static mesh lighting?

[wooper]

ok bernie here goes..

I made a ton of meshes using 3DGS and then
exported them all as MODELS in MDL7 format
and then into Milkshape thru to Equity and added
in the textures..and then into realityfactory as .act files.
and now because the textures were added in properly
i can use them as .act files and have them placed in the level
where i like...sized and lit as I want..using
StaticMesh entities..
now the settins I used in StaticMesh were..
actorrotation = 0 0 0
Alpha = 255.0
ambioentcolor =0,0,0
backfaced = false
colchecklevel = 2
Complight = true
ComplightSmooth =true
CompSunLight = false
entityname =
Fillcolor = 128,128,128
Model = <null>
origin =
Scale = 1
Staticshadow = false
szactorfile = pillar-small.act
szentityname =
useFillColor = false
VisCheckLevel = 1
ZSort = false

and thats about it.
of course your .act file will be different
because you will be using your own

here are some more pics

screen1.gif

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screen2.gif

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screen3.gif

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hope this helps a bit

thx all again

Wooper

[bernie]

Thanks for that. I'm sure a lot of members will find that useful. Did you use spotlight entities for the lighting?

[Danimita92]

Wait, wait, wait. So to make shadows properly on static meshes you need to pass them through Equity? Does equity do something special that ActStudio doesn't do?

[wooper]

hi again bernie

no i did NOt

only used
AMBIENT light = 40,40,40
and regular LIGHT ENTITIES
to accent certain areas.

screen4.gif

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thx

Wooper

[wooper]

hi dan

i used Equity to
add in the TEXTURES
so that they were on the model correctly
and
taht seemed to do the trick.
if you can do that with the actor thing from RF--way cool
I jsut couldnt get it as easily as with Equity..

thx

Wooper

[Danimita92]

What if you've already got the textures done in the model when you're in Milkshape? Or by TEXTURES do you mean some special textures like normal/bump/environment mapping textures?

[wooper]

Hi again dan

no..not any special textures...
BUT..for some r eason...the LATEST version of MILKSHAPE
does not seem to export the models to RF as well as
going from milkshape to Equity and then VERIFYING the textures
are correct in Equity and then using Equity to export to RF .act format
Since using this method with the NEWEST Milkshape version
all is as you see in my pics now.
have you tried using this method and then lighting up some modles ?
has anyone else ??
If so....does it work for you too ??
plz let me know

thx

Wooper

[wooper]

hey all

ok
here is an added point on getting the lighting
as i did in those shots.
FIRST.....
I changed all textures into 24 bit Bmp's
before using them.
no 8 or 16 bit textures at all..
and i just ran a level full of my new
geometry / actors and the frame rate was very good
and.......believe it or not....according to the DEBUG STATS
the scene had........57 polys...........

my geometry based scenes usually ran at 3000 to 5000 polys.
please let me know if this works for you also...

BTW...I am putting a Geometry / Actor Pak together right now with over
500 pieces in it..DOORS--- ARCHES---HALLWAYS---TUNNELS---BARRELS----BOXES
PILLARS---INSIDE WALLS-----CANYON WALLS--and on and on
all PRE-TEXTURED and ready to be added in as STATICMESHES and lit..
I will be offering them for sale soon..or in exchange
for scripting help in my game.

thx to all again

GAME ON

Wooper