I notice a lot of tut's and things out there that jump in on a certain area of modding.
While this is good and practical for specifics, it doesn't help people like me, who want to mod,
but don't know where to start. Much modding is done alone, or in a team of individuals.
So my question is this.
How does one go about:
Setting up for modding
The actual modding itself is covered by lots of tutorials. What I'm asking for is pre-modding advice.
What are some good practices that dev's have found over the years?
What's the right way of modding Freelancer, from the beginning?
How do you set up your computer so that you can revert accidental changes?
How do you document what you are doing?
What are pot holes and landmines that experience has shown you?
What would you do differently, if you had to start over modding, knowing what you know now?
Is SVN a good thing to use, and how do you use it effectivly?
Sovereign Wrote:Seek fun and you shall find it. Seek stuff to Q_Q about and you'll find that, too. I choose to have fun.
Quote:How do you set up your computer so that you can revert accidental changes?
Multiple FL copies. Definitely. That's very easy to do, just copy the FL directory (with the mods you want to base your modding on activated). Voila, you have a new functioning FL. You can do anything with the copy, without fears of damaging the original in any way. The only thing that could cause -some- problems are save games, autosave included. The original and the copy share those. Other than that, it's safe.
Disco developers usually have several copies of Freelancer in various stages of modification.
How else to prepare? It very much depends on what you want to do. Do you want to create a whole new mod or some other major overhaul? Or add a new item / ship / system? There may be some organisation issues, deciding who does which part. When it's something smaller you want to achieve, you can just make the copy of FL and start adding your edits. Of course you need to know where you need to add stuff and what you need to change - that's part of "preparation" as well, but that's what most of the tutorials are about.
You can test your edits by running that modified FL copy, you can test it in OpenSP and Multiplayer - just make sure you run the flserver from this FL copy.
You need to keep track of all the files you modified in any way - they all make up your modification. If you want to test the changes with someone else, you just pack these files, have him create a FL copy from the same basis as what you are modifying and copy your files over. Again, that's perfectly safe to do, as long as it's done on a copy.
SVN is generally useful for a group of developers, so they can share their work and have some common base for the data. You could use it as an online repository yourself, I guess. It would probably help you with documentation and organisation - you would have a history of changes accompanied with summaries. If you're alone and working on something smaller than a whole mod, you can usually manage your own changelog yourself, though. I don't have much experience with SVN though.
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I think I'm done for now. I probably didn't say much new info, but I hope there's at least something of worth.
To be quite honest.. its hard to answer a question like this imo. prepare yourself for a WoT nathan.:P
Each modder has his own setup that he/she is comfortable with, and then modified exceedingly to help/suit them best. for example, i have 1 external HD dedicated to just modding related stuff for both 3d modelling and photoshop work- tutorials, video tutorials, projects, different renders, textures, inspirational artwork/design, etc.
When you start off modding for freelancer, or any game for that matter it can be quite overwhelming if you dont know a thing and have to learn everything from scratch. prime example- When i first joined the dev team for discovery, i was kinda clueless as to how to help the mod. i sifted through different aspects of the modding, found a spot i liked, and set to work (in this case, having to rebuild around 80% of the ships' hitboxes for 4.85, for both older ships and new ones).
before i began, i bugged multiple people to learn the basics of hitboxing, what are the do's and dont's, what precautions to take, what must be kept in mind, etc, and from them i just went ahead and piledrived through the work. each new hitbox i made gave me a different result. i learned from my mistakes, fixed them, and moved on.
modding -can- be frustrating at times. believe me i know. it was only cuz i was a right stubborn **** that kept me, and still keeps me going. example: when i was making the hitbox for the BHG destroyer for discovery, it took me 3 full days, and 84 failed attempts to make the hitbox working 100%, both registering hits + collision detection.
over the course of time, as the need for hitboxes decreased, i moved on to learning how to texture models. i got alot of help from one particular modder for discovery (treewyrm), and then i figured the rest through trial and error and youtube tutorials etc.- alot of what i know is self learned now via tutorials i found by googling for it.
looking back now at how i began my modding "career", i know how hard it can be, and that is why i try to document and write a tutorial regarding everything i know how to do, so i can share my knowledge to others, and hopefully inspire more people to start modding for freelancer (not just discovery), and perhaps create something that was unimagined so far. human brain = pro at imagining stuff, can create some pretty amazing results if put the proper energy into the projects:P
for setting up, it was again by going around and asking what tools are needed, then doing searches to see if i can find tools that could further help to make my job easier. it was by actively searching i found a couple of tutorials that helped me improve my texturing techniques 5x, id say.
that said, i would always advise people to get the proper tools to do any modding work. one of the biggest issues i have with people who use milkshape for modelling/texturing is the number of problems that come with it, and then the modders who've been submitted it tend to have to fix it, etc.
im not saying milkshape is bad, dont get me wrong- discovery has a couple modders who use milkshape for things such as texturing (doom is a prime example), but still manage to produce top notch work.. its just that if you DONT know how to use it properly, your results tend to be horrible, and THAT is something you want to avoid.
there isnt any one "right" way to modding for freelancer. sure, there are certain rules you should follow, to stick with the general consistency of how the other stuff in the mod/vanilla are created, but i wont say that there is just one method to modding freelancer.
i would definitely recommend people to get used to the tools they use first before making any submissions for modwork/ own mods etc. another example: it took me 7 complete retexture jobs to finish my first texturing job (the kusari bc model) in 3ds max. i was still new to texturing, and i learned something new each time, which allowed me to revise my work to a much better standard/quality (though i think its time for me to revise the mesh, it could be 100% more cleaner:P)
a problem im seeing alot nowadays, even on the disco forums, is that people fail to accept negative criticism- they fall into a protective "NO U" shell everytime, and refuse to listen, instead trying to shout louder than the other person. if you wont accept criticism, you cannot improve, and its pretty much a stalemate there. i know, taking negative criticism can hurt, but its the only way to improve your own work quality.
that said, the people posting the criticism need to be considerate with the words they choose to express their feelings toward models. personal feelings toward people is not enough reason to be a complete bastard towards someone you dont like whose made a model and has posted up pictures of it etc.
also, NEVER be shy to ask for help. if you're stuck, ASK someone who knows how your problem can be fixed/solved. a second opinion on models is never bad either, it allows double checking for errors as well (both for mesh as well as texture errors). i have a select group of people i show my models to before i make the images available to public view on the discovery forums, i find i work better that way.
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That's all i can think of for now.
On a side note, its 4:30 am. i should be in bed, but you kept me up for the past 15 mins, Making me post this. :-<
What are some good practices that dev's have found over the years?
What's the right way of modding Freelancer, from the beginning?
How do you set up your computer so that you can revert accidental changes?
As has been said, several copies. I have about 12 or 13 copies of Freelancer on my HDD.
How do you document what you are doing?
I have on my Documents a folder called /Editing. In this is /Ships, /hitboxing. /Systems etc etc. I create a new folder for each new project and keep all the relevent changes in there.
What are pot holes and landmines that experience has shown you?
Add little bits at a time, so if it doesn't work, you know what's broken it. Never assume you know everything, and if you want something done, do it yourself or don't expect it to be finished.
What would you do differently, if you had to start over modding, knowing what you know now?
It takes longer and requires more effort than I would have thought.
Is SVN a good thing to use, and how do you use it effectivly?
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