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Using FPSC 9...

Can one possibly design a game that begins indoors, but then ends up going to an outside environment?

I want to start in doors and then have the rest of the action take place outside on an Air Force Base with planes on the runways, hangars, humvees, etc.

I can model the jets, hummers, hangars, etc. and then port them over to go into FPSC, but just need to know if this "outside" question is doable?

If someone could provide me a tutorial on this, that would be great....or maybe point me to a beginner tutorial on how to accomplish this.

If one wants to check my order history, my FPSC Purchase won't show up because I have a different email....I believe the email I had at the time of purchase might have been : webmaster@portlandartanddesign.com (but not certain of that).

Thank you all in advance.

Yes this can be achieved with a little work, depending on the look you're going for - but essentially, all it requires would be a large, flat and open area of ground segment, with whatever type of fence or wall you'd like as a border for your map. It's all in your creativity though really, the placing of hangars, vehicles, planes. A lot of which can be found around the forums actually! You can check out http://fpsfree.com/ and http://fps-files.com/ for some cool media for an Air Force Base.

Might want to specifically check out Cosmic Prophets page for some really neat things, theres an actual hangar you can construct, along with other entities!

http://fpsfree.com/featured/CosmicProphet/CosmicProphet.htm

For a little inspiration and somewhat of a showcase that this sort of thing can in fact be achieved, you might want to also check out a game being produced by alimpo83 called Days of Infamy, on the second page in you can find a few screenshots of an Air Base he was working on as a level, very well done and might help show you just what is possible; or at least give you some ideas.

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=156580&b=25

Other than that, it's more of just opening up FPSC and trying out a few things. Get an idea in your head, and go with it; just test out different things and see what can be accomplised. I'd say that for the most part, an Air Force Base could be made. You might want to have in mind factors such as maintaining a strong FPS so you don't have lag, but free, downloadable mods for FPSC are available such as Project Green and Fenix Mod just to name a few, that can vastly improve the leeway you have in level design, in regards to keeping the lag down.
Also things to keep in mind are making sure the lighting looks realistic to an outdoor setting; if you have a skybox with a sun, put a farely significant light in your level, high above the ground. Perhaps 3 or 4 layers above your ground segment, with a yellow-ish tinge.

Other than this, it's really all up to you! The best way of understanding what can and can't be done is always, just simply, trying it out. I hope it all goes well for you, I strongly believe with some time and effort, this can surely be done

Cheers

@---> Braden 713,

Is that your last name? Mine too....weird.

Thank you VERY much for all your thoughts and advice...I'll definately follow them.

I have one more question for you if you don't mind.

Following this same "Air Force Base" theme, I want to have characters that fit it. How do I have military characters that are wearing the uniforms I want them to wear?

If I was to say design a character in PoserPro, and then save it....export it, which format should I save it in? .3ds, .obj, etc?

And If I did that, how would they then be able to be used in FPSC? And how would they be animated?

Basically, I want to know how to design my own characters (with their own unique textures) and then be able to use them in FPSC.

I thank you so much for your help thus far.

export as .x they work in FPSC.
if this is impossible try DBO- go into fragmotion, and export as .x
if this too is impossible, try obj, then go into fragmotion and export as .x

the textures can be tga, dds, or jpg.

as for the outdoor environments, it's good to see in games, but may cause major lag in FPSC if not carefully monitored and optimised.

Bugsy answered quite well there, I'm not a modeller so I would say he knows far more on the subject than I, however I know one thing you can do. You could simply take one of the characters that already exists in FPSC, such as the Thug or an Officer from characters in the WWII section - take one of them, and open up their texture in a program such as paint.net, or Gimp 2, both of which are free image editing programs. Then you could proceed to try and alter the texture for the look you're desiring. Re-texturing a character is a nice way of trying to get a particular kind of character, perhaps not the easiest to get it looking professional, but leaves out the work of having to try and get your own character FPSC ready.

Short of re-texturing, I regret to say the knowledge of how to get your own character working in FPSC eludes me, and any help you could get on that specific area from Bugsy or anyone else would most likely be best!

Anymore questions though, don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers

I'm not a modeler in the least bit, I can animate, that's it. but I just know how to get models in FPSC.

you need: a .x file for the model
a .tga, .dds, or .jpg file for the texture
a .fpe file for the entity information
an (optional) a 64x64 .bmp file for the Icon.

Thank you both for your info.

Is fragmotion a program?

I can do the .x file and the texture files, but how do I do the .fpe file? WHat program for that?

And also, as I was saying before, if I create a character and properly bring it into FPSC, how is the character then animated for the game?

Thanks again.

-Fragmotion = Program

-.FPE Files: Find F l a t l a n d e r's FPI Edit Pad. It's a free program and very easy to use for that sorta thing. I believe you can find it on fpsFREE like Braden mentioned.

-Characters use bones, models/meshes, etc. You need some sort of animation tool like Fragmotion, Blender, or MilkShape to complete such a task. Yet note that it is quite hard to make and animate characters. In their setup files, you have to set the animation frames and what not.

Hope that helps, and welcome to the GC Forums

PWP

Is fragmotion a program?

yes it is, and it is free***

I can do the .x file and the texture files, but how do I do
the .fpe file? WHat program for that?

find another model's .FPE and copy/paste

And also, as I was saying before, if I create a character and properly bring it into FPSC, how is the character then animated for the game?

you can rig your character within fragmotion

Thanks Bugsy!

Is Fragmotion hard to learn for a non-animator?

Cool about the copy-paste idea!!