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THE MAKING OF THE
737-700 EXPERIENCE
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-----------=== THE FIRST FREEWARE 737-700 WITH AN ACTIVE DETAILED DVC ===------------------

*turn word wrap on
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EPISODE I - THE SEARCH

It all began when i realized i was flying the stock 737 more than any other plane. the problem was that the stock jet's model was, to say the least, hard on the eyes.
I then, embarked on a long search for a decent 737 addon, hopefully a -700, which i had flown in real life a few months back.
What i wanted was simple: Better looking that the stock one, with a dvc.

I searched, searched and searched, but this quest of mine was leading me to believe that such aircraft might not exist.
until, a few weeks later, i found this one addon that seemed to be perfect. It was called PMDG, this discovery filled my heart with excitement over the possibilty of having such a piece of work in my hangar.

Then i caught a glimpse of the PRICE TAG.
US$40 was a lot of blood to shed on an addon plane, no matter how good. plus, in my country's currency 40 dollars is more than what i paid for FS2004 itself.

EPISODE II - THE WAIT

Many months passed as i longed for a freeware 737 to be released that even came close to being as good as it's very expensive alternative. it, obviously, never came
During this long period, flying the stock airliner only made me realise more and more how innacurate and underdetailed that model was. not to mention i had developed a bulging pet peeve regarding the plane's nose.
But it appears that some people out there seem to not like them DVC's. as i found that many addon planes don't have them.
i can't stress enough how important DVC's are to me.
it was becoming clear now that my worst-case-what-if-plan-B scenario would befall me.

If i wanted this plane, i would have to make it myself.

EPISODE III - THE EVIL, MUTANT HELLBOUND

...that would be GMax. The devious and obscure 3D design software that many times before had the better of me, denying the completion of my previous attempts at FS modelling.
But i wanted this plane so badly, one day i decided that i was going to face off with the beast. a long, treacherous hard road laid ahead of me, as i laid the first cylinder down and started a mad research frenzy to get the details right.
this research proved me right on my case against the stock 737. what a nasty piece of work.
One thing, My model had to be Freeware, if i wouldn't spend any money buying addons, i sure as hell wouln't have people pay for mine. plus, i wouldn't invest a dime on the project.
there was a certain sense of revenge involved.

EPISODE IV - A NEW HOPE

after spending literally all that first night awake in front of GMax, the twisted shape started to take the form of my new project, now dubbed "Project 737". but it wasn't long before i realised that there was little i could do by myself.
I was not, am not, and probably won't become a professional 3D designer.
Everything i had done so far, i had done by trial and error. and there were a lot of errors at each try.
to make matters worse, time stood against me, as i now faced the imminence of a two month trip to Europe, 10000km away from my plane.
My haste to finish the project was fueled by my flaming desire to fly this aircraft.
And the immense amount of help and support i received from the exalted members of the human race at Simviation's forums cast a new hope of seeing it fly someday.
But it was clear that i would not be able to finish it before my trip. i needed help.

EPISODE V - THE DESIGN GROUP AND THE 12 YEAR OLD

Help came one day as i entered the Simviation forum and a line read: Hey, Moach you have 1 Message. (i've never had a private message before)
A user, whose name i choose not to mention was telling me how impressed he was with my model and asked me to join his design group.
looking at my imminent departure, i promptly accepted his invitation, assured that this group would finish my beloved project. i could not have been more wrong.
By now i was somewhere in the middle of the Netherlands. and i managed to get myself behind a computer so i could talk to the people at SimV and check if there had been any progress on my plane.
There wasn't.
Rumors were that this wasn't the best design group to ever walk the planet and someone even spoke of it even having some very, very young designers aboard...

EPISODE VI - THE DITCH

A little before i left Europe, i had already made up my mind about leaving the team. Not only they hadn't even started work on my plane, i found out that they had lost my file.
I then left the group, with plans to recruit my own team to help me.
At this point, my design skills still lacked in essential knowledges for the completion of the plane. and the thought of having it fly one day seemed clouded by a haze of uncertainty.

EPISODE VII - THE LONG MONTHS

after my return from europe, i again, started work on the model.
But many, and i mean, Many difficulties would slow down the pace of the project, even coming to complete stops at times.
More than once i considered dropping everything, once even offering to hand out Project 737 to whoever had the skills i lacked to finish it.
I honestly don't know exactly what was it that kept the project alive, But after many steps back, i managed to get it going again. But, of course, Everything was still done by trial and error.
With a lot of help from Martyn, The FD expert, the plane was now flyable in FS.
But due to shorthandedness, Most of the things i initially decided to leave to others would now be up to me. By sheer necessity, i now had to learn how to do all the things i once needed help with.
More importantly, i wasn't making this plane looking for the general approval of those who would download it, i was making it for me. So, accompanied by a raging obssession about every little detail, i became my own worse critic.


EPISODE VIII - THE UNFOLDING

as i gazed upon a nearing end to my ordeal, 8 months had passed since i first decided to embark upon this journey, and the plane had come down to one sole thing: Textures.
or so i thought...
one day i realized that i had made a serious mistake at very early stages of EPISODE III
it seemed that the 3 view schematics i had used were distorted by Evil GMax .
The basic shape of the whole plane were then, distorted as well. and everything that was built on it was also, askew.
I had to re-scale the whole damn thing... Damn you GMax!!!
But in a way, i'm grateful that i found that out before i released the project, now intitulated "The 737 Experience".
I now had to learn how to texture a plane. the dvc was far too complex for me to tell someone how to do it.
and as i struggled with that, completion drew nearer every day.

EPISODE IX - CROSSBONES

An opportunity came to me one day, one that i couldn't overlook. My band had the chance to record our first official album, called Crossbones... (i play guitar in a heavy metal band) Of course, that meant full-time work for 2 months or even more, but i couldn't pass this opportunity... i had to leave the 737 Experience for later...
and so i did.
But as my rockstar career developed, my plane did not. even after recordings were finished, a recent upgrade to my computer had left incessant crashes that plagued FS, thus, making work impossible. it seemed that this plane did not want to get finished. i managed to fix the crashes by formatting my computer... (don't be alarmed, i had the plane backed up!)

OK! now i had a working computer with 4 times the graphic power of my previous one... and i had a 737 to finish. but i wouldn't get away with it THAT easy... 3 days later the video card cooler broke down... it's amazing how hot a video card can get without any cooling at all... work was stopped again...

EPISODE X - THE FINAL SHOWDOWN

by now i had lost 4 months worrying about non-737-related stuff, and at this point the project seemed to be just another entry in my enormous list of aggravations, but i was determined not to let this be another of my uncountable unfinished projects...
so i somehow managed to work on the 737 despite all odds...

after about 2 and a half weeks of work on it, the project was finally... UNABLE TO EXPORT??????

yes, GMax is such a wicked piece of software that it refused to let me export at the very last time!!

NOTE: i have not had problems exporting for the last 6 months, it simply decided to give me one last hassle.

but i now was capable of outsmarting GMax, and i was able to have it MY way... and so, the 737 Experience had it's last export at around 8pm of December 21, 2004.

Project 737 was now complete.

EPISODE XI - THE MAIDEN FLIGHT

shortly after this rather climatic finale to my quest, i sat behind the controls of my long awaited plane and took it for it's equally awaited maiden flight.



EPISODE XII - BUT WHO THE HELL IS MOACH ANYWAYS???

It has now come to my attention that i have not yet introduced myself. Moach is, in fact, a nickname shared by two people. Since we are brothers and share the same computer, it's just simpler that way
We both worked tirelessly on The 737 Experience and we now deliver it to you.
HAVE FUN WITH IT, IT SURE WAS FUN TO MAKE IT

Felipe and Guilherme "Moach" Falanghe
from São Paulo, Brazil



THE END