.htaccess file

I don’t know if this is the right forum for this question, but here goes.

I’m building a music community for artists and bands, I have my register.php working, here’s what I’m trying to figure out.

when a member registers, say, as the artist Pigs and their id is 1 the url of their profile will be www.whatever.com/members/memberid=?1

I want it to be www.whatever.com/members/Pigs

now do I change this in the php writing to the server?, or do I do it through .htaccess?

and if someone could point me to the info to do it, or tell me what to do, I would appreciate it.

oh, never mind, I figured it out