
Flight Sim Toolkit: Tutorial 01

Copyright Ruth Mackie (CompuServe ID 74434,3116)
Welcome to the Flight Sim Toolkit Tutorial!

Included Files

The PKZIP'd file FSTTUT01.ZIP should unzip to the following files:

FSTTUT01.WRI   (this file)
PLANE1.FSD
PLANE2.FSD
PLANE3.FSD
PLANE4.FSD
PLANE5.FSD
PLANE6.FSD
PLANE7.FSD
PLANE8.FSD
MYCUBE.FSD
STEEPLE1.FSD
STEEPLE2.FSD
TAPER1.FSD
TAPER2.FSD
TAPER3.FSD
TAPER4.FSD
WEDGE.FSD
MYPANEL.FGD
MYMODEL.FMD

Copy these files into your FST directory and move them into your tutor1 directory after you create it in FST (see tutorial below for details of how to create an FST project called tutor1). When you create files using FST, avoid choosing the above filenames for your own files, or you will overwrite the examples which I have carefully constructed for you!

Overview Of The FST Tutorial

This is the first of possibly several tutorials on Domark's Flight Sim Toolkit. I've written it in the hope of passing on what I've learned after struggling with the manual and experimenting with the program to eventually find out how to use it. Brilliant program - shame about the handbook!

(American readers please excuse UK spellings - I used US spellings for color and dialog but I probably missed some others).

I have assumed, since FST is a Windows program, that you are already familiar with Windows itself, and that you understand how to perform the standard Windows procedures such as click, double-click, and drag, and how to use Windows File Manager to copy files. If you don't, now is a good time to go away and read the Windows manual and work through Windows' own built-in tutorial.

Since this tutorial is presented as a Windows Write .wri file, you can run it at the same time as FST and switch between it and FST as you work through the exercises. However, I recommend printing it out if possible, and reading the printed copy as you work with FST instead of switching to and fro.

I strongly recommend that you work through this tutorial from the beginning as I have assumed, when describing techniques in later sections of the tutorial, that you have already seen how to do things described in the earlier sections.

FST has so much power and so many tools that it seems horribly complex when you first look at it. It's not really so bad, though. Like any complex task, (including learning to fly), the secret is to break it into smaller tasks and learn to accomplish them one at a time. With this tutorial, I propose to lead you through the basic tools of FST so that you can get to know them one at a time. When you understand what each tool is for, and how to use it, you're ready to start being creative on your own. 

The second tutorial (to follow later) will delve into the more advanced features of the program and how to make use of them in building flight sims. It will attempt to lead you through the production of an Air Force Trainer simulator, with real world map features, instrument navigation, flying gunnery targets, bomb ranges, the works! The idea here is to produce something like Microsoft's flight simulator (with guns) but, of course, being an FST project, infinitely customisable by the end user.

I have included a number of sample files, as listed above. They are completed and partially-completed examples, as described in the tutorial, which you can load into FST as illustrations of what you're supposed to be trying to do.

I welcome feedback on how you like this tutorial  -  if you found it useful, or just as obscure as the manual! Also any hints and tips that you might have on using the program, or any problems or puzzles which you would like explained in the next instalment. Send me a message on CompuServe FSForum Library 10 (Other Flight Sims) or mail to CompuServe ID 74434, 3116.

I hope that FST users will build up a collection of aircraft, buildings and scenery and share them through the FSForum libraries (probably Library 10, Other Flight Sims), in the same way as AAF aircraft and scenery have been produced for Microsoft FS4.


Starting Off With FST

The first thing to do after starting FST is to start a PROJECT. 

From the menu bar at the top of the FST window, choose Project and then choose Create Project from the drop-down Project menu.

FST will ask for a filename and will then automatically create a subdirectory, (with that name), inside the FST directory. Choose a filename that means something; for example, if you fancy a WW1 type sim call it ww1. For working through this tutorial you might like to create a project called tutor1.

FST keeps each project (which will eventually become a stand-alone flight sim) in a subdirectory of its own. It will also automatically copy across to this directory the basic project files when it creates the directory. The basic files include 2 font files, cols.fcd, fst.fpj, fly.exe, and a few files with .fsd and .wav extensions. Every new FST project gets a copy of these files when it is first created.

Since you're running FST under Windows, you can switch to Windows File Manager any time you like and have a look to see which files are in the project's subdirectory. Later, you will want to switch to File Manager to copy other files from FST's library of objects or from previous projects of your own - Windows is very handy with FST.


FST Editors

The FST editors are 5 complete programs in their own right, which are accessed from buttons in the main FST project manager window (visible when you first start up FST from Windows).

They are:

WORLD EDITOR - lets you create terrain to fly over.

SHAPE EDITOR - lets you design aircraft, buildings, etc. for your FST world.

COLOR EDITOR - lets you specify terrain, sky and object colors and shading.

COCKPIT EDITOR - makes cockpit panels and working dials, HUDs, etc.

MODEL EDITOR - lets you specify flight characteristics of your simulated aircraft.

Each editor saves files created with it under a unique file extension. You don't have to supply this extension when you save files; FST will add it automatically. The file extensions are:
World		.ftd
Shape		.fsd
Color		.fcd
Cockpit	.fgd
Model		.fmd

I'm going to start this tutorial with the easiest of these editors, the Color Editor, so you can feel you're making some progress right away!


The Color Editor

The Color Editor allows you to change the palette of colors which you can use in your project. 

One especially nice feature of FST color is that it automatically grades terrain and sky colors for you, if you wish. For example, for a snowy landscape you can use a pale grey color for the dirtier snow at the lowest altitude and pure white for the very highest altitude and FST will shade terrain at intermediate altitudes a shade of increasingly paler grey with increasing altitude. For Scottish hillsides you could go from lush green pastures at low altitude to bleak brown mountain tops.

To change the terrain colors, first make sure your project is loaded. Then select the Color Editor button to start up FST's Color Editor. FST loads up the default color file, (called cols.fcd), which it automatically placed in your project directory when you created the project. 

You will see a colored column in shades of blue towards the top of the window, showing you how FST intends to draw sea, sky and horizon. There is also a pair of columns in shades of green, showing you how FST intends to draw terrain.  The darkest green, at the top of the left-hand column, represents the lowest altitude terrain. The palest green at the bottom of the right-hand column represents the highest altitude terrain. 

The bottom of the window shows a row of colors which are available for use with objects in the FST world. These colors, as well as the terrain and sea colors, can be edited by you.

For a sci-fi space scenario, for example, you might want a red sea and a purple sky. For a Grand Canyon scenario, you might want to alternate contours between reddish brown and orange brown, to give a striped sandstone effect.

To change any of the colors, select the color with the mouse. For example, to change the lowest terrain level to grey, click at the top of the left-hand column. Then click on the Change>> button. (Just double-clicking on the color square is equivalent to single click plus Change>>).

Up pops the FST Color Selector Window. This not-very-intuitive-to-use window gives you 3 scroll bars with which to change the RGB (Red Green Blue) components of the color. Unless you are experienced with RGB values it is very hard to guess which values correspond to which colors. However, if you first select for Change>>  an object color close to the color you want, you will see what its RGB colors are. You can then exit the Color Selector window without altering that object color, return to the terrain color square you want to edit, use Change>> and move the scroll bars to the same values. 

The arrows at the ends of the scroll bars adjust the RGB values by 1 digit, so you can then play with them to tone the color to exactly the shade you fancy. Note that jet black has the RGB values 0 0 0 and pure white has the RGB values 255 255 255.

Having created colors for the highest and lowest altitude terrain, you can either carefully create a color for each point in between, or simply click on the Spread button to create automatic even shading between your highest and lowest colors. The Spread option is probably the one you'll use most often. Keep manual color changes to the intermediate altitudes for special effects such as fantasy landscapes or for coloring bits of an otherwise graded terrain, such as snow caps above shaded green or brown mountains. To do the snow caps, first create the shaded terrain, using Spread, and then manually change the highest levels to pale grey or white.

When you finish editing colors, choose File and Save to save the new colors in cols.fcd. The color changes you made only affect the colors in this project; new projects will still have the default colors when you start them.


The Shape Editor 

This is both the highpoint and the lowpoint of FST. The highpoint because it's an incredibly powerful 3D CAD tool. The lowpoint because the complexity of it makes it so hard to learn. The Shape Editor is the part of FST which will make you set fire to the manual!

The easiest way to get to grips with the Shape Editor is to forget about designing F16s and Taj Mahals for a while, and concentrate instead on easier objects. Once you've made a few simple boxes and edited them into fancier shapes, you will be familiar with the basic controls of the Shape Editor and can then go on to greater things (like the F16).

I've divided the Shape Editor tutorial into small sections, but they follow on from one another, so I suggest you work through them in order. The sections are:
A Look at the Controls
The Zoom buttons
The Grid
The Grid Scale
Fixing Mistakes
Clockwise or AntiClockwise?
The Solid View Button
An easier way to draw a cube
Extrude command
Roofs and nose cones
Handles and the 2D views
Sloping Surfaces
Enter Polygon
Slopes and Tapers - Moving Points
Coloring in
Drawing an aeroplane

A Look at the Controls

Start off by opening your project, eg tutor1, (if it's not already open). 
Select the Shape Editor button to start up the Shape Editor. 
Then MAXIMISE THE SHAPE EDITOR WINDOW by clicking on the (standard Windows) maximise button at the top right hand corner of the Shape Editor window. 

Now you can see what you're doing in a decently-sized window and the tool buttons will have rearranged themselves neatly into 2 columns on the left-hand side.Take a few minutes to look at the screen now.

When you first start Shape Editor, you will see a cube outlined in yellow, with what looks like a sheet of graph paper stuck across its middle. The bit of graph paper is called the grid. Three edges of the cube are colored red, green and blue and a little axis diagram on the top right, above the cube shows that these edges are aligned with the X, Y and Z axes respectively.

[An aside for those who never did geometry at school:-
You can specify the position of a point in 3 dimensional space by using 3 coordinates, X, Y, and Z. The X coordinate specifies left to right position, the Y coordinate specifies up and down position and the Z coordinate specifies back to front position.]

To the right of the cube are 3 windows which will show you 2D sections through your object as you create it. The top window is the YZ window which gives you a section cut by a blade made by the Y and Z axes. This will be a side elevation view of your object. The middle window is the ZX window which gives you a plan view of the object. Finally the bottom window is the YX which shows you the front (or rear) elevation view.

To get a feel for these windows, copy the file a18.fsd from the library folder to your project folder, using Windows File Manager. Then choose File from Shape Editor's menu bar, choose Load from the drop-down menu and select the file a18.fsd. You now have a fancy 3D fighter jet drawn inside the cube and you can easily see the effect of the three 2-dimensional cross sections in the windows on the right.

Take a look at the tool buttons and identify them as follows:
Presuming you maximised the window as suggested, you have 2 blocks of buttons, one below the other. The top block has six rows of 2 buttons each; the lower block has nine rows of 2 buttons each.

The top group contains the buttons for creating bits of the drawing and choosing bits to edit. They are (arranged as in the block of buttons):

Select Group			Select Polygon
Select Point			Undo
Enter Line			Enter Triangle
Enter Square			Enter Polygon
Enter Cuboid			Enter Penta
Enter Tetra			Paste Group

The lower group contains the buttons which allow you to view your work from different angles and position your drawing tools where you want them to be. They are:

Zoom In			Zoom Out
Top View (ZX)			3D View
Front View (YX)			Side View (YZ)
Rotate Around Y-axis		(Blank - not used)
Rotate Around Z-axis		Rotate Around X-axis
Make The Edit Plane ZX	(Blank - not used)
Make The Edit Plane YX	Make The Edit Plane YZ
Move Grid Up			Move Grid Down
Open Solid View Window	Enter Grid Offset

Have a look at each of these buttons and match them up to their names as listed above, so that you'll recognise them when we come to use them and find out what they're for. Now we can start to investigate the functions of all these buttons.

The Zoom Buttons

Click on the Zoom In and Zoom out buttons and see how the scale changes. Experiment with the zoom buttons and you'll discover that you can zoom out until the aircraft almost disappears, or zoom right in onto the smallest details. You will use the zoom buttons a lot, zooming out to draw big shapes and zooming in to add small details. The graph paper style grid continues to show you 1 metre squares as you zoom in and out, so you always have a guide to the size of the object you are drawing. 

The Grid

Next, get rid of the aircraft for now, so that we can experiment with the grid and get started on learning to draw. To do this, just choose File - New and you will return to the empty cube and graph paper grid.

Click the Zoom In button once, so that the cube fills the window, and take a good look at the grid. Just like graph paper, it has 4 large squares marked with dark grey lines, each of which is subdivided into 10 x 10 smaller squares, marked in light grey lines. These smaller squares have sides of length 1 metre in the FST world; if you want to draw a building 10 metres long by 5 metres wide, you need to make it 10 squares by 5. So far, so good?

The crucial thing about the grid is that drawing coordinates SNAP TO IT. 

Let's try drawing a square to show what I mean. 
Click the button Enter Square (this button has a square drawn on it, unsurprisingly). 
Now place the mouse pointer on the intersection of the dark lines at the centre of the grid and click. A red cross appears to mark the first corner of the square. Now, move carefully along the dark line up the screen in the Z direction, 4 squares along and click again on the top left corner of the 4th square where it touches the dark line. Another red cross appears and a red line joins the two crosses. 

Now move the cursor along to the right in the X direction, but this time don't go a full 4 squares; just go a little over 3« squares, and click. Notice that the red cross jumps over to the nearest grid point - your square has a side of 4 again, not 3«. This jumping to the nearest grid point is what is meant by SNAP to grid. Most CAD packages use this Snap To Grid technique.

Finally, come down in the minus Z direction 4 squares and click to complete the third side of the square. FST now knows where you want the 4th side and it completes the square for you. The completed square now appears drawn in blue and you can see it in the 2D windows on the right, as well. Ignore the little red rectangle in the middle of it for now; (this is a dragging handle, of which more later).

The Enter Square button can also be used to enter rectangles; Square is really an inappropriate name for it.

The Grid Scale

Ah, you say, but suppose I WANT 3« grid squares. Suppose my structure is SUPPOSED to be 3« metres wide. How do I get rid of Snap To Grid?

The answer is - you don't get rid of Snap To Grid. You change the grid size instead! Choose Grid from the menu bar and you will see options 10M 1M 10cm Other, with 1M currently ticked. Clicking on 10cm changes the grid squares to 10cm. 

Try it, and you'll see that your 4m square is full of tiny 10cm grid squares now. They are so close together, they probably appear as solid grey shading - zoom in a few times to see them properly. You can now draw objects sized in multiples of 10cm. If you want other sizes, choose the option Other and then type in the size in metres for each small square, eg typing 0.3 will give you 30cm squares.

The range of sizes allowed by FST for grid squares seems to be 1 cm (0.01 metres) to 100 metres - plenty of scope for detailed work there.

Fixing Mistakes

If you make a mistake when drawing, eg click on the wrong square, you can undo the mistake. Clicking on the Undo button (which looks a bit like an eraser on the end of a pencil) wipes out the last thing you did. 

If you Undo while in the middle of drawing a square, say, you may find a grey line from the last point you drew heading off the screen. Just ignore it; it will disappear when you complete your drawing section. (it's a ghost "rubber band" - the rubber band shows you where your line will be drawn if you click the mouse at its current position). Undo seems to confuse the rubber band and it leaves a ghost image on the screen; when you complete another part of the drawing, FST refreshes the screen and the ghost vanishes.

Moving into 3 dimensions: A Cube

So far, we have been drawing on the horizontal ZX plane.
Because our drawing cursor snaps to the grid, we can't draw in the vertical plane unless we first move the GRID to a vertical plane. Happily, FST thoughtfully supplies buttons for quick plane changes (pardon the pun). We'll play with this feature next and draw a cube.

Scrub the drawing so far, by choosing File - New. (Choose NO when asked "Save current changes?"). The grid will now automatically be reset to 1 metre and the cube will half fill the window. Zoom in once to get a better view of the grid.

Next, use your new-found square drawing skills to draw a square of size 6 metres by 6 metres. Draw it by marking the points in an anticlockwise direction and try to place it with the centre of the square on the centre of the grid. To do this, start drawing from the point 3 squares down and 3 squares to the right of the centre dark line intersection, and continue anticlockwise to mark the other 3 corners of the square. 

Use File - Save As to save as cube1.fsd and save again under the same time as you complete each of the next stages in drawing the cube. (Avoids upset if the power goes off!).

Next, the side walls. I want to draw the vertical walls running front to back - a glance at the 3 axes drawn in the top right corner shows me that I want the YZ plane. (Because the vertical wall can have EDGES made parallel to the Y axis and Z axis).

Click on the button "Make The Edit Plane YZ" and the grid will instantly flip into a vertical position in the YZ  plane. Now your square appears with 3 sides drawn in red and one side in blue. Blue marks the position of the Edit Plane, which we call the Grid - your grid now passes vertically through that edge of the square.

Draw a vertical square by clicking on the front end of the blue square edge, going up in the Y direction 6 squares, click, back in the Z direction 6, click, down to the back corner of the original square, click. FST again finishes the 4th side for you automatically. (Remember to click the "Enter Square" button first, to tell FST that you wish to draw a square!)

Now have a look at the three 2D windows and compare them with the 3D shape. In the 2D windows, the grey line which has appeared represents the edge of the Edit Plane or Grid.

Next task is the opposite face of the cube. We can't draw that until we move the edit plane there. Click the "Move Grid Down" button (the one with the minus symbol on it) 6 times, and watch the grey line move in the 2D windows as you do so. On your sixth click, it will be aligned with the opposite face of the cube. 

Now draw another vertical square. This time, start at the back corner and draw the points in an anticlockwise direction (for reasons which will be explained later).

For the top face of the cube, click the "Make The Edit Plane XZ" button and then move the grid up six squares to the top of the cube using the "Move Grid Up" button. Check that you've got the grid in the right place by glancing at the 2D windows. Draw the square to complete the top of the cube, marking the points in a clockwise order.

The cube now looks complete, as a wire-frame drawing, but it isn't. In the FST world, each square you've drawn will appear as a solid surface - so our cube still needs 2 more surfaces to finish it.

Flip the grid to the XY plane using the "Make The Edit Plane XY" button and draw the front and back faces of the cube, moving the grid as necessary. Use the 2D windows on the right to figure out where the grid is in three dimensions - it can be difficult to guess which direction the grid needs to go otherwise. Move the grid with the usual + and - buttons until it lies on the face of the cube you want to draw. If the corners of the grid squares won't align with the corners of your cube, you haven't got the grid far enough forwards or backwards.

My completed cube is in the file mycube.fsd, included with this tutorial.

If you are still finding it difficult to get used to thinking in 3 dimensions and working out where the grid is in 3D relative to the thing that you're trying to draw, load up a18.fsd again and practise moving the grid around in 3 dimensions. The complicated aircraft model gives you lots of visual reference points to compare with the grid line in the 2D windows. There are also a few simple shapes in your project directory, eg bomb.fsd or rocket.fsd, which you can load up and experiment with.

Clockwise or Anticlockwise?

Why, you may be thinking, does it make any difference whether I draw something by marking down points clockwise or anticlockwise?

The answer is because it tells FST whether you're drawing an inside surface or an outside surface. Colors and solid appearance affect outside surfaces but not inside surfaces, so it's important to get them the right way round. Solid surfaces disappear when seen from the "inside".

If you think about it, looking from the other side, the points appear to have been drawn anticlockwise, and that is the inside surface.

 The inside/outside naming convention can seem a bit confusing if you're just drawing a flat square,say, but that square is only visible as a colored flat sheet from the "outside". To create a flat object like a wing which can be seen from both sides you have to give it two matching surfaces, a top and a bottom, with the outside surfaces drawn as outside surfaces. Again, more on this shortly, when we move on to drawing aircraft.

The Solid View Button

Try drawing a few squares, or 2 or 3 faces only of a cube, and then click on the Solid View button (the one marked "solid") to see the effect of inside and outside surfaces. Clicking the mouse on the space around the solid object rotates the object for viewing from different angles. Have a look at a18.fsd in solid view, too, and any other shapes you fancy from the fst\library directory. (Copy the appropriate *.fsd files from fst\library into fst\tut01 and then you can load them into Shape Editor to have a look at them).

Close the Solid View window (title bar just "Viewer" for some reason) when you're finished with it by choosing File - Exit from the menu bar in the Viewer window.

It's a good idea to use Solid View regularly as you work on an object, to make sure you're getting the 3D effect you think you're getting! Mistakes with inside/outside surfaces also show up clearly in the Solid View.

An easier way to draw a cube

We drew a cube by drawing its six faces separately so that we could experiment with the grid and find out how to draw in different planes by moving the grid. However, FST gives us a quick and easy way to draw a cube, or cuboid (a rectangular "cube").

Start with a blank grid by choosing File - New and zoom in one or two clicks to make the grid easy to see. Now click on the "Enter Cuboid" button.

If you draw a rectangle using this tool, it will automatically extend it into a cuboid in the outside direction. The height of the cuboid will be one grid unit, eg 1 metre if you have left the grid scale at 1 metre. Since it extends in the outwards direction, we draw the base in a clockwise direction. 

We'll experiment with this now to produce a building with a tower. We can then make use of our building again later, to study other tools for modifying shapes.

First use the Grid - Other menu command to set the grid scale to 4 metres. Then, with the "Enter Cuboid" tool selected, draw a rectangle 8 metres in the X direction and 16 metres in the Y direction, (ie 2 squares by 4) with the grid origin (ie the centre intersection of the dark grid lines) in the centre of it. FST instantly extends it 4 metres upwards (since you drew clockwise, the top surface is the outside surface). Change the grid scale back to 1m again.
If you like, check the solid appearance of the cuboid using Solid View.
Save As cube2.fsd.
We'll come back to do the roof and the tower in a minute.

Creating a building this way is OK if the sides of your building are an exact multiple of the height, since the height has got to be one grid square. However, FST has another useful tool for making 3D structures - Extrude.

Extrude command

Load up cube1.fsd (our first exercise) for some experiments with extrude. Check that the grid size is 1 metre.

Now, click on the Select Polygon button and then use the mouse to select the top surface of the cube (it will highlight in red when you click it). When you select a polygon in this way, (a square polygon in this case), the options in the Polygon menu are available to you. 

Open the Polygon menu and select Extrude (not Extrude to Point). In the metres box type 2.5 and choose OK. The cube will immediately grow upwards 2.5 metres. Notice that we were able to specify an exact distance which was NOT a whole number of grid squares.

Extrude is useful for making rounded structures like fuselages. You create an approximately round cross-section, using a many sided polygon, and then extrude it to the exact length you want.

Extrude can also stretch ready-made cuboids, but you have to use the Select Polygon tool to choose the face you want to extrude. We'll demonstrate this by adding a tower to the building in cube2.fsd. Load it up and leave the grid size at 1 metre. Create a cuboid 4m x 4m in front of the main building (where you might put the steeple on a church). FST will make it only 1 metre high, since that is the grid size. Not very impressive for a steeple!

I want the tower to be 8 metres tall, so I need to extrude it another 7 metres. Use Select Polygon to select the flat top of the (very low!) tower. From the menu bar, choose Polygon - Extrude and set the size as 7 metres. Bingo! One 8 metre tall tower! Save it as Steeple.fsd.

Note that we could equally well have made an 8 metre tower by drawing a square for the base instead of a cuboid, and extruding 8 metres. This is actually a better option as it means fewer drawn polygons and hence a higher frame rate in the final flight sim. We made it from a cuboid to demonstrate how existing cuboids could be extended.

Roofs and nose cones

The building and steeple would look better with proper sloping roofs, and for these we can use two more new tools, Enter Penta and Enter Tetra.  First, click on the Enter Penta button, and then raise the grid to the top of the building. (Remember, you can only draw points in the plane of the grid). Check the 2D windows on the right to see where the grid is in relation to the top surface of the building.

Next, click on the four corners of the main rectangular building. The ridge line will be drawn perpendicular to the first line you mark, so to get the ridge running lengthways mark the shorter wall first, and go in a clockwise direction unless you want an upside-down roof. Click the corners in the order back left, back right, front right, front left.

Do the same for the Steeple roof, but this time use Enter Tetra instead of Enter Penta. A tetra is a symmetrical pyramid shape.

This gives us a sloping tower roof as seen on old English churches, but not a nice tall pointed steeple, because it's only 1m (grid scale) high. Extrude comes to the rescue again, this time Extrude To Point. 

Now that you've seen how Enter Tetra works, use Undo to wipe out the tower roof (or alternatively, use Select Group to select the roof and the Delete key to wipe it out). Then use Select Polygon to mark the (flat) tower top surface and choose the Extrude To Point Command from the Polygon menu. Type 6 metres for the extrusion length and you will find that you have a properly pointed steeple.

My building with the pointed steeple is included with this tutorial as steeple1.fsd.

The Tetra and Extrude To Point commands are ideal for finishing off pointed structures such as nose cones, missile warheads, and so on.

Handles and the 2D views 

Our next task is to learn how to move parts of the drawing about. The 2D windows and the Top View, Front View and Side View buttons are very useful for this work. What we want to do is to move the steeple from the middle of the short side of the building to the middle of the long side.

First, use the Select Group button to select the steeple tower. Since we made the roof by extruding the tower, it is automatically included in the selection. The whole steeple structure is now highlighted in red.

In the centre of the tower is a small red rectangle; the HANDLE. A handle always appears on a "selected" part of the drawing. The handle is a dragging handle and you can use the mouse to drag the tower about by its handle.

As soon as you try to relocate the tower in the middle of the long side of the building, you will realise that the 3D view of the grid is very misleading. It is difficult to judge where to drop the tower to get it exactly in the middle of the long side. When it is exactly in the middle, it looks miles off in the 3D view (although it looks perfect in the Solid View).

For this task, click on the Top View (ZX) button. The tower appears in plan view and its handle is still available for dragging it about. Looking at the plan view it is easy to drag the tower to the correct place. Finally, click on the 3D View button to return to the full 3D view.

Sloping Surfaces

One way to create sloping surfaces is to use the Enter Triangle tool to create a triangle and then extrude it. The triangle can be created in one of the 2D Views, eg Side View or Front View, if desired. Once you have got used to thinking in 3 dimensions, it is often easiest to draw in 2 dimensions and extrude into the third dimension. Try drawing a triangle in the YZ plane and then extruding it. 

Remember that you must:
(a) Keep an eye on the right hand side 2D windows and put the edit plane (the grid) in the right place before switching to a 2D View
(b) Select Polygon and click the triangle after drawing it, before selecting Extrude from the Polygon menu.
(c) Draw the triangle so that the outside (clockwise) surface is on the side of the direction in which you wish to extrude.

Enter Polygon

You can make more complex, or stepped, surfaces by using Enter Polygon to create the shape you require and then extruding that. Polygons are entered like squares or triangles, except that you can use more points and you must double-click on the last point to tell FST that your shape is finished. If your last point (which you double-click on) is not the same as the first point, FST will complete the polygon by joining up to the first point.

Slopes and Tapers - Moving Points

One very useful way of making sloping surfaces is to create a flat surface and them move some of the points which define its corners. This technique, as we shall see, is also used to create tapering structures such as fuselages.

Start a new file in Shape Editor and make sure the grid size is 1 metre.
Using Enter Cuboid, draw a cuboid 4m x 4m x 1m tall. Now click on the Select Point button and select the front right corner of the base of the cuboid, by clicking on it. Next, drag the point, using the mouse, two grid squares to the right. Select Point, click and then drag the rear right corner two squares to the right, in the same way. 

Note that you can't drag a point until you have selected it using Select Point. You must first click on the Select Point button, then click on the chosen point and release the mouse button before pressing it again to begin dragging.

You should now have a thin wedge; my file wedge.fsd shows what it should look like.

To make a tapered structure, draw the largest cross-section in one of the vertical planes (eg the ZX plane) and extrude it the length you require. Move the grid to the other end of the extrusion (the end which is going to have the smaller cross-section) and draw the smaller cross-section. Then select each point in turn around the circumference of the larger cross section and drag it to a point on the circumference of the smaller cross-section. Hey presto, a tapered extrusion!

My file taper1.fsd shows an extruded cross-section before tapering. File taper2.fsd shows it with the smaller cross-section drawn at the other end, taper3.fsd shows it with about half of the points moved, and taper4.fsd shows the taper completed. The whole job only takes a few seconds.

Coloring in

Adding color to the artwork is fairly simple. A palette of colors is displayed at the bottom right of the Shape Editor window. These colors are determined by the Object Colors created in cols.fcd (see the Color Editor section of this tutorial).

The first 10 object colors (the top row) are automatically shaded by FST in the final flight sim to reflect the position of the sim light source. The color which you see in the Editor is the brightest (full sunlight) color. Use these 10 for 3D objects. The last 8 colors (the bottom row) are fixed, for drawing things which aren't affected by the angle of the sun, eg nav lights.

To use them, first click the Select Polygon button and choose the surface to be colored. Then click on the color you fancy. Job done!

If you want to color a whole Group (a group of polygons drawn together, which highlight together when you use the Select Group tool) just select it and click on the color of your choice. You can then recolor 1 or more polygons in the group if you wish using Select Polygon. This is often quicker than coloring all the polygons one at a time.

Sometimes, you may not be able to click on the polygon you want to color, because other parts of the drawing are in the way. This is why you are supplied with Rotate Around Axis buttons - to rotate the drawing until the polygon you want is in view.

When you check the Solid View, the new colors appear on the object for your inspection. However, there are two slightly confusing aspects of colors in Solid View:

(1) The currently highlighted polygon in the drawing window (usually the last one colorised) always appears as solid red in the Solid View. This is not its real color, but merely shows that it is highlighted. 

(2) If you switch from the Viewer to the drawing window, change a few colors, and then switch back to Viewer using Windows' task switching facility, you will find that the colors haven't appeared. You have to close the Solid Viewer and re-open it to see the color changes.

Try out the color facility by coloring the drawing steeple.fsd. Try to make the walls brown and the roof green. Click on the polygons one at a time, using the Select Polygon button each time. Then click on the brown square or the green square as required for that polygon. Have a look at Solid View to see how you're getting on, remembering not to be surprised by the bright red highlight!

My completed steeple is included with this tutorial as steeple2.fsd, so that you can compare it with your own efforts. Yours should turn out exactly like mine.

Drawing an aeroplane

We now know (at last) most of the basic tools available in Shape Editor. We can go and do what we came for, and build an aeroplane! 

My completed aeroplane is in the file plane8.fsd. If you can't follow what I'm attempting to draw, load up plane8.fsd in Shape Editor and take a look at it. It is deliberately simple in design, since this is meant to be just a basic tutorial. The aeroplane is merely intended to help you bring together the drawing skills you have acquired so far.

We'll start with a fuselage. This is a round-bodied jet, so we'll draw a (fairly) rounded polygon, extrude it, and taper it to a small square at the tail. 

Begin a new drawing in Shape Editor, change the grid size to 0.25m and immediately switch to Front (YX) View . Draw a 6 sided polygon as shown in my file plane1.fsd and extrude it 7 metres. Draw a 0.5 metre square at the centre of the other end, and taper to it by moving points, as described earlier. The result is shown in plane2.fsd.

Now taper the tail to a point by using Enter Tetra. Leave the grid size at 0.25m, put the grid in the XZ plane and mark the base of the tetra over the small square fuselage end. FST will create a 0.25m long point. Switch grid and view to YZ plane and drag the point out to 2m (8 grid squares) to give a more graceful tail to the structure.

Create a cockpit area by extruding the blunt end of the fuselage 3m, to create a parallel-sided cockpit. Make a 2 metre long nose cone by extruding the new front end to a point.
My file plane3.fsd shows the drawing at this stage.

Now for some wings.

We need a definite thickness to our wings in order to get 2 solid surfaces. 
Set the grid size to 10cm and put grid and view into the ZX plane. Looking at the 2D windows, move the grid if necessary, so that it is about half-way down the cockpit side. Using Enter Polygon, draw one wing shape on the right side of the aircraft. The 10cm grid size allows you to make a reasonable effort at curved wingtips. Have a look at my file plane4.fsd for an idea of a suitable wing shape. I have made the wing very long (rather like a sailplane wing) so that when you come to copy it, for the other wing, you will get some practice zooming in and out while editing.

Check the 2D windows as you draw to make sure the wing is being drawn where you think it is!

Now extrude the wing shape 0.15m to give it the necessary thickness. File plane5.fsd shows this.

Next task is copying the wing and reflecting it along the X direction to making a left wing to match the right one. To copy, use Select Cuboid to select the whole wing. Then click on the Edit on the menu bar and choose Copy. Now click on the Paste button and click anywhere in the left wing region to dump a copy of the right wing. 

To change this second right wing into a left wing choose Group from the menu bar, then Mirror from the drop-down menu. Click on the X button to show that you want to mirror the wing in the X direction and click on OK.  Now you have a left wing!

All that remains is to move the left wing into place by dragging its handle. Zoom in to make sure that you place the wing exactly opposite the right wing. File plane6.fsd shows the two wings.

A tailplane can be created in exactly the same way as the wing, and copied and mirrored to make a matching pair. 

The copy facility can also be used to borrow bits of other aircraft to use in your design, by choosing the part you want in one file, using Select Cuboid and Copy, and then opening the file you want to use the part in and clicking the Paste button.

I copied the FST library file a10.fsd to my project directory, loaded it into Shape Editor, and used one of the big engines from the A10 Warthog. Using Select Cuboid selected the whole aircraft, so I had to use the Ungroup command in the Group drop-down menu after selecting it. This broke up the aircraft in the eyes of Shape Editor and allowed me to select only the engine. 

Then selecting Edit menu, Copy command copies the engine to the (invisible) clipboard. Close a10.fsd, open plane6.fsd and click the paste button. Change to the ZX plane and view and drag the engine to the desired place on the wing. Click paste again and drag a second engine onto the other wing. See file plane7.fsd.

The last detail is the vertical stabiliser fin. Draw it in the YZ plane and extrude to a depth of 10cm (0.1m). Switch grid size to 0.05m (5 cm) and the XY plane and view. Zoom in for a good view of the tail and carefully drag the fin to the exact centre of the aircraft. Take the opportunity to check that the tailplanes are exactly aligned with one another and butt up against the fin; drag them into place if they aren't quite right.

Finally color to your taste and check the solid view (plane8.fsd - the finished aircraft).


The Cockpit Editor

The cockpit editor lets you design the view from the cockpit of the aircraft which you will fly in your flight sim. BEFORE you can use the Cockpit Editor, you must copy a .pcx file into your project directory (use Windows File Manager). The .pcx file is a picture of the background to your instrument panel, onto which you will later place all your instruments, HUD, etc. 

You can use one of the .pcx files supplied for the purpose in the FST Library directory, or you can draw your own using any computer painting program which produces .pcx files, or even scan a picture of a real aircraft cockpit. 

Producing your own .pcx file is beyond the scope of this tutorial (after all, I don't know what paint program you might want to use), so we'll use one of the library files.

The Instrument Panel

Copy the file av8bh.pcx from fst\library into your project directory. This is a Harrier cockpit, and I've chosen it for this tutorial because it has a nice frame for a HUD, and I want to demonstrate how the HUD instruments are set up.

In FST, you select gauges, determine their size and position on the instrument panel background, and decide what flight variable controls them (eg airspeed, altitude, and so on). You can also decide exactly how you want to display information on the gauge; as a single hand on a dial, or a digital readout, or a moving tape, or whatever.

We will create a fairly simple cockpit, with a HUD showing the usual HUD pitch ladder and velocity vector, and also airspeed, altitude and heading indicators. A low fuel warning light will also appear in the HUD. 

Below the HUD, on the instrument panel, we will put an altimeter, airspeed indicator, engine rpm gauge, vertical speed indicator, compass and artificial horizon, and we will treat ourselves to a radar as well.

Start the Cockpit Editor, maximise the window, and choose the menu bar option Options. From the drop-down menu choose Attributes and then click on the arrow beside the label "Background". A drop-down list will appear, containing any .pcx files in your current project directory. Choose av8bh.pcx (which you copied into the project directory earlier, didn't you?) and then choose OK. 

A Harrier panel, without any working dials, should appear on screen. Save this now, using File - Save As. Use any name you like; FST will save it with the extension .fgd. My completed cockpit file is included with this tutorial as mypanel.fgd.

Note that, until you have saved a file of your own as an .fgd file, there is nothing to load from the File menu. The background .pcx files are not loaded using the File menu, but using Options - Attributes as described above. (This aspect of Cockpit Editor can be confusing to a new user, who can't understand why the .pcx file doesn't appear in the File - Load dialog box).

Adding Instruments

The menu option "Edit" is used to add instruments to the cockpit picture. 
The procedure simplifies to:

Add dial
Change gauge
Move it
Size it

A tip - do the HUD last. This is because FST drops each new gauge in the middle of the HUD region, for you to drag into position elsewhere. If you have already set up the HUD, you will find it tricky to select the new gauge for dragging, and not the HUD display instrument.

From the Edit menu, select Add Dial. A small round dial, highlighted in red, will appear.
Drag this dial, using the its centre as the dragging handle, to the middle of the empty rectangular radar display on the left of the instrument panel.

Now, choose Edit - Change Gauge and select Radar from the Type drop-down list .
Click OK. You now have a small rectangular display. Size it to fit the blank display on the cockpit background, by dragging its edges and reposition by dragging it from the centre, until the gauge rectangle neatly occupies the blank radar panel "cut-out".

Add Dial again, but this time drag it to the middle one of 3 blank dials on the top row of the panel. Size to fit and choose Change Gauge. This time, select type Horizon Ball. The Variable box will automatically change to Aircraft Roll. Now you have an artificial horizon in the aircraft.

To the left of the horizon, add a dial of type Simple Dial and choose Airspeed from the Variable drop-down list.

To the right of the horizon, put an Altimeter Dial (it will automatically set the variable as Altitude).

The bottom row of 3 dials are, from left to right,

Type Simple Dial	Variable Engine RPM
Type ADF		Variable ADF
Type Simple Dial	Variable Vertical Speed

The vertical speed indicator can be made to read up and down from centre, like a real VSI, by setting Start Angle 180 and Stop Angle 0.

Create 1 dial of type Large Digits and variable Fuel Weight, and place it in the lower half of the right hand radar display. Create another of type Ordnance, and place it in the upper half of the right hand radar display.

Now do the HUD. Create a gauge of type HUD and stretch it to fll the HUD frame. The HUD gauge includes a pitch ladder, a velocity vector indicator and a heading indicator automatically, without any further action by you.

Create 2 more gauges of type Large Digits, and set the variables to Airspeed and Altitude. Put these gauges in the top left and top right corners of the HUD respectively.

Finally, create a Low Fuel Warning in the HUD, by selecting Edit - Add Lamp. Set type to Square Lamp and Variable to Low Fuel. Drag it into the top centre of the HUD, between the airspeed and altitude readouts.

This gives us a few basic instruments and a guide to using the Cockpit Editor. Look at my file mypanel.fgd if you're not sure what you're doing in the above section. When you fly your aircraft, you will certainly want more lights and dials (eg gear up, flap angle, etc), but the layout above is flyable and it provides a basis for your own additions.


The Model Editor

The Model Editor is easy to use, although you may need to spend a lot of time experimenting and flight testing before you produce aircraft which handle in the air exactly as you wish. It allows you to determine the flight characteristics of the aircraft which you're going to fly in the simulator.

When you start Model Editor, there is an aircraft blueprint in front of you. The shape of the aircraft which you see here is the aerodynamic shape of your aircraft. Whatever your aircraft looks like in FST (ie whatever Shape you've created for it using Shape Editor), it flies as if it were the shape drawn in the Model Editor blueprint.

This is why can you make a flying piano that handles like a fighter jet; you draw the piano in Shape Editor and the fighter jet in Model Editor! To create something that both looks and handles like a real world aircraft, you will have to draw the real thing in Shape Editor, enter Model Editor, adjust the blueprint to be as close as possible to the shape of the real thing, and adjust the aircraft properties to be as close as possible to those of the real thing. Aviation books and magazines are a good source of information about aircraft size, shape, weight, fuel loads, stalling speeds and so on.

For your first attempts, you will want to leave the aircraft model fairly close to the default model as seen when you first start Model Editor. You may want to alter the shape a bit to adjust the maximum speed and the stalling speed. As a (very) rough guide, big wing area gives lower stalling speed and long wings give lower maximum speed.

The included file mymodel.fmd has had the wing shape altered by making it longer and less swept back. The wing shape is altered by simply dragging the small square handles about on the grid. Unlike Shape Editor, the points do not snap to the grid. The grid is just a scale guide for you to use like squared drawing paper. Grid scale can be altered from the menu bar (Edit - Blueprint).

You will notice that when you alter one wing, the other wing automatically changes to match. This means that you do not have to worry about accidentally creating an asymmetric shape for the flight model, which would have disastrous consequences for the handling qualities.

The file mymodel.fmd was designed to use with the shape we created earlier (plane8.fsd), so I needed to change the properties to having 2 engines. 

From the Model Editor menu bar choose Edit - Engine. 
In the Powerplant dialog box which appears, change # Engines (# for number, for non-American readers) to 2. Change Total Engine Thrust (ie all engines together) to 5000 lbs and change Fuel Weight to 1500 lbs. Don't change Type  - leave the Jet box checked.
The changes you make here will have an effect on the stall and max speeds as shown in the blueprint window.

Have a look at the Edit - Properties dialog box next. I didn't change any of these for the file mymodel.fmd. The next, more advanced, tutorial will explore the effects of the aircraft properties in some detail. 

You can add or remove flaps or airbrakes, or use the biplane check box to tell the model that there is a second wing, the same size as the first one drawn in the blueprint. Increasing Airbrake Drag makes the airbrakes more effective and decreading Airframe Drag makes the aircraft a bit faster and also correspondingly "hotter" in the landing approach. Many of the other settings can be taken from flight data for the real aircraft you are trying to model.


The World Editor

This is the tool for creating terrain to fly over. It also lets you create enemy aircraft to dogfight, tanks to bomb, navigation beacons to fly to, and pretty scenery to look at.

Setting up the tiles

The first step in using the World Editor has to be taken BEFORE choosing the World Editor button in the main FST window. From the main FST Project window (ie the window you see first when you start FST), choose World from the MENU BAR. This gives you 3 options; Size, Colors and Origin.

Colors lets you choose the color file you wish to use. Normally, this will be cols.fcd. If you have created several different color files using the Color Editor, and saved them under different names in the current project directory, Colors gives you the opportunity to choose which one you want as the palette for your terrain artwork.

Size allows you to specify the size of your flight sim world, in terms of 50km square tiles. If you don't select the size before entering the World Editor, your FST world will be only 1 tile square. Choosing Size opens a dialog box which asks how many tiles wide and how many tiles high you want the world to be. To create a flying area of 1000 km x 2000 km just type 20 wide by 40 high. The maximum size permitted is 99 x 99 tiles. 

Once you choose a size greater than the default single tile, you will see a grid of the appropriate number of squares on the screen. Choosing one of these squares with the mouse (click on the bottom left corner of the desired square) specifies that square as the location of the tile to be edited in the World Editor. To edit terrain for your whole world, you have to choose the tiles one at a time and edit each of them using the World Editor. This is a good incentive to keep your world as small as possible!

Origin, the third option, is very useful if you want to model a real world situation and to be able to use real world latitude and longtitude coordinates with it. When you select Origin, the dialog box offers you Longtitude West and Latitude South coordinates to edit. Clicking on the West button changes it to an East button, clicking on the South button turns it into a North button, so if you're modelling a Northern hemisphere location you can use North coordinates directly. 

Suppose you want to model a 200 km square flying area around London Heathrow airport in England, which has coordinates 51 degrees 28 minutes N and 00 degrees 27 minutes West. Choose Size 4 tiles by 4 and then use Origin to set 51 28 N and 00 27 W. That's it!

Building some landscape

For this tutorial, use the Project Window World - Size menu option to create a world 6 tiles wide by 3 tiles high. Select the top left square, by clicking on its top left corner, and enter World Editor (by clicking on the World Editor button).

Maximise the World Editor window and take a few moments to identify the buttons.

The first two buttons are Select Terrain Editor Mode (on the left) and Select Object Editor Mode (on the right). One, and only one, of these buttons is always depressed to show which editing mode you are in. Which tool buttons are visible also depends on which of these two buttons is depressed.

Select each of the two buttons in turn and identify all the tool buttons displayed.
The buttons available are:

Terrain Editing Mode

Select Terrain Editor Mode	Select Object Editor Mode
Zoom In				Zoom Out
Refresh Map				3D View
Not Used				Not Used

Raise Point				Lower Point
Raise Area				Lower Area
Raise Line				Lower Line
Fractalize Area			Not Used

Object Editing Mode

Select Terrain Editor Mode	Select Object Editor Mode
Zoom In				Zoom Out
Refresh Map				3D View
Not Used				Not Used

Select Object				Add Default Object
Link Hangar/Depot To Path	Break Link
Select Path				Add Path
Add Point To Path			Paste Object

We will start work in Terrain Editor mode and design some landscape. Click on the Select Terrain Editor Mode button.

The main editing window shows a plain blue tile. This represents sea level and is colored blue (like sea) in the World Editor regardless of the color you have defined in Color Editor for the sea. 

The colors you see in World Editor are always the same and are simply there as a colored contour map. The colors which these contours appear in the flight sim do depend on the *.fcd color file. If, for example, you are designing an exotic planet with sulphurous yellow seas, the sea will still appear blue in the World Editor but will be the correct nasty yellow (as defined by you with the Color Editor) when you fly over it in the flight sim.

Similarly, the height of the land is always represented in the World Editor by varying shades of green, with the darkest green representing the lowest terrain.

Using Terrain Editing Mode

Take some time now to play with the terrain editing tools as described below. You can reset back to a plain blue sea any time by simply exiting and declining the opportunity to Save Changes. (You can also get back to plain sea by lowering all the land you created - more on this in a moment).

First of all, try the Raise Area tool. The default height for this tool is 1m, so wherever you click the mouse on the sea, a tiny square of dark green land will appear, one metre in height. Clicking on an area which is already green will raise it a further metre. 

Larger areas can be lifted by dragging rectangles with the mouse. Begin a drag at the top left corner of the rectangle you want to raise and end the drag at the bottom rightcorner. A "rubber band" rectangle will appear as you drag, so you can see where you are going to raise the land.

This method, as you will quickly see, means that you will take all day to build a mountain range. FST offers a better way. From the World Editor menu bar, choose Terrain - Tool Action. Change Height to 50m (or 100m, or whatever height you fancy).

If you leave the option button Add Height selected, each area will be raised by 100m. Change to Set Height and the area will be made 100m in height above sea level. You can quickly create a plateau and add peaks to it. Using the Lower Area tool you can cut rift valleys through your terrain.

Using Set Height at 0 metres and the Lower Area tool allows you to restore large areas to plain blue sea, as mentioned above.

The Raise Point and Lower Point tools allow you to add peaks and depressions in the terrain. The Tool Action dialog offers a Radius option, which determines how far around a point the land will raise up with it. Radius does not affect Raise Area or Raise Line, only Raise Point. The manual says that Radius affects Raise Line as well, but in my copy of FST, that isn't true.

Try setting Radius to 10 squares, Height to 500m, and select the Add Height option. Now try Raise Point, and you will see a little square mountain peak. Create overlapping mountains, by raising points close together in a line, and you will get a nice contoured ridge. 

Changing the Tool Action option from Add Height to Set Height gives you a flat area at 500m above sea level, radius 10 squares. Try it and see. Using different values for Radius in conjunction with the Raise and Lower Point tools allows you to create quite natural looking landscapes quickly and easily.

Raise and Lower Line do exactly that. Select the line you want to raise by dragging the mouse from one end of the line to the other. Again, a rubber band will show you exactly where the line is being positioned. Since the Radius option doesn't work with Raise and Lower Line, (although it's supposed to according to the manual), these tools are not very useful. With Radius working, you could use them to create ridges and sloping valleys. Check your copy of FST to see if you get a plain line or whether you can get sloping sided ridges and valleys.

The last useful tool in Terrain Editor is the Fractalize Area button. Save your work before you use this button. It creates a random fractal landscape, superimposed on the terrain you have created. It helps to get rid of awkward rectangular shapes and makes much more natural looking terrain, but its effects can be more dramatic than you intend, so save first!

To use the Fractalize tool, click its button and drag a rectangle over the area you wish to fractalize. 

The greater the height set in Tool Action, the greater the height range over which the fractal landscape will vary. Less startling effects are achieved with a height of 10m rather than a height of 500m set. 

More detailing is obtained in the fractalised landscape if you increase the number of fractal iterations. Experiment with the effect of different settings. The number of iterations is changed by choosing Terrain - Fractal Iterations from the World Editor menu bar.

As with Shape Editor, you have an opportunity to view your landscape in solid 3D, using the 3D View button. Even with a fast DX2, prepare to wait a while for the view, and don't expect miracles from it!

Loading and Saving Terrain Tiles

FST does not allow you to give individual filenames to your terrain tiles. Each tile is given a number by fst and saved with a file named by that number, and the extension .ftd. Details of the tiles comprising your world are kept in the world.fst file, in your project directory. This file is managed by FST and you cannot alter it directly.

This all means that, when you Save a terrain tile, you are in effect just updating the scenery in your world. If you make a mistake, you cannot load up an earlier file. However, you can exit without saving, thus restoring the scenery to the state it was at the time of your last Save. There is no Load function - FST just loads the updated version of your scenery as last saved by you.

Extending the scenery to the next tile

To continue editing the scenery over the next tile in your block of 18 tiles, exit World Editor and reurn to FST's Project Manager.

Select the next tile to edit, but this time do not select the grid square exactly; position it with an overlap of about one-third of a tile over the one you've just created. Then, when you enter World Editor, some of the landscape you've already created is visible in the editing window, and you can seamlessly integrate it with the new landscape in the adjacent tile.

When you restart World Editor, all the Tool Action settings are reurned to the default values and you are placed in Object Editing Mode. Remember to switch to Terrain Editing and to set up the Height, Radius, Fractal Iterations and Add or Set Height options as you want them, before starting to draw terrain.

FST has large scroll bars on the editing window, which seems to imply that one can scroll from tile to tile without exiting World Editor first. However, in my copy of FST (CD-ROM version) the scroll bars don't apparently function. Clicking on them has no effect at all. They might work in your version - try them and find out!

The rest of the terrain construction is up to your artistic imagination. You may wish to create  a copy of a real world landscape, such as your local flying area. This is quite easy with FST. 

Just set up the origin latitude and longtitude as described above, to coincide with the centre of the real world map. Then divide the real map into 50km squares and create a world of that number of tiles. Using the real world contour map, you can then use Set Height for each contour height to draw the required contours.

Each small square (as in Radius so many squares) is 500 metres across. Altering Grid size in World Editor does not change the size of these little terrain squares. Knowing this, you can easily measure on your real world map how many squares wide each contour should be.

Landscape for the tutorial

For this tutorial, create a totally flat area about 15 km across (about a third of a tile),100m above sea level, somwhere near the centre of the world. Don't fractalize this flat bit, as it's going to be your home airfield location. Create a mountainous area to the left and a mass of little islands to the right. Leave a decent amount of sea area in this region, so we can set up some ship targets.

It doesn't really matter what you put in, but make sure you have a recognisable landscape to fly over. The idea is that you can fly West and see your mountains; fly East and see the islands. Have some fun experimenting with the terrain editor and, when you're finished, move on to the object editor.

The Zoom Buttons in World Editor

The zoom buttons behave differently in World Editor. Whereas in Shape Editor, the Zoom operated in and out on the centre of the window, in World Editor you must define the area you want to zoom in on.

Click on the Zoom In button first. 
Then, clicking on the map zooms in the grid square clicked to make it fill the window.
Alternatively, drag a rectangle on the map and that rectangle will zoom to fill the window, instead.

Zoom out just reverses the effects of the previous zoom, and it remembers up to 5 zoom operations.

Using Object Editing Mode

The Object Editing Mode allows us to place buildings, runways and other aircraft and vehicles into the terrain we've just created. It also allows us to define how enemy aircraft and vehicles will move, and which of them will shoot back at us.

We will use some of the library objects in our new terrain. Copy the following files from the fst\library directory into your project directory:

AIRHANG.FSD
C130.FSD
RUNWAY.FSD
TRAWLER.FSD
TOWER.FSD

Now choose the terrain square in which you created the flat area for your home base. Enter Object Editor Mode and click on the button Add Default Object. The default object is a small box, but you change it after placing it.

Place the box by clicking in the middle of the flat area on your terrain. Now choose from the menu bar Object - Object Properties and change the Shape to RUNWAY.FSD, using the drop-down list.

Leave the Class as CULTURAL; that is the appropriate class for runways. More on classes in a moment.

Next, check the Runway box in the option list on the right, to tell FST that it's OK to land on this without crashing. You can create a beautiful long, straight runway but unless you "flag" it as a runway, (by checking the Runway box), FST will insist on crashing your aircraft every time you try to land on it. Also, if you land and come to a stop on a "flagged" runway, your aircraft will automatically be refuelled and rearmed.

The other flags available are Target and Player. 

If you check the Target box, FST will recognise the object as something that air-to-ground missiles can lock onto. You will want to flag all enemy ground structures as Targets.

If you check the Player box, FST will recognise the flagged object as your aircraft. Usually, you will want to flag an aircraft shape as Player, but if you insist on flying a piano, you can place a piano shape on a runway and flag that instead.

Don't set up the Player aircraft yet; we'll do that last.

Object Classes

We can now tour our terrain, depositing targets and enemy aircraft at will.

First of all, let's give ourselves a route home by setting up an NDB. This is a beacon which we can steer to, using the ADF in our aircraft cockpit.

Place the default object beside your runway (you will need to Zoom in to get the placement correct), and change it to tower.fsd. Give it the class NDB and it will emit a radio signal to guide you home to base. Give the beacon a name if you like, using the Name box; I called mine AF1 (for Airfield 1). Real world beacons usually have a 3-digit identifier code.

The button marked "Properties..." allows you to change the frequency on which the NDB emits its signal. You don't want two NDB's on the same frequency, or your ADF receiver won't know which one to home in on. Leave the frequency at 500MHz for this beacon.

Now Save, and return to the Project Manager Window to select a tile containing a sea area, somwhere in the East of your FST world. Scatter a few missile boats (disguised as trawlers) around in the sea area, using the shape trawler.fsd. Give the trawlers the class SAM and they will fire surface-to-air-missiles at you when you come within range. Check the Target box for them, so that you can retaliate with missiles. From the drop-down list for Dead shape, choose "(none)", so that they'll sink and vanish when you destroy them. The box "Strength (kp)" dictates how many kill points are needed to destroy them. Make this about 300, so they're fairly easily knocked out. Leave the SAM Properties... (range, missile kill points, etc) unchanged.

If you like, put a tower with an NDB (on another frequency, say 450 MHZ) on a land mass close to the trawlers, so that you can find them easily, since this is your first flight sim.

Now choose a tile somwhere in the West of the world, and find a flat area. Drop a hangar here by giving an object the shape airhang.fsd and the class Hangar. An object with the class Hangar will generate aircraft for you to fight or follow or attack, as you please. Make its kill points about 500 and check the Target box, so you can blow it away with air-to-ground missiles. 

For this sim, we'll make it generate transport aircraft which won't fight back. In the Properties... dialog, make the aircraft  shape c130.fsd and the type Transport. Give them the flight model you created earlier. (They'll have the same flight model as your own aircraft. Later on, you might like to try designing a proper transport aircraft flight
model for them; I'll cover that in the next tutorial). For initial supply, choose 3 and then you won't have too many to try to shoot down.

Put an NDB tower here too, to aid navigation; make its frequency 400 MHz.

Now we need to create a Path, and link it to the Hangar object. The Path is the route which will be flown by the transport aircraft, and for this sim we'll make it a short round trip, returning to the starting point, so that we can easily find and destroy the aircraft.

Choose the button Add Path and click with the left mouse button near the hangar. Define a few points in an approximately circular route by clicking with the left button. Click with the right button to define the last point. Then click on the Select Object button, select the Hangar, and click on the Link button. Define the path you just drew as the one to be linked to the hangar, by clicking on or near its start point. From the menu bar choose Path - Attributes and set Height to 1000 (metres) and speed to 250. The C130 aircraft will lumber round the path at 250 knots and a height of 1000 metres, waiting to be shot down!

Later, you might like to come back and change the generated aircraft shape to su_25.fsd and alter the type to Fighter. Then the aircraft will attack you when you fly within 50 km of them.

The other object classes available to you are:

CULTURAL	No military properties; scenic objects and airfield runways.
DEPOT	This acts like a hangar, but generates vehicles instead of 
		aircraft.
VOR		Produces a directional VOR beacon signal
ILS		Produces the Instrument Landing System signal; must be 
		aligned with the runway.
AA		Anti-aircraft gun; fires shells at you.
CIVIL		A civil aircraft (no weapons) for the player to fly.
MILITARY	A military aircraft (armed) for the player to fly.
BRICK	An indestructible aircraft which has no max or min speed; 
		intended for use in exploring the sim world.

The Player's Aircraft

The last object to create is your own aircraft. We will make it a Military aircraft, so you can practise with the weapons. If you like, you can change it to a Brick aircraft while you have a look at your beautiful terrain!

Return to the terrain tile which has the runway in it and zoom in to the runway.
Place the default object at one end of this runway, and change its properties as follows:

Check the Player box, to mark it as your aircraft.
Change the shape to plane8.fsd and the class to Military.

Open the Properties... dialog and set the high speed shape and gear down shape to the same plane8.fsd. (Note you have an opportunity here to create swing wing Tornados which sweep back at high speed and to dangle brakes, gear, flaps, etc in the landing configuration, if you want to draw the shapes to suit).

Set the cockpit model to mypanel.fgd (or your own cockpit file).
Set the flight model to mymodel.fmd (or your own flight model file).

Give yourself a decent load of destructive ordnance by entering the following values in the ordnance table:
Cannon		250	   5
Rocket		 32	  10
Air-Air			   6	100
Air-Ground		   6	200
Iron Bomb		   2	  20
Cluster Bomb	   2	  10

Finally, save the world file, close down FST, and exit Windows.


Flying Your Flight Sim

Welcome to your very own flight simulator!

FST must be flown from DOS, not Windows.
Change directory to fst\tutor1 (or whatever you called the project directory), type FLY and press Enter, to run FLY.EXE.

If you get an error message telling you that the screen is only 320 pixels wide but the cockpit is 640 pixels, you will have to use a "switch" to force FLY.EXE to use the correct screen resolution. The switch depends on your graphics card:-

If you use a VESA driver, load it first and  type FLY -V (instead of just plain FLY) to run the flight sim.
For S3 based cards, use FLY -S
For ATI based cards use FLY -A

Use the E key to start the engine, and keys 1 through to 0 to set the throttle.
G raises and lowers the gear, S flaps, B air brakes, W wheel brakes.
Backspace selects weapon, Space fires it.

ESC gives you the in-flight options menu, which allows you to calibrate your joystick, turn off sound, exit the sim, and so on.

See the manual (or my next tutorial) for more information on the flight, navigation and weapons controls.


Finally:

By now, you should know enough about FST to be able to experiment on your own. There is still a lot of FST left for you to discover and I hope to produce some more tutorials to help you further along the road. Hopefully, you will also find the FST manual (a little bit) more useful, now that you have some idea of how to use the program.

Have fun, and post some of your efforts in Library 10!
