Milkshape lesson 4G - Importing the Model you made into Reality Factory

Index to all 30 lessons in this Milkshape tutorial   You made a model and now you have to get it into your game making software so you can use it in your game. Here are the steps for taking a milkshape model and getting it into Reality factory.

Importing your model into Reality Factory

There are lots of different game making programs and lots of different modeling software programs. And one of the little challenges that comes along with this is the challenge of compatibility. But this is easy to overcome with Milkshape 3d and Reality Factory because they go together pretty well.

Reality Factory uses a format for its models called actor. These models are saved with the .act extension. So we have to change our model into a .act and put it and its supporting materials in the right place.

Transforming your model into a .act file

Along with Reality factory is a tool called astudio. This manipulates model files and this is what will make your model a .act

Step 1: Pull down the File Menu, Select "Export" then select "Genesis 3D BDY..."

Give your project a name and push the "Save" button.

Step 2: Now we need to use Astudio

Astudio is a bit tricky to find. There is no desktop icon for it and there is no menu item when you browse to Reality Factory. You have to find the start icon for Astudion in your program files.

Use Windows explorer to explore your hard drive. Astudio is in the tools folder of reality factory and the icon should look like this:

If you used the default installation for Reality Factory the browse path should be: C:\RealityFactory\tools

Double click that astudio icon and the astudio program comes up.

a. Pull down File and select New
b. type the name you want to give your model into the project name box and click ok
c. click on the body tab and select genesis3d body(.bdy).
d. click the Browse tab and goto THE TOOLS folder where you exported your genesis .bdy file and select it.
e. you should now see your .bdy file come up in the file name window of astudio
f. Click on the paths tab and where it says materials directory type in c:\Reality Factory\tools and press the build button.
g.The model has been imported into Reality Factory

Getting the Model into your level

7. There are a couple of ways To get a .act file into your level.

1. copy the .act file from the tools folder and paste it into to the actors folder in r.f
place a staticentityproxy into your level and where is says szActorFile type in the name of the .act file from the tools folder
compile your level and your model should be there!

To see the entity attributes click on brush select then click on the staticentityproxy you created. The Attributes box comes up on the right of the workspace.

This szActor file type is a property in the Entity Attributes box. You select the entity you created and inspect the attributes. The szActorFile line item is down low so you may have to use the scroll bar to find it. This line is where you enter the name of your model.

2.You can also copy the .act file from the tools folder and paste it into to the actors folder in r.f and
place a pawn into your level.

Let's do some animation now