Custom Props Made Easy (Sort Of)

Here are a couple of ways that you can create your own props without having any special equipment or talent. Maybe you could call these tips "cheats." Essentially, they are ways in which you can "touch up" props that have already been created

If you want to save work, there is nothing to prevent you from using the same prop image for all four rotations (see "composing the .met file," below).

Since there are a lot of tricky things to learn about making your own props. the easiest way to get started is to begin by editing props that you know already work.

Copying Images

If you look in the
\SimCity 3000 Unlimited\Apps\BACustom\Props directory, you'll find a handful of files that you can work with. You may also try copying some of the props installed with the game
(in \SimCity 3000 Unlimited\Apps\Res\BA\PROPS).
WARNING: Do NOT edit the files in these directories. Copy them to \SimCity 3000 Unlimited\Apps\BACustom\Props first and RENAME THEM.

Editing Images

You can edit these .bmp images in any image editor, such as the Paint program that comes as a Windows accessory. You can change just about anything in the image that you please, but if you try to enlarge the image, it may become to big for BA Plus to read properly. Also, you want to make sure that the pink areas don't discolor, even slightly. This may give you pink "halos" around your prop when you look at it in BA Plus.

When you have the prop as you want it, please follow the directions under "the BA Prop format" to get the prop into BA Plus.

Clip From The Game

Another approach would be to take some screen shots of your SimCity and clip out the objects you like to make them into props (flying saucer? Ferris wheel? Statue of Liberty).

Snapshot

The SimCity 3000 snapshot tool can work, but it compresses the image and makes objects' edges blurry. We recommend using the "Print Screen" button on your keyboard (which copies the current screen to the clipboard), and then "paste" into a new image file.

Scale

Be aware that anything shown in the game at the closest zoom is still only half the size as it would be as a prop. If you want the object to keep its true scale, be sure to "Print Screen" at the closest zoom, and then scale it 200% in your image editor.

Cropping

Next, you should crop the image to include just the object that you want to make a prop. One way would be to paint in every pixel in the image that is NOT a part of the object - the background - in pink (RGB 255,0,255). Avoid painting "blends" which will leave a bunch of almost pink pixels around your object; these will look like pink "halos" when you load your prop into BA Plus.

Perhaps a better way would be to use the "lasso tool" to select the object by its irregular shape, copy it, and then paste it into an appropriate template file (see below). Then you may continue to clean up the rough edges by erasing or painting that pink color a pixel at a time.

The BA Prop Format

BA Plus needs to have props formatted in very specific ways in order for them to work properly when placed on a BA model and rotated. Be sure to follow these specifications carefully to prepare your rendered images for BA Plus.

Choosing Image File Templates

Imagine your prop being packaged inside a large box comprised entirely of BA blocks. A bicycle, for instance, would probably fit inside one block (one block is approximately 2 meters cubed). A car might require a box 2 blocks wide, 3 blocks long, and 2 blocks tall: 2x3x2. A stairway might be 1 block wide, 2 blocks long, and 3 blocks tall: 1x2x3. Understanding the size of your prop will help you to pick the right prop template file.
[For technical reasons, the horizontal dimensions of these "boxes" must be odd numbers, so the 2x3x1 box for the car would have to go to a larger-sized box - 3x3x1. The stair would need to use a box that is 1x3x3.]
So, now you can choose the template that fits your prop (from the files downloadable here). Try opening one in an image editing program, say, the 1x3x3 template for the stair we've discussed. You will see the outlines of a 1x3x3 box are already drawn in this file. If you pasted an image of a stair in here, it would run from the top left to the bottom right. But what if you rotated the image 90 degrees? For long props like this, you will also have to use the symmetrical template file 3x1x3.

Aligning Your Prop Images

Now, you should use your image editing program to copy the rendered prop images into the template files. It will help if you copy only the prop and not the background, so that when you paste the image you can see the box outlines of the template.

After you've pasted the image in, move it around so that it fits cleanly within the box outline. Any parts that fall outside the box will not be shown in the BA. Be sure that it sits at the bottom of the box, as it would sit if it were in a real box - not too close to the front edges, but centered in the base of it. (You might need some practice to properly visualize this!)

Now, paint over the box outlines using the pink color - RGB 255,0,255. If you are working in layers, then flatten the image and save it as a .bmp file.

Repeat this for the three other images you rendered, saving each one with a different name (preferably numbered, such as "prop1.bmp, prop2.bmp, prop3.bmp, and prop4.bmp). If your object is something symmetrical, like a column, you may only have to include two images (since they would be identical to the last two).

A long stair alternating between 3x1x3 and 1x3x3 templates.

Try very hard to imagine the object sitting in the same box, viewed from all four angles. If you are doing something long and narrow, like stairs, you'll need to use the second, symmetrical template file for every other image.

One final tip: If you are placing an image such as the car in the 3x3x1 template (as mentioned above), but it doesn't really need all that room, you might try aligning it off-center to one side - leaving those unneeded sections of the block remain empty. This will help if you want to place your props closer together.

Four rotations of a car within a 3x3x1 template.

When you are finished creating and aligning your prop images, be sure to save them in the \SimCity 3000 Unlimited\Apps\BACustom\Props directory.

Composing The .met File

All props need a .met file (short for "metric file") to tell them how to be used by the BA. Each prop can have its own .met file, or you can put all .met data into one .met file. That's your choice. You just need to be sure that the .met file is in the same directory as your prop image files. Use a basic text editor such as Notepad to write your .met files.

Each line in the .met file is the instruction to apply to each prop image file. For example, let's say that prop1.bmp is a stair that used the 1x3x3 template and that you've also created prop2.bmp, prop3.bmp, and prop4.bmp for each of the rotations of that stair. The first line of your .met file should say this:
1,3,3:"prop1.bmp","prop2.bmp","prop3.bmp","prop4.bmp"

The first three numbers identify the template file used to create prop1.bmp - the first mentioned image file in the .met line. The three other image files on the line refer to the rotations of the first image file, in order of counter-clockwise rotation.

The second line of your .met file would read like this:

3,1,3:"prop2.bmp","prop3.bmp","prop4.bmp","prop1.bmp"

All the same ideas apply here as in the first line. The template file for prop2.bmp was 3x1x3 because the stairs were long and narrow and rotating 90 degrees would require the box to orient the other direction. Also, the sequence of rotations has shifted on, prop3.bmp the next rotation counter-clockwise after prop2.bmp, and so on. Starting to get it now? The entire .met file for this stair should read:

1,3,3:"prop1.bmp","prop2.bmp","prop3.bmp","prop4.bmp"

3,1,3:"prop2.bmp","prop3.bmp","prop4.bmp","prop1.bmp"

1,3,3:"prop3.bmp","prop4.bmp","prop1.bmp","prop2.bmp"

3,1,3:"prop4.bmp","prop1.bmp","prop2.bmp","prop3.bmp"

Save the .met file as any name you like, but with ".met" at the end. Be sure that this file and all the image files you have used are in the \SimCity 3000 Unlimited\Apps\BACustom\Props directory (or in a subdirectory within it). Restart the BA, go to Props mode and select "custom" in the pull down menu, and there you should see the fruits of your labor!

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