122 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
122 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
# Creating Custom Doodads
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Sketchy Maze is designed to be modder friendly and provides tools to help
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you create your own custom doodads to use in your levels.
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You can draw the sprites for the doodad either in-game or using an external
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image editor. Then, you can program their behavior using JavaScript to make them
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"do" stuff in-game and interact with the player and other doodads.
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* Drawing your Doodad's Sprites
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* [In-Game](edit-in-game.md)
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* [In an External Program](edit-external.md)
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* Program its Behavior
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* [JavaScript](scripts.md)
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## In-game Doodad Editor
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The in-game level editor can be used to create custom doodads. As of
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Sketchy Maze v0.8.0, doodads can be authored entirely in-game without
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needing to use the `doodad` command-line tool.
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See [Drawing Doodads](edit-in-game.md) for details.
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## Using external editors
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You may find it more comfortable to draw your doodads in an external
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image editor. All of the game's built-in doodads were drawn in The GIMP.
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The `doodad` command-line tool that ships with the game is able to convert
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a series of PNG images into a doodad, attach a JavaScript, set tags, and
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so on.
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See [External Editors for Doodads](edit-external.md)
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## Example Doodads
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There are some example custom doodads you can check out at
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<https://code.sketchymaze.com/declassified/doodads>. There you will find
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example custom doodads to make your own player characters, Warp Doors,
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and more.
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## Naming Convention
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It is strongly encouraged that you name your custom doodad files with a
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prefix or something to _namespace_ them apart from the built-in doodads.
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For example: if you made a custom doodad named "door-red.doodad" it would
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actually conflict with the [built-in doodad](../doodads.md) of the same
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name, and your custom doodad would take priority over the built-in one.
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By prefixing your custom doodad filenames with your initials or name, you
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will minimize the likelihood that your doodad conflicts with a built-in
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from a future game release _or_ with custom doodads made by other players
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than yourself.
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Future versions of the game will likely prevent saving a new doodad with
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the same filename of a built-in one.
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## Categories
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The in-game Doodad Dropper window of the level editor shows a categorical
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view of doodads: Objects, Doors, Gizmos, Creatures, and All.
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Categories are managed by setting custom tags on your .doodad file, which
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can be done by the [doodad tool](../doodad-tool.md) like so:
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```bash
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doodad edit-doodad --tag "category=objects" example.doodad
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```
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The "category" tag should hold a lowercase value. Only supported categories
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are recognized, which include: objects, doors, gizmos, creatures.
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A doodad can appear under multiple categories by joining them with a comma:
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```bash
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doodad edit-doodad --tag "category=doors,gizmos" example.doodad
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```
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Every doodad also appears in the "All" tab. In the future, custom tags will
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be editable using in-game UI when creating a custom doodad.
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## Profile Directory
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Custom doodads and levels will go in your [Profile Directory](../profile-directory.md),
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into folders named "doodads" and "levels" respectively.
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To share your custom doodads with others, you can copy the `.doodad` files out
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of your doodads folder. To install doodads made by others, place their `.doodad`
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files into your doodads folder, and they will appear in-game to drag and drop
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them into your level.
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## doodad (Command Line Tool)
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Your copy of the game should have shipped with a `doodad` command-line tool
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bundled with it. On Windows it's called `doodad.exe` and should be in the same
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folder as the game executable. On Mac OS, it is located inside the .app bundle.
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The `doodad` tool provides a command-line interface to create and inspect
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doodad and level files from the game. You'll need to use this tool, at the very
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least, to attach a JavaScript to your doodad to make it "do" stuff in-game.
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You can create a doodad from PNG images on disk, attach or view the JavaScript
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source on them, and view/edit metadata.
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```bash
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# (the $ represents the shell prompt in a command-line terminal)
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# See metadata about a doodad file.
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$ doodad show /path/to/custom.doodad
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# Create a new doodad based on PNG images on disk.
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$ doodad convert frame0.png frame1.png frame2.png output.doodad
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# Add and view a custom script attached to the doodad.
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$ doodad install-script index.js custom.doodad
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$ doodad show --script custom.doodad
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```
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More info on the [`doodad` program](../doodad-tool.md) here.
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