I have been building Auto Racing Sims for a few years now and I now want to start focusing on building a “framework” for the players to create their own “cars and tracks” and share them on the Steam Workshop along side of my game. Im pretty confident on the whole “sharing” and “integrating” them into my title… but my main question is.
Whats the best way to let a user CREATE or ALTER the actual content for my game?
My quick brainstorm idea was 2 ways:
I create a “highly commented” sample scene in Unity Free and let them download Unity Free and alter the model, the suspension and even the physics. They then save the prefab inside Unity Free, upload to a sever and I handle the integration into the game.
I roll my own complete Standalone App to do the same thing as Unity Free. It would have an importer for the Obj file or whatever i decide on, then an editing tool set to alter it and then finally an exporter to send the asset to a server. Then again I handle the integration.
My point being… Has anyone every taken the “Hey, just download Unity Free and alter my game.” route?
I mean is that even doable or even legal? Would I be giving away “too much” of my game?
Option 2 would be the best way to do it but that is a lot of work to create the editing toolset when Unity Free would actually work “on paper”. I would like your thoughts on this or any work flows that have worked for you in the past.
Hello. I’m in the process of creating 3D platformer which, while having single player campaign built-in, would depend just as much on modability.
I’m rolling with the option 2 (custom level editor built into the game), but it is hard work, especially since I intent to make it so powerful and easy that it will be used to make the campaign as well.
It’s really hard work, put already about two months into it (of continuous work - I’m developing it since last October, but had many breaks in meantime and worked on other stuff, like player control, AI, etc. as well). But I persist, because it is simply the right way - why potential modder should download 5GB+ of additional software, most of which he will probably never use, when it can be made so he/she/it simply chooses “Level Editor” in the main menu and get to work?
You are supposed to make modders’ life as easy as possible, not make them jump through hurdles because of some misguided reasons.
By the way, much of my work was streamed on my twitch account Twitch and all those streams has been saved as highlights.
//edit: And AFAIK Kerbal Space Program took Option 1 route. They’ve might change it since then though.
In my opinion, making your game customizable (aka having an editor) and making your game moddable (adding custom content that is not original in the game) are two different things…
Looking at other games that are famous for being modded (Skyrim, Cities: Skylines, Half-Life, etc.) could help in giving you good indication on the route most famously taken to achieve this.
Its a new 2.0 version of an RC Racing simulator and want the ability for the user to create their “home/ Local track” as a training tool. Not so much to make the game better for “Everyone” but “much better” and tuneable for each individual customer. They will then be able to practice their skills on something they are familiar with. Most outdoor tracks change their “layouts” about 2-3 times per year So i want it to be VERY SIMPLE. I never thought of the whole downloading 5 gigs of crap they will just get confused with. (option 1)
Im kind of leaning toward Option 2 and creating a set of tools in the orig EXE. The game is base off of multiplayer now so they would not really need to place too many things beside start and orig spawn spots. Im not doing any AI for now. SO no paths or anything like that.
Im pretty familiar with kerbal… so ill look into that title too. Thanks.
The main thing i need to study up on is the “building” of the brushes for “painting the terrain height” as right now the prototype I have been tinkering with is just a get set height of one vector at a time. I believe its called blending?
Anybody know of any tool sets that can get me started in deforming terrain at runtime and even painting it?
