We still have a lot of work to do on modding docs/tutorials. For now it'll be useful if you can tell us about the kind of mod you're interested in making, and then we can take notes for the upcoming tutorials.
Basically the way modding works for flare is there is a "mods" folder that contains each mod available. There's always the "default" mod which allows the basic engine to start up. For flare-game we have a "fantasycore" mod that contains generic reusable data for making games in the flare fantasy style. Then we have the "alpha_demo" that contains the current playable game.
Creating completely new "core" data is hard work -- usually there's art assets to be created and the config files are trickier to understand. But campaign data is a bit easier -- it's placing that core data into maps or quests, or creating new items/enemies from existing art, etc.
Mods can add new data files or overwrite other data files. So e.g. you could make a new Hardcore mod that makes all the enemies more aggressive, have more resistances, move faster, etc. by creating new versions of the enemies files. Then to enable such a mod you'd use the in-game configuration -> mods interface. You'd want to load this hardcore-enemies mod after the fantasycore mod (lower on the Active Mods list) so that your mod overwrote the core enemies.
Map making uses Tiled, which is a free/libre map editor. Included in the full flare-game repo is a tiled/ folder which contains the current maps. Tiled can export to Flare's map format. For the latest map features I suggest using a recent daily Tiled build, at least until the next major Tiled release comes out.
To get into Flare modding I suggest looking at the various text files in the mods folders. Try tweaking values to see how it changes the game.
I'm sure you've already gotten a lot of kind words for your recent art sets. But I'm going to say all this anyway.
These complete (and shiny!) art packs are EXCELLENT for newbie game devs.
I constantly hear two things from people who want to program games:
I don't have the art skills!
I don't know where to start
You're helping solve both major roadblocks. First these high-polish packs can make a simple game really shine. Second, we always tell aspiring game devs to Start Small -- try a vertical scrolling shooter, or breakout, or bejeweled, or tetris. You've come along and created these game dev kits that hopefully will get many people past idea mode and into creating things.
At some point we want to try option 1, some kind of optional autoaim. I haven't tried implementing something like this before so I don't know how hard it would be.
If we can't get that working predictably/smoothly, we may try option 2.
I doubt we'll be able to address this in time for the next release (0.18 due out sometime in December).
But it may be a focus for 0.19. We are already planning to improve several interface options. E.g. menus that don't require a mouse pointer at all.
These models are using blender procedural textures which don't really export. You could bake them to textures inside Blender or just apply new textures in Unity. It's probably simple to just put new textures on.
If I get time I'll look for replacement textures for exporting.
I'm getting better with textures and details. Some of my older stuff wouldn't look good at a larger scale. So as I'm improving I'll try to provide larger renders and more detailed models.
That may be the issue. I see now the flare-engine repo only has old tags. If you downloaded v0.16.zip from github/flare-engine you'll be using an out of date version.
Try downloading the very latest engine code from github with this link:
But that's if you plan on making a completely new game or total conversion. If you want to start with the existing flare game and mod it, you should do that entirely from the "flare-game" repo.
Note that flare-game download will contain the latest source, plus plenty of art sources (large Blender files and unpacked sprite sheets).
If you don't plan on making code changes, you can easily start with the Windows build of Flare instead of compiling it yourself. Then you can mess around with the mods folders to see what's possible.
I've tested on my end with just the "default" mod.
It says "Unable to open engine/classes.txt!" in my stderr (it's a new feature we're working on) but the game should continue to run without it (we'll actually remove that warning message, it's not necessary).
When I run this I get the default title screen, not an early exit.
Can you tell if the engine is actually crashing or just quitting early? (usually if it's a crash Windows will give a pop-up message that it's looking for a solution, at least on Win7). If it's a crash there may be something not properly initialized in new code that we're working on.
If you're playing with the latest source instead of the latest release tag (0.17.1), make sure your source is up to date. I think the current master is relatively stable (but that isn't always the case, depending on what we're reworking).
makrohn's correct, you at least need the mod/default folder to run the engine. For Windows purposes you should have your flare.exe and your mods folder in the same parent folder.
When you run Flare with just the default mod it will look plain grey, something like this:
Those warnings aren't a big deal, those are warning about possible loss of precision when converting values. We fix those up as we find them.
Check to see if your executable is creating a stderr.txt file -- this will contain various error messages that will often let you know why the engine decided to quit (usually a file not found). If you're not getting a stderr.txt file, you may want to run flare.exe from command-line. Just during dev where it's easy to break things.
For most people, modding flare is changing the game data or making new game data. E.g. Polymorphable is a game made with 99% just changing the data files. We're lacking in these kinds of tutorials because we're still in Alpha and making major changes -- once we hit Beta we will "freeze" (e.g. "nail down") these features so that we can make tutorials etc. For now feel free to post questions here on the forum, hop onto irc freenode #flare-rpg, post an Issue to GitHub, or contact one of us directly.
If you get ambitious there might be features you want to add by actually changing the source code. If your changes are good enough and general enough, we may like to merge them back into the main engine.
dasvidania,
We still have a lot of work to do on modding docs/tutorials. For now it'll be useful if you can tell us about the kind of mod you're interested in making, and then we can take notes for the upcoming tutorials.
Basically the way modding works for flare is there is a "mods" folder that contains each mod available. There's always the "default" mod which allows the basic engine to start up. For flare-game we have a "fantasycore" mod that contains generic reusable data for making games in the flare fantasy style. Then we have the "alpha_demo" that contains the current playable game.
Creating completely new "core" data is hard work -- usually there's art assets to be created and the config files are trickier to understand. But campaign data is a bit easier -- it's placing that core data into maps or quests, or creating new items/enemies from existing art, etc.
Mods can add new data files or overwrite other data files. So e.g. you could make a new Hardcore mod that makes all the enemies more aggressive, have more resistances, move faster, etc. by creating new versions of the enemies files. Then to enable such a mod you'd use the in-game configuration -> mods interface. You'd want to load this hardcore-enemies mod after the fantasycore mod (lower on the Active Mods list) so that your mod overwrote the core enemies.
Map making uses Tiled, which is a free/libre map editor. Included in the full flare-game repo is a tiled/ folder which contains the current maps. Tiled can export to Flare's map format. For the latest map features I suggest using a recent daily Tiled build, at least until the next major Tiled release comes out.
To get into Flare modding I suggest looking at the various text files in the mods folders. Try tweaking values to see how it changes the game.
I'm sure you've already gotten a lot of kind words for your recent art sets. But I'm going to say all this anyway.
These complete (and shiny!) art packs are EXCELLENT for newbie game devs.
I constantly hear two things from people who want to program games:
You're helping solve both major roadblocks. First these high-polish packs can make a simple game really shine. Second, we always tell aspiring game devs to Start Small -- try a vertical scrolling shooter, or breakout, or bejeweled, or tetris. You've come along and created these game dev kits that hopefully will get many people past idea mode and into creating things.
So, sincere thanks!
At some point we want to try option 1, some kind of optional autoaim. I haven't tried implementing something like this before so I don't know how hard it would be.
If we can't get that working predictably/smoothly, we may try option 2.
I doubt we'll be able to address this in time for the next release (0.18 due out sometime in December).
But it may be a focus for 0.19. We are already planning to improve several interface options. E.g. menus that don't require a mouse pointer at all.
Dome,
These models are using blender procedural textures which don't really export. You could bake them to textures inside Blender or just apply new textures in Unity. It's probably simple to just put new textures on.
If I get time I'll look for replacement textures for exporting.
@asmecher superb!
@BlackScorp
I'm getting better with textures and details. Some of my older stuff wouldn't look good at a larger scale. So as I'm improving I'll try to provide larger renders and more detailed models.
@Scrittl
I'll see what I can do :)
"using 0.16-1212 for the engine"
That may be the issue. I see now the flare-engine repo only has old tags. If you downloaded v0.16.zip from github/flare-engine you'll be using an out of date version.
Try downloading the very latest engine code from github with this link:
https://github.com/clintbellanger/flare-engine/zipball/master
But that's if you plan on making a completely new game or total conversion. If you want to start with the existing flare game and mod it, you should do that entirely from the "flare-game" repo.
https://github.com/clintbellanger/flare-game/zipball/master
Note that flare-game download will contain the latest source, plus plenty of art sources (large Blender files and unpacked sprite sheets).
If you don't plan on making code changes, you can easily start with the Windows build of Flare instead of compiling it yourself. Then you can mess around with the mods folders to see what's possible.
I've tested on my end with just the "default" mod.
It says "Unable to open engine/classes.txt!" in my stderr (it's a new feature we're working on) but the game should continue to run without it (we'll actually remove that warning message, it's not necessary).
When I run this I get the default title screen, not an early exit.
Can you tell if the engine is actually crashing or just quitting early? (usually if it's a crash Windows will give a pop-up message that it's looking for a solution, at least on Win7). If it's a crash there may be something not properly initialized in new code that we're working on.
If you're playing with the latest source instead of the latest release tag (0.17.1), make sure your source is up to date. I think the current master is relatively stable (but that isn't always the case, depending on what we're reworking).
makrohn's correct, you at least need the mod/default folder to run the engine. For Windows purposes you should have your flare.exe and your mods folder in the same parent folder.
When you run Flare with just the default mod it will look plain grey, something like this:
http://flarerpg.org/images/screenshots/0041.jpg
Those warnings aren't a big deal, those are warning about possible loss of precision when converting values. We fix those up as we find them.
Check to see if your executable is creating a stderr.txt file -- this will contain various error messages that will often let you know why the engine decided to quit (usually a file not found). If you're not getting a stderr.txt file, you may want to run flare.exe from command-line. Just during dev where it's easy to break things.
For most people, modding flare is changing the game data or making new game data. E.g. Polymorphable is a game made with 99% just changing the data files. We're lacking in these kinds of tutorials because we're still in Alpha and making major changes -- once we hit Beta we will "freeze" (e.g. "nail down") these features so that we can make tutorials etc. For now feel free to post questions here on the forum, hop onto irc freenode #flare-rpg, post an Issue to GitHub, or contact one of us directly.
If you get ambitious there might be features you want to add by actually changing the source code. If your changes are good enough and general enough, we may like to merge them back into the main engine.
On the GitHub project page for flare click the Downloads link, then look for the button that says "Download as zip"
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