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Milton Shupe Developer Interview Conducted By Dominic Smith Development Milton, when did you start developing for flight simulators and what got you interested in it? I started developing for flight simulators after flying FS98 and FS2000 for three years. This involved learning instrument navigation, flying props, turboprops, and also jets, in all weather conditions (I also did a lot of nightly flying in multiplayer). A friend of mine, Scott Thomas, shared my interest in aircraft, and was proficient in panel and gauge designs. At the time, we were both a bit taken back by the lack of model and flight model quality (FDE) in many of the freeware aircraft available, and so decided to start building/modeling ourselves. At the time, FS2002 had just been released and Gmax was free, so I jumped in at the deep end and started modeling and developing the flight models. Our first project was the de Havilland Dash 7, which began in January 2002 and was released in August later that year. It was received well, with 10,000 downloads in the first month! Milton, could you tell us about the nature of your designs and what you do? My focus has always been on prop-based aircraft. The approach was to find a balance between quality and detail and to create aircraft which had a nice looking model, a balanced panel/gauge setup, good sounds, the best textures we could muster together, and most importantly of all, a nice hand-flyable, easily trimmable flight model! As computers were rather slow at the time (compared to today), we tried not to use all available computing power for the package, but reserve some for weather and scenery loads. What do you consider your best or most popular work? I think that's a question only a flight simmer can answer, and that would vary based on their aircraft preferences. In terms of downloads, the Dash 7 had the overwhelming counts, as in the first year (from multiple sites), over 100,000 downloads had transpired. But times were different then and there was a hunger of sorts for good quality freeware. The Beechcraft D18S was/is a very popular aircraft and continues to be in demand. However, for myself, it comes down to a well-balanced package of technology where the model, panel and gauges, sounds, textures, and good hand-flying flight model just seem to fit together seamlessly. Milton, what do you find to be the most challenging aspect of a project? Personally, I would say that this is something which has changed over the years. Project management has never been an issue, as my career has been about managing large projects. In the earlier days when the internet wasn't as established, finding good reference materials for design was an issue. Today, projects are much more complicated and involved, more technical, and require more hours of expertise and dedication across a host of technologies. Doing freeware projects for FSX and P3D are intense, time-consuming ventures. With the variety of technologies, tools, and expertise required, freeware has become more challenging. So, the challenges for me are two-fold: 1) finding willing and talented FS2004 freeware contributors for the team effort (almost impossible now), and 2) finding that same talent on the FSX/P3D side who have the time to dedicate for a one-year project. The hours required are such that it's almost impossible to get the project out in that time as the hours required exceed the real world hours available. Out of all the aircraft you have developed over the years, what have been your favorites? Frankly, the 50+ aircraft models and variants developed over the last 16 years were aircraft I love, otherwise I could not invest the time required to complete the projects. I think the most interesting and challenging "diversion" project was the "HMS Bounty" effort. Getting a square rigged ship to function properly in flight sim brought a lot of interesting challenges. The results exceeded my expectations thanks to Rob Barendregt's major contributions to the project. The project had tons of custom XML and gauge programming. It is completely driven by the wind, and speeds are determined by settings off the sails, number of sails, position of the sails in relation to the wind direction, and wind speed. To complete it all, Nigel Richards created the textures for the "Bounty", and these just blew me away! Milton, when creating your models, what software packages and tools do you use? I use Gmax for model development, QuakeIII and LithUnwrap for exporting and mapping texture templates, FSPanel Studio for panel/gauge set up, Airwrench for the initial flight model set up, AirEd for tweaking the flight models, and then AFSD for testing. I rely on team members for sounds and texture development. During your extensive flight simming career, who would you consider to be your mentors or inspiration? There were quite a few talented individuals who inspired me during my FS2002 period - Fred Banting, Yannich Lavigne, Jan Visser and Barry Blaisdale. I must also mention, Ron Freimuth and Herve Sors, who were instrumental in my FDE skills development (Ron and I communicated frequently during the Aero Commander series development). Milton, do you develop payware/freeware or both and why? Only freeware for the Milton Shupe releases, as I like to keep this as a hobby so the fun continues. The Team When developing your models, how many people work with you? Generally, only three or four: myself, a panel/gauge programmer and a texture artist. Quite often Tom Falley will do the flight models (FDE's) for the projects and we have always appreciated his real world pilot knowledge and insights. Over the years, various team members have also performed across a range of tasks. For example, Scott Thomas did panels, gauges, and sounds, and Nigel Richards did textures, sounds, some gauge textures and also effects work. An important thing to note is that a project is only as good as the team members, and it is they who make the project what it is. My work would be nothing without the contributions of a talented team. I have been blessed with many very talented, enthusiastic, and flexible team members over the past 16 years and I am extremely grateful to them. They are as follows: Scott Thomas (panel and gauges for 10 years), Richard Murray (A-20 Invader panel and gauges), Joao Paz (early Dash 7 and Howard 500), Andre Folkers (Aero Commander series), Damian Radice (D18S, AT-11, DH80A, Race cars, XA-38 Grizzly), Urs Burkhardt (Spartan Executive), Mike Kelly (Dash 7 and XP-54), Rui Cristina (Mallard Classic), Nigel Richards (Avia 57 and -56, Harpoon, XP-47J, XP-72, HMS Bounty, Mallard, and sounds), Bruce Ellis (A-20 Havoc, Mallard, Lodestar), James Banks (XP-54, Fleet 50), Steve Bryant (Grumman Tracker, Marauder, XP-47H), Martial Feron (Marauder, Grumman Tracker), Rachel Whiteford (Lodestar, Ventura), Rick Macintosh (XP-92A), Tom Falley (flight models/FDE). Today, as I am preparing to retire from full project team work, I have no team in place. I have tried to involve others these last few years with different approaches in the forums to bring out new talents and contributors. I enjoy helping others expand their horizons and push the boundaries. Real Life Milton, would you like to share what you do in real life? My career was in Information Technologies - Programmer/Analyst, Project/Team Management, Tech Support/Telecom Management, and Systems Development Management. When you're not busy creating aircraft Milton, what other hobbies or things do you do for enjoyment? For the past 16 years, I have invested every available moment in flight sim development, so there has been very little time to enjoy my other passions such as music and photography. Have you ever considered doing flight simulator development full-time? Since my work retirement in 2011, I have been developing freeware full time. At some points I have had as many as six projects running concurrently, while awaiting other parts of projects to be completed. If one is retired and other team members are not, you tend to run way out in front of the team with new projects. Future Milton, how do you go about choosing your next project? The aircraft has to be visually and technically appealing to me; also prop-based, and one that is not available or no current standard one exists. What simulators do you design for now and which ones do you plan to develop for in the future? FS2004, FSX native, and P3D. I also assist in making the project code available for CFS2, CFS3, X-Plane, and one other, which I can't recall at the moment. Milton, in what ways do you see development changing in the future? I can't say I'm a visionary, but in my opinion, the tools used by developers will have to improve so as to ease the development intensity for - higher standard models and textures, systems gauge development and effects, if freeware is to survive (the payware companies are producing some fabulous work these days). Your Thoughts As a developer and also as a flight sim enthusiast, what can sites like FlightSim.Com do to better support you and the hobby? In terms of developers, a robust forum is always helpful, but what I find lacking most is a single source for new developers to get started. From A-Z, how do I get started, what tools, knowledge, processes do I need to have in tow to be a developer of aircraft, scenery, missions, panel/gauge systems, sounds, effects, etc. FSDeveloper.com is the closest thing we have for that and the supporting membership there is generally very helpful, and there is access to many required and useful resources for developers. Looking ahead, how do you feel about the future of flight simulation in general? Flight simulation seems to be getting more segmented and specialized and newer flight sims seem to be accommodating that. What are some of the most important things a site or community can do to help developers? From a freeware perspective, they do a lot already in their support of our work. Many will do the research, send materials, reference manuals, provide input and feedback, beta test, etc. (at least that has been my experience). What I have done over the years is develop tutorials, graphic, text, or video to help. Last year I completed a 47 video tutorial series for beginners using Gmax so as to develop an aircraft from start to finish. Those videos are available on YouTube: Lastly Milton, what would you like people to know about you and your work? As I am retiring from team projects, they will not see any new project development. However, I will be converting most of my past projects to being FSX native and P3Dv4 compatible. These releases will be found at the major flight sim sites. I began this process last year and it will require another 2+ years to complete - so I'll be around! Milton Shupe All files related to Milton Shupe