Ahh, I see. Well, I'm not that bothered with the competition as it stands right now as none of them are available. Even if they were, what I've bought are way down the pecking order in terms of quality, detail or ease of construction. They are loveable rogues rather than display case material!
Was that A10 game available for Mac? I'm pretty sure I had that! You should have continued with yours, I'm sure it would have been better. I was quite into flight sims in my yoof. I've still got Fly! 2K somewhere.
That's the ticket, set your stall, objectively focus on the market you want and build for that, there's nothing wrong with the lower end (in the nicest possible terms
) of the spectrum, it's often a area forgotten or bypassed, or as we have all seen in the past, an area that has kits but which are priced in the next bracket up or even higher.
A realistic price that matches the value of the product will always sell.
I agree with the DJH 03, it looks nice but the white metal parts would have been much better as etchings and made up 3D louvres even 3D printed insets or cast insets, it's a shame as their 31 (I've one in a box under the desk) has much better vents and louvres.
No, the A-10 was a addon product for Microsoft FSx but I started way back in FS98 and the original combat series CFS1. The stand alone A-10 game (DCS) is a much better and bespoke package with weapons and scenarios but limited maps etc.....and it's on my list to get one day LOL. MS FSx is a fully global map but no weapons coding, except visuals. The only combat games they did were CFS1, 2 and 3.
I beta'd and helped develop CFS3, FS9 & FSx for MS as part of the aircraft model development side of things, none of my items were included but we (those on the 3rd party development team) got all the early copies of the game and pulled them apart and fed back to MS, sort of Alpha and Beta testers, it also meant that you got all the software development tools to make new items waaaay before anyone else, and all those had to be Alpha and Beta tested as well. It was fun, but hard graft toward the end.
A quick and only digression, some renders from my previous work.
Best selling item, Seaking package, ended up with sixteen variants, both Westland and Sikorsky.
A-10 final render before shelving, just starting some of the moving part animation codes.
P-61, lost interest and gave it away to MAAM who then took it on as donationware, all sales going to help the restoration of the last surviving 1:1 to make it airworthy, last In heard it was still a on going project.
Largest and most complex model (WIP) and largest into the simulator at that date. MS sims are limited to the maximum number of parts you can upload, according to the SDK it's 70'000, but with care and knowing how to bend the compiler, you can get 130'000 in, as far as I'm aware ( four years ago), this had never been beaten, you could only get away with this because your at sea and the sim doesn't need to draw any other scenery like trees, houses etc, other wise your PC slows to a crawling slide show, there are other tricks like LOD shapes and clever texture mapping that all help.
And finally a train for MS trainsim (first edition) I was on the development team for the second one and on the team for a third one by a private company....who paid for ten of us to go to the states for a week for a rail simulator think tank....very nice too if you can get it LOL, both of those fell through when the current one became available, MS pulled out and the other had more work in 1:1 railroads in the US to spare time for a game.
All of these are made in 3DSMax and thus technically any item in part or whole can be 3D printed, so, as you may have guessed by now, 3D shapes are of no issue or concern to produce for 3D printing, be it rail, sea or air or what ever
The only hurdle is time and enthusiasm, 11 years in 3D graphics kinda wears you out LOL.
I have dabbled since with some German electric loco cabs but nothing printed yet, I keep toying with a class 26 - 40 - 45 or 55 cab and etched sides/roof, but always find an excuse not too.
End of gratuitous trumpet blowing and apologies for the seriously off topic diversion, I can remove it if people wish.
But if you ever find decent drawings of 03/04 wheels I'd whip a 3D model up for you to send off for printing if you so decided or needed.
