Hey, I'm very new to modding so please don't hate me . I want to make a custom bow, I know how to use Starbound Hatter to put custom items into .json then modify them with starcheat but I don't know how to make a custom bow have an animation (y'know Drawback animation.) I was hoping someone could help me understand how to do this ? Thanks!
A good place to start is by ditching 3rd party programs much like Starcheat and Starbound Hatter (no disrespect meant to their respective authors) and learn how to properly mod Starbound through unpacking the assets and making the item yourself. It's not very hard once you start out! Here's a niftly little guide on how to unpack .pak files, which all of the assets are compressed into. Once you have that down, your next step is to make an item from scratch or using a template (I recommend using a template since it's worlds easier). Since what you want is a bow, you will need to seek where the bow files are. Within the unpacked assets, all of the bows can be found in the following nest of folders: items > active > weapons > bow. From there, you can select any bow you wish, but for the sake of simplicity we'll be using the beginner hunting bow, simply called 'bow'. Of course, getting this far without proper programs won't get you too far later on. In order to read and understand some of the included files in this folder, you will need a good text editor: something like Notepad++ should be sufficient, and Paint.Net for the graphical aspects of modding is more than enough. Once you've obtained these programs, you will be able to edit both the *.activeitem and *.frames files, as well as edit the *.pngs included. Once you get all this done, you can let me know if you need help reading and understanding the JSON files! Some people have been able to understand these files without prior experience, and you did mention that you have been able to insert custom items through JSON with Starbound Hatter, so I'll reserve that part of the tutorial for later; if you need it at all!
Thanks for the reply, Notepad++ is wonderful btw lol and i have unpacked the assets pack so i can look up particles and stuff, also learned how to color text (to a degree) mostly been learning this from picking apart other modded items ^^. I'm using these third party programs so I can use my mods on multiplayer vanilla servers without having asset miss matching to break everything . I would love help.. I can kinda understand and fallow along with Json. but some parts I'm just stumped like I've been using SolusKatana.json as a basis for adding multiple frames but they don't come out right I know its ordering and re-ordering different frames and transitions and such but I don't get how to make it act more like a bow.. it just loops around (even while not pushing anything.) like I've turned a regular bow into one that can change ammo using the AdaptableAmmo altfire which is cool, I'm really interested in any knowledge or help you can provide.
