What Is iProp?
iProp is an ImmunityCS module (program) that gives you a really cool way of designing props for your games / multimedia projects. It allows you to build your prop from a template called a "Prop Class" - for example, from the Inn displayed above. But by the time you're finished designing it, it could be anything of a similar shape, such as a hall, a tavern, or even something futuristic! .. Whatever you can imagine is possible to implement!
When you've finished exporting the final result, you are left with a prop comprised of animations, including a seperately handled door (or opening) animation, shadows, transparency, and layers for use in a 2D workflow (Alternatively, you can export the prop in a variety of 3D formats!)
Appearance Mode
In the screen above (Appearance Mode) you use the customizations to create a texture map for the prop. A texture map is a 2D image that is wrapped around the prop to illustrate it's details.
Other than designing the base texture, you also have lots more control! You can affect it's mesh (the 3D body) by choosing slightly different Mesh Styles or using the new Mesh Modifier!The Mesh modifier lets you change the shape of the mesh by making it thinner, wider, taller or shorter.
This allows you to use the same Prop Class over and over again and make slight changes to the mesh so they don't look similar when placed next to each other.
Another cool feature is dynamic shadows! iProp allows you to create your own dynamic shadows using an accurate 3D algorithm. The shadows even follow the animations of the actual prop!
( NOTE: Mesh Modifiers and Dynamic Shadows are also being implemented into iCast 1.5 so you can modify characters in the same way! )
You can also apply environments (lighting) which is now a shared library. Any lights created in iCast or iProp are available between modules.
When you've finished setting up the appearance of your prop, you can move on to Preview mode.
Preview Mode
Preview Mode allows you to inspect your Prop by offering you full 3D rotation on the left side of the interface, and a scrollable display of your final texture on the right. From this mode, you can export your texture map (and or UV map) into a graphics program such as photoshop to change the texture or create entirely new ones from scratch! All you need to do is paint over the original, and import the texture back into iProp! This gives you pixel perfect control over your textures!
Layer Mode
Layer Mode is the biggest difference between iProp and iCast. iProp has replaced the "Portrait Mode" with "Layer Mode" to allow you to define how the prop should be displayed in your game / project. This is especially true for isometric based projects (if you are working in top down or side view, you can skip this mode if preferred).The idea is to draw a polygon to represent which part of the prop should be drawn on top of characters and other parts of your game / multimedia project. The second part involves you to simply draw a square to confine and optimize a "Door" animation.
Export Mode
So that's it! Once we've finished the design of the prop and set it up with Layer Mode, we're ready to export it. With 3D, we simply choose a file format and click the Export button. If we're working with 2D, we choose how many frames we want our animation to have (8, 12, or 16) and then we click export.
The iProp 2D exporter is a very complex program that creates all the frames of your animation at a resolution of 900x900 and adds the shadows and transparancy to each of the frames. It then creates your layers (from Layer Mode) and also creates your Door animations if you've set it up. Finally, all your images are optimized and cropped before making them available to iScape and other exporters.
And here's what the final prop looks like in iScape:
.. It's never been this easy to design props -iProp even takes care of the technical side for you too!
Hope you guys are looking forward to this as much as we are!
-Mel ;)
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