Modding:Asset System

This page was last verified for Vintage Story version 1.19.

Vintage Story loads most of its game content from asset JSONs. Many examples of these can be found inside the assets directory inside your Vintagestory folder. Things such as blocks, items, world generation, recipes, etc. are all loaded from assets during startup.

Finding the assets folder

All the functioning assets for Vintage Story are visible in the game's folder, allowing you to peruse them and learn to write your own. You can find these files using the following methods for each type of OS you're running Vintage Story on. If you're looking for source code (ie C# classes) your best option is to dive into the Vintage Story Github and peruse the vsapi, vssurvivalmod, vsessentialsmod and vscreativemod repositories for class references.

Windows

If you're running Vintage Story on Windows, and installed the game to the default location, you can navigate to this folder by typing %appdata% in desktop search bar, which will take you to your computer's roaming folder. Find the Vintagestory folder here and you'll immediately come across the assets folder, which contains assets for "creative", "game" and "survival".

• creative contains assets for creative mode only.
• game contains many universal assets, such as lang files, the player entity shape, and other essential assets to the game.
• survival contains the bulk of the actual content most players will come across, and contains all the resources Vintage Story uses, such as textures sounds and world generation.

List of Asset Types

The following are the categories of assets you can expect to use while modding for Vintage Story. Each are easily modifiable and can be used to easily add your own content or changes without having to do any advanced coding. You can also read some examples to learn about what you can do with it.

Name	Affects Gameplay	Side Type	Usage
AssetCategory
blocktypes	true	universal	Defines all the blocks that are in the game
config	true	universal	Used for generic data that does not fit into the other categories.
dialog	false	client only	Contains some of the dialog layouts
entities	true	server only	Creatures and other entities
itemtypes	true	universal	Defines all the items that are in the game
lang	false	universal	Translation
music	false	client only	The games music tracks and its configuration
patches	true	universal	Used to patch game data defined in other json files
worldproperties	true	universal	Contains some commonly used lists of properties
abstract	true	universal
block	true	universal
sounds	false	universal	Sounds
shapes	false	universal	Contains the 3d models for all the items, blocks and creatures
block	false	universal	Shapes for blocks
entity	false	universal	Shapes for entities
item	false	universal	Shapes for items
recipes	true	server only	The crafting, knapping, smithing and clay forming recipes
alloy	true	server only	How metals can be combined to create alloys
grid	true	server only	Recipes for 3x3 grid crafting
smithing	true	server only	Recipes for smithing on the anvil
worldgen	true	server only	Contains all the configuration for world generation
terrain	true	server only	Defines how the terrain should look and with what it should be decorated with
tree	true	server only	Defines the shapes of trees
shaders	false	client only	Contains GLSL source code, that defines how the game is rendered
shaderincludes	false	client only	Contains GLSL source code, that defines how the game is rendered
textures	false	client only	Contains all the graphics of the game
block	false	client only	Block textures
item	false	client only	Item textures
decal	false	client only	Decaltextures
entities	false	client only	Entities textures
environment	false	client only	Environment textures (Sky, Moon, Sun, etc.)
gui	false	client only	Gui textures
hud	false	client only	Hud textures
particle	false	client only	Particle textures

Domains

Domains are used to separate mod added content from the original one. Basically a domain is a prefix for any given code (identifier for item, block, etc.) or path (textures, sounds, etc.). VintageStory itself has its own prefix game for all its assets (game, survival and creative folders).

When packaging a mod you specify a domain by placing a directory inside the mod assets directory with all your mod assets inside. The name of your domain directory will be the "current domain" for all assets inside it. If no domain has been specified in an asset code the game will assume it is in the current domain, meaning you only have to add a domain prefix if you want to refer to something outside the current domain.

For example, if you want to create a new block which uses the original leather texture, you would have to specify the domain (since your block has a different one). Instead of using block/leather for assets/survival/textures/block/leather.png, you would have add the prefix for the domain game:block/leather.

Overwriting assets

There are no limitations to the system. So you can overwrite assets from Vintagestory itself by using the game domain folder.

To overwrite the bed blocktype you can put your own json file inside your mod zip archive with the following path: assets/game/blocktypes/wood/bed.json. So Vintagestory will load your json file instead of the original one.

Theme packs can only override assets that do not affect game mechanics, the other mod types can override any asset.

Accessing assets in code

To access assets in a code mod, you can use the AssetManager.

Moving Forward

Once you have an idea of what assets are and how they're organized, it's time to move onto your first content mod. Head over to the Basic Block page to learn how to make your first block, or go to the Basic Item page if you'd like to start by making an item. Both are great ways to learn how to make your first mod.

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