Chronocidal

Actually I tried watching that sub too, and while yes, Veoh is low quality, this sub was literally unwatchable. I'm not going to post the link, but I'll quote: "Macross Frontier 17 Sub @ZomgAnime.com Uploaded again and again with super sized subs for awesome" Um, no. Trust me, not awesome. What they failed to realize is that those subs are so huge they cover most of the picture. Pair that with the fact that they use identical font color and size for song lyrics (both the original and translated versions mind you), and it's a disaster. There's so much text that they can't fit entire sentences on the screen, so by the time you figure out what line is actually the dialogue, it's gone. Someone on there complained that they had to pause the video every time new subs came up so they had time to read them. I gave up after 5 minutes of trying to figure out what Ozma says in the first 30 sec of the episode. Edit: Actually, I take that back.. I had to go back and be sure I wasn't just being picky, and I ran across this gem of a freeze-frame. Someone help me here, I can't tell...which is he calling tasty, his heart or his guitar?

MS definitely doesn't put any claim on models put in Flight Sim, there are many large businesses out there that make a living just by making and selling high end add-on packages for MS Flight Sim, including aircraft, scenery, sound effects, etc. It's a very diverse business, and I've gotten a bit of the action myself through the F-14 package I helped build a couple years ago. I do remember playing Freelancer a LOT though, especially a large Star Wars conversion called Freeworlds. The one thing they never bothered to make available though was a method to make new hitboxes, meaning any new ship had to use the collision boxes from existing Freelancer ships. It was a disaster for a multiplayer SW mod, since nothing in that game even nearly resembles a tie fighter, and it made the game stats nearly impossible to balance.

I think part of the reason they contracted out was because they've never done a military model before. And frankly, considering the work that went into that cockpit, I'm glad they did. The exterior needs a good amount of work still, but the interior is a beauty. Strange that the textures won't show up though.. usually direct FS2004 aircraft will work normally in FSX, but Acceleration has caused a lot of problems with old textures... something to do with reflection settings. I'll have to experiment when I get back to my apartment, which should be tomorrow afternoon.

Sorry about the delay getting you the model, I've been busy and haven't gotten to where I can get at my model files easily. I do have 3DS Max 9, but I keep using 8 since I use older plugins which 9 can't use. It's been my experience that the FSX plugin set is a little... well, wonky. I don't know why it doesn't always work, but things are buggy all around in various ways. Nothing terrible in my case, but they do tend to generate a duplicate set of FSX tool menus each time I run the program. I haven't been able to use it for a while since my computer is elsewhere, but I do think one of the updates to Acceleration included better plugins for Max 9. The originals were intended for Max 7, but worked in 8 as well, so I've been using them. If you have the newer ones and they still don't work, I'm not sure what might be wrong.. I can probably try and help you sort it out later this week when I get back to my apartment (just got back from a family vacation). As for a way to extract models from the sim to a 3d application... well, I won't say it's impossible. But the truth is, you simply don't do it. Extracting the models is a huge no-no in the sim world, and it's very nearly impossible to do for a good reason. The Flight Sim addon business is a big deal nowadays, and people don't want their models ripped off, MS included. So the safest thing is to just regard extracting a model as something you never do. I don't know if it'd ever become a legal issue, but it's safer to just stay away from it. For picking apart the F-18 though, I can definitely help there. I've been adapting a few of the plane's features to enable a working catapult setup on my F-14 model, and it's working pretty well so far. The trick to the F-18 is that it wasn't made by MS, it was made with outside help.. they contracted outside FS developers to do the model (one for the exterior, another for the interior, which is why the cockpit doesn't quite mesh with the fuselage ). So the F-18 doesn't use a lot of standard FS features in normal ways.. the catapult and tailhook are defined in the model, as are the burner effects. I can go into more detail later this week once I'm back to my sim computer, I've got a good set of notes and code snippets for how to get stuff to work.

Well, after a family vacation in at Disneyland, I came back with the Star Destroyer in tow.. and it's not $300 anymore, it's down to $200. Don't ask me why it's cheaper all of a sudden, but I snapped that up fast. I don't think it's a store special either, they said it's listed for that online as well. If anyone wants pics, lemme know. Frankly though, the construction of it doesn't impress me much. It's beautiful no doubt, but it's not sturdy in the least. Soon as I get a chance, I'm rebuilding bits of it so it stays together better. It's more like a sculpture than anything else.. because of the weird angles, the entire upper superstructure doesn't even attach with studs, it just sits on top. Actually that's a good thing though, since removing the bridge structure exposes the inner framework, which is the only thing strong enough to lift the thing by. My advice? Build it where you plan to display it, and don't try to pick it up. Now I'm torn though...Once my job starts and I have a paycheck, I may have to decide between getting myself a 1/60 YF-19/YF-21 combo, or getting the Lego Falcon. I hate decisions like that. By the way, if you're planning on shopping at the Lego shop, make it the last thing on your list of things to do in the Disney area. I bought it mid afternoon, then toted the 15 lb ISD box with me through Disneyland for a couple hours.. no lockers big enough, and they wouldn't check packages bought outside the park. Entirely my own fault, but I couldn't wait.

You know, I hate to make a Star Trek reference here, let alone one to Voyager.. but this whole situation is really giving me an "Equinox" vibe. I really don't like making predictions as to the next episode title; I'd hate to see Ozma get knocked off now... however, seeing Grace's reaction to Ranka's "emotion level" makes me think she's going to pull something underhanded to try and raise that. Setting up Ozma to get killed by the Vajra just to make Ranka want to fight them sounds just like something she'd do. However, even in that scenario, I'd half expect something to not go right, Ozma get saved from Grace by the Vajra, and he comes back to warn SMS about what's really happening. I still hope it's just something about him acknowledging that she's growing up, and deciding that he can't protect her anymore. What I do wonder about though is that Grace seems to have shifted her entire plan over to Ranka, leaving Sheryl to fade away. Her original idea was to kill off Sheryl to spread hatred for the Vajra. When that fell through, she switched. I could be completely wrong, but it seems to me like she wouldn't change her plan now.. if she wants to spark a war with the Vajra, killing off their "little queen" would certainly do it, and the more she pushes Ranka into the spotlight, the better, since it'll raise hatred for the Vajra. I'm waiting for her to set up Ranka to die mid-battle. If that is the case, the title may actually be referring to Brera, not Ozma... Brera seems to remember her, and has protected her against Grace's plans before. If Grace tries to kill her, he might defy her outright, and sacrifice himself to save Ranka. Anyway, loved the ending. I didn't see anything to directly suggest Sheryl joining SMS yet though, aside from the VF-25s and the Isamu hand bit. She does seem to love flying though, so it wouldn't surprise me, and I hope it happens. There's even a paper airplane throw mid-song, which seems to change into a VF-25. But the concept art seen through the ending all looked like outfits we'd seen her wear before in the series. I saw the holosuit from the first episode, and the suit she wore to Gallia 4, but nothing to suggest a combat flight suit. This particular ending really focused on the AltoxSheryl angle though.. wouldn't surprise me if we see a Ranka version in the same style later on.

You know what, I saw this, and my jaw hit the floor a few times, but none so much as the Louis Armstrong wasteland montage. I don't understand it, and probably never will, but nothing says "post-apocalyptic wasteland" like Satchmo. Granted, it wasn't a nuclear wasteland, but I applaud Pixar's nod to the Fallout games, even if it wasn't intentional. On a side note, the cartoon at the intro was probably the best Pixar short yet. Someone at Pixar must be a portal fan.

By all means, go for it I really don't care much for cockpit work, though with FSX it is getting a little better, since the cockpit is a separate model now, with less detail restrictions. I just wish I knew enough about the gauge programming system to come up with a decent set of working cockpit instruments for it. If you want the original model file to play with I think I can dig it up for you, or it may still be linked somewhere on the forum. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up since I've just graduated college and will be moving soon to a new job, but I do have a new exterior built with FSX in mind. It's still untextured, but if I find time in the next few months I may see about updating the visual model for FSX, fixing the texture bugs, higher detail textures, things like that. I'm hoping to add a few of the new FSX bells and whistles as well, like bump mapping, flexing animations, etc. It'll just be a while before I can work on that, I've got a pile of unfinished things to take care of before starting another project.

This thread did die, but I posted an update a while back, with a download. It's in a new topic, I wanted to give the download it's own announcement. I'll see if I can find it though. Edit: Here we go Download YF-19.rar

I love crazy theory time... Let's just say the SDF-1 did another crazy mis-fold... only this time, it took the whole planet with it. So, the planet really IS Earth, but relocated to a different star system. (please ignore the fact that the city around the SDF-1 is now missing ) I can't wait to see this explained really... I guess depending on how the SDF-1 disappeared, Global may still be alive. If he happened to be aboard, imagine how much time distortion would be involved in such a long distance fold. He may have only aged a few years in the time since he left. Which gives me another interesting thought.. the fold engines of the SDF-1 were not human built, and not completely understood. What if the originals never had problems with fold dislocations, and this was a flaw in the human reverse engineering process? On the licensing front though.. If they really intended to remove most references to the original Macross to simplify a transfer to the US market, that boat may have just been blown out of the water, as soon as the SDF-1 appeared. The SDFM references have been pretty low key up to now, but there's no way they can hide the connection anymore.

actually.. considering the of the situation, I think this one went up to

Hmmm... quick thought.. could Leon and co be trying to set up an encounter with the Vajra on the planet? I don't know how much anti-alien sentiment there may be on Galaxy.. but it's possible that they want to use them as bait, and let them do the fighting, away from the colonization fleets. Looking forward to seeing the sub on this one, so much dialogue is hard to keep up with.

Utterly awesome. Now I guess the big question... are you calling them finished, or will you keep adding details to them, refining them, etc?

Aside from the various inconsistencies... I find this section to be rather interesting... 2036 02.13 Planet-Avimaria Dispute 08.09 Planet-Hydra Civil War 10.30 Moon Base 2037 01.23 Earth Defense Force 06.07 U.N. Revolution War 2038 02.09 Europa Base-7 05.25 Planet-Salvation War 11.01 The Galaxy Patrol I'd be interested in seeing the official opinion on these things listed... and whether they may fit in with the current situation in Frontier.

On that note though, I wonder if they aren't going to play mixup with the next episode.. Wasn't it Hikaru who missed Minmay's birthday? While it'd be easy for them to do that again, I kind of hope they mix it around some... like, maybe have Ranka missing a birthday due to work.. I kinda doubt it, but it sure would be a different twist. Btw, the stone that Leon got tossed to him by... hmmm... (is tempted to call him Neo).. anyway, it didn't look at all like the earring, it looked like a rough cut shard, not at all polished. The jewels in the earrings were perfectly smooth. Now, it might be that the shard is all that's left of the earring, and was recovered.. but I seriously doubt it, given what was left of that vajra carrier.

Crap... that explains what Sheryl was there for, as well as the EX-gear pics she had. Sheryl must've been playing Nora... So, midway through the movie, some vajra must've popped up and tried to make contact with the fake APHOS prop, so Sheryl jumps in her custom pink VF-25/SV-51 replica, goes completely berserk, and bum rushes the vajra yelling "GET OFF THE SET, YOU'RE SCREWING UP THE MOVIE!!!" She gets nearly wiped out, and crashes the plane on the island before Alto catches up and wipes the floor with the vajra, but the battle turns out so well that they scrap the original effects sequences and use the real stuff, wiping the fake APHOS out, and CGing the vajra into a new and more sinister looking APHOS, which Shin defeats in a crazy blaze of glory, leaving his VF-0 in tatters from when he shoved a nuke down it's throat for killing Sara before he could save her. Oh, and Sheryl's singing the whole time.

Grrr...now I'm gonna be wishing the whole time that we could see the full movie, just so we could know what major changes they made in the story.. The fact that they portray Mao as just fine at the ending, and standing on the shore, rather than in a hospital gown and on the deck of a carrier, makes me wonder what all they changed. The revival of Mao with APHOS blood was a pretty big plot point in Zero... it's probably still completely classified, but I'd love to see what they came up with instead.

I wouldn't bet Shin had a biography so much as debriefing reports he and the other people probably filed during the course of Zero. Granted, he was a busy guy, but I'm sure after his initial rescue he would've been expected to give one massive report on what had happened on the island, and military regs probably would've dictated that he would have to give at least a brief rundown after every encounter. Of course, Mao obviously witnessed a good portion of what the movie was about as well. The whole movie could have been based on her notes about it. We only saw bits of the movie where Mao was involved anyway, so there's no telling what other large changes could have been made to the story. What I did find interesting were the changes to the final scene.. and not so much the lack of the VF-0 hitting the water (it actually made sense to remove that really, since it would've made a nasty break in the music at that point). Where was the carrier?? Mao and the villagers were singing from the deck, right after the Monster fired off the nukes. While it may have just been to simplify things, I still don't think they're telling the whole story. Without the carrier there, you can ignore Mao's transfusion (which may still be highly classified), the UN's plan for Op. Iconoclasm, plus any number of other things, and place the blame for the incident entirely on the Anti UN forces. We may never know for certain if the movie tells the truth or not. One other thing... about Mao suriviving SWI. I know the Zentraedi essentially leveled Earth... but what's never been clear to me is if they targeted all of humanity, or just the populated areas. It's probably unlikely, but one episode of SDFM with Kamjin had him fixing up a cruiser that crashed in a rather lively rain-forest-ish area. I don't think there's any way that could've grown up on it's own in as short a timeframe as we see in the show. So, likelyhood is that big areas with no major human civilization might not have been specifically targeted. That could leave any number of regions of Earth relatively intact, possibly including Mayan island. On the other hand, it does make sense that after Zero the entire population of the island would be moved for their own safety, or possibly study. Considering her family's background, I wouldn't be surprised if Mao and her father wound up advising the UN with what they knew about the Protoculture. Btw, one other thought.. if we do wind up seeing Frontier in the US in the coming years, do you think they'll see fit to release Zero here as well? I don't know if Bandai was involved in that at all, but with the connections this show is forming, I think it would only make good sense to make them both available.

rofl.. I just noticed the pineapple salad, missed the reference before (got too distracted by the rest of the shenanigans).

*nods* that one does pretty much blow the others out of the water.

Well.. wow. This series continues to surprise me, over and over again. I really did like the more tight timing of this, with the nonlinear stuff and flashbacks... made for great teasers of what was to come. Sooooo many little side plots that are all intertwining, and conspiracy theories all over the place.

WIN.

Whoa... well.. I wouldn't necessarily say that the AFOS looks like the vajra... But what I would say is that the head looks a bit like the VF-27's head in that particular pic. I don't remember if it did later, but the visor shape seems very similar just from that picture

Btw, that was the best eyecatch EVER. I musta watched it about 5 times Also.. after watching the preview, I'm not sure what "friendly fire" is supposed to mean...