So it’s not Pmdg who did the modeling but gaya studios? Am I wrong in this understanding?

 

Echo19 did their new sound update correct? 
 

If both of these are correct, it’s not really PMDG doing much of their new stuff anymore, it’s all contracted out. I never thought I’d see the day. 

36 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

So here's the page on Gaya Studios website showcasing the work they've done for PMDG as part of this update. 

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/x31x84

How many man hours do you think has gone into this? How much do you think this might have cost?

Do think the texture artists at Gaya took the FSX textures, put them in a pc and then pressed a big button marked 'PORT'.?

We haven’t paid for this though. This should have been in from the start to justify the upgrade pricing. Again over the years nothing has changed to justify the so called upgrade that they charge. Instead of them saying what is on the product page… hyping it up. Got other developers doing the same and not ripping people off.

Just be honest with the community would go a long way. 

Edited April 5Apr 5 by carlanthony24

6 hours ago, Bdub22 said:

I'll give credit where credit is due. I've bashed PMDG on their exterior / interior model in the past, because -- well, we all know. But this is truly a step up and I finally believe that the $35 upgrade fee is mostly worthy. Anyone know if their 777 is getting the same treatment? I'm on the fence about the 777F, but into it for the price. There's TONS of them flying around and doing cargo ops could be a fun change of pace. 

Mathijs Kok said on their forum that 777 isn’t getting this no. According to them, they are mostly done.

PMDG are making it right at last. Charging people for code that is a rollover from the last decade is pretty bad. They knew they were being 'surpassed' by other devs and had to do something if they are to remain relevant and not upset too many people. They had to make a product that fits MSFS24. On that subject..about time devs started to give up on MSFS2020 and earlier. All devs should be 24 going forward.

 

Lastly, at least they are releasing something..still waiting on the ifly and the JF Fokker70/100 -- starting to think they are never going to release those. I'll buy the PMDG 700 for sure.

23 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I have “past receipts”’for almost all the P3D PMDG products. 

and yeah, that includes the $215 747-8i. 

The new PMDG pricing suits me just fine. Far more granular and affordable.

And if they want another $40 every few years, I’m just fine with that. 

I’d be fine with it for Fenix, too. Except for the fact that they charge $90 for an A319, they make a great product and deserve  all their accolades.

in sum, just because it’s digital doesn’t mean real world labor doesn’t go into it. 

I think if you bought the Fenix add-on you would be very happy with it. You would really enjoy the 321 too and may need the 320 to fly a specific airliner route. I really like Boeing but it is also very fun to learn the Airbus systems as these aircraft too are also popular with the airlines.

4 hours ago, pilotter said:

For the CRJ also?

 

ArtStation - MSFS CRJ Cockpit Overhaul, Fernando

Is that mould on the throttles????

1 hour ago, alanw2005 said:

I think if you bought the Fenix add-on you would be very happy with it. You would really enjoy the 321 too and may need the 320 to fly a specific airliner route. I really like Boeing but it is also very fun to learn the Airbus systems as these aircraft too are also popular with the airlines.

I’m sure I would - it’s clearly a very fine set of addons!

My only “problem” is that I already have the ToLiss A346, and that’s pretty much enough for me 😎🤙

11 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

If both of these are correct, it’s not really PMDG doing much of their new stuff anymore, it’s all contracted out. I never thought I’d see the day. 

Are you kidding?  You never realised that there's a whole army of subcontractors out there who handle stuff like the modelling, the sounds, in the case of FSim Labs I suspect they've had a hand in Inibuilds Airbus development, etc.

The guy behind BlackSquare is rightly lauded for the quality of the work he produces as a one man band but do you think he actually spends the hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours doing the texturing?

All this is contracted out.

It's always been like this. Thousands of man hours go into the development of complex aircraft. It's a joint effort between developers and their contractors.

12 hours ago, carlanthony24 said:

We haven’t paid for this though. 

.......

Just be honest with the community would go a long way. 

We certainly have paid for this. They were talking about a major visual upgrade to 2024 standards last year as part of the overall 2024 release.

I'm not here to defend PMDG - they're more than able to do that themselves - but let's try and cut through at least some of the fog.

My personal frustration with them? Robert Randazzo's timeline predictions: Take them, double them and then add on a good three months to be on the safe side...

 

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

Are you kidding?  You never realised that there's a whole army of subcontractors out there who handle stuff like the modelling, the sounds, in the case of FSim Labs I suspect they've had a hand in Inibuilds Airbus development, etc.

The guy behind BlackSquare is rightly lauded for the quality of the work he produces as a one man band but do you think he actually spends the hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours doing the texturing?

All this is contracted out.

It's always been like this. Thousands of man hours go into the development of complex aircraft. It's a joint effort between developers and their contractors.

We certainly have paid for this. They were talking about a major visual upgrade to 2024 standards last year as part of the overall 2024 release.

I'm not here to defend PMDG - they're more than able to do that themselves - but let's try and cut through at least some of the fog.

My personal frustration with them? Robert Randazzo's timeline predictions: Take them, double them and then add on a good three months to be on the safe side...

 

Calm down…good grief. It’s Flightsim, not your retirement.

 

No never realized it. It’s never been advertised as such and it’s never been pushed. I’ve never heard FSLabs say they are using a completely different modeling company for the airbus. I presumed that they are the ones with the skills doing it themselves. Same with their sounds and coding among other things. Why would I assume what you do and think these companies operate like multi nations Fortune 500 corporations? I assumed that an add on that took 2-4 years to develop did so because it was a small operation doing a ton of work by themselves. Not farming everything out and then just selling the product. I knew aerosoft operated like that but their products were never as good as the big players in this niche industry.
 

It’s PMDG we are talking about. A company who has NEVER before mentioned other people doing their work up until recently. Why am I wrong or word not allowed to be surprised they are farming their work out? Pmdg has acted and advertised that it’s them doing everything in house for years.

You suspect???? So you don’t actually know if FSLabs did work for inibuilds? Are they or are they not?

 

I think it’s reasonable to presume that any company making aircraft for Flightsim have to do everything in their power to protect their competitive advantage. Why would they throw that away to make a quick buck from work for another company?

 

 

11 hours ago, alanw2005 said:

Is that mould on the throttles????

No, that’s green primer. Used to see that all the time on these jets at my old company. 

41 minutes ago, ahsmatt7 said:

Calm down…good grief. It’s Flightsim, not your retirement.

 

No never realized it. It’s never been advertised as such and it’s never been pushed. I’ve never heard FSLabs say they are using a completely different modeling company for the airbus. I presumed that they are the ones with the skills doing it themselves. Same with their sounds and coding among other things. Why would I assume what you do and think these companies operate like multi nations Fortune 500 corporations? I assumed that an add on that took 2-4 years to develop did so because it was a small operation doing a ton of work by themselves. Not farming everything out and then just selling the product. I knew aerosoft operated like that but their products were never as good as the big players in this niche industry.
 

It’s PMDG we are talking about. A company who has NEVER before mentioned other people doing their work up until recently. Why am I wrong or word not allowed to be surprised they are farming their work out? Pmdg has acted and advertised that it’s them doing everything in house for years.

You suspect???? So you don’t actually know if FSLabs did work for inibuilds? Are they or are they not?

 

I think it’s reasonable to presume that any company making aircraft for Flightsim have to do everything in their power to protect their competitive advantage. Why would they throw that away to make a quick buck from work for another company?

 

 

FSLabs don’t have subcontractors 

12 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I’m sure I would - it’s clearly a very fine set of addons!

My only “problem” is that I already have the ToLiss A346, and that’s pretty much enough for me 😎🤙

Oh. The Toliss is higher fidelity and better than the Fenix Airbus.

2 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

No never realized it. It’s never been advertised as such and it’s never been pushed. I’ve never heard FSLabs say they are using a completely different modeling company for the airbus. I presumed that they are the ones with the skills doing it themselves. Same with their sounds and coding among other things. Why would I assume what you do and think these companies operate like multi nations Fortune 500 corporations? I assumed that an add on that took 2-4 years to develop did so because it was a small operation doing a ton of work by themselves. Not farming everything out and then just selling the product. I knew aerosoft operated like that but their products were never as good as the big players in this niche industry.
 

It’s PMDG we are talking about. A company who has NEVER before mentioned other people doing their work up until recently. Why am I wrong or word not allowed to be surprised they are farming their work out? Pmdg has acted and advertised that it’s them doing everything in house for years.

You suspect???? So you don’t actually know if FSLabs did work for inibuilds? Are they or are they not?

 

I think it’s reasonable to presume that any company making aircraft for Flightsim have to do everything in their power to protect their competitive advantage. Why would they throw that away to make a quick buck from work for another company?

There's nothing particularly secret about this sort of thing but why would they advertise these things? What would be the point?

The end product is still a PMDG product involving a great deal of skilled man hours. They have a core team that do a great deal of everything - including modeling but certain specialisations are simply not economic to do in house.

They've made much of modeling laser-scanned cockpits. That's hardly an area where they'd have their own dedicated team. Their sounds; they've admitted they need to improve them so they've brought in a new sound engineer who's working with a specialist company. Nothing wrong with that. They're leveraging their resources to make the best product they can.

For all I know FSLabs do their own in house modelling but I very much doubt they do all of it and the teams employed by devs like PMDG and the like won't all be full timers.

I mention FSLabs because we know they do other work outside their own development. It's another handy income stream.

I'm not sure what 'secrets' are being given away. The fact is you can code or model anything if you have the knowledge and especially resources. The question is how to deploy those resources effectively. Why bother making something in house that might take months or years when you can buy in that expertise without the commitment to expensive, permanent staff.

In PMDG's case I would imagine that competitive advantage is two decades of experience with Boeing aerodynamics and systems...

4 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

Why would they throw that away to make a quick buck from work for another company?

Most of the sub-contractors doing texture work, aren't competing in the same space as the devs they work for.  Gaya are a case in point.  They don't release their own aircraft.  3D REACH are a texture artistry business that are everywhere in Flight sim.  They do all of the texturing for FlightSimWare and a number of other devs.  But they don't release their own complete aircraft - they stick to their area of expertise.

It's no different to an increasing number of devs who contract out their sound work, to the likes of Boris and Echo19.

4 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

presume that any company making aircraft for Flightsim have to do everything in their power to protect their competitive advantage. Why would they throw that away to make a quick buck from work for another company?

The only secret sauce competitive advantage is the proprietary code. 

Art and 3D are commodity services at this point. Not in that they’re unskilled, just that practically anyone can quickly develop the skill.

OTOH, sound engineering is so highly specialized yet simultaneously such a small portion of the project that they practically must be subcontracted.

So, The main competitive advantage is in getting other people to do work for you and then sell their work at a profit.