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Hello is me again, like I promised before, I would post a tutorial on how to make your 3d animated characters to use in your games.


First create a new folder and name it, all the files related to the game are going to go in there.

1.- Download the skeletal system made by Disturbing 13(thank him, not me.)

2.- Fire up Milkshape 3d, create your mesh AROUND the sketal system, you can create your mesh in your own 3d model

aplication, maya, 3ds max, I use carrara 3d and save it in .obj format, then import it in milkshape 3d, DO NOT MODIFY

THE ANIMATION IN ANY WAY, or it will not animate correctely, you can add more animations at the end and that is about it, assign the vertices to the correct bones, then texture it.

3.- Use the setting that I provided to export to .x file

4.- You can make your own fpe file or copy and paste one from the FPS Creator.
You can use notepad or whatever text editor you like.
You can find them under:

Program Files/The Game Creators/ FPS Creator/Files/entitybank/scifi/characters

I used the one for AI, they are all preety much the same. I made a sniper character. If you want a grenade thrower,

use the one for that, etc.

Here is the fpe file for the Character AI(sniper) character



For your pursuse you are going to change a few things in this file, to work with your model
under ;header, desc =your character description, example mycharacter(sniper)
under ;orientation, model =your character's name.x
under ;visualinfo, textured =your texture's name.tga

That is it, now save it as .fpe and save in the game's folder.

Now you need to create a thumb nail for your model. I do it this way, you can use whatever you have ot anyway you want.

I load milkshape 3d, load my model, and maximized the 3d view, move it around until I like the position, then press

Print Screen key on the keyboard. Get out of Milkshape 3d, load photoshop and create a new image, then just press CTRL+V

to paste it. Then crop the image, resize it, then save it as .BMP in the folder previously created for my game.


General Information:

All the files have to be in the same folder.
Texture size maximun is 512x512 pixels. I like 256x256(medium)
The texture muxt be a .tga format
The thumbnail must be 64x64 pixels and .BMP format
You will end up in the same folder with:
1 .fpe
1 .x
1 .BMP
1 .tga


If you use notepad to save the .fpe file you do it like this:

Open notepad, type the file (or copy and paste, the lazy way), modify it, then click on File/Save as..., then click on

Save as Type: and sellect All Files, then click on File Name:, then type the file name and add .fpe at the end( example

mygame.fpe) then select where you want to save and click on SAVE.

you have to copy the game folder to FPS Creator core system. You can copy it to the user folder or scifi or whatever you want.

Then just load FPS Creator, go where you saved the file, select it like like you would the others, and enjoy your new character.

here are the settings to export it from milkshape 3d to .x format

.

Superb

Thanks for this Programador Hispano. I've been putting off doing a custom character for way too long. Between your and D13's tutorials I think I might be able to give it a go.

Can I just ask is it difficult assigning vertices to bones and how do you do that?

Thanks again

I find it funny you say export to .dbo and import in Milkshape

The format that you need to import in Milkshape 3d is .obj, not .dbo like I corrected in my 3rd posting, also if you use notepad to type your file you must save it as .fpe format.

Of course this method is just one of many and may not be perfect, but it worked great for me. I have a fully animated character working in FPSC. And this tutorial may also have mistakes but we can all fix them together, and at the end we will have a really good tutorial for everybody to benefit and enjoy.




I corrected it in my third posting.

I did not see that post, but update your first post to remove your mistakes then, as this will surely cause confusion.

Any chance of making a start on making this a really good tutorial for everyone by answering my first question?



I get the rest of what you've said but this sounds like something which may require a little guidance.

Thanks

I already posted it for everybody.

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=125252&b=21

is on the main page.

Really good tutorial. Video tutorials are so much better than written

Thanks for taking the time to put this together, appreciate it.

One more question if I may. A few people had problems with their characters texture not appearing in FPSC.

I believe this is where multiple textures are being used for the model and you need to export with only 1 texture applied.

How do you ensure Milkshape is only going to output a single texture for your character?

It is my pleasure to help here if I can, a lot of people has helped me here, I am just paying forward.

And about your question, You got me with that one. I don't know.
I do all my modeling, uv mapping and texturing in Carrara 6 pro, then I just import them into milkshape 3d. I don't model or texture in ms3d, not because I don't like it, but because I have always used carrara. I know that it must be only 1 texture .tga format and 512x512 pixels maximum.

One thing I remember though when I was making my model is that I loaded the model in ms3d then loaded the texture, and I looks like it is textured on screen, but unless you don't click the assign button, it will not do it. Then when you save your .x file, it will be saved without texture, and when you import it in FSP Creator, the character looks black, sometimes white and some other you can only see the shadow and the gun moving around. It is weird. That happen to me a lot.

Thats fine mate cheers.

You've been a great help. I'm sure I'll figure the texture thing out if only through trial and error.

The bones / vertices was the thing I didn't have a clue about and you've taken care of that.

Thanks