Mod Kit Instructions

Transcription

1 Mod Kit Instructions So you ve decided to build your own Hot Lava Level Mod. Congratulations! You ve taken the first step in building a hotter, more magmatic world. So what now? Hot Lava Tip: First off, if you ve already downloaded a previous version of the modkit, make sure you first delete told old modkit game files in your "Modkit\Assets\Plugins\Hot Lava Mod Kit" otherwise it s possible you will get a corrupt install. Also delete " Modkit\Assets\Scripts\Hot Lava Component Interfaces" cause it ll just screw things up and you don t need that kind of negativity in your life. Step 1: Download Unity 5.6.3p4 If you haven t already, download Unity. It s free for personal use. Even if you have previously downloaded it, make sure your version is up-to-date. It s worth it! If you re not familiar with Unity there are a lot of really helpful tutorials made by really helpful people that will assist you in being the best Mod Kit developer you can be. Hot Lava Tip : Install the modkit and your unity project on a SSD for a faster import time. Step 2: Create a New Project Open up your copy of Unity and create a shiny new Project. Then name it after your dog, your favorite chocolate bar or whatever you want - the world is your igneous oyster.

2 Step 3: Import Modkit Now for the fun stuff. You have already downloaded the Hot Lava Modkit through Steam now you need to import it. In Unity, under the Asset Menu, select Import Package. And then Custom Package. Now you have to point Unity to the file on your hard drive. But where is it?! Lost in the aether for all time? Caught in a complex network of Einstein/Rosen bridges in deep spacetime? Nope. It s probably in C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\hot Lava SDK\HotLava_ModKit.unitypackage. If it s not there you may have to send out a search party. Use the search function on your computer - that s what it s there for! Then point your computer in the right direction and open it up so you can get started!

3 Hot Lava Tip: If you get an error message like below, hit cancel. Then re-import the package once the process is done to catch any assets you skipped. Computers are fickle creatures. Once that s done you should find yourself looking at a menu. Click on the Import button at the bottom of the Import Unity Package menu. Alright. Now you just have to wait for it to import. This could take some time. So maybe have some tea. Or a hot chocolate. Or read a book. Doesn t have to be a big book. It could be a comic. There are a lot of cool comics out there these days. You should check out-- Oh! Done already? Great! On to the next step.

4 Step 4 - Create a Simple Level First of all, Save your scene. There s nothing worse than losing all your work. Also you can t do anything without first saving your scene so select Save Scenes under the File menu. Hot Lava Tip : If meshes aren t showing up after you import the SDK asset bundle, try restarting Unity. Everyone needs a do-over once in a while. Now add a Game Container. This is the place your game is going to be. It creates a startpoint and a lightsource. And a camera. All the basics. So open up the Klei menu and scroll down to Mod and over to Create Game Container. You ll now see something new! Under Hot Lava Game is something called Game Mode - New. If you highlight that it ll appear under the Inspector Tab on the other side of your screen where you can do all kinds of things like: Change the name of your Game Mode; write a description of your scene and most importantly - add some Checkpoints! Checkpoints are crucial. You need one to start! Once you add a checkpoint you can play in your level by pressing the play button on the top of the screen. The one that looks like this...

5 You ll probably find you immediately fall to your death so add a plane so you won t fall through the floor. Then add a Lava plane to make the floor lava. Throw in some chairs. Recreate your bedroom, your living room, or that dream you had with the lava and the aliens and the quest for mayonnaise. Whatever you want. Search the Mod Kit for some cool toys. Check out the Assets in the Project Window. There s some fun stuff in there. And next you can fool around with the lighting to make it more perty. Read through the following Hot Lava Tip if you want to learn about Lighting. Or you can skip it if you feel like your scene is perty enough. Hot Lava Tip : About Lighting (or Makin it More Perty ) Did you know you can adjust the Lighting settings in a scene? No really you can! Just open up the Lighting Settings by Selecting the Window Menu then scrolling down to Lighting and selecting Settings.

6 Now you have a whole other thing to play with! You can experiment with this a little. Let s walk through some of the options with some hints as to how we do things round these parts to make our levels look perty.. Under Environment select the little circle beside Skybox Material and you can change what the sky looks like with some ready made skyboxes (default is a blue sky with grey bottom.) You can

7 also select either Skybox or Gradient or Color as the Source in Environment Lighting. This is the Ambient Light Source for the whole scene: If you choose Skybox you can play with the Intensity Multiplier toggle. If you choose Gradient you have control over the Sky Color the Equator Color and the Ground Color. Choose this if you want your lighting to look less flat and more natural. If you choose Color you can pick any Ambient Color you want, even a nice chartreuse. We use black because it allows us to make dark shadows where we need them. Environment Reflections lets you play with the reflections in your scene. For Source your best bet is to have it match your Skybox. 128 is fine for Resolution and Auto is fine for Compression. Play around with Intensity toggle to see what you like. Not trying to pressure you but we like 1. And 3 for the number of Bounces cause it s the number of reflection bounces that are included in the cubemaps. It just works out better. Under Realtime Lighting it s probably best that you Disable Realtime Global Illumination cause leaving it on will...slow...every...thing...dooowwwnnn. In Mixed Lighting click the little box to Enable Baked Global Illumination. And set Lighting Mode to Shadowmask. Lightmapping Settings: Lightmapper - Enlighten Indirect Resolution - We change this to around 4 texels so it doesn t look really blocky but this increases rendering times exponentially. Also texels is a fun word. Light Map Resolution - The higher the number, the better the quality, but also increases the amount of memory you use. Around texels is good. Texels... Lightmap Padding - This is the space between your lightmap shells. 4-6 is a good range for this. Anything lower and everything gets a bit wonky. Lightmap Size is a good option. The bigger the size the less you have and that s better for memory. Compress Lightmaps - Enable. Ambient Occlusion - Disabled, we use screen space Ambient Occlusion. Final Gather - Disable this, It requires way too much memory to be useful. Directional Mode - Directional is best. Indirect Intensity - Keep at 1 for the sake of everyone s sanity. Albedo Boost - This controls the amount of bounced light in the scene. Keep at 1. Lightmap Parameters - Medium is an okay choice. But you can play around with this. Other Settings Fog - Wanna add some fog? Go for it! But you ll probably have to fine tune it.

8 So here you are. A blank scene for you to play with. Experiment. Fail horribly. Experiment some more. Fail better. Then, when you re so in love with your level that you want to share it with the world - it s time to export it! Step 5: Export Your Mod When you want the world to see your magmatic masterpiece, click into the Klei menu and scroll down to Mod and select Export Mod from the menu. It ll take a bit to export (see above for suggestions of what to do while you re waiting) and then a dialogue box will appear telling you where your Modkit level was exported to on your computer. Hot Lava Tip : Make a note of where your file is. It s important. Awesome! Now click the Awesome, thanks! button.

9 Step 6: Upload Your Level to Steam What now? Well everyone wants to see your level. We would love to see it. So why don t you export it to Steam for the whole world to enjoy? Go into the same Klei/Mod menu you were in before. Except this time select Upload Mod from the menu. This will pop up...

10 Click on the Create New Mod button and something else will pop up that looks like this... Hit the Select button under HLMod File and point it to your mod file (aren t you glad you made a note of where that was?) Then, if you re really fancy, you can upload a preview image by hitting the Select under Preview Image. Next you re gonna want to name your Mod. Something like... My New Mod. And write a description. Something like This is the description of my level. Great! Now click Upload in the corner and Voila! (as the Esperantans say). You can see your level if you log into your Steam Account under Workshop Items. Hot Lava Tip : To share your level with your friends, make sure you go into the Change Visibility menu and change it to Friends-only. Or better yet, change it to Public so you can everyone can play! There you have it! You have now completed this Hot Lava Mod Kit course. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell your grandma. Tell them how much fun this was and maybe they ll make their own. And hey, now that you ve done it once, you can do it again! Good luck!