About the Developers
Liam followed up his review with an interview with SimTech team members Mark "Spindry" Dyson, Troy "Razcal" Raszka, John (Ujay) Paiement, and Tom (Crashwoody) Wood; here's what they had to say:
Liam Coyle: Who are SimTech Flight Design, and who's responsible for what?
Mark Dyson: Once upon a time, long long ago, Jupiter crossed with Venus... and the results weren't pretty. That doesn't have a thing to do with simTech, but it sounded kinda neat.
Who are we? The easy answer is a few guys who got together and realized our hobby of making virtual aircraft was at odds with other trivial things, like marriages, kids, paying the bills, and eating. We reasoned about the only way to resolve the lack of 48-hour days was to give up the sim thing or, as Hunter Thompson once wrote, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." That's us. Weird.
I'll let the other gomers speak for themselves, since everyone's having their say with this. For my part, I make the 3D models, animate them, and do my best to get the flight physics down as closely as can be within the limits of a game that runs on your home PC. I've been a nut about designing aircraft since I was old enough to hold a fat pencil and get in trouble doodling 3-views on my schoolwork. Catholic schools. Sadistic nuns. There's a message in there, somewhere, but I lost it.
I recently retired from 23 1/2 years in the USA, and got to spend a large chunk of that time flying in electronic combat aircraft. Not exactly Top Gun, but it beat mowing grass for a living. I have a BS in Computer Science/Engineering from The Ohio State University (yeah, the article gets capitalized, it's part of their trademark name. Go figure) and an MS in the same (with a concentration in artificial intelligence) from the Air Force Institute of Technology. During all that pain and suffering I squeezed in several computer graphics and engineering drawing classes and so, of course, that sidebar's now become the focus of my career.
I'm reasonably fluent in Rhino 3D, 3DS Max, trueSpace, Korean and German. Oh, yeah, I was in military foreign intelligence for a few years between airborne gigs; you kinda pick up languages while doing that. The first three are all self-taught, though. Add C++, XML and BGL (Microsoft's proprietary graphics language) and I've managed to fill a couple of vacant spots at simTech to spare us having to pay real people real salaries.
Enough about me: who are you guys? :-D
Troy Raszka: (Sound Design and Graphic Design, Marketing, Research) My primary function to the SimTech team is sound design. I have a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the University of Cincinnati, and spent the entire decade of the '90s performing and recording with two original rock and roll bands. I have a lot of professional studio and live mixing experience. I think flight sim sound design is akin to Hollywood or film sound effects creation. One has a certain latitude to be creative in both approach and output. My soundcard is a Soundblaster Live Platinum with the extra feature set of the Live Drive II daughter board. I use Labtec speakers, with a subwoofer, and a mid-level set of phillips headphones. I also have a small 300 watt club sound system (from rock and roll days) hooked up to my PC that I switch to from time to time for reference and window rattling LOL (the wife loves that one)! I use Sound Forge as my sampler and wave editor. It has awesome batch scripting capabilities that allow me to apply effects, EQ, and mastering routines to all the wavs in a sound set at one time. But some wavs—particularly starts and shuts—need special attention to detail. Sound Forge also is very good at allowing me to view the actual sound wave up close for trimming and looping, which is extremely important for smooth transitions. I also use Vegas Pro for multi-tracking. This is a good application for "layering" different samples on top of each other with varying volumes, pans, effects etc. that can then be mixed down to a single wav to include in the set.
I hunt and find all sorts of strange sounds from the web or recorded sources to compile my sounds. Most of my sub-harmonics come from and old analog prophet synth I have! As time and money permits I would like to purchase a portable digital 4-track made by Korg, and begin sampling sounds from actual aviation sources. And central Florida, where I reside, is fertile with resources. Kermit Week's Fantasy of Flight museum, Warbirds Restoration facility, and the annual EAA Sun and Fun fly in to name a few! As well as an aviation mechanics' school right around the corner from my day-job. I still hand-code, and cut and paste the sound.cfgs. No utilities there, yet, but perhaps ujay can make me one ;)
I am also redesigning the SimTech logo and working closely with Ujay on the look of the website. My day job as an Art Director for an Advertising Agency gives me insight in this area as well as marketing and customer service! Will also be doing a new banner/button set to reinforce our brand. I may also be helping Tom paint if our workload increases!
And hey! all of us love to spend hours on end in our personal libraries, book stores, air shows (especially air shows), museums, message boards and Google, eating, living and breathing this stuff!! Right?!?! LOL. I do.
John Paiement: This old dog has been kicking around the dusty corridors of IT and R&D for almost 20 years. Starting as a hobbyist, I soon found a way to infiltrate the ranks of the mainframe geeks at a west coast insurance company, where I worked as programmer, database administrator, network specialist, and eventually IT director. In late '98, I finally decided I had had enough of the corporate lifestyle (ulcers were causing major health problems). I quit the mainstream, moved to Calgary, and started a private consulting business. When SimTech started moving ahead, Tom required a new person to manage his servers, and I was introduced to him by a common acquaintance. I looked his system over, told him it was a load of garbage, and suggested what should be done. Together, we got it done.
Tom Wood: I pay the bills, and I spray paint... supply the beer and pizza and entertainment. On the serious side, errr... I have no serious side... I'm a artist and musician and lastly a marketing and business guy. I paint the planes, the Vc's, the gauge bit maps, I do some sound work, and I package and present the product. I am the customer service guy too, so when you guys start yellin you're yellin at me... LOL So be nice! hehe :-)
Liam Coyle: How long has SimTech been around and how did it get started?
Tom Wood: SimTech has been around for almost two years. It was started by accident when Tom bumbed into Mark at McDonalds and started an argument over whose Big Mac was that on the floor. The rest is history.
Mark Dyson: That's Tom's story, so I'll just put in my little bit. About a year and a half ago a friend of a friend told me about someone looking to pay real dollars to someone who could make custom panels and gauges for them. I needed the money, so I applied. Things just went on from there, and the duties sort of snowballed."
Liam Coyle: What kind of aircraft are going to be the focus of SimTech's efforts?
Mark Dyson: I'd love to say, 'everything that flies.' Reality is, right now we want to focus on what people want to buy to add to their hangars. We're pretty up on how FS2002 works, and I can code aircraft for CFS2 that have nearly all the animated features found in FS2002/CFS3-specific designs. That being said, concentrating on the FS2002 market looks the most promising to me right now. I don't want to start Yet Another String of Airbuses, however; my first love is early aviation and our stuff is going to reflect that. The 'Golden Age' of flight is very attractive, and has the virtue both of offering rare and one-off aircraft with real personalities that I can build to, and of not being severely over-done already.
John Paiement: We all have different tastes. Personally, I like classic and civilian aircraft, but the multi-dimensionality of our influence will make for an eclectic mix of aviation experience.
Tom Wood: Anything. If it will fly and has a good, interesting history, I'll go for it as long as the rest of the team is in harmony with the tune being played. I mostly will go with whatever the fellas want to build.
Liam Coyle: You seem to offer incredible value for money—is this hard to do and do you think other designers (namely commercial boxed products) could do the same?
Tom Wood: I feel the reason we can build and release for what we do is because of low overhead. I am 1st a hobbyist that would like to contribute to the community. As we delved deep into the projects we were kindly reminded by our wives that we were married to them, not the computer, so compensation for the time we spend building add-ons was/is the reason we went commercial.
We don't think we need to ask a lot of money for our add-ons, but we do need enough to pay the bills. Can other vendors do the same? I don't really know, it depends on their overhead I suppose. There are those that feel they just want or need more for their add-ons. We don't feel that we need a pile of money per add-on to survive and build up a great customer base, we just want to build to the best of our capabilities and sell for a fair price, do customer service and take good care of our bread and butter, our customers.
Mark Dyson: Yes, and yes. Frankly, the return on our time investment is pretty meager right now—but we believe that's as it should be. The flightsim crowd is large and enthusiastic, and we believe the right thing to do is to offer the best we can do and not try to make a short-term killing while we're about it. That crowd is also very discriminating and has a long memory; we're going to do well in the long run. Other folks may have other ideas, and that's fine for them.
Liam Coyle: Each aircraft looks like it's been carefully researched and a labour of love, how long do you spend on each product?
Mark Dyson: They are, and thank you for noting it. We love what we do, first and foremost. Each aircraft brings up ideas for new things to innovate and try to get working within the confines of the sim engine. To add to the overhead I always start by buying up way too much literature on the project and insisting on reading it all; the upshot is we can take as long as 2-3 months to finalize a release. I refuse to let a bird out of our hanger until I'd be proud to own it myself, so that time frame can easily be stretched while I play curmudgeon and dig in my heels. Fortunately everyone on the team shares that attitude so I generally don't get much flak.
Troy Raszka: Well a typical one engine sound set can take me around 10-12 hours start to finish, release of beta to team and typically another couple hours for revisions. Double that for multi-engined aircraft. And so on.
I love research, and take into account things like pilot head placement for panning, distance from cylinders/engine to cockpit, cockpit size, distance and placement of engines, sound reflection and absorption by materials in cockpit and so on. it can be tedious, yet creative and fun.
Tom Wood: To quote Eddie VanHallen "If it's (well, you know) We don't do it" and thats the bottom line here, we are a historical research team/company, we simply document it differently, and the subject matter just happens to be aviation... in particular aircraft, mostly vintage aircraft. I want my work to get people in touch with the past, our heritage of flight; when a person buys a product you artfully and painstakingly spend huge time and effort on it. You want them to feel the heaviness of the quality of the product. To me this is a functional beautifully crafted work of art that is a historic account of the real thing. We do our very best to produce the very best, and we challenge each team member to do better (respectfully), and we usually do. It's harder this way, but the final product and the awesome responses to our products really make it worth while for me.
Liam Coyle: SimTech seems to be a good natured, friendly group—do you think this is important for your work?
John Paiement: This is a great bunch of guys to work with. We all have individual strengths that augment each other, with very little overlap, so no egos to get in the way or stroke. We all have one aim—to do the best we can do, and then just a bit more. Each of us is aware of the reputation and capabilities of the other, and there is great respect for each other.
Of course, being a few thousand miles apart helps.
Troy Raszka: Absolutely!! Their are no egos on this team whatsoever, but we do have opinions and listen to each other emphatically! In fact I will go on record saying this is one of the most talented, easy-going, yet driven, creative teams I have ever had the pleasure to work with! Of course, maybe that's because it's all "virtually" handled. I learn something new from these guys everyday !
Tom Wood: Yes this is very important, I know for myself If I'm in a bad mood it will just bring down the creative spirit of the whole team, I also feel if you are happy and positive at all times it radiates out and infects other people, making a creative, warm and communicating environment for artistic expression which is so important to our success. Also, a great attitude and small hat size will make customer relations easier as well. Some viruses are good viruses.
Liam Coyle: What are the current plans for SimTech, what do you want to be doing for the future?
Mark Dyson: Plan one is to 'make it' in this market so we'll still be around to think about plan two. In the future, I want to shake off the confines of existing sim engines and have the luxury of designing for one I had a hand in creating. Our group, though small, is (in my most humble of opinions) a powerhouse of education and talent and there's no question of 'if' we can pull that off, rather 'when.' Until then I'm having a pretty good time building for Microsoft's stuff, so there it is. Want to show up at your next virtual fly-in with a misfit? Stay tuned!
John Paiement: On my end, I am working with Troy to move our present web site look and feel away from the combat sim look we originally created, to a more sophisticated professional approach, with less load time, and improved functionality. From there, we will address bandwidth issues, and probable IP piping solutions to better serve our customers.
Troy Raszka: I for one am excited about going headstrong into FS2002! I think that community respects and appreciates bar-raising payware add-ons to enrich their virtual flying experience! And SimTech is here to deliver that quality and satisfaction!
Beyond that I would be delighted to sub-contract our talents to game/sim publishers that could use a team like SimTech. Also, I can see SimTech developing our own standalone sim/game, be it WW1 to Science Fiction matters not to me!
It's vital. We work very hard, and put enormous pressure on ourselves to achieve both quality and timely releases, and as a start-up there's not much to show for it but pride and a tally of lost sleep. If we weren't a tightly-knit group we'd have killed each other months ago.
Tom Wood: I want to produce a high quality product for a fair price, build a strong customer base and take good care of them. I feel we do have many abilities, we love FS flight sim, but you never know what the future holds—but I am confident we will be there ready to take it to a new level.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.
The SimTech Flight Design Team.
