Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- tutorial:primer [2022/12/05 16:31] – removed "draft" designation miir
+++ tutorial:primer [2024/08/25 11:50] (current) – solidblock
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+~~REDIRECT>https://docs.fabricmc.net/develop/getting-started/introduction-to-fabric-and-modding~~
 ====== Minecraft Modding Primer ======
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 ===== Prerequisites for Minecraft Modding =====
--You must understand the basics of coding. If you have never touched code before, you must learn how to code first. "The basics" here means having a firm grasp on variables, functions, classes and methods, and object-oriented programming concepts like inheritance, polymorphism, and object casting. Your search engine is your friend!
+  * You must understand the basics of coding. If you have never touched code before, you must learn how to code first. "The basics" here means having a firm grasp on variables, functions, classes and methods, and object-oriented programming concepts like inheritance, polymorphism, and object casting. Your search engine is your friend!
+  * You should have some experience in a programming language like Java or C/C++/C#. Java's syntax is relatively simple to pick up for someone coming from the C family.
--You should have some experience in a programming language like Java or C/C++/C#. Java's syntax is relatively simple to pick up for someone coming from the C family.
+  * Familiarity with Java's syntax for lambda methods, generics (you should know what these are), and syntactic sugar like the ternary operator will be very helpful-- but this is something that a quick learner can pick up along the way.
+  * You must know how to use the Internet to find answers to questions, and etiquette for asking for help on forums.
--Familiarity with Java's syntax for lambda methods, generics (you should know what these are), and syntactic sugar like the ternary operator will be very helpful-- but this is something that a quick learner can pick up along the way.
--You must know how to use the Internet to find answers to questions, and etiquette for asking for help on forums.
 ===== What is Modding? =====
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   * the **Fabric Installer**-- a tool that installs the Fabric Loader on an end user's Minecraft installation.
-To more easily understand what is going on in Minecraft's code, when you mod with Fabric, you will also have access to Minecraft's source code. Since Java is a compiled language, we need to decompile the code before it can be read. This turns it from Java bytecode into human-readable Java source code. However, to stop piracy, Mojang distributes Minecraft in **obfuscated** format. This means that all the classes, methods, and fields in the code have randomized names. You can see this for yourself by opening a Minecraft .jar file in a zip extractor tool-- all the files have names like ''abc.class''. And what's worse, there's no guarantee that an object will have the same name between two versions-- it could be called ''abc'' in one version, and ''abd'' in the next. This would make modding really, really hard, because without names, it's hard to tell what different variables do. To fix this, Fabric uses a set of **mapping** tools to give everything a human-readable name.((Note: While Mojang does publish official mappings for all Minecraft versions, the legality of using these mappings in mods could change in the future. Yarn mappings are libre for everyone to use and sufficient for most modding purposes, so you are discouraged from utilizing the official mappings.))
+To more easily understand what is going on in Minecraft's code, when you mod with Fabric, you will also have access to Minecraft's source code. Since Java is a compiled language, we need to decompile the code before it can be read. This turns it from Java bytecode into human-readable Java source code. However, to stop reverse engineering, Mojang distributes Minecraft in **obfuscated** format. This means that all the classes, methods, and fields in the code have randomized names. You can see this for yourself by opening a Minecraft .jar file in a zip extractor tool-- all the files have names like ''abc.class''. And what's worse, there's no guarantee that an object will have the same name between two versions-- it could be called ''abc'' in one version, and ''abd'' in the next. This would make modding really, really hard, because without names, it's hard to tell what different variables do. To fix this, Fabric uses a set of **mapping** tools to give everything a human-readable name.((Note: While Mojang does publish official mappings for all Minecraft versions, the legality of using these mappings in mods could change in the future. Yarn mappings are libre for everyone to use and sufficient for most modding purposes, so you are discouraged from utilizing the official mappings.))
   * the **intermediary** mapper is a program that gives every single object in Minecraft's code a name like "field_10832", or "method_12991()". Critically, this program always names each object the same thing. So a method that does not change between versions will always have the same intermediary name.
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 Minecraft: Java Edition is a huge project, with years and years of code built on top of each other. It can seem chaotic (because it is), but there are a few key concepts that are (mostly) consistent across the board.
-=== Registries ===
+==== Registries ====
 Most "features" (things you might want to add) in the game (blocks, items, screens, entities, chunk generators, etc.) are loaded into Registries when the game is loaded. For example, each ''Item'' has a single static instance that is initialized when the game starts, and is put into the item registry. The game uses that instance to determine the properties that ''ItemStack''s (the memory representation of the items you can hold in your inventory) of that item have. **If you add something to the game, you probably have to register it.** There are exceptions to this rule, however: some features in Minecraft are **data-driven**, meaning that they can be defined purely in terms of data (as opposed to code). If you've ever wondered why datapacks can add some things but not others, this is why: datapacks can only add data-driven content. Some examples of data-driven content in Minecraft include biomes, textures, *some* chunk generators, and crafting recipes. When a world with a datapack is loaded, the game automatically adds these features to a special transient registry only used while that world is loaded. If you've developed datapacks before, you can integrate datapacks into your mods very easily, which makes some content easier to create. You can even add your own data-drivable content that other people can make datapacks for using Codecs.
-=== Sides ===
+==== Sides ====
 Minecraft's processing is split between two threads, commonly called "sides": the server side, and the client side. The client always runs on a player's computer and handles rendering and input. The server can run either on its own as a dedicated server (what you probably think of as a "Minecraft server"), or, in singleplayer, on the player's computer along with the client as an integrated server. The server handles everything the client doesn't-- inventories, the world itself, et cetera.