A Simple Equity Tutorial

[bernie]

A simple tutorial showing how Equity can build a Static actor from a 3ds file and change the texture if you should find the need. Brought to you by Team Equity (bernie & hgtterry).

[harrybish]

im having problems with equity. i realised i had no idea how to use it so i went to follow this tutorial but my copy looks completely different to this which makes this tutorial hard to follow. Also, it is constantly crashing and using an extraordinary amount of CPU.

Here's what my version looks like...



is this the right one? as you can tell i literally have no idea what im doing so if someone can just give me a slap in the face and tell me everything will be fine it would be much obliged.

[harrybish]

ok well i've tried this version of Equity on 3 different computers now and it fails everytime. Can someone point me to a working version? this one is 6.1.1

[bernie]

That tutorial was written for a very old version of Equity v 5.0.2 the current version is v6.1.1 using a completely different interface. However the princple is exactly the same.
From your picture it has not loaded the texture so, make sure the textures are in the same folder as the 3ds file and that the texture size is a power of 2 in both directions eg 126x126, 512x512, 1024x1024 etc. If you have changed the position or orientation (you are in the change position dialog there and the file has changed indicated by the red folder) you need to return to the main page by pressing the return button before you try to save it. I don't unederstand why you are having crashing problems at all. I use it all the time on win2k sp4, XP sp3 and Vista with no problems. I do recognise the model as a free one from 3drt and I do know that that model has problems but that shouldn't cause crashes

[harrybish]

hi, yeah with a bit of playing about i managed to figure out how to get the textures and whatnot. the model in the picture is the only one that doesnt seem to crash equity, i've tried it on both my laptop and my PC as well as my friends laptop which is here, all 3 are pretty decent computers yet it keeps crashing and when i open up my task list it says its using 99% of the CPU usage, which I know cant be good.

I'm going to try and redownload it and see if that makes a difference, if not then i'm going to have to find another program to convert my models, which will suck seeing as everyone keeps recommending Equity

[Jay]

Don't worry about the 99%, computer games do that to your computer too.

[megatop]

hi im haveing trouble opening equity. when i download it and try to open it it says to run this program extract other programs. what do they mean and how do i open equity

[bernie]

If you dont know about zip files how do you expect to be able to make games.

Before you do anything else Download and READ the free e-book. That explains in great detail how to make games with RF.
http://www.realityfactory.info/cms/inde ... umentation
You will discover that that is a zip file too.

Extract the contents of the zip file to a folder on your desktop and run the extracted file.

Do the same with the Equity Zip file
Import your model into Equity and save the act file to your actors folder in RF.

[megatop]

thx for the help but the manual is a little confuseing for me

[megatop]

i opened equity and i saved my other model as a .obj file but equity wont let me open it

[Nighthawk_0973]

that's because the new version of equity seems to error out when importing .obj files. You can take the .obj and import it with the new stable version of blender. Use blender to export to .3ds. .3ds has worked for me with equity.

If you dont know about zip files how do you expect to be able to make games.

Before you do anything else Download and READ the free e-book. That explains in great detail how to make games with RF.
http://www.realityfactory.info/cms/inde ... umentation
You will discover that that is a zip file too.

Extract the contents of the zip file to a folder on your desktop and run the extracted file.

Do the same with the Equity Zip file
Import your model into Equity and save the act file to your actors folder in RF.

lol. He's right you need to know about a lot of computer things such as .zip files, standard image files, standard 3D model files, and other stuff. Or at least your team members combine should know about it... (the artist would know about the 3D models and images, web designer would know about the HTML files...)

[bernie]

The problem with obj files is nobody seems to stick with the standard wavefront format, so some models load and some don't. Best to export from ac3d in 3ds format but bear in mind that the 3ds format does not support a skeleton. If you want to animate your model made in ac3d then you need to export from that in ogre mesh/skeleton format without using weighted vertices and import that into Equity. Again this can be a bit risky because of other issues and not every mesh/skeleton file can be imported into Equity, although most can. The thing is so many people try to use modelling programs without considering what formats they will export. It might be great program you use, but its useless if you can't use the model you created.
We gave you the simple answer, Milkshape is the easiest to use and exports formats that can be used with RF. Blender is the cheapest as its free but does not export formats that RF can use. Milkshape is only $35 and does everything you need to do for RF1, RF2, GD and many more game engines, it is also probably the easiest to use as well and there is no shortage of tutorials on the net and Youtube. Gmax can also be used for RF and is free, but it is a lot more difficult to learn and use.

[megatop]

well with ac3d i can save it to milkshape also when i open equity its not equity its different. how do i start it up properly

[bernie]

According to their website AC3d does NOT export milkshape ms3d files it exports milkshape ascii files which are not the same thing at all, they are text files, Milkshape .ms3d files are binary files. I will also point out what I said in another post Equity does not import animation from the ms3d file it only imports the mesh, skeleton and textures. The animations have to be imported from mot or smd files which can be exported separately from Milkshape. Looking at the export formats of ac3d you can't really use it to make animated actors for RF1 as it only exports ogre mesh files, it does not export ogre skeleton files. There is no way of getting animation from ac3d to Equity or RF1. You can export static models in 3ds format, Equity will import those.

[hgt_terry]

Had a quick look at AC3D and cant see that it can make any skeletal animations at all and there is no free version is a trial and to buy it costs $89.95.

where as MilkShape costs $35 and can do full skeletal animations and has a wealth of tuturials on the web.

So realy its a no brainer.

So take Bernies advice its good advice.

Terry