News:

Welcome to World of Banished!

Main Menu

Some ideas for mods and some questions about making mods

Started by tanypredator, May 09, 2016, 10:20:47 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

tanypredator

Hello! I like playing Banished and mods make it even better. But I still have several ideas that were not realised yet (or were realised in the other way from what I want), and I want to share them and to try making mods by myself. The problem is that I have never dealt with 3d-modelling and almost never - with programming. Some of this ideas must be very simple, like taking the part of someone other's mod (and this is were I hope for some advises for the beginner), some would require 3d-modeling and some are probably impossible - but maybe these may be realised in some alternative way. So here are my ideas listed in categories:

1) New animals
- dogs and cats
Would be a great addition. I see two ways of adding them. One is to make them like deers, but not huntable and with movement limited to occupied places - just for fun. Maybe a new ambient sound may be added to towns with barking and meowing. That would be pretty enough for cats, but not for dogs. To make dogs useful I thought of another way, which probably is impossible: to make them a new parallel race. To give them dog-houses and the need to eat proteins. To give them idling behavior of children. And to let them either work as hunters and herdsmen, or to work with them, increasing their productivity.

- new animals to hunt
As far as I can see, the only problem is to make models and animation. I would like to acquire these skills, but I am afraid it's not easy, becouse it is not done yet. Personally, I would like some game birds (wondering if they can fly) and maybe rabbits.

2) New plants
- wild plants
I would like to see new wild tree with a new model such as mountain ash or other high shrub with flowers and/or berries. Maybe make it to give both logs and berries. And flowers - I think of bushes with red flowers and small white or yellow flowers. They also may be used to make new "Decorative Items". One further idea that I have is to make little shrines to the gods of nature, producing flower decorations, encreasing happiness :). Another plant that I think about is some wild cereal to be gathered by gatherers (and busy workers). And the simpliest of what I want - to take reeds out of "beautifulworld" mod or to repeat them.

- new crops
I think about grapes and sunflowers. I know that these are already made in some big mod (Coloniel?), but I would like them alone, without changing game so much.

3) New behavior and such things
Must be most hard or even impossible. But maybe something may be done.
- The thing that I would like most of all - people to change clothes at winter! It is horrible to see them in their thin dresses in the snow forest. At least to change the color of clothes to grey, brown and black, pretending it is warm clothing.

- And trees to bloom for a month at spring and to be red and yellow for a longer period at fall! Doesn't it require only to make several new models and a simple time change?

- New idling tipes of behavior. For example the mod "Decorative Items" adds banches, but nobody will sit on it. And there are some other places to sit - docks, fences, ladders. Is it completely impossible? And to add tables to sit and drink ale :)


Maybe I have forgot something, but these are the most of my ideas. Now I have several stupid questions, because I tried to start with making mods, but have a problem at the very beginning.

- "Open a command prompt and change directory to the toolkit." That means I should:
Press Winkey+R to open the Run line and then enter "cmd" to open command prompt.
Then (I have read the forum :) ) "change directory to the toolkit. (C:\BanishedKit) by typing: cd banishedkit"? That is all? And I should press "Enter" after that, right?
"type and launch buildresources.bat" - means to type it in command prompt second to "cd banishedkit" and to press "Enter"?

- Would I be able to "open" someone other's mod to see its code, open its models in some 3d-editor? Or to open the game's own models?

tanypredator

Oh, and I have forgot something very important - building animation. I understend that it is probably impossible, because nobody have made it. But I can't understand, why? Trees are static objects (are they?), but they have animation - waving on the wind. What is the mechanism of them having it? Can't it be used to animate buildings?

kid1293

 :) Hi @tanypredator !

Many of your ideas are impossible to do with the modkit.
Some should be possible but we don't know all variables and their use.
It's like having a fantastic new world to discover but no map.

About your modkit questions - there are many ways to learn.
Read old forum threads and you will find valuable stuff in there.
Here's one:
http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?board=43.0
Try to get the code to small mods and overrides. Learn by experimenting
with something easy that is proven to work. Change a value - see what happens.
That's probably a bad advice to give but that is what I did.

The BuildResources.bat is pretty useless by it self, better just build the examples.
You can double-click on BuildExamples.bat if you just want to run it. This will close
the command-window after compiling. (If you get errors you probably should 'run cmd'
and have command-window open to see what happened in the code)
Now you have new files in BanishedKit/bin/WinData directory.
Copy them to Banished/WinData directory and you should see them in game menu.

When building a .pkm file the modkit creates two directories in each examples directory.
- in 'animal' directory there will be one 'bin' and one 'Build' directory. Just delete them.
- the same for each example.
They are used when packing the .pkm file and if you leave them there the program will not
create new files if you change something. So the next change will not be packed into your mod.

I have some small code in download.
http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;down=90

Which leaves the important answer. Without the code you can NOT change or look at models
or variables. That's why most mods are edited versions of the examples mods!

Don't forget: Ask, ask, ask if you want to know something. The answer is out there. ;)

tanypredator

Thank you very much, kid1293!

I have read that threads, but they are mostly about the next steps of making mods - I had a problem with just beginning. That is said in ReadMe:
"1. Copy the .pkg files from the game data directory to where ever the toolkit is located.
2. Open a command prompt and change directory to the toolkit. (C:\BanishedKit)
3. Run the batch file BuildResources.bat. This is going to take a few minutes.
4. If all goes well, all resources will be compiled to binary format and be placed in /bin/WinData."

I was as far as "1. Copy the .pkg files from the game data directory to where ever the toolkit is located. 2. Open a command prompt" :)) I'm a bit afraid to work in this command prompt, because I have a feeling that I can easily break my computer through it.

kid1293

You don't HAVE to open a cmd-window!
In windows you double-click the .bat file and it runs fine.
The only problem is that the window closes on exit so you can not
trace back and check if all is OK. But if the program runs and does not halt
and show an error - all is fine.

kid1293

I thought of you being new to modding and probably need some more detailed
explanation to what happens:

Something easy. Debug Menu.

It is already in the game but it is not visible form the start.
I make an override-file to make it visible.

First create a new directory in the BanishedKit directory.
You name it 'DebugMenu'. In that directory create another directory
named 'Game'.

Copy the 'Toolbar.rsc' from BanishedKit/resource/Game to your new directory.

Open Toolbar.rsc in your directory and scroll down to find -

     Toolbar debug : "base"   {  bool _visible = false;  ....more text...

Change the 'false' to 'true' and save the file.

In your DebugMenu directory you need a Package-file with directions
about name and resources. Here is my 'Package.rsc'

Quote
PackageFile DebugMenu
{
   String _name = "Debug Menu";
   String _author = "kid1293";
   String _description = "Banished override to show in-game debug menu";
   String _icon = "icon.png";
   int _userVersion = 1.0;

   // all files in resource directory
   String _includeList
   [
      "*"   
   ]
   
   // exclude package files, mod files, file used for building packages
   String _excludeList
   [
      "Package_*.crs"
      "*.pkg"
      "*.pkm"
   ]
}

ExternalList list
{
   External _resources
   [
      "Game/Toolbar.rsc:debug"
   ]
}

First the definition PackageFile with the name of your mod. You have to keep
that name in some other places too or you will have errors.
It basically tells your compiler to include all files in current directory.

Next section is ExternalList and this is where you tell what to compile.

I have written the place where you did your change to Toolbar.rsc.
I tell it to look only at the section 'debug' or else it will compile
the whole file and that can stop other peoples mods from their changes in
other sections.
(The first loaded mod in game menu with changes in the same section as
another mod (further down) is the only valid in the game)
Still wih me?
Next go make an icon. 48x48 pixels 24-bit png-format. (Don't know if .jpg works)
You can name it what you want, just write the same name in the package-file.

Now you should make a batch-file so you can compile your mod easiest way.
A lot to write and if you have to do it again, it is better to have it written.

Here is mine:
Quote
..\bin\x64\Tools-x64.exe /build Package.rsc:list /pathres ../DebugMenu /pathdat ../DebugMenu/bin
..\bin\x64\Tools-x64.exe /mod Package.rsc:DebugMenu /pathres ../DebugMenu /pathdat ../DebugMenu/bin

If you are running on a 32-bit machine you have to change all 64 to 32.

First line builds the parts of the mod. You see it looks in 'Package.rsc' in the section 'list'
('ExternalList' is not a name, it is a function) for parts to include.
Then it tells base directory for those files, and where to put the compiled code

Next line actually packs the mod from the parts done in the first line.
Here the name have to be exactly letter by letter what you have in the PackageFile. It is easy to
forget capital letters when writing a lot of code. (In this case 'DebugMenu')

Save the batch file as Build.bat and you are ready to double-click it and see what happens.
No problems I hope.

This is as detailed as I can do it.

When doing a lot of mods it easiest to just copy 'Build.bat' and Package.rsc'
and change the names inside them to suit each new mod.

Here are the source files if you want to check:

tanypredator

kid1293, that's really great, thank you!

It is confusing that I don't need to follow the instructions given by the author of the game.

I'm sorry, but I still can't get to it. I hope I understood right that the place for new directory "DebugMenu" is like (\BanishedKit_1.0.4.141123\DebugMenu), not in "bin".

So, I copied the Toolbar.rsc there, but I can't run it - I don't know with which application I should run it (and my computer don't know it too).

tanypredator

And as I can see this "In your DebugMenu directory you need a Package-file with directions
about name and resources. Here is my 'Package.rsc'" means that I should create a new .rsc file and again to open it and write the following code there. I'm sorry to be such a noob, but I don't know also how to create .rsc files :(

RedKetchup

hello !

sorry if i dont have the time presently to answer all your questions but i ll answer them later. i just wanted to pop and say :
dont make a folder called : \BanishedKit_1.0.4.141123\DebugMenu

the game doesnt like the underscores and the dots because they can mean something else in the code. use \BanishedKit\ instead or you can get weird errors at some point.

i rarely use cmd prompt, i only double click the .bat files.
> > > Support Mods Creation developments with Donations by Paypal  < < <
Click here to Donate by PayPal .

tanypredator

RedKetchup, thank you. It was just the name of the BanishedKit file that I downloaded from the official web-site. I'll remember your advice.

kid1293

If you want to check you can download the code in my last message.
There I have written all you need.
Thanks RedKetchup for clarifying.

The root folder is called BanishedKit
Your mod folder is called DebugMenu.
You should be able to run it from there.

tanypredator

Oh, wow. I could open this .rsc like .txt with, well... notepad? Not sure in its english name. Only I'm still not sure about creating a new .rsc, but I probably can make a copy of some other .rsc and change it.

RedKetchup

1) New animals

any new animals are always very welcomed :) and everyone wish there are alot more. it is very very complicated to make animals and their animations. i made tons of things but i never could learn and understand how to do animal, their bone rig, and their animations.

animals can only be : wild (wandering) or domestical (in pastures). we cannot make a wild one that can be not huntable. the moddkit is very weak and doesnt allow to do lot of things. we cant change the game mechanics (like make a wild not huntable)
we cannot make a new race, nor giving them an house (house like citizens) and make them eat

but you can make a mini pasture like 1x1 or 1x2 and draw a dog house and a bowl... and the animal would stay in his 1x2. you can set up this pasture to max 1 animal.
but what i can be scared is : no control in the menu to only put 'dog' in it and not a sheep or a cow :P ( @kralyerg  can maybe elaborate on this)

birds can fly ... at certain point : it all the animations part of the animal. CC added one. maybe it doesnt superbly 'fly' but that all depends the time and the number of work you put into it.
if you put 200 hrs, the animation will be more beautiful than if you put only 20 hrs.


2) New plants.

alot of new plants and all the vegetable/fruits have been made already. unfortunatly, they all part of the big CC mod.


3: New behavior.

thats a part of the moddkit we cannot do anything about it. we cannot change the game.
you can change the cloths they wear but you cannot change the behavior of having summer cloths and winter cloths.
you cannot make sit and make citizen do something special. 100% out of any control.

> > > Support Mods Creation developments with Donations by Paypal  < < <
Click here to Donate by PayPal .

RedKetchup

Quote from: tanypredator on May 10, 2016, 09:19:18 AM
Oh, wow. I could open this .rsc like .txt with, well... notepad? Not sure in its english name. Only I'm still not sure about creating a new .rsc, but I probably can make a copy of some other .rsc and change it.

right click on a .rsc file (not the .crs) and choose the option of 'open with' and give and select the notepad and check the box to always open with it. and click OK.
> > > Support Mods Creation developments with Donations by Paypal  < < <
Click here to Donate by PayPal .

tanypredator

Quote from: RedKetchup on May 10, 2016, 09:42:10 AM
right click on a .rsc file (not the .crs) and choose the option of 'open with' and give and select the notepad and check the box to always open with it. and click OK.

Yes, that is what I have done, thank you. Now I have to study all this examples and advises. There would be more questions, I'm afraid :) Sorry if it take some time.