By Jered
Date Created: 5/23/2002
This is teaches you how to create prefabs. First off, Prefab stands for Prefabricated object. These objects are usually furniture, be it desks, chairs, lamps or otherwise. First off are some rules for creating prefabs. Number One: It can only contain geometry. No objects from the classes menu or lights. That's about it I believe. But watch out for glitches with movers. Its best to package a prefab mover as a normal brush then telling the end user what to animate. Now, the first step to creating a prefab is creating the object it self. Create it several feet above the ground and away for anything else. It will cause problems if you don’t. Also, start simple. My first prefab was a stool and so bad that I would be kicked off of the staff. It was basically 4 cubes with a flat thing on top. That’s it. Nothing more. So start simple.
After you create your actual prefab, with texturing and making sure everything's lined up, use the cube tool and make the red box encompass your entire object. Make sure that it encloses in everything, but touches nothing else. This is why we needed to have it several feet off of the ground. Now click the ‘Select All actors in brush’ tool on the right sidebar. The icon looks like this: . When you click it, all of the separate parts of your prefab should light up, indicating them as all being selected at once. Next you need to intersect them to meld them all into one. To do this click the ‘Brush Intersection’ button that looks like this: Now all of your object should be outlined in red wire. Now you have a single object that moves as a whole. Now to save it. Now the last step is to export it so you can release it to the rest of the editing world for them to use. To export your object, go to ‘Brush -> Export’ This will bring up a window. Just type in your filename and save in the desired directory. Now it is a good idea to try and load the prefab and test it before releasing it. To load a prefab and use it go to ‘Brush -> Import’ and import the file you want. Its that easy!
"Give us the Tools, and we will build worlds" ~ Jered
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