Make a Building for RA2
Submitted by ArgCmdr

Buildings in RA2 are 3D Studio Max Shape Files (*.SHP)conversions as in other many 2D with 3D perception game engines.
Original buildings were made in 3D Studio Max or similar programs, however most modders, thanks to a tool called XCC Mixer ( http://xcc.tiberian.com / http://xccu.sourceforge.net ) are able to compile and decompile SHPs into PCX files, editable with most image editors.
To make a building from scratch, you can take two ways, one make it in 3DS and use a script Flyby´s made (insert link here) or you can make a 2D wireframe and place textures (i make it this way and results are not bad).
Anotherway, is to make cut-n-paste buildings, new ones from parts of existing ones. For that you need top copy parts of the images of one building, and of another or several more in an image, and make all necessary frames (depends on what it will be used for, can have or not garrison frames, etc). Once u got all the frames and shadows made, check they are all in 8-bit image deepness (256 colors), being a ZSoft Picture file (*.pcx) and named as XXXX 0000.pcx , XXXX 0001.pcx, etc for the first second, etc frames.
Then open up XCC Mixer, select all these files (which name taking out the numeral bit must be the same) and right click. Select Copy as SHP(TS). There you have the building model.
One final note, all images in order to make an SHP file must be of the same size, or file wont compile

> Back to Tutorials