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FSDS - Creating Virtual Cockpits in FSX Category: Flight Simulator Development >> See More... Anyone who uses Flight Sim knows that a virtual cockpit is the 3D version of the aircraft cockpit. Today I am going to use FS Design Studio v3.5 to create a virtual cockpit for FSX. Not only will I make the main cockpit area, I’ll add a panel to it and show you the basics of how to get gauges onto a virtual cockpit panel. Making this tutorial simple while still coverimg all of the major details needed is difficult. So what I’ll do is use the Curtis Jenny that comes with FSDS v3.5 as a starting point. - Read On...

Making a Hard Surface and Using Attachpoints Category: Flight Simulator Development >> See More... One of the great new features of FSDS v3.5.1 is the ability to create hard and landable surfaces as well as using attach points to add lights. Today I’m going to create a building and add a helipad to the top of it. Then I’m going to add some lights around the helipad. - Read On...

Adding Parts Names to FSDS Category: Flight Simulator Development >> See More... In FS Design Studio, there are a series of standard part names that are used for animation, reference parts and so on. These part names are used when you want to animate a part. You select one of these special part names from the Part Properties dialog by clicking the Browse button by the Part Name and then select the specific part name you want. Did you know that you could customize this list? That’s right, you can add your own list of part names and even your own categories! - Read On...

FSDS - Animating Parts with a Tipped Axis Category: Flight Simulator Development >> See More... Previously I covered how to animate ailerons on the Cessna 172. I thought I should cover how to do something a little more complicated and show how to do animation on a part whose axis is not perfectly straight across or up and down. With that in mind, I looked through each project in the Samples folder of FSDS looking for a part that had a rudder that was not already animated for FSX and whose axis was not straight up and down. The only one I found was the Shorts 360, so I’ll use that one in this example of how to animate a rudder that has a tipped axis. - Read On...

Animation for FSX in FS Design Studio Category: Flight Simulator Development >> See More... Today I’d like to talk about animation. In the older versions of Flight Sim and FS Design Studio, animation was pretty easy. I could assign a part a specific name and create the model and it would be animated in Flight Sim. More modern Flight Sims like FS2004 and FSX require a bit more work to get the animation to work as desired. My hope is that this post won’t be too complicated. There are some technical terms and procedures that might sound frightening, but really aren’t that bad once you understand them. - Read On...