Maybe I'm just too picky

[Guest]

Visual models are a compromise, always.If it takes a thousand polies to make the shape exact while 10 can get it within 0.1% a good designer will use 10 because if he uses a thousand he'll be introducing a lot of performance problems for no appreciable gain and have less polies to work with for the rest of the model.Yet in doing so he's inviting the wrath of a few nitpickers who will scream that the models "sux" because that shape is a minute bit off.Aerosoft on producing the A-10 went to the extreme, they ran up to the maximum number of polies allowed in FS2004. Yet even they had to make compromises.They especially had to skip on some smaller details because they had no polies left to model them with.Most users will accept that, there are some who will not...

[mnmon 0]

I agree that many flight model issues are probably misguided expectations from the user. However, in the case I mentioned the plane behaved totally beyond any reasonable bounds. I mean, can anyone point towards a real aircraft that continues a constant 700 fpm climb while the airspeed drops completely to stall without touching the trim, throttle,or yoke? It just defies physics. I know MSFS uses lookup table as opposed to x-plane's more accurate physics based model, but MSFS planes *can* fly quite close to reality. It just shows how good the planes can be if attention is paid to detail. The argument that I should cut the developers some slack because it is such a hard process, people are never satisfied, etc. doesn't hold much weight in a free market. IF you can't stand the heat... There is a market here, and if some developer quits, another will come in their place because there is money to be made. I would like to see developers go head to head more on specific aircraft. Right now there's seems to be a gentlemen's agreement that "I'll do the Cessna, you do the Boeing", etc. Lack of competition always drives product quality down. What you are left with is trying to sort through those who really care about quality no matter the competition, and those who take a lower road when not forced into a better product in order to survive. Look at what FLY did to help spur MSFS along. I guess I just don't buy the argument that the developers are here to help us with our hobby. I say they exist to make money, and thus we should hold them as accountable as any other business. Mike

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

> I guess I just don't buy the argument that the developers>are here to help us with our hobby. I say they exist to make>money, and thus we should hold them as accountable as any>other business.>>I don't understand this perspective. Many of the payware devs are people who have been members of the "community" for years and in fact who were freeware authors before they moved into the payware realm. I just don't see why some people assume that being in business means you can't have any passion, concern, care or whatever for the hobby. Of course there are payware developers whose products are imho not up to snuff. But I have no doubt at all that the best of the groups have every bit as much passion for the hobby as most freeware authors. Nobody is going to convince me that people like Rob Young and Bill Lyons are "just in it for the money."

[mnmon 0]

Zevious, You apparently missed this sentence in my post: "What you are left with is trying to sort through those who really care about quality no matter the competition, and those who take a lower road when not forced into a better product in order to survive." I acknowledge there are those who do care (and I've always thought Rob Young was one every since he basically saved all the original FLY aircraft from behaving like the proverbial flying pig) about the product. However, I'm suggesting that they may be in a minority. Mike

[John_Cillis 2,406]

99.9 pct visual accuracy is not what I am talking about. I'm talking about the shape of an engine cowling, where it obviously differs from every real photo out there. Or the shape of a flap pylon, or wing tip, whatever. I design in FSDS and know it well enough to know that you can nail the general shape of something if you put in the effort with very few polys. Sure you can throw more polys at the part being modelled and get every nuance, but at least throw the effort into the part to make it look real. You raise an interesting point, because I feel some developers use the final poly count to somehow imply that a model is visually accurate. That isn't always the case, and they should stand up to the nit-pickers who insist that they throw polys at every part as some sort of litmus test for accuracy. When I updated the Eclipse for Dave Eckert, one concern for both of us were the new engines. I at least tried to get them close to the new P&W's even given the limited investment the small project took from my schedule. We had no real 3-views, no real pics since none had been released of the P&W equipped Eclipse's. I could have easily just enlarged Dave's original engines and called it a day--no one would have been the wiser. But I chose to take five minutes and get something as close as I could to what the proposed engines will look like mounted on the production models.There will never be a perfect model, but dividing the resources out there to make sure the parts that are displayed are accurate is an important difference between a payware vendor and someone who dabbles in freeware like myself.-John

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

I focused on your closing statement. Sorry.The good ones may be the minority, but luckily they usually produce the best stuff. I can happily ignore all the rest.

[michal 44]

>However, in the case I mentioned>the plane behaved totally beyond any reasonable bounds.I still don't understand which airplane you are talking about. Unless you reveal its name the whole conversation is pointless. Why this secrecy? Those of us who have the same product can quickly test it. Are you afraid we may actually disagree with your findings and you may end up looking like someone with less than perfect understanding of flight dynamics? You very well may be 100% right but unless you tell us more this discussion is big waste of time.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[Guest]

no, the BAD ones are the minority.Sadly the pathological complainers amongst the userbase scream so loudly about non-existent or dimminutive flaws that they completely drown out any voice of reason and therefore are able to influence the attitude of the entire community towards a product and/or its development team.

[Guest]

I guess he had no real product to complain about but is just making things up as he goes along in an attempt to slag all payware developers as a group.

[Guest glnflwrs]

That, JW, is a personal attack on the man's character and totally uncalled for. He's obviously got a problem with some software and almost everyone here is giving him the same as he gets from the developer. A few suggestions but mostly criticism. He doesn't need to be demeaned by you. He wasn't making anything up.Personally, I never buy add-ons anymore because I've never had one I thought was worth the price, (same sentiment as mnmon's) and you can get just as good from the freeware developers. Glenn"If God would have wanted man to fly He would have given him more money"

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Of course JW is going to go for a personal attack when he's exhausted all other means of getting attention. However, the author of the thread hasn't responded to even some of the more level headed statements from those participating. There are some projects from freeware developers that rival or exceed payware. The Howard 500, Yannick's FS2002 Robin and Falcon, and so on. However, there are payware models out there with no equal. Flight1's ATR 72, Eaglesoft's entire line of bizjets, Dreamfleet's work, etc... Sometimes I see rather feeble attempts to dismiss certain payware ("It has no FMC...."). But all in all, payware still goes beyond freeware in one to one comparisons.And perhaps that's because freeware goes left when payware goes right. What I mean by that, is you get a payware quality Howard 500 when payware is busy releasing a Aerostar (FSD) or ATR (Flight1). It's pretty rare you see freeware and payware tackling the same projects.As I noted in my earlier response, except for the visual model, the system can come into play with almost any complaint. Now there's some here who love to censor valid criticism with catch phrases like "pathological nit-pickers". I saw one such response to my own comments, where I got a bunch of blather about polys from someone who's released fewer recent AC design projects than I have. People like to put there own spin on what you say to shift the focus and invalidate your comments. But off that topic, and back to the open question--especially when it comes to commenting on flight models, I think simmers should qualify their remarks. That, and I believe (when I pay for payware) that I pay for the things that mere mortals can't do--fine visual modelling combined with efficient and detailed panel/gauge modelling. FDE's can be tuned by anyone who can read with the least amount of training compared to learning GMAX or how to code a C dll. I hope for a good FDE when I buy payware, but I know I can tune it to my tastes in a few moments if need be. The same can't be said about a gauge or visual model.-John

[Guest]

Since John refuses to give any information on which addons he's accusing I can only conclude that he has no addon in mind...

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Jeroen--I wasn't the one who opened this thread to attack payware--I am very happy with it. However, if you want to quibble over obvious and sophmoric flaws in add-ons:~Carenado's V35--missing polys in the wings, visible from the cockpit.~Flightsim Models Ultralight series--flaws too numerous to mention in just about every one of their releases. Animations that differ between the VC and exterior models. Parts not saved in the right order, causing them to disappear when the exterior model is viewed from certain angles (this is an "entry level" FSDS 2 mistake). Poly smoothing issues.~Eaglesoft's Premier One. Was scaled wrong, so that the model is larger than the real life version by a significant amount.~Eaglesoft's CJ-1. Great visual model, but the engines look nothing like the real CJ-1. Eaglesoft produced a picture vs. the GMAX source, but the picture appears to be an artist's rendering of a yet to be released upgrade to the CJ-1 vs. a stock photo from Cessna.Call this pathological "nit-picking" if you want. You are so good at name calling anyway, since you can't score points any other way it seems. But the point is, payware should at least admit to and address visual flaws. These aren't issues caused by limitations on poly count. They are issues caused by lack of attention and/or carelessness (and I'm an unabashed Eaglesoft supporter in spite of what I mention).-John

[Guest Zevious Zoquis]

Yeah, I agree that the bad devs are the minority. I've purchased from 4 different developers and only one was a dissappointment, and that only in the fact that they were basically forced to close up shop unexpectedly - the support while they were operating was excellent.Just as an aside, I see posts regularly on this forum and Avsim from individuals who have a bone to pick with some specific developer becuase they feel they've been wronged in the past. In many of those cases the person will claim that they had tried to get help with an issue and not been satisfied and had eventually been "banned" from the support forum for "no reason" and now they will never buy from that dev again. In many of those cases I've remembered the specific incidents referred to and often I've felt that the dev handled things entirely appropriately and that the problem was in fact the confrontational, "liten to MEEEEEEEEE I'm the paying customer!!!!" attitude of the person making the request. Some people seem to have a real problem presenting their issues in anything but the most obnoxious manner and while it might be nice to think that the treatment a customer recieves from a dealer is independent of the kind of attitude the customer adopts, that just isn't reality. I've been in retail my entire life and customers who are ornery and obnoxious most definitely don't get the same sort of concern and service that the "nice" customers get. It's just human nature.(the above paragraph has nothing specific to do with this particular thread. Just something I've noticed.)

[mnmon 0]

My goodness. I leave the list for overnight and I get a personal attack. Making things up??? I have tried very hard to be reasonable in all my posts. I have acknowledged that there are good products and developers out there. As I stated quite early on I didn't mention specific names as I thought that would lead to a shouting match over "who's the best" and not focus on my main issue of disatisfaction with much of the payware aircraft. I will list one specific: The one exception I mentioned is PMDG. The 737 series is, for me, the standard the rest of the developers should aspire to. Maybe I was spoiled as the first payware I bought was the PMDG. I now expect the same quality out of any other payware. They take their time to get things absolutely right. JW, I'm going to send you a private message with the specifics on the other planes. Mike