What Design Programs do you use?

[janeddh]

Hi all!
I started with my Hamburg scenery Project and found out that all Design Programs are basically cr*p! They are all user unfriendly, the only thing you can make with these are tubes and boxes, but when it comes to more complex structures they all fail! I do have some knowledge of CAD Design and these modelling programs are very limited in their abilities. The only decent 3d Modelling program available for free is Google scetchup, which unfortunately can't be used for model export. Any suggestions what programs are comfortable to use and can output models FS can understand

regards,
Jan

[belov1]

Hi!

FSDS (version 2.24) is my choice for macro object design (but, of course, it is not free).

For scenery design I prefer FSSC - for visual scenery and Sbuider for landclass and mesh works.

It is difficult to find a macro for specific object as Hamburg aerodrome light beacon (Pinch lighthouse), so we need to make it by ourself. FSDS is easy to study and simple to use.

I have read your post on Hamburg airport reconstruction. Do you have a book by W. Treibel "Geschihte der deutschen Verkerhsflughafen" (sorry for my bad German!)? There is an excellent description of Flughafen Hamburg and its history.

BR

Alexander

[Dave3cu]

Hi Jan,

The de facto 3-d modeling program for MSFS (2002 and on) is GMax, which comes packaged with your FS2004 installation CD's.**

The installs for program, help, and tutorials can be found on CD#1 in the \extras\Gmax\ folder.

Though the learning curve is fairly steep (the reason I've never gotten into serious modeling ), there is much support available on the web by way of tutorials and forums. (Including here)

Dave

** If not, it's available at here (freeware-19Mb)

[denniss]

Hello, Jan,
I concur with Dave in suggesting Gmax. It's already there on your computer. True, it has a fairly steep learning curve. But its tutorials are well done, and you can do a lot of modeling with relatively little Gmax.
My main interest is aircraft modeling. However, just for fun I did a Bolzano/Bozen airport shown here.

It was good fun.
I hope this is helpful.
Dennis