Getting milkshape material into TGE?

#1 What problems are you having exactly?

Exporting from Milkshape using the dts plus exporter is simplicity itself.


Step 1, make you model and texture it (Prefer ultimate Unwrap 3D personally for uvw mapping but it's not free)

Step 2, in the exporter, click on each of the materials and set up which attributes you want to use.. Transparency, Additive or subtractive blending.. Environment mapping strength

Step 3, Export your model to dts.

Step 4, Copy the dts along with all of the texture maps you assigned to the mesh into the relevant sub directory off of your data/shapes directory.

That's it really.

If you're having problems with transparency not showing up then check the alpha channel of your texture.
If your meshes are not appearing as they should, i.e. invisible.. Check that the group name isn't something like cylinder1.. the 1 is used to determine the LOD level.. best stick to 0 for the time being.
If your environment mapping is not appearing, check you have environment mapping enabled. This can be disabled on an object by object basis, so it can catch you unawares if you're not looking out for the setting... look for emap=false; in the datablock for your shape... if in doubt, set emap=true;

I use milkshape all the time. So if you have a specific problem, I might be able to help.

#2 I did up a basic tut for a billboard tree/bush and also alpha textures located over here in this post that may also help a bit .

www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=30515

#3 @Allan Stewart - that was an awesome tutorial!

#4 Thanks everyone for the quick responces. I got it working now. Thanks for the steps Jason. I was not exporting the materials corectly. And that is an awesome tutorial Allan!!

#5 Excellent tutorial Allan, there needs to be more tutorials like this for Milkshape.

#6 WOW I got one really beautiful tree. A couple of the other trees seem to have a grey edge around the textures. Is there a way to clean that up or did I screw something up?

#7 Ashley... are you using .PNG for your billboards/ leaves?

If so, my guess would be that your alpha channel is the culprit... if you are creating your leaves on transparent backgrounds, and then softening the edges before exporting to PNG, you can get unwanted outlines like that.

#8 Ok that did it. Thanks Kirby.