Hello Al,Let me introduce myself, while I mingle into the conversation and perhaps give other participants of this topic (bashers and rooters) in insight into the wonderful world of textures. We started the Ariane project about a year ago, at that time still a prospect, while we were in the midst of the E-Jet project. After a trial set and weeks of negotiating, we started working on the 800v3 (FS9) in October 2008, followed by the 800x2 (FSX) a couple of weeks later.Before I continue (very important) :Signmanbob, somewhere in this topic I read you justifying Ariane's high price, cause they 'have to pay McPhat Studios'. Please, if you want to speak for Ariane, go ahead, but do not speak for us. 9 months into the project and we are literally bleeding money here. I will get back on this subject later on. Now, back to Alan.We left of in October. It is the end of March now. Between October and March, we made almost 240 liveries. 120 for FS9, 120 for FSX. As the X2 is differently mapped and of course it sports specular and normal maps, the FS9 liveries are not 'just an easy port' and therefor we see a X2 livery as a seperate one. With 240 liveries in 6 months time, we did an average of 40 liveries a month, more than one a day.As you paint planes yourself, I should not have to tell you how much work goes into a single livery, but perhaps for the other participants it is 'funny' to know : I'd say, with a by us customized kit, we average 8 hours per livery. So basically, 1.8 FTE, in our case painters of Texture Artists worked on the Ariane Project for the past 6 months, every single day of the month. So no monday to friday workdays, nope. Monday to Sunday. By the way, with a 'by us customized kit', I mean our Lead Texture Artist spend a month, before we started the actual 'painting', building and customizing a paintkit. Fulltime that is.Now, a little longer intro than I expected. Back to Bob : We do not set the price for the Ariane Upgrade Boxes. That price was already set before they contracted us. But in the end, as you can read from my 'little intro', people work, full time, 60, 70 hours a week, months at a time to deliver the work we do. So yes, in the past we did a lot of freeware work (which you can also find here in the AVSIM library btw), but that was when we were still 'free little birds', occasionally roaming the skies of texture land now and then. ;)Another example, for both Bob and Alan in this case, (and anyone still reading). Next to the actual textures, we also make the screenshots for Ariane's website. 12 for each livery. 238 liveries, 2856 screenshots in total. With an average of 3 minutes per shot (taking 10.000's of shots, picking the right ones, resizing, cropping, editing, naming, packaging, uploading). That's a rough 9000 minutes, 150 hours. Almost one full working month, spend only... on making screenshots."What is your point Terrence?", is a question that might rise after reading this all.Well, I have two. A. It is hard work. andB. I am happy, if in the end, if me and my fellow artists will make a normal man's salary. Cause for some reason, everybody talks crap of Ariane, but the number of pirates out there is amazingly high, according to the download numbers.Last but not least : Alan, I have a good amount of liveries here for ya, if you want to review them. Even though it is hard work most of the time, I still enjoy it to the fullest and am very proud of the X2's were doing at the moment.To all the rest, the FS business is a cut throat business. At least, for most of us. We are not making Rockstar GTA money, our Quality Controller does not drive around in a Ferrari, cut those devs some slack now and then. I go to work on my 10 year old rollerskates, Nicolas comes to work on his bike.Oh, and before I forget. I am assigned to the wings, one of my colleagues mailed Ariane, asking for an update they made on those wings. That was before Easter. After the Easter holidays, I waited, and waited for that update. You know what Ariane told us? Hold up, we'll get to you as soon as we handled the tons of customer care emails, we received during the holidays. My first reaction was : 'WHAT?', I am bleeding money here, and you tell me to WAIT?'... That is where they put their customers, above us.You treat people with respect, that is what you get. You come to 'MY HOUSE', talking crap, to me. That's what you get in return : crap. You send me a polite email telling me I made a mistake on the wings, I'll fix it, at that very moment for you. You email me and tell me I f'ed up, and what an arse I am for f'ing up, I'll tell you to come of it and take a hike, refunding you in the process so I don't have to deal with your high horse attitute in the future.So relax all, enjoy your add-ons and stop acting like ya'll paid 50 million dollars for a full motion simulator.Terrence(Head Honcho McPhat Studios)
