Flight Simulator 'game'. But the true reason for not flying is none of the above. 

It's 'McPhat'.

I don't have time to fondle around with FMC's, flying for hours, enjoying REX generated clouds, or any of ORBX' sceneries while on final. I still fire up FSX, hell, I would even say at least 20 times a day, but only to make screen-shots, check bump & specular effects and  to align textures. Flight Simulator has become all work. No play.

That all changed last Thursday. Like every sane person in the FS community, I was eagerly waiting for PMDG to release their NGX. I wouldn't go as far to say that my index finger and F5 button were best buddies, but I checked. I checked plenty. Robert told me to buy nothing, to wait for him to supply us with the model and paintkit, but on friday, Nicolas and I  pulled our creditcards : four NGX licenses. One for each participating NGX project member, but most importantly : One for me.

The past couple of days I found myself inside FSX. Not to check the DC-9 VC textures, or to make last minute changes to the PMDG 747 HDT fuselage, but to take the NGX for a spin. Landing, replaying, flying circuits (or like you Yanks like to call it : Traffic Patterns), checking out the great modelling from all sides and angles, listening to the CFM's ref up and down. As a long time PMDG customer owning all but the J41, including the FS9 models it was like being 'home' again.

Firing FSX, just for the fun, joy and thrill of it...

The last time I did that, was right before I started McPhat Studios, three and a half years ago....

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!

A couple of months ago -while doing my usual weekly rounds, checking out forums, portals and websites from our colleagues and fellow developers- I landed on the Captain Sim forums. Browsing the repaint section to see what was new, my attention was soon drawn to some pretty skilful texture work.

Those of you familiar with Captain Sim's artwork know that you don't have to be no Van Gogh to shell out a top notch repaint, using their paintkits. The detail and quality their stock paintkit delivers is truly that good. Yet, here I saw someone take the time and effort to alter and customize the already solid textures, tweaking specular and bump maps and even taking it to the next level, by going High Definition.

There was only one thing I could do : Wheel her in and do it fast, before somebody else would.

Beccause I've been a Captain Sim customer, since the first Block for the 757 came out for Flight Simulator 9, many, many years ago I am also a forum member. Being an absolute mess when it comes to backing up my installers, I bought the 757 at least three times, (and some of their other products) therefor having multiple accounts. Being somewhat inconsistent  with the whole password thing (and because I am -at times- a lazy sob), I gave up logging in after 3 tries and asked our 'Captain Sim man' Dave Sweetman to do it for me and recruit her. Her name?

Sara Louise Coupon.

In charge of slapping some colour on Jamal's 3D Virtual Cockpit, Sara's has been working mainly on the 3D gauges for the Coolsky DC-9. All 40 or so, in all their different states (powered up, down, flags showing etc). She''s the kind of Texture Artist that vectors all her work, jumbo size, just because she can and if you think she makes just one gauge per instrument, guess again. She tracked down all three Altimeters used on the -30 and made them all. Again, just because she can (and because she hopes Espen will throw weeks of work overboard picking the best looking and not the one he already did the work for). All screenshots are scaled down (50%) : Type 1, Type 2, Type 3.

During the years I have learned a great deal from the Texture Artists we have on staff. Everybody has their own ways, skills and even though I've been Photoshoppin' for over 12 years, once in a while I scratch the back of my head when I see the resourcefulness displayed and techniques utilized by some of these guys. Six out of ten times though, I don't have to open the source files to see what it is they did. The other 40% I open and is usually in the 'Ah yes, of course'-category.

Not Sara though, for weeks I've been eyeballing her gauge textures, pondering my head, trying to figure out what it is exactly she did. Today she send me one of her PSD's, and where I usually go 'Aaaaha', followed by an 'Ofcourse', all I could now think was 'Huh'?, followed by a 'I didn't know you could do that with Photoshop', immediately followed by 'So THAT's what's that is for'...

As she works on the gauges, I work on the remainder of the VC. Interior and Exterior textures are two completely different skill sets and although I am fairly confident I got a good thing going on when it comes to l'outside, I can also say Sara has found her niche and at least for now, is untouchable.

(Next up, Luke van de Rest, 3D Artist, exterior modeller)

My better half always rubs my nose in 'The Fact' that women are better at multi-tasking than men, and although I usually agree with her (trust me, THE ingredient for a healthy relationship), I have to disagree with her on this. The past couple of weeks have been crazy at the McPhat Studios offices. Working on (or Alt-Tabbing as I call it) between 3 three Texture- and 2 full 3D and artwork projects simultaneously is something we could not have managed a couple of years ago.

Although the 'main podium' may seem calm and serene from an audience perspective, backstage is one big dynamic, crazy mess.

Like the Boeing assembly line, every single member of the team works on and supplies his or her part of the final product. Dhierin's working on the PMDG 747-X GE's, Tito on the LDS767 RB211's, Frank's pathing the 747 fuselage like a mad man, Snorri's working on the 747 wings and tail, Sara's brushing her way through the DC-9 gauges and main panel, Jamal tries to keep up, mapping the DC-9 VC, Luke is shaping the exterior 3D model, Nicolas crafts a yet to be disclosed twin, Kevin tries to keep the website from not crumbling under the weight of the 25.000 odd monthly visitors, while I'm working on the 767 pay-ware World Airliner and freeware liveries.

Where we used to have a weekly , relaxing Friday afternoon 'how are things going'- meeting, these are now replaced and pushed to late night 23.00 quick and occasional Skype talks due to the hefty workloads. I sometimes catch Frank at home, still online at 2A.M, Snorri pushed it to almost 5AM a couple of days ago and I get a regular 'I'm off to bed, see you tomorrow' at 12AM from Dhierin and Kevin.

If one would look at this as a bad thing or a problem, finding a cause of what or who to blame so a solution can be found, is part of my job as a Lead Designer and after a lot of tinkering I can only point the finger to ourselves.. It's us. We did this ourselves, we're the ones to blame.

Raising our own and subsequently also the entire industry's bar when it comes to aircraft graphics by launching High- and Ultra High Definition Textures is where things quickly 'went south'. The days that we could start and wrap up a repaint in a mere few hours went down the drain when I first talked to Leen (our Quality Controller) about 3 years ago, asking him the question : "Say Leen, what if we blew up those tiles to 4096?" Words I sometimes wish I never uttered in the first place. It was a good thing though, PMDG followed with the J41 (2048), Captain Sim with their 767 (2048), Carenado has a whole line of (brilliantly) 2048 mapped GA planes and we take care of the remainder.

Choosing to go Flight Simulator X only was our second 'mistake'. Not only do we have to redo stock kits from the ground up for the diffuse maps ; Specular and Bump maps have to be HD as well. If that paint chips off on the diffuse map, it better chip off from the spec and bump as well. How else would you make a tail look like this? How else would you 'detach' the wing root joints from an ageing Super 80 so it looks like this and not this, without touching the actual 3D model?

Looking back, as we near our third anniversary as a real, 'tax paying company', I can only say : 'We raised that bar, we took it, threw it up high in the air and yes sometimes when we're at work in the middle of the night, it comes tumbling down on us like a Stuka bomber, but we can only blame ourselves'. Still, I think I speak for the entire team when I say :

It's a 'mistake' I don't regret making..

As we are slowly easing into the last month of Q1 of 2011, I think it is safe to relax, sit down and look back at what was a hectic, but also a successful 2010.

In our second full year of operation as a pay-ware outfit (we started halfway 2008 with the first E-Jet), we released as many as thirteen World Airliners for the PMDG MD-11, the Captain Sim 757 and the FeelThere E-Jets v2. One would say quality would suffer from the sheer quantity, but our first AVSIM Gold Star award (for the E-Jets v2), which we received in November has proven otherwise. We worked hard, shifted from Normal Definition to primarily High And Ultra High Definition repaints, brought in some new talented people, while some of the main stayers upped their ante and had fun in the process.

That was 2010 in a nutshell. Time to look forward at what 2011 has in store for us.

As a design studio specialized in exterior textures we have worked for and with 'the big boys', (the) PMDG (MD-11) being the latest in the list of developers that already consisted of Wilco, FeelThere, Level-D, Flight1, Captain Sim and Coolsky.

Now, if you ask me (and for the sake of virtually having a conversation, I'll just pretend you are indeed asking me) ; the only one missing from the list, the cherry on the pie, the cream of the crop, is the PMDG 737NGX. As talks with Robert -from PMDG- progress it is just a matter of time, before we've achieved the (highest?) goal we set for ourselves when we first started doing freeware repaints as a group back in 2007 : adding a flagship PMDG product to our portfolio.

With the vast majority of operators and liveries of the 737 it is a project that will keep us occupied for the most part of 2011 (and perhaps even into 2012). But if wheeling in the NGX was 'The Goal', the highest achievable, we set for ourselves, what's next? Does it end? Retire and spend our days on our yacht (we don't have a yacht), hop on our private jet (nope, no jet either) and relax by the pool of our beach house (wait, no beach house?) in the Maldives?

H to the No, it is time to move on and broaden our horizon, something we have been doing behind the scenes for the past couple of months as we were hired by Flight1 to do all the artwork for the Coolsky DC-9. This means we are responsible for not only the exterior (HD) textures, but also the interior, but most noticeably ; the 3D model, both exterior, virtual cockpit and virtual cabin. Being 'eye-candy enthusiasts from the EGA (some even CGA) era' we set the bar high and in my next entry I will let you guys get a taste some of the stuff we've been doing.

For now, back to work on the PMDG MD-11 World Airliners 5 and the first couple of Level-D 767 World Airliners.  Duty calls..