Introduction

Aircraft Designer 2000 is a tool dedicated to the designers of aircraft for Flight Simulator 98™, Combat Flight Simulator™ and Flight Simulator 2000™.

Aircraft Designer 2000 is composed of two parts:

The 3D models that you develop with Aircraft Designer 2000 are saved in files with the 3DM extension. Let us call them 3DM files.

A 3D model is often made up of several 3DM files. One of them is the master project. The other ones are called assemblies. The assemblies are merged in the master project with INSERT instructions.



Thinking to your aircraft model, you will split it into several major parts :

The most appropriate use of the assembly/master project feature is to assign each assembly, or the master project, to one of these major parts.

Inside an assembly, you will go into more details. For instance, the wing of a twin turboprop is composed of :

Aircraft Designer 2000 handles these sub-parts through the concept of sub-assy (as a contraction of sub-assembly). The sub-assies are the basic components of a model. All of them are composed of two elements : An assembly, or the master project, is a set of sub-assies. On the top of these sub-assies, it also contains a main code page and a special sub-assy, called the desk, in which you can store polygons that are used for different purposes but that you do not want to be displayed with the model. The main code page plays an essential role: it allows you make make the sub-assies move!

At the assembly (or master project) level, you will also find some utilities in order for you to define things like texture limits or to export polygons to another assembly.

Note : Actually, it is up to you to define the most convenient breakdown of the aircraft into assemblies and sub-assies. A functional breakdown (fuselage, wings, canopy, rudder, undercarriage...) seems a very natural way to do it but you will learn quickly how to take into account some visual constraints (as interferences for instance) to refine it. Any way : the more detailed the aircraft, the more assemblies and sub-assies you need.


More about with Aircraft Designer 2000

You can find more about Aircraft Designer 2000 at http://www.actpub.com/. You can also simply click on :


You will find on this site the latest update of the program, or of the AD2025.DAT file, as well as some aircraft built with it.

Send your mails at info@actpub.com.



Printing the tutorial

To print this tutorial, launch Windows Explorer, go into the "data" sub-directory of the "Tutorial" directory. Then open each of the "AD2000Topic*.htm" file with your Internet browser in order to print them.



Compatibility with CFS2™

Aircraft designed for FS2000™ can't be used directly with CFS2™. The aircraft FS2000™ configuration files refer to files which are not present in the CFS2™ directories. To fix that, you can either copy the appropriate files into CFS2™ or modify the configuration files.

panel/panel.cfg
This file defines the panel that will be used by your aircraft. It is currently pointing at files which are in the FSFSCNV directory of FS2000™. Have it pointing at a CFS2™ aircraft panel directory. For instance:
alias=P38F_LIGHTNING\panel
Be cautious, some of the CFS2™ are not fitted with a dedicated panel.

sound/sound.cfg
This file defines the sound that will be used by your aircraft. It is currently pointing at the CESSNA C182 sound files in FS2000™. Have it pointing at a CFS2™ aircraft sound directory. For instance:
alias=P38F_LIGHTNING\sound
Same remark as above.

aircraft.cfg
Be cautious, CFS2™ seems to be case sensitive. The file called by the...
sim=XXX
... instruction must be written with the right case.


copyright Hervé Devred, 2001