Spring RTS Engine

What program(s) should I get, where do you get them, and how do you start?

Well... there is a FAQ-like tutorial/link to list of tutorials/ thingy in the wiki...

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Create_units , but that part of the wiki seems to be broken for me at this moment.

I keep trying to figure it out myself but I can't figure it out... it's a rediculousely complicated process that I'm hopeing will be simplified with the New Model Format, SYs keep promissing because I can't imagine it being nearly as the old way... people who have made units successfully seem to think it's pretty easy.

Anything is easy with five years of experience under your belt

Alright I got Rhino 3d design program, 3DO 2.1+, the 2 HPI programs, and scriptor.

I made a model of the unit in Rhino using "surfaces," and I saved it as a .lwo file (3DO+ wont import the default type that Rhino saves). 3DO will import the object (it's a simple laser tower) but it appears as a single point on the grid. I made the turret 5x5x17 units in volume, and even at the biggest zoom in 3DO it appears as a single point.

So I tried making it out of "solids" in Rhino, and now 3DO+ gives it TONS of vertices, so the textures look like crap. Merging the vertices does not work either. Should I use a different program than Rhino to make the models?

Is there a way to actually create the unit in 3DO+ without using a design program and importing?

Do you have to do anything special in Rhino or 3DO+ for the "hinged" parts? Like the turret barrel roates and moves up/down or the arms on kbots move back and forth as they walk?

The scripting part seems pretty simple - just make an FBI file and type in all the variables?

Scripting is unrelated to the FBI. Scripts contain animation information, FBI is the unit definition file. FBI and TDF files are indeed easy, for they are just plain text and are easily readable.

As for modelling in Rhino, there's a particular method you must follow. I recommend reading this tutorial: http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=28
It was written using Rhino 1.1, but it's not too much different in Rhino 2 and 3.

You can use just 3do builder to build models, but you must use version 2.1 (which is buggy as hell, especially on NT-based windows), you must create each face individually, and you must set the vertex location for every single vertex of every single face on the model manually. Long story short, it's a pain in the ass and not recommended.

As for "hinged" parts, well, I think that tutorial I linked to covers, or at least touches up on that. Basically, when you export the model from Rhino or whatever program you use, you do not export it as one piece. Instead you export many pieces. Open the Commander to see what I mean. There is a distinct parent-child hierarchy of pieces in the 3do, with stuff like "lshould" and "rshould" being child objects of "torso", while having child objects of their own in the form of "llowarm" and "rlowarm" or whatever the names are.

Those names and their parent-child relationships are then used in the script, which defines how a unit moves and when. For example, if you wanted to make a kbot walk, you'd have him turning his thigh pieces back and forth on the x-axis in the Walk() function. You could also articulate it more and make him move his lower legs at a knee joint at the same time, to give a smoother and more natural walking appearance. The same basically applies to any animation you do in the script, and honestly there's no simple way to learn it other than to look at others' work and learn from it.

Alright I just downloaded Wings3D, because somehwere on this site it said Wings3D was also being implemented instead of Rhino. It is incredibly easy and powerful, almost as much as AutoCAD. How do you change the Wings default file type (*.wings) into something 3DO+ can read (*.lwo etc...)?

I think it can export as dxf, which 3dob can import. I don't know really, I haven't really used that program.

Export as .obj form Wings3D, they can be imported to 3DO.

I import Wings3D files as *.obj, and SOME faces are missing. Inverse face does not do anything.