Friday Update, January 27, 2012

Originally Posted by bongodriver

I understand that part, but.....the beta testing was probably achieved with relation to the russian version, they didn't anticipate us weird westerners odd concerns for stuff like epilepsy, they got forced to sling in some safeguard stuff by ubi and subsequently forced to sling the game out as soon as it was done without the chance to test......perhaps?

Hello Bongo,

Do you remember when Oleg was posting screens in the last few months before release, there were no "AA" ? The terrain was awful and trees, clouds, even railroads were very awkward ? It felt like it was many steps backwards compared to some earlier shots. Something happend in the last few months at 1C. Oleg didn't leave for no reason. To be clear, I am not accusing anyone of any badfaith, but surely things did not go as planned. Why ? We don't know really.
Also the fact that Oleg resigned immediately after Russian's release, is also an indication of big issues with the project.
And of course they knew...You cannot build a sim with so much technology and high end programming and not knowing it is not flawed.
We know COD was not mearly completed at release, but the real question is "why was it released and sold as a fininished product'' ? since we were (fans of IL2 around the world) the ones who'd buy it, and were also the ones who followed every step of developpement and were told to expect a lot (much better than IL2) for 6 years...
That is , in any case, my only unsolved mystery....

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by kalimba

Hello Bongo,

Do you remember when Oleg was posting screens in the last few months before release, there were no "AA" ? The terrain was awful and trees, clouds, even railroads were very awkward ? It felt like it was many steps backwards compared to some earlier shots. Something happend in the last few months at 1C. Oleg didn't leave for no reason. To be clear, I am not accusing anyone of any badfaith, but surely things did not go as planned. Why ? We don't know really.
Also the fact that Oleg resigned immediately after Russian's release, is also an indication of big issues with the project.
And of course they knew...You cannot build a sim with so much technology and high end programming and not knowing it is not flawed.
We know COD was not mearly completed at release, but the real question is "why was it released and sold as a fininished product'' ? since we were (fans of IL2 around the world) the ones who'd buy it, and were also the ones who followed every step of developpement and were told to expect a lot (much better than IL2) for 6 years...
That is , in any case, my only unsolved mystery....

I am a long time lurker so yes I remember alot of what was going on, I only really joined here on released of COD (just felt I should after so long)

Without doubt there is 'something' being hidden, wether it makes any real difference to our lives to know what it is? personally I don't think so, it's an internal political issue with 1C and none of my business, and I imagine whatever it is could be more damaging to 1C to let on......if you get my meaning.

My view is....what happened.....happened, nothing can be done, but I don't feel we are being conned or cheated.....not by 1C anyway, boycotting 1c in any way is likely to punish the ones that deserve it the least .i.e the devs and the general flight simming community.

Originally Posted by bongodriver

I am a long time lurker so yes I remember alot of what was going on, I only really joined here on released of COD (just felt I should after so long)

Without doubt there is 'something' being hidden, wether it makes any real difference to our lives to know what it is? personally I don't think so, it's an internal political issue with 1C and none of my business, and I imagine whatever it is could be more damaging to 1C to let on......if you get my meaning.

My view is....what happened.....happened, nothing can be done, but I don't feel we are being conned or cheated.....not by 1C anyway, boycotting 1c in any way is likely to punish the ones that deserve it the least .i.e the devs and the general flight simming community.

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 !

[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.

[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.

[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 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.

[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.