I've recently begun creating custom characters and entities for my FPSC game. Getting a program for entity making was easy *Cough*
Entity maker *Cough cough... But character making was a bit more difficult. I decided to share with the FPSC community an list of freeware and shareware programs that I found to save other new comers the trouble:
Milkshape - Most if not all of you know this one already. Milkshape is the center piece of your character making arsenal. Though it isn't as flashy as 3D Studio Max, it's also several hundred dollars cheaper and it gets the job done.
Ultimate Unwrap 3D - A program that allows you to uv map your characters after you've made them in Milkshape. It's also useful to export your .ms3d files as .x files. Demo's are available, but it will cost roughly 60 dollars for the whole thing. Again, when compared to the hundreds of dollars the high end programs cost, this is a good buy.
GIMP- A completely free photo editing program that is almost on par with adobe photoshop. There is no trial period or full version to worry about. The only catch is that you need to download a
.dds plugin to open fpsc files. Also, a
.dds to .tga converter is need to apply textures to models.
CharacterFX - This program will let you add a skeleton to your character and animate him. This program has a 30 day trial, just like the rest, but is the cheapest buy at only $15!
Tutorials:
Psionic3D's low poly tutorials: Great tuts for beginners. It's also where I learned about a few of the programs listed above. Step by step instructions on how to build a character using a zombie as an example. The zombie can be downloaded for free so you can see the finished product.
CS Girl tutorial: A huge step by step tut on how to create a character for Counter Strike using only Milkshape. (For those of you who are as mentally inept as I am, there is a button at the bottom that takes you through the tut and you don't need to use the mirrors. Took me 15 minutes to figure that out
)
Hope this helps anyone starting out making characters.
~Cirka88~
