Creating Custom Props For BA Plus

So, you are interested in creating custom props for the Building Architect? Great! The props feature is a very powerful and flexible way to enhance your building, making ANYTHING possible. All you'll need is a basic graphics editing program and a lot of patience and willpower - creating good props is not easy!

What Is A Prop?

Props, as you know from the BA Plus, are objects that you can place around your BA block constructions. They have infinitely more detail than block buildings, and you can see them from all sides.

Quick Start

Actually, props are simply sets of flat images - usually called "sprites" - and by specifying a series of images you can give the illusion of rotating them. To create a prop, you need to create an image of the object from four positions and then create a special text file - called a .met file - for defining the prop's attributes.

Three Approaches

These tips give you three ways that you might go about creating custom props.

• The easiest way would be to take SimCity 3000 Unlimited snapshots and crop the items you want to use a BA Plus props in an image editor. This approach will be limited to what already appears in the game but there is plenty to choose from there.
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• You can also paint your own from scratch, or modifying images copied from elsewhere. This is the most flexible yet probably the most difficult method from making custom props. I hope you are an artist!
  Creating Custom Props 3
• The way we at Maxis make props is to use a 3D modeling tool. We simply render the model from the correct angles in the right lighting and we are guaranteed to get a prop that looks like it belongs in the game.
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The articles above make reference to a template file which can be downloaded here. Template Zip File - 101k

The .bld File

One final word about custom props in the BA: Like all custom art on buildings, including paints and details, custom props images are saved in the actual building .bld file. This is so that others can use your building with your props after downloading it from the Building Exchange. Therefore, when you apply custom props to a building, the file size of the building .bld file starts to quickly grow, and it may get really large if you start to use a lot of custom props. So don't be surprised if you one day find yourself dealing with mega-byte sized buildings!

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