My God…..
I cannot understand how such a simple concept be so complicated and asked many times. I opened my mouth and mentioned that I would create a tutorial and "lo and behold", I get smacked with emails asking me this and that about how to get entities into FPS Creator.
So, in all fairness because I spoke up, here it is.
Requirements:
1) FPS Creator
2) Modeler that can export DirectX files (ASCII Preferred)
3) Paint Application
4) Microsoft Notepad Application
First thing to note is scale. I would bank on 100 x 100 x 100 is a “Cell” in the FPS Creator. Go with it. What this means if you create a “Box” that is 100 x 100 x 100 that it would fill the entire “Cell”. So, make sure your model is small than this.
When you installed the FPS Creator, more than likely it installed to the directory “C:\Program Files\The Game Creators\FPS Creator” We are going to call this the “Root” directory.
As stated in the documentation, there are sub folders from “Root” directory. We are only really concerned (for our entities) the sub folder called “C:\Program Files\The Game Creators\FPS Creator\Files\entitybank”
Open Windows Explorer (NOT Internet Explorer) and locate this directory. Create a directory such as “MyEntities”
The directory structure should look something like this:
“C:\Program Files\The Game Creators\FPS Creator\Files\entitybank\MyEntities”
Fire up your modeler program and make a box 10 x 10 x 10. Export it as a DirectX ASCII file and save the export file in the directory you just created and we will name it “MyBox.x”
Open op Notepad and type (or cut and paste) this information.
;header
desc = MyBox
;orientation
model = MyBox.x
offy = 0
scale = 0
fixnewy = 0
;visualinfo
textured = MyBox.tga
Save this file using Notepad as “MyBox.fpe” and make SURE that you put quotes around the name as well as use the “Save Type” set for “All Files” and save this into the directory “C:\Program Files\The Game Creators\FPS Creator\Files\entitybank\MyEntities”
Back into the modeling program, either render out a BMP image or do a screen shot of your Box (Alt+PrintScreen). Resize the image as 64 x 64 and save it as a BMP to the same directory we have been using.
There should be a total of 3 files in there now:
MyBox.x
MyBox.fpe
MyBox.bmp
Now we need to put our texture file in there. You have a couple choices here. You can either texture your Box model in the modeler program or use your Paint Application and make one. Lets use the Paint Application because I am in fear that people will want me to explain how to texture map.
In the Paint Application, make a new file 256 x 256, color it a solid color (blue is nice this time of year).
Save it as a TGA 32Bit file as “MyBox.tga” in the same directory.
Directory should look like with 4 files:
MyBox.x
MyBox.fpe
MyBox.bmp
MyBox.tga
Now, comes the fun part. Fire up FPS Creator and click on the Entity tab, you should see you entity called “MyBox” and a little snap shot of it.
Place this Entity in your game. Check the scale. If it is too small, you can either change the model *OR* change the FPE script of “MyBox.fpe” where it says Scale.
Let me know ON THE FORUM how things turn out or if I need to edit any part of this.
Take care!
-This...is my boomstick!
