Modding:Advanced JSON Item

WIP ask VeryGoodDog if you really want this done

Advanced Properties

Mining Properties

Our wand is still rather useless, so it might be a good idea to add our wand some mining functionality. How it works? With the property "miningspeedByType" we can define the mining speed for each material. Here is a list of all block materials.

The number indicates how fast the tool is able to mine the block, while 1 is the default value. time to mine = block resistance / miningspeed. Meaning a speed of 2 is twice as fast the default speed of one. So our tool is seven times faster than using the hand.

A pickaxe looks like this:

	miningspeedByType: {
		"*": {
			"stone": 7,
			"metal": 7
		},
	},

Although the tool is working already, we should add some kind of durability. Therefore we need to define what can damage our tool and the durability itself.

Our tool can be damaged by breaking a block, or using it for an weapon. The property damagedby allows us to define all possible damage source. For now we will stick to blockbreaking and attacking.

	damagedby: ["blockbreaking", "attacking"],

and the durability should be 2000:

	durabilityByType: {
		"*": 2000,
	},

Variants

Pretty basic so far, let's go more advanced. Let's add some variants to our wand, each of them should represent another tool (shovel, pickaxe, axe).

So first of all we have to add a new variantgroup. The name of your group is tooltype and possible values are "shovel", "pickaxe", "axe":

	variantgroups: [
		{ code: "tooltype", states: ["shovel", "pickaxe", "axe" ] },
	],

Now we need to change our miningspeedByType property to set the speed of each material for each type:

	miningspeedByType: {
		"*-shovel": {
			"soil": 7,
			"sand": 7,
			"gravel": 4.4
		},"*-pickaxe": {
			"stone": 7,
			"metal": 7
		},"*-axe": {
			"wood": 6,
			"leaves": 4
		},
	},

Every group will be added after each other to the item name item-myitemname-mygroup-mysecondgroup. In total, our wand has 3 types and their full names are:

• item-wand-shovel
• item-wand-pickaxe
• item-wand-axe

Each of our selectors starts with a * which is a custom symbol and means it can be anything. Through that way you can select specific variants of your item.

If we would add another variant called material (values are magic, air, death) and wanted to select all shovels we would have to do it like that: *-shovel-*. Meaning it can be anything before, but it has to be a shovel and it can be any type of a shovel.

We can also change the durability for each type individually.

	durabilityByType: {
		"*-shovel": 4000,
		"*-pickaxe": 3000,
		"*-axe": 2000,
	},

Variant Textures

Using the same way we specified the mining speed for each type we can also specify a texture for each type.

	textureByType: {
		"*-shovel": {
			base: "item/wand-shovel",
		},
		"*-pickaxe": {
			base: "item/wand-pickaxe",
		},
		"*-axe": {
			base: "item/wand-axe",
		},
	}

But we can accomplish the same thing with an easier way:

	texture: {
		base: "item/wand-{tooltype}",
	}

{tooltype} will be replaced by either shovel, pickaxe or axe.

Texture Overlays

As everybody knows programmers are lazy, so instead of drawing a texture for each variant of our item, we can use overlays instead, which will make it a lot easier.

These are the overlays for each type: . All we have to do now is to change the base texture to back to the original wand texture and add an overlay texture.

	texture: {
		base: "wand",
		overlays: [ "item/wand-overlay-{tooltype}" ],
	},

and this is the result:

Mod Download

You can download the mod to test it out yourself:

MyAdvancedWandMod.zip

Moving Forward

The example shown here is a rather simple item, and barely covers all the unique things that can be added in Vintage Story. It's highly suggested that you experiment with or at least familiarize yourself with all the known item properties before moving onto code mods. The best way to do this is to peruse the Item Properties page, which contains an ongoing list of all the usable JSON item properties currently incorporated into the game. Most properties in the list also have referenced files you can search for in the Vintage Story Assets folder. If you don't know where this is, you can find tutorials for each operating system at the Asset System page.

If you haven't yet, it's suggested you also check out the Basic Block and Basic Entity pages to learn how simple JSON items and entities are added to the game.

However, if you're feeling like making the jump to code mods then you'll want to start by setting up your Development Environment. Hint: Use the client command .tfedit if you want to adjust the item position, rotation and scale in Hands, in GUI, when dropped on the ground or in third person mode.

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