Merker Member



Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 107







Caption: In the spirit of the upcoming Heatblur reveal, here's the A-4 in the Danger Zone with the VSN F-14A. Thanks to the VSN Team for putting out this awesome Tomcat mod. Hoping to see our A-4 flying with the Heatblur Tomcat sometime soon!



So let's begin with the bad news. Following in the footsteps of flight simulation legends, it's our turn to announce a delay. We are now targeting mid-November as our release date as a result of factors out of our control. I’ve been trying my best personally to keep up with this deadline, but the hardware failure and several real life needs to precedent. However, we have made good progress and I believe that Mid-November is a realistic release date.



As many of you know, we’ve strived to bring the most complete DCS aircraft possible, and doing anything less would be a great disservice to ourselves and those that contributed who are no longer with the team. Gos in particular had a very strong position on this, and we certainly have no intention of letting him down. For this reason, we have decided to take our time and pus the release date back. We hope that you will understand. As Miyamoto once said...







This Month’s Progress

This month there was a lot of progress on several fronts, but not as much as hoped due to the issues cited above. Below are a few important developments which occurred this month.



Textures

Resident artist Plusnine was hard at work brining out Pilot to life, among other things. Our remaining unwraps are almost entirely on our exterior model, with a few small exceptions also discovered this month. Though the screenshot below may not represent the final product, it’s worth noting his attention to detail in the face.







Mirrors

One big step forward is the addition of working mirrors. Thanks to some bugtesting from our friend and mentor SkateZilla, some longstanding code issues have been fixed and our mirrors are now functional. I’m looking to continue adjusting them in the run up to release, but this screenshot should give you a good idea of what they look like at the moment.









Lights

Internally and externally, lights have been partially implemented for some time. However, we still have a bit of work to do. Internally, we are working to setup backlighting for both the panels and the instruments. This has taken the majority of my time and given my own inexperience working with animation in DCS, has been a bit of a challenge. My inexperience working with both 3ds and DCS has been a continual challenge tine wise and this is definitely something worth getting right.



Overview Videos

If you haven’t already, I would highly check out my first two videos covering the flight operations in the A-4. I’d like to thank everyone for their kind words and constructive criticism on these videos. I hoped to add two more installments before release, however at the moment I’m going to need to refocus my weekends on knocking out a few frustrating bugs and remaining work before release. You should start seeing additional videos later in the month once the remaining work on my plate is done. I’m expecting to cover our Air to Ground Radar and Air to Ground Weapons on these upcoming videos.



Startup and Takeoff





Carrier Operations





Oriskany

There are some who may remember a mention of a USS Oriskany mod two years ago. Never fear, this side project of mine is still very much in active development. While I don’t expect it to release until at least Christmas or shortly after the New Year, 3d modelling is well underway. Its progressed quite a bit since then as well, becoming an outlet to model when I’m unable to work on the A-4 or feeling the urge to make new 3ds models. As you can see, there is much more detail here than before, with even more planned. I’ll be sure to start a new thread on this one post-launch of the A-4. Until then, here are a few shots to hold you over!















So that’s all for now! We’ll hopefully have a firm idea of a release date and all of the other important details of the release closer to the end of the month. Thanks so much again and we look forward to getting you into the cockpit soon!



The leaves are falling, pumpkins are appearing on doorsteps and here in D.C., politicians are furiously hitting F5 on polling data; it must be October!So let's begin with the bad news. Following in the footsteps of flight simulation legends, it's our turn to announce a delay. We are now targeting mid-November as our release date as a result of factors out of our control. I’ve been trying my best personally to keep up with this deadline, but the hardware failure and several real life needs to precedent. However, we have made good progress and I believe that Mid-November is a realistic release date.As many of you know, we’ve strived to bring the most complete DCS aircraft possible, and doing anything less would be a great disservice to ourselves and those that contributed who are no longer with the team. Gos in particular had a very strong position on this, and we certainly have no intention of letting him down. For this reason, we have decided to take our time and pus the release date back. We hope that you will understand. As Miyamoto once said...This month there was a lot of progress on several fronts, but not as much as hoped due to the issues cited above. Below are a few important developments which occurred this month.Resident artist Plusnine was hard at work brining out Pilot to life, among other things. Our remaining unwraps are almost entirely on our exterior model, with a few small exceptions also discovered this month. Though the screenshot below may not represent the final product, it’s worth noting his attention to detail in the face.One big step forward is the addition of working mirrors. Thanks to some bugtesting from our friend and mentor SkateZilla, some longstanding code issues have been fixed and our mirrors are now functional. I’m looking to continue adjusting them in the run up to release, but this screenshot should give you a good idea of what they look like at the moment.Internally and externally, lights have been partially implemented for some time. However, we still have a bit of work to do. Internally, we are working to setup backlighting for both the panels and the instruments. This has taken the majority of my time and given my own inexperience working with animation in DCS, has been a bit of a challenge. My inexperience working with both 3ds and DCS has been a continual challenge tine wise and this is definitely something worth getting right.If you haven’t already, I would highly check out my first two videos covering the flight operations in the A-4. I’d like to thank everyone for their kind words and constructive criticism on these videos. I hoped to add two more installments before release, however at the moment I’m going to need to refocus my weekends on knocking out a few frustrating bugs and remaining work before release. You should start seeing additional videos later in the month once the remaining work on my plate is done. I’m expecting to cover our Air to Ground Radar and Air to Ground Weapons on these upcoming videos.Startup and TakeoffCarrier OperationsThere are some who may remember a mention of a USS Oriskany mod two years ago. Never fear, this side project of mine is still very much in active development. While I don’t expect it to release until at least Christmas or shortly after the New Year, 3d modelling is well underway. Its progressed quite a bit since then as well, becoming an outlet to model when I’m unable to work on the A-4 or feeling the urge to make new 3ds models. As you can see, there is much more detail here than before, with even more planned. I’ll be sure to start a new thread on this one post-launch of the A-4. Until then, here are a few shots to hold you over!So that’s all for now! We’ll hopefully have a firm idea of a release date and all of the other important details of the release closer to the end of the month. Thanks so much again and we look forward to getting you into the cockpit soon! __________________

Former A-4E-C 3D Artist



Logo Credit to Plusnine