Abacus Announces FS Design Studio

New Design Tool Ushers In Y2K

We certainly want to wish everyone a Happy New Year - 2000. We'd like to help start things off with a bang, so here it goes.

This past September we held our internal developers meeting here in Grand Rapids. We invited some of the top names to discuss several upcoming projects that we thought were important for the next generation of flight sim software.

Following our lengthy discussions and work sessions, we agreed to proceed with two unique new projects.

I'm happy to say that development work on one of these projects - code name FSC - has progressed extremely well. In fact, development has exceed our projections by several months.

Due to its advanced stage of development, we're able to reveal the the details of this exciting new product. I'm pleased to introduce you to Louis Sinclair's newest development tool - FS Design Studio.

As its name suggests, FS Design Studio gives FS2000 an interactive, graphical environment for creating any kind of aircraft and 3D scenery objects. It represents an entirely new way to design new flight sim models.

Rather than explain all of the details, please refer to the attached text document and our website http://www.abacuspub.com where we've prepared the new product annoucements.

Regards,
Arnie Lee

FS Design Studio

by Louis Sinclair & Trancer Software

Description:

FS Design Studio is a general-purpose 3D-object design software package made specifically for use with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000. It is based on the Computer Aided Design (CAD) approach to designing real world models.

FS Design Studio has a multitude of tools, powerful techniques and time-saving shortcuts that you can use to create almost any kind of accurate 3D textured object to use with Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2000.

FS Design Studio objects are created and rendered on the screen. The display screen is organized as four separate windows representing the top, front, side and 3D perspective views of the object. If you make a change to the object in one of the windows, t

While most of the design tasks are performed visually using familiar drag-and-drop methods, you may also edit the objects using precise numeric values

FS Design Studio includes the option to display your object in 3D as a wireframe model or a solid object complete with textures, allowing you to view your creation without starting FS2000.

3D objects in Flight Simulator all share a common internal structure. FS Design Studio takes advantage of this by allowing you to output your project as a stationary scenery object, a moving vehicle for use with dynamic scenery program such as FS Action!

FS Design Studio directly supports the most popular scenery design file formats, allowing it to be used as an integral part of your scenery design environment. Supported file formats are:

• SCASM source files (for the SCASM scenery compiler)
• SCASM macro files (for use with Airport & Scenery Designer and Visual Object Designer)
• Raw BGL format (for use with DynKit to make dynamic scenery object libraries)
• Standalone BGL scenery files (for direct use as FS2000 scenery)
• Aircraft MDL files (for designing flyable FS2000 aircraft - available in PRO version)

Audience:

FS Design Studio is very versatile and can be used by a wide range of users:

• Starter: this is a casual user wants to personalize the flight experience. He may want to add a house, the new shopping mall or a football stadium to the hometown scenery. He can spruce up the local airport and town by using any of the "pre-made" 3D obj
• Budding Scenery Designer: this user spends more time with flight simulator and already has some experience making scenery objects. He can now customize large scenery areas using by adding dozens of new 3D scenery objects. Each is individually designed a
• Serious Scenery Designer: this advanced user is undertaking the ultimate project. He doesn't want to use an arcane programming language to "design scenery". He wants to recreate in fine detail of the windmills in the California desert or the ancient for
• Budding Modeler: this user has always wanted to make his own aircraft. Like the hobbyist who buys a plastic model, he uses "pre-made" parts from the library and and uses FS Design Studio to "glue" them together.
• Aircraft Engineer: this user makes his own parts seemingly out of thin air. In fact, he'll probably make hundreds of parts along the way. He'll create a warehouse full of reusable parts. The finished aircraft will look and fly with the big ones.

Checklist Approach:

The breadth of the FS Design Studio main menu attests to the raw power built into this software. The dozens of available options confirm that the capabilities of this package are extensive.

To introduce new users to FS Design Studio, we have prepared a large set of checklists. A checklist is a set of step-by-step instructions for performing a single task.

For example, the checklist for constructing a perfect 3D water tower has 8 steps. When the user has completed the checklist, he will have modeled a water tower that can be dropped into FS2000 scenery.

Another checklist for designing a fuselage has 12 steps. When the user has completed this checklist, he will have modeled one of the most critical parts of the aircraft - the fuselage.

After completing the 9-step checklist for perfecting the wings he can easily "weld" the wings onto the fuselage, etc.

Using these simple checklists, we're confident that the designer will be able to complete any of the predefined tasks.

Availability:

Our schedule calls for all versions FS Design Studio to be available about March 2000. Actual delivery date is dependant upon completion of scheduled testing, parts library, templates and checklists.

Pricing:

• FS Design Studio Standard Version - makes 3D scenery objects (no aircraft MDLs) $29.95
• FS Design Studio PRO - makes 3D scenery objects and aircraft MDLs - non commercial use only - $59.95
• FS Design Studio PRO Commerical - 3D scenery objects and aircraft MDLs commercial use - pricing to be announced
• FS Design Studio PRO Upgrade -available to Aircraft Factory 99 users only - pricing to be announced
  

Additional Information:

Please refer to the separate document "FS Design Studio Info - Part 2" for more detailed information about FS Design Studio. Please note that all information is preliminary and is subject to change.

Arnie Lee
Abacus Software, Inc.
5370 52nd Street SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49512 U.S.A.
Phone 616 698-0330
Fax 616 698-0325
Email arnie@abacuspub.com