The FSDS 2.24 and 3.5 Tutorial

[wolfi]

The FSDS2.24 and 3.5 Tutorial
This should be a tutorial for the Abacus aircraft and scenery design program FSDS 2.24 and FSDS 3.5.
I will start from the real simple basics to a flyable multilod and breakable aircraft for CFS2, secondary for FS2004 and FSx also. I can only explain how I work with FSDS so I think it’s possible that I miss something or that there is a better way to get to the final model, so I appreciate any tips or suggestions.
At last, English is not my native language, if I get something wrong, please correct me. Wolfi

[wolfi]

The Setup
After installing and activating the FSDS program you have to advise FSDS which flightsimulator you use, and which measurement (meters or feet) you prefer, also you have to choose where you project files are. For this project you have to create a folder named FSDS F4F Wildcat, with following subfolders:
Backdrop,Pictures, Library, Texture Templates and Texture; you can place this folder everywhere you want on your hard drive (Picture 000)
Going to the setup: click at the upper left site “File”, then go in the dropdown menu to preferences (Picture 001) and click on it, you see a window called “Application Preferences” (Picture 002) in the empty lines below you can go through the setup; the first line is the flightsim for which you like to build the new aircraft, search for the CFS2.exe file in your main CFS2 folder, next line search for the “Texture” folder of the new project, same as for the object files but use the “Library” folder, the Project files are going into the mainproject folder “FSDS F4F Wildcat” the “Macro” and the “SCASM” files are going again into the “Library” Folder.
Next are the “design units” I will use “Meters” for this Project. Finally the “SimVersion” this project will be for CFS2 but can also be used for FS2004 or FSX(FSDS 3.5 only)

[wolfi]

The main buttons (Picture 003)
At the left are the buttons for the “part Mode”, “Poly Mode” and for the “Point Mode”. This are buttons for the Mesh view. Then there is a button called “Mouse select”, with this button you can select parts, polys or points depending on the selected mesh view. The next button is the ruler for measurement (click and hold the left mouse button and then move the mouse; you will see the distance in meter’s or feet). The most used button is the “Move Mode” with this button you can move part’s or point’s but not polys. Then there is the “Rotate” button, it explains itself, you can rotate parts and again points. The next three buttons are the constrain X, Y and Z buttons, useful if you want to move a part or a point in only one or two direction’s. For example, if you want to move a part only at the Z axis then press constrain x and constrain y.

[bearcat241]

This is good for introduction. Thanks. Keep it coming Wolfi...

[wolfi]

The first object 1
We select a box from the left figures menu; you will see a popup window where you can set the width, Height and Depth of the box also you can set the origin x, y and z position, the standard box is set with “origin at center” there is another option with “origin at bottom” (Picture 004). For our first simple object we stay with the standard setting and we get a box 20x20x20 m. After selecting the object, (standard it’s shown in “Part mode”) you see the entire object with x,y, z axis placed in the center of the object (Picture 005). Now switch over to the “Poly mode” (Picture 006), you will see that one polygon is White highlighted, -you can select the next or last poly by pressing the left or right button at the top “toolbar” or by pressing the left or right arrow at your keyboard. Next view is the “Point Mode” (Picture 007) same here with the point’s one point is highlighted white. If you press the button for the “movemode” you can move the white highlighted point only. If you go back to the“Part mode” you will see that you can move the entire part. Only different is the “Poly mode” you can’t move the highlighted Poly. Back to the part mode, if you press shift while moving with the mouse you will see that you move the axis only instead the entire part. At last go back to the “Point Mode” then press the “Mouse select” button and move with the mouse around the front polygons whilepressing the left mouse button (Picture 008), you will see, that the selected points are yellow, now you can move all yellow points together, if the White point was within the selected points the white point will be appear green, if the white point was outside the selected point’s the point will be still White and doesn’t move with the yellow selected point’s. So be aware while building a model, make sure that you select points before you move the point’s or make sure that non-point is selected (yellow) and only the white point is the Point that you want to move. The same appears for the entire object, you can select for example 2 of 3 objects by mouse select, the selected objects are yellow or green the unselected object appears blue or bright blue, again you will move only the yellow and green objects. There can be only one green point, poly or object. Mark: The green or white points, polys or objects - (bright blue) are the “main selected” but that will be important later. Finally, to "unselect" selected point’s polys or objects, press “Edit” at the top toolbar then go down at the popup menu to “Unselect all” (Picture 009) and click on it. -The option “Unselect”works only for one green highlighted point, poly or object.

[wolfi]

The first object 2
OK, let’s start with the first real object! Select a standard 20x20x20m box from the left “Part Pallete” and then select a “Tube”, there will be again a popup window called “Tube Parameters” The standard Tube Parameters are: Radius 2m, Length 20m, points/section 16, sections 8 and the Structure Long Axis is the Y Axis. - Because I will use the tube as a roof for a house we have to change the settings, (it’s possible to change the settings later also, but why do more work than needed?) , - the new settings are: Radius 10, length 20 (unchanged), points/section 3, sections 1 and the Structure Long Axis Z (Picture 010). So you will get a triangle object within the box. Now press the “Move Mode” and also the “Constrain X” and the “Constrain Z” buttons, because we only want to move the triangle object upwards. You will have noticed that the outlines of the new created object are bright blue the other object (the box) is flat blue (Picture 011). Now move the triangle object right above the box (Picture 012). You will notice that the triangle object isn’t fully displayed at the “Back view” and at the “Right view” window; but we can easily solve that problem, go to “View” at the upper toolbar and press at the dropdown menu “Center on Project” (also Picture 012) the view will center at the whole project. To center the view at the selected (Bright blue) Part just press “Center on Part” at the drop down Menu.
Finally we have two objects that we like to fit together

[mirage3]

It exist a free or demo version of FSDS?

[wolfi]

FSDS2.4 is in demo mode until you register the program. Unfortunately you can’t register FSDS2.4 within a 64bit operating system.
I don’t know if FSDS2.4 is still available, the current version is FSDS3.5, but FSDS3 is downwards compatible, so you can open FSDS3 source files with FSDS2.4. The only reason I use FSDS2.4 is, that you can compile CFS2 and FS2004 MDL directly.

wolfi

[mirage3]

It isn't a time limit to register? Thx wolfi! Where to get the demo? I don't need to pay it, well?:thumbup:

[wolfi]

Here is the FSDS 3.5 download link. FSDS2.4 isn’t available anymore (maybe by request at the Abacus Contact site)

wolfi

http://www.abacuspub.com/fs-design-beginner-bundle-download

http://www.abacuspub.com/contact

[mirage3]

Hey wolfi, excuse me for disturb, we can't download that until we payed it, right

[wolfi]

Yes, it looks like Abacus offered no test version at their site anymore.