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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    It's actually not so much a paint issue as a design issue. They didn't think the molds through clearly enough, and a bunch of parts that should have been molded in the same color got split up across multiple molds, and molded in different colors. So, they wound up painting entire pieces to cover it up, when they could have just molded it in the right color to start with. It's not even really a problem.. until you consider the history Bandai has with shoddy paint, and having it not stick to the plastic. It's gotten better with these, but my Ozma still has a pretty half-assed paint job on it, specifically the giant wing glove pieces that should have been molded in lighter gray plastic to begin with, but now are coated in either too much, or not enough paint, depending on which side you look at. With Ozma, it's all gray, so it doesn't show badly, but a paintjob of that quality on Michael's will look just flat out rotten, because you're trying to cover dark blue with white paint. The only way to properly fix it is to mold the pieces in white to begin with, which they should have figured out from the start.
  2. Chronocidal
    You know, as much as I do prefer Michael's valk in the super packs, I'd probably grab one of those. While I do like the look, I never really cared for how much the Tornado pack covers though, and I still think it was a marketing gimmick to make the original DXs more attractive. As much as I want the VF-25G though.. I'm kind of dreading it. I'm hoping the delay in hearing about it is due to Bandai rethinking their mold layout for the VF-25s, because so far, the color breakdown of the parts on Ozma's valk is utterly facepalm-tacular. Entire sections of the plane are molded in the wrong color, and then painted over completely, while there are perfectly fine parts elsewhere on the plane molded in that color. With as much forethought as they clearly put into the new VF-25 as far as preparations for super/armor packs, they dropped the ball on the colors.. probably because Alto's plane is entirely white, and they didn't need to worry about colored parts. But Michael's.. yeah. Having a toy molded in blue plastic, and covered in white paint is just asking for complaints when people start making massive blue stripes in the paint when they start transforming it. Ozma's you can kind of get away with due to everything being shades of gray, but scratch that white paint, and it will show up like a giant flashing beacon.
  3. Chronocidal
    That's another thing that makes me wonder.. Sure, they can call it "Top Gun II".. but unless this movie is set 5-10 years from now, it will have nothing to do with NSAWC. Especially if the line about him being a Lockheed Martin test pilot is true, in which case, there will be nothing combat related at all, unless you count dropping test ammo on dummy targets, and maybe firing a live missile or two. Most of the current testing I'm aware of is going on around Ft. Worth, Pax River, and Edwards AFB, and they're barely even testing the C variant yet, so are they going to have Mav change up from Navy to Air Force, or just ditch the military entirely for a civilian position? I mean, sure it can happen.. but not if they want any combat of any type to even occur in the movie, in which case, I don't see the point. Unless he steals a plane to pull off some crazy rescue mission or whatnot.. ... Wait. Oh, that would be just too easy. Did they actually confirm his father was killed, or could they potentially bring him back as a POW? I would laugh so hard if they try that. I mean.. JAG already built off of Top Gun a good number of ways (what with the shot down father angle, dead RIO, etc), and it would be just like hollywood to re-steal the plot back from JAG and have him discover his father is actually still a prisoner. I'm putting this out there again, we really need a facepalm smiley.
  4. Chronocidal
    Yep, making money off this is the farthest thing possible from my mind. I really just want to be able to order custom made parts to make up for what the modeling world has seemingly forgotten. Case in point.. I want some Wing Commander ships. Specifically, a WC1 Rapier, and WCIII Excalibur. The Rapier might be interesting, but the amusing thing about the Excalibur (or most other ships from that game) is that they were about as close as you can get to a purely polygonal fighter design. It's just a bunch of boxes, and you can get a nearly perfect representation of it in only a couple thousand faces. Plus, there's the odd custom part I may want to make to improve or fix a styrene kit i have. In this case, the actual modeling process is the least of my worries, because I've always had the knack for making models that are too detailed to work well in games.. it sometimes takes a few years for the hardware to catch up to the detail level. While I've generally worked without making things truly solid, making solid hollowed out objects to print shouldn't be too big a jump. I think my biggest concern is just the specifics of the materials, which will probably vary by who prints them. Things like, how brittle/flexible/etc the plastic is, whether it can be painted easily or needs a lot of primer, whether it can be glued to other plastics, whether the sanding dust is toxic, etc. Plus the question of how big I can make pieces. I do get the impression that you can get pretty sturdy plastic, since we have people printing their own VF-1 shoulder hinges now, but I would hate to get a bunch of pieces, and discover they warp if you leave them under a desk lamp for too long. Ideally, what I'd love is if I can just order parts in the mail, then clean them up, slap them together, and paint them up into a display model. I get the impression there's a bit more trial and error to getting the printing process right, but I can deal with that.
  5. Chronocidal
    As much as everything that game represents makes me want to strangle the dev team, I might have to pick up a copy so I can do this. Maybe if I see a used copy for cheap... hmm. It might be worth it just to team up with someone on multiplayer with M&M schemes.
  6. Chronocidal
    I think the BS here isn't the report.. it's more that there is no way you could make a serious movie about testing that plane. First off, we're through with the JSF competition phase and the X-32 lost already, so there's no potential plot there. Second, there's nothing for a pilot to prove himself against as a test pilot, except the plane itself, or possibly the beauracracy behind it, and either way, that will be opening up a freaking huge can of worms. Whether you pit the pilot against the plane itself, the corporation, or even the military itself, I don't see how this movie can become anything other than a massive hollywood smear campaign against the entire JSF program. It's free publicity sure, but I don't see how any potential plot they can come up with could possibly help the JSF program right now. Even if it does put things in a good light.. someone's going to get burned by this. I'm not betting on Lockheed Martin, since they seem like they might milk it for publicity, but the plane already has problems. We don't need hollywood sticking their fingers in this mess trying to make a buck, and if they pursue any kind of plot where the plane or military is the problem, it's going to have the exact opposite effect the original movie had on military recruitment.
  7. Chronocidal
    You know, this might be a stupid question, but what the heck.. I've been anxious to someday get into the CAD/3D printing world and finally get some of my custom designs made up, or just to make my own parts for things. I need to do a lot of research before I start obviously, but I'm curious. What's the most cost effective way to do a kit from a 3D printing? I mean, I get the impression that the materials do need some cleanup afterward, but in general, is it better to print a master and recast it, or could you just build a kit up from printed parts? I mean, I don't know the first thing about recasting, but I'd love to print myself pieces to build desk models of some of the various 3D models I have. I doubt I would make a lot of them, but I might want more than one, so how would the overall costs compare between straight printed models, or recasts?
  8. Chronocidal
    It does help, but I wish it compressed even further, because unlike the Fire Valk, the VF-19's gun winds up pointing down pretty far in fighter mode. It's just because the crotch plate is so big sadly, and you really can't do anything about that without messing up battroid.
  9. Chronocidal
    AC6 was fun to play, and extremely pretty too. It just would've been much better if you could turn off the voices, because the story just was plane lame. (ha.) The platform jump really did hurt it though. Not only did they ditch their entire existing playstation fanbase by moving to the competing console line, but the addition of charging for features that used to be unlockables really made me sad. Not to mention the fact that jumping platforms seemed to mean they were forced to leave all bonus content from previous games out entirely (unless you're willing to fork over extra money ). Plus.. after being spoiled rotten by 50+ planes from the previous two games, the lackluster selection in AC6 felt like a slap to the face. If they had offered DLC aircraft, I might have actually bought some.. but leaving out so many favorites from previous games just seemed like they got lazy. Granted, the selections in AC5 and Zero were a bit on the excessive side, but AC used to be like the Gran Turismo of aircraft franchises. Half the reward is unlocking aircraft that you want to fly just because you like them, regardless of whether they're the best aircraft or not. It used to be fun being able to pick any number of planes if you wanted to challenge yourself, or if you just love the look of certain aircraft. With these newer games.. it's like they've taken on the trend from RPGs of forcing you to upgrade to the newest equipment as soon as it becomes available (or worse, dictating to you what aircraft you can use in any particular mission ), because otherwise you won't be able to continue. It's like they've just become completely out of touch with what fans of these games actually enjoy, and are trying to force changes that no one asked for, just for the sake of being able to say they're "innovating." I seem to see that everywhere really.. and it's getting really depressing.
  10. Chronocidal
    I don't think it's supported actually, which I remember a bunch of people being extremely pissed about. And honestly, that control scheme is just STUPID. What idiot would use the throttle and rudder controls to control the view, then assign the rudder and throttle to buttons? And using the trigger and pickle button to run the throttle??? I'm sorry, but that just makes no freaking sense at all. If that's what the developers called "optimal" then that explains a LOT about why that game is so different from previous AC games.. it was written by people who need a good slap upside the head with a book about aircraft. Where's the facepalm smiley when you need one?
  11. Chronocidal
    As far as bones go, if you're thinking of adapting this VF-1 to a flight sim, you most likely won't need them. I don't think you'd be forced to remove them, but at least in FSX (or any of the other MS flight sims) you'd only use bones to make flexible pieces. Any solid moving part would just be keyframe animated by rotation and motion, relative to a determined part reference point. Making gear animations without bones becomes a pain, because you have to manually align linkages and actuators, but it also really makes you appreciate all the mechanisms that go into making them work. I've done several aircraft that way, including an F-14 and F-106, and even a nearly realistic set of gear for the YF-19, and the way all the pieces have to work together always amazes me.
  12. Chronocidal
    Yeah, I wish they would just kill 3d until it becomes usable in places that might make sense.. like full motion tracking head-mounted displays (I want my .hack glasses for flight simming dangit ) I really miss the age when you could buy a game, and it was good, and you could rely on that. None of this, "Oh, it was okay when it came out, then the version 2 patch almost killed it entirely.. Fortunately the devs figured out what was so bad, and it's almost back to where it was again, but who knows what's next?" Very little pisses me off more than people changing things arbitrarily to something else just because they felt change was needed, no matter what it was. MS Office 2007 of all things is the clearest example to me personally, because the way they completely randomly decided, "Ok, we're just going to rename and relocate EVERYTHING" completely screwed productivity at my job for months. It was similar to the effect you'd get if Webster decided they were going to randomly reassign every word in the dictionary to another definition, without telling anyone. In the games arena, I just get continually disappointed by developers not willing to leave well enough alone (movies too.. *slaps a George Lucas effigy*). Various games I've enjoyed get a new patch, and it sometimes just destroys what I used to enjoy, because they change so much. Final Fantasy XIV in particular is going through this a lot, due to the way it was released in pretty much alpha stage, and keeps developing towards something resembling a complete game. I really enjoyed v1.19 as a magic character, but come v1.2, they revamped the entire magic skill tree... and I lost nearly all interest in that job class, because the skills don't make any freaking sense anymore. The sad/weird part of all this is.. if you wait long enough for the games to actually die out, and the companies to stop caring about piracy, the games sometimes reappear under the management of someone willing to run customized versions using specific patches and content to cater to what the fans enjoyed. It just takes forever sometimes...well, at least if you don't want to be setting yourself up for massive legal snarls, and possible criminal charges.
  13. Chronocidal
    Have to admit, there are some aspects of the Hi-Metal Fire Valk I do prefer over the Yamato one. Mostly, I like the top profile more. Because of the different method they used for the hips, the leading edge extension meets the fuselage farther back, behind the canards instead of under them. While the nose may not be any longer, it does give it that impression. The angle of the wing is just steeper, so the LEX starts further back. You don't notice it on the VF-19S, but I've thought it made the Fire Valk look a bit strange ever since we saw the first CAD render of the fuselage.
  14. Chronocidal
    I'll definitely admit I was firmly lodged in my lawn chair telling AC:AH to get off my lawn, but I just can't find any value in any of the changes to the franchise. Other people did find some of the additions fun though, so definitely play a demo. In my case, the demo made me want to kick a puppy, so that decided that pretty quickly.
  15. Chronocidal
    His over-the-top crazy comedy style usually doesn't do it for me either, but I did enjoy a good portion of the first movie. The street brawl was just too funny. I do hope they can get Steve Carell back for this one though. If you want to see him do something different, Stranger than Fiction was pretty good. Nothing like any of his other movies, and not really a comedy, but I enjoyed it.
  16. Chronocidal
    I'm hoping the CAD folks left us an easter egg, and we'll find out that all our Yamato missiles will work. They do look very similar to the SV-51 hardpoints. Either way though, looks awesome. I just hope BBTS learned from their mess with the VF-25S.
  17. Chronocidal
    Have to admit, having the gear drop out the bottom of the nose would explain a lot, but I don't think there's room for that when the back plate comes down, and it could cause a multitude of other problems. As for the video screens though.. I always assumed they were actually on the back side of the canopy shield. Anyway, yep you're right about the gear door hinges, they really are getting tiny. I was going to suggest the indentations for the tires too, it might work well, and the F-14's gear clearly does the same thing. I don't doubt doors that thin would be possible given the level of technology involved, it just looks funny to my 1980's tuned aircraft senses.
  18. Chronocidal
    I understand people wanting things in the same scale, it's just that when the subject of a kit is so small to begin with, it makes sense to produce it in a bigger scale. Even in 1/24, many of these ships are smaller than a lot of 1/48 aircraft. They're just not big to begin with, so why not use a larger scale? As for the resin kits, I've never gotten the impression that the market is flooded.. It always felt more a case of "let's see how many of these we can produce before we get a cease and desist." If they were licensed sure, but I don't think I've ever seen a licensed resin Star Wars kit. Granted, I've never liked working with resin anyway, so I don't keep up with them much, but they're usually garage kits. I'm not worried about studio scale here, or kits being too big, I'm just wishing for something you don't need a pair of binoculars to see on your shelf across the room. No one seems to want to produce anything that makes a nice display piece. They're great if you want to have a shelf full of tiny ships, but even in 1/48, the X-Wing is still smaller than an F-16, and most of the ships are significantly smaller than that. I just wish Fine Molds would expand the rest of their line to 1/48 to match. It's not like any of the other ships they've done would be anything I'd even call "big" if they did (except the Falcon of course).
  19. Chronocidal
    Why do people insist on making these things in scales that give you a model the size of a micro-machine? I mean.. seriously. Fine Molds seems obsessed with that scale, and it cracks me up that the display base for their N-1 probably contains 10x the volume of plastic that the actual ship does. Even in 1/48th the N-1 was disappointingly tiny. I never understood why companies never tried making larger scale Star Wars kits(*). It's not like the fighters are exactly big. I don't think the A-Wing is much larger than a Cessna 172, if that. And I have one of the pre-painted Revell kits of that Jedi Interceptor.. judging by the pilot figure, it's at least 1/32, but the kit can't be more than 6 inches long. Even an X-wing in 1/32 is still smaller than a lot of 1/48 aircraft. I mean come on.. I have one of the figure-scaled A-Wings, and one of the Jedi Interceptors. They're not even as big as a 1/48 F-14. (*)- Ertl sort of made a 1/32-ish X-Wing once, the fancy motorized electronic one. I'm probably overly harsh toward that kit, but I hate that they actually made it much less accurate than the old MPC kit. I could go into details, but this is neither the time, nor the place.
  20. Chronocidal
    You know, this is going to sound ridiculous, but of all the things to nitpick at... I think it'd improve things a little if you actually beefed up the gear doors. Granted, it's overtech and all that, but take a look at the front gear on an F-14, or maybe an F-18. The doors just look paper thin right now, as beautiful as they are. What really looks funny to me is how tiny the hinges are holding them on. Newer planes seem to have pretty small joints, but the actual pivots usually get buried inside the walls of the gear well. I couldn't find any good shots of an F-18's gear as an example of what I mean about the pivots, and it's probably a better reference, but the F-14 has pretty big hinges on the front gear doors.
  21. Chronocidal
    Wow, the VF-19S and VF-17S sold out already? I guess it's understandable, they're both pretty incredible. I do wonder though.. I hope Yamato realizes what a gold mine they are, and ups the production on both molds, especially if it means getting more colored variants. I seriously want a white or low-vis VF-19F like nothing else, and that orange/white trainer version VF-17 from Macross Plus would be an instant buy. With the VF-1 kit version, they kind of catered to every custom scheme idea at once, so we haven't seen many non-canon VF-1 schemes this time around (the only one that comes to mind is the low-vis Focker). But the complexity on the VF-17/19 designs is so much higher, I wonder if they would even consider a kit version. If they do, I'll buy a couple of each, and be set.
  22. Chronocidal
    Now, if Hasegawa wants my money, they'll make the Falken, Wyvern, Morgan, and Nosferatu. I'd probably buy at least two of each.
  23. Chronocidal
    That brings up another question though.. Despite HG's best efforts to stifle it, people still seem to be able to get copies of Macross Plus here in the US. Is that only because the Manga Entertainment release slipped through a loophole, and only they can still distribute it, or does that loophole apply to the title itself, and any new release could also be sold here? Either way, with it being the only Macross release to get an official dub and subtitles, it would be sad if they left them out. It also begs the question of how they would release it.. combined OVA/Movie edition, or each separately? I almost wish they would combine the best of both, but the intro to the movie edition would lose a lot of its impact if the VF-11 battle was patched into it.
  24. Chronocidal
    K, maybe it wasn't AmiAmi that got upset for cancelling orders, but I guess I'll find out. I usually prefer HLJ anyway since I can use FedEx, and I've had less trouble with them than the normal mail. Also checked on the SDFM sets, and yeah, I didn't realize there were two versions. I can't say I'm really interested in that set though, since the animation isn't anything that HD would really improve. The bonus materials are nice, but I really can't justify spending that much for them. I've gotta save for that VF-19F and VF-17D (not to mention the VF-171) later this year.
  25. Chronocidal
    Thanks for that link, it's ordered now. Well hm, it seems like I'll be getting two copies then, unless I go cancel my order with AmiAmi. I've never cancelled with them before, but I remember people saying they can get annoyed with you, and block you from the site if you do.
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