SFP1 Memories - MarcFighters Skins

[+streakeagle 871]

I got out of the Navy in May of 1997. I went back to college in January of 2000 to finish my electrical engineering degree that I had halfway finished before joining the Navy. I bought my first Windows PC, a Win 98 SE Pentium III around August of 2000 to help with school work... and play flight sims. By January 2001, I had a Voodoo 5500 gpu, and an X-36 USB HOTAS. As fast as I could afford them I had bought all the Jane's sims: USAF/IAF/F-15E, Jane's WW2 Fighters, and Jane's F/A-18/Fleet Command/688i. Jane's USAF had become my favorite because of the F-4E Phantom and its amazing graphics (compared to my previous experience with Fighters Anthology that I had already played on a work laptop for years). A really cool feature of USAF was that many alternate skins were available for all of the aircraft in the came and a tool made it easy to install them/swap them before flying. I loved flying the F-4E in USAF Thunderbirds colors...

 

I had discovered flight sim forums which led to new games that could be downloaded like Warbirds and Aces High. I ended up hanging out primarily on one forum: the SimHQ Jane's USAF section. It was there that I first learned of a new upcoming jet air combat sim starring the F-4E: Strike Fighters Project 1. In those days, the developer, TK, would post screenshots and answer questions in the SimHQ SFP1 forum. After what seemed like an eternity, I stumbled onto the legendary (infamous) Walmart release of SFP1 while shopping for some stuff to fix up my friend's PC. Suddenly, every flight sim I had became obsolete. SFP1 had the best aircraft/weapons graphics of any flight sim I had. The flight model, even in a rough beta stage, was a huge leap beyond Jane's USAF. I had found my primary flight sim that I would fly to this very day.

 

SFP1 was designed to be easily moddable and Third Wire provided tools and templates to ease the task. Tutorials started popping up on how to do everything up to and including building a 3d model and importing it into the game. Out of this whirlwind of enthusiasm and talent came an artist that went by the online name of marcfighters. He was cranking out beautiful new aircraft skins for SFP1. He never made my favorite F-4E skin, the Thunderbirds, but he made Blue Angels skins that were the best I had ever seen in a game. It seemed like every week he released all kinds of new skins. I collected them and stored them on CD's. marcfighters had established his website and addons as an important anchor for the early SFP1 modding crowd. Many more people would join the online modding community, but marcfighters would remain at the hub of development; eventually branching out into 3d modeling projects such as aircraft, ships/subs, and ground objects. Unfortunately for the SFP1 community, Marcelo established such a reputation that it pulled him into professional flight sim development. But CombatAce.com preserved his legacy:

 

http://marcfighters.combatace.com/

 

If you were around for the early years, click around and enjoy the memories. If don't know much if anything about marcfighters, click around and see one of the last vestiges of the early SFP1 modding community that made the Strike Fighters series and its still highly skilled and highly active community what it is today. I remember the day-by-day adventures at SimHQ, the early fansite/modders of the long defunct Skunk Works forums, and all the trolls that did nothing but complain about the games' limitations and the free addons produced by the online modding community.

 

Nothing lasts forever. There will be a day when the SF series will only run on a handful of legacy PCs. But CombatAce might still be here, and until all of the old geezers that originally bought and played SFP1 fade away, a little corner of CombatAce.com will continue to showcase the early work of Marcelo aka marcfighters. <S> to all the all the great people that helped make flying with the Strike Fighters series an even greater experience. The list of early modding greats is fairly long for such a little niche game, but sitting near the top of any such list is Marcelo.

 

P.S. No modder ever produced an F-4E Thunderbird skin for me! So, I struggled to make my own. I lacked the skills/experience to make anything close to the quality of a marcfighters skin, but when I was done, I could fly like I did in Jane's USAF... but with better graphics, better flight model... better everything (except maybe the terrain). It wasn't until TK started releasing DLC for SF2 that I finally got a professional grade F-4E Thunderbirds skin. Of course it looks way better than mine. But it only showed up as my days of flying SF every night were coming to an end.

Edited March 31, 2016 by streakeagle

[+daddyairplanes 10,244]

In addition, he is partly responsible for my current trend of working airliners. I discovered the KC-10 in the Operation Desert Storm package, but it needed some updating. After getting Marcelo's permission to go forward I added Shamu and SAC white schemes to that bird as well as edited the boom off to make an DC-10 airliner. Then methods for having many airlines in one skin, thus branching out to other airliners. But none of that would have come about without one of marcfighters hidden gold nuggets.

[Fubar512 1,350]

Marcelo is quite talented.  I still correspond with him from time to time.

[+ext 52]

He sure has talent. He gave me some CAF tiger meet skins for the early  model of the  F-18. Still keep that model in my hangar because of the quality of the skins!

[+331Killerbee 840]

Streak,

 

  Did this using Your Decals from Your SFP1 File and adapted it to Ravenclaw's F-4E. The File is Yours anytime You want it. Just holler' Buddy.....

 

 

 

 

 

Marc taught Me first starting out in SFP1. I still have some of the Notes We passed regarding Painting in SF. I owe him a lot for helping Me getting involved in SF in the early Days. You bring back Memories of "McFly's" , "Biohazard", "Column5's" and "ACFC"........Fond Memories...

 

 

Semper Fi!

 

331KillerBee

Edited March 31, 2016 by 331Killerbee

[jeanba 1,920]

I always loved his work

[RUSTYMORLEY 162]

I still visit the site even today and have a poke around in the skins section, it's a crying shame that Marcfighters and Column 5 for that matter are no longer being updated. Both are very useful sites for skins and Column 5 was like a fricking sweet shop when I first found it, so many quality aircraft to download and fly. 

 

Download Aircraft - Yes...

 

Download Aircraft - Yes......

 

Download Aircraft - Yes........... 

 

Download Aircraft - Yes...................whoopee

 

 

Then I eventually came across Combat Ace, and generally speaking more or less everything is here. It's a great community with lots of talented Modders and skinners and lots of Aircraft and skins to enjoy.

 

Many thanks Marcfighters, Column 5 and of course Combat Ace.