Aircraft Editor Not Working!

[Lamasta12]

Im kinda new to this editing thing, so i need a little help.

When i try to open an aircraft in the Flight Simulator 2004 folder, it says that the path could not be specified
and it doesnt open anything, so i was wondering if someone could tell me what the problem is.

[Brett_Henderson]

Are you using FSEdit or AirEd ?

I can't remember which, if either, of those requires you to set a path.

I stopped using them both for most work, a long time ago and only use FSedit to create an initial template for a new plane.. and only use AirEd for accessing variables that aren't editable (by a text editor) in the cfg files.

I do remember that FSEdit needed to be placed IN the main FS9 folder.. and for AirEd, it was best to create a working folder and put a copy of the XXX.air file in that folder to work on it.

[Lamasta12]

I use SFEdit, and nothing is working for me, isnt there an easer way to make an airplane with 1 simple program. If there is let me know

[Brett_Henderson]

Do you want to create a whole new aircraft from scratch ?

[Lamasta12]

i will sometime, but now im gonna start out small, I got the SFEditor to work, and now i need to know how to make textures(let me guess, i need another program.....).

[Brett_Henderson]

You'll need a couple of programs. One to convert texture files into an editable format and one to do the editing.

It's an involved process that just takes some time and research to get familiar with. There are several good tutorials, both here at

[microlight]

I agree with Brett - ditch FSEdit (useless!) and only use AirEd to change the things that you can't edit in the aircraft.cfg. Use the default plane FD files as a basis for your design and learn what does what in the aircraft.cfg - best way to learn it all, I reckon.

Textures is a different ball game entirely; you need a photo editor like Photoshop (or some freeware equivalent) and a program like DXTBmp which will make the textures optimally usable in FS.

[Felix/FFDS]

THere is no single one stop shop  from which to create a new model for FS (any version).

One of the best overall documents that I've seen that describes the process is the "gmax Aircraft Creation document" which comes with teh FS2004 SDKs.  If installed correctly, it's in the gmax/plugins/FS2004/docs folder.  The basic process can be applied to any of the useable modelling programs for flight simulator.

Basically modelling an airplane requires:

MOdelling the exterior  (including texturing and animations)
Modelling the interior and VC  (including texturing and animations)
Creating the 2D panel (and gauges)
Creating the FS file folder hierarchy
Developing the flight dynamics

For first projects, *creating* gauges isn't as important because you can use, for the most part, the default gauges, so it is a matter of finding and aliasing to the right gauge.  Panel and gauge creation is an art and science by itself, and in my opinion, a much more difficult process than "simple"  modelling.


There is no single program that does all.