Spring RTS Engine

Well I have been bumbling through all the information on unit and mod construction I can find, but I have not seen what you need (bare minimum) to get a mod to "compile" or rather just be workable.

A commander apears on the map, can move, and thats it. I would like to know what minimum things are needed for

a. a mod to show up and work in spring

b. a unit to show up and work in spring (in the fbi and other code files)

c. also, I am generaly confused as to what you do with a modle after you export it from a graphics program (I have the 3do s3o file or whatever exstention, now what? just put it in the appropriat folder and huza?) I am trying to work in the s3o format, but the information regarding the nessisary programs is painfuly scarce. (I have the plug in for 3ds max studio thingy) It appears there is supposed to be some other files that can be used, but all the links I have found are dead.

on a related note, is it possible for a unit to make either geo vents or metal deposites? seeing as these are features, it might be possible to build them (and I hope so).

thanks in advance

Have your mod, put your mod into a single zip or 7-zip archive with nothing else in it, rename your zip or 7z file to either sdz or sd7 depending on what kind of archive you put your mod into. That is the compilation process of a mod in spring. If you know how to add a unit into another mod the process should be as simple as deleting everything but the commander and then adding units to your new mod. The other stuff isn't mod creation questions it's unit creation questions.

If you want to see a simple mod to look at, I strongly suggest NanoBlobs 0.2... it's about as simple as you can get, but has all the ingredients you need.

Hmmm this does bring up an important issue. If we had some kind of crash course tutorial for making mods for spring it might draw in some more experienced modders. The majority of the people working on mods now have experience from OTA. With some kind of a tutorial we could probably draw in people who never even played OTA. The best advice we can give people right now is to research tutorials for making mods for OTA (and lots of that info won't even apply to spring espescially the things that are new to spring), or to open up a mod file and dissect it's contents. Both of these are obviously not the best solution. Although I understand why no tutorial has been compiled, modders are working on their mods :)

argh, I have taken a look at nano blobs .2, but many things I feel are still rather unclear.

For one, the format of sdz and sd7. what is the differnce, what is the point of using one or the other? etc. etc. Also, what pieces of code are critical to a unit (i.e. maxdamgae=x; tedclass=stuff;). it is unclear as to what specific pieces of code are needed to make a bare bones unit.

I have found a thread earlier that talks about some reserved tedclasses or something of the like, but does not seam to go into alot of detail about it, although it seams to be important but is not mentioned almost at all on the wiki.

I have the general idea about getting things to work but every thing is lacking in specifics and many general lists are only partialy useful.

and to repeat my self, is it possible to create metal deposites or geo vents during game play? also to destroy said objects?

thanks

<shrugs> making a game from the ground up is really pretty hard stuff. I'm not sure it's possible to make things a lot easier than they already are- if you read through the available tutorials, etc., you can figure it out, but you need a lot of skill. There are "how to script a tank" manuals and everything else you could need, and if you get stuck on something genuinely tricky, you can ask people.

However, the best way to learn a lot of things is to crack open a mod, look at its contents, and change stuff around- to play with things and make things break. The manuals help, but putting it all together again is the best teacher.

Which is why I suggested downloading NanoBlobs 0.2. It has very, very few units, weapons or other doodads... I very thoroughly cleaned out 90% of the stuff that was needed for OTA, but is not needed for Spring mods, etc.

0.3 will be cleaner, in some ways, and better-commented (I have taken Caydyr's format for FBI files, among other things, and commented the BOS scripts quite a bit), but I think it will be a bit harder to get into. It's a lot easier, in my opinion, to mess with something that is pretty crude than it is to work with a finished, polished game design. At any rate, messing with a small mod like that is just about the best way to learn. While making units is a fairly well-explained art... mods are not just collections of units... they are finished game designs. Which ain't the same thing. Learning about how to make units will get you 50% of the way, though.

MrSpontaneous, do you have MSN, IRC, TeamSpeak, or anything? Ill guide you through making a basic mod if you want. if you dont have any of those, ill try and find you in the lobby sometime.

No, you cannot make Geos or metal-spots on the fly. These are made by mappers, and are static game data. Perhaps, in the future, these will be alterable, but don't hold your breath.

Secondly, the SDZ and SD7 formats are nothing mor than two kinds of compression, like the difference between ZIP and RAR.

SDZ are just ZIP files, renamed. Why did they give them a custom file extension? Beats me. I assume they had a good reason, but I dunno.

SD7 are 7-ZIP files. 7-ZIP is a relatively new form of file compression, that can squeeze even more data into even smaller amounts of drive. Having played with it, I think that its disadvantages far outweigh its advantages, and I do not recommend it.

As for what lines are critical in a unit... well, the answer is, "that's really complicated". There is no simple, idiot-proof answer. Depending on what the unit does in the game world, you may use different things.

Argh wrote:Secondly, the SDZ and SD7 formats are nothing mor than two kinds of compression, like the difference between ZIP and RAR.

Or more appropriately, the difference between ZIP and 7zip.

thanks for the information

I don't have msn on my computer at the moment, and I think I get some of the prosses so far.

A tutorial would be appriciated but I tend to have questions on what I am working on and I think I finaly have my project outlined for how I am going to go about the mod (lots of unrefined information can fry your brain ).

The main questions on my mind right now is how to get 3so to work as 3do builder does not recognize it. also I will most likely have questions on 3do builder once I finish my first modle.

The fbi files and scripting seam rather basic except that I have to figure out a number of the commands.

At the moment I thinking up the modle for my first sides commander unit, So I am in the very early stages of things.

As for the zip formats, I was wondering if it made a differnce in what folders I put into the mod before zipping it.

and just so you all know, I am looking at the files of other people and they are making starting to make sense (the basics). But before I advance I have to think of how I want my modle to look (and actualy make it look like that :S)

so. . .I think my brain is slightly joggled now, and. . .I have no idea what else to type, so thanks for the help.

About the 3d issue:
I as well as you started a mod some time ago and I was equally confused. The one thing i think i grasp by now, somewhat atleast, is the 3d part. First of all, the 3d representation of a unit is either in the format .3do or s3o. The old 3do format does not support uv-mapping, which is a process used to unwrap a models geometry on a 2d plane in order for it to use a single texture. If you are unfamiliar with Uv-mapping you might start out with the .3do file format as it is pretty simple to work with. My current workflow for tapsring is doing the modeling and uvmapping in 3d Studio Max v7 (the .s3o plugin apparently does not work in earlier versions), then export to s3o, tweak in upspring and then use.

One other thing that you need to know is that models work and animate in a principle called forward kinematics. What that means is that the model is built in a hierarchy structure. When something on the top of the hierarchy moves, like a turret, everything below it, for example gun barrels, moves with it. This is pretty logical and a necessity to make a working unit.

my MSN: whydoblackhelicopterskeepcirclingmyhouse@hotmail.com

assuming you can catch me online, I'll answer your questions.

I have a simple grasp of UV mapping (I have some one around who showed me the beggingings of it) and I know about hiarchy from working in bryce in high school. I have not been able to figure out how to use the 3so files once they have been exported. It sounds like I do not have the right program for it.

right now I am most familar with working in wings (no 3so in it T_T) so is it possible to make the modle with wings then change it to 3so using 3d max 7? as wings does seam to have UV mapings, just not a 3so plug in.

I think the program I am missing is the upspring thingy, which I do not know were to dl (not on the wiki, guess I should go check file universe)

edit (found upspring, although the wiki should give a link or more explicitly say you need the program)

I haven't finished it, but don't plan to work on it anymore today... but I have begun working on an article that gives the basics of making a mod...

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Simple_Mod_Tutorial

I didn't bother to hunt down any of the links yet and I need to work on a simple UV mapping tutorial to throw into it... but it's a good start... I'm not an expert on this stuff (having only made ChessMod and the lego stub mod that Sheekel is using to test his units) so if someone with experience can go through it and make any corrections/additions that need to be made I think it could be good framework to link people to when they ask this kind of questions.

I think there should permanantly be a #modding channel on the client for folk to discuss ideas and help newbie modders

I was wondering what forces a geo plant to be built on a geo vent. I did not see any thing I thought indicated it in either the scritpt file or the fbi file.

Is it possible to to make a unit be built on a geo vent (seams to make sense to me if it is built by a mobile unit).


Also, I want a structure to produce units like a mobile builder, wondering what script I should use. (not moving around like a builder but making units so that you have to lay them on the ground around it etc.)

thanks

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Units:FBI

see: YardMap

...open up the AA1.44 mod files because it has a imobile builder like you described... honestly the best place to start any modding is looking at how another mod does it.

AATA? what? I assume you mean Abs Anni

sorry yeah... Absolute Annihilation

I have been looking at other mods