texturing actors

scott · Post by **scott** » Sat May 06, 2006 10:18 pm

i have just learnt how to import my 3d models from milkshape into .act file format and into RfeditPro.

im now trying to het a texture i had put on the model in milkshape to show in my game but have faild, i have also spent the last hour and a half searching through the forum and other various sites and didnt notice anything useful, i also looked at the docs and found the tuturial that exported from gmax to .act using AStudio, i put the file path of the texture and it still didnt show in my game, and that gave you the option to load only one texture file, does this mean that you need to uv map models aswel?

scott · Post by **scott** » Sun May 07, 2006 6:33 pm

mabe i was a bit confusing in the post above so im sorry, im going to try and explain it a bit better and simpler, how do u get textures into a .act file using Astudio?

i have been trying all day and still havnt had any luck with it.

Coty · Post by **Coty** » Sun May 07, 2006 10:51 pm

In Milkshape, select the group you want to texture. Under Materials, create a new material, or assign an existing material to the group. Browse to the filename of the texture for the material and assign it. It will export with the texture in the bdy file, and should show up in Actview textured after compiling into an actor with AStudio.

That's how I remember it...

Oh yea, YES, you will need to have some UV coordinates made also. This is a must for any model.

scott · Post by **scott** » Mon May 08, 2006 12:54 am

i have created 3 items just for a test, a ball a cylinder and a cube, i have just put a differetn texture on each and have saved the file as bdy, when i go and use Astudio i convert it by putting the new name of the file to be created in, then going and searching for the existing .act file to be converted and then build.

i then insert this into a staticmesh entity and when i go and preview my level they show up as grey.

Coty · Post by **Coty** » Mon May 08, 2006 3:39 am

If you keep using the same filename.bdy, delete the filename.bdy in the tempBuild folder of AStudio to be sure AStudio doesn't use the old one instead. Also, to see if the bdy has the texture in it, check the filesize of the bdy file. With a 49k texture and a 2 k model that might be something like 40k. But if the bdy is only like 2 k, it doesn't have the texture included. It wasn't assigned in Milkshape before exporting.

Check the model in ActView or some other model viewer to see if it is textured. If it is, then it has to be some setting in The World Editor. I know nothing about the world editor.

If I'm not mistaken, RF requires the model to be textured and all the vertices assigned to a joint. I'm sure someone here will correct me if that's wrong!

Thats all I can think of...

Oh, and the textures must conform to DX7, which is squares in the power of 2, like 64x64, 128x128, 256x256 etc... And RF may have a restriction on the file types too. I would try bmp. Search another thread for the specs. to be sure though, but I believe bmp is accepted.

animatrix · Post by **animatrix** » Mon May 08, 2006 5:12 am

in milkshape make sure all textures and .bdy and ms3d files for your object are in the same folder, once exported to bdy it should be fine, also make sure the material names are not the same, like material01 and mateial01, milkshape does this sometimes when adding another material.

scott · Post by **scott** » Tue May 09, 2006 9:21 pm

thanx for all your help, i seem to of gone a bit further as the actual file size looks more right but every time i try to view it in Actview it comes up with the error message enginebeginframe faild. now im using a simple shere with one large 512x512 .bmp image, so i dont know about the sizes with actors but i used the same criteria that needed to be used when puting a texture in on a .bsp wall.

any help as i seem to be getting closer but still not there.

it seemed to clear the temp folder that done the trick i then added a joint but that didnt do any different.

also when i view it in RFeditpro the game crashes and goes back to the editor with no error message or anything.

scott · Post by **scott** » Wed May 17, 2006 7:37 pm

any help please, it seems so close and yet so far and its probably something simple.

hike1 · Post by **hike1** » Thu May 18, 2006 3:10 am

http://terrymorgan.net/rffaq.zip

There's also a link to a Milkshape tutorial by Sonny Schade in the FAQ and also on the dhost.info download page.

jonas · Post by **jonas** » Thu May 18, 2006 12:33 pm

Here's the tutorial hike1 is talking about.
http://www.realityfactory.info/cms/inde ... -texturing

Here is a bunch of tutorials there is a section on texturing.
http://www.realityfactory.ca/polygods.com/tut_cat.html

scott · Post by **scott** » Thu May 18, 2006 3:43 pm

i had looked at those sites before and wasnt any help, so what i will do is describe the process that i am using and that way you can point me where i am going wrong.

1. create model in milkshape.
2.select "group" to assign texture to
3. create texture within milkshape ready to put on model
4. asign texture to group
5. export model to Genisis#D .bdy file format
5. copy new file to realityfactory folder in tools ready for conversion.
6. open AStudio
7. file > new.
8. project name "test"
9. click body tab, select genesis3d bdy file option
10. search for file
11. open file.
12. click paths tab
13. put folder directory where textures are. (same place as the bdy file)
14.click build.
15.build complete.

then i open it up in ActView and the error mentiond above apeard.

jonas · Post by **jonas** » Thu May 18, 2006 4:46 pm

ok your material must be in the same folder as the 3d file when you goto build the actor. Did you do that before?

scott · Post by **scott** » Thu May 18, 2006 7:55 pm

i moved all textures to a folder within the RF tools folder, and saved the .bdy file to the same location, the .act file created suggests that it has the textures by its file size of 700kb as i used a 512x512 .bmp texture

disscombobilated · Post by **disscombobilated** » Thu May 18, 2006 8:09 pm

when i make a actor, I put everything in one folder: .bmp, .bdy, any .mot(s) and a copy of actorstudio. I uncheck "use project directory" then browse for the .bdy, then in the materials directory blank, i put simply ".\"without the quotes. no material name, then build, and it works fine. another thing, ive never been able to view an actor in actor studio by clicking on the actor and then browsing to actor viewer. i always get a error. the only way I can view can view an actor viewer on my machine is IN actor viewer, hitting open then browsing to the .act

Coty · Post by **Coty** » Fri May 19, 2006 3:29 am

I'm not sure about this, but I seem to remember something about an RF actor needing a joint and all vertices assigned to the joint (In Milkshape) before exporting. I see no mention of assigning the vertices to a joint in your list.

The bdy file holds the texture if it was assigned to the group in Milkshape, so there is no need to do anything about the material when creating the actor in AStudio. All you have to do is create a new project and browse to the bdy file, then BUILD.

It may be that you need to have the bdy file under the AStudio project, I'm not sure. But to be safe, just make a folder under the AStudio folder called actors or something. Put the bdy file in there. But the bdy file doesn't have to be in a spicific place, other than maybe in/under the AStudio project somewhere. All you are doing is changing the bdy file (with included material) into an actor file. I never used overriding materials in the AStudio options before though. You don't have to do that if the material is already included in the bdy file.

I also use viewer.exe because it seems to be better for viewing actors with skeleltons and materials, etc...