Mod Authoring For UT2K3/Quick Start Guide

Quick Start Guide

First you're going to need the source code to the prepackaged Unreal Tournament code. You can get this source one of two ways. You can download it from Epic, or you can export it from UnrealEd. There's a lot of advantages to downloading it from Epic, primary being that the source code is complete and not decompiled from the game packages. This gives you quite a bit more information thatn you would normally have. The source code is available from Wiki generally at Class Tree. It is available from Epic at the Epic Unreal Developer Network site, http://udn.epicgames.com.

You're going to need to create a directory to store your code in. It should reside under the parent directory of UT2K3. Assuming you've installed UT2K3 in C:\UT2003, you would need to perform the following steps in either Windows Explorer or your command prompt. (The command prompt is available from most Start Menus on most Windows machines.)

CD \UT2003
mkdir MyPackage
cd MyPackage
mkdir Classes
cd Classes

Using Windows Explorer you'd simply right click on a window with the UT2003 directory open and choose "New Folder". Name the folder as above – this is equivalent to the "mkdir XXX" step. Then, to "cd XXX" you would simply double click into the directory.

You'll want to create each of your script files in the \UT2003\MyPackage\Classes directory. UT2K3 is flexible in many things, but not this. If you want to ensure everything has been setup properly save this as MyWeapon.uc in your Classes directory:

class MyWeapon extends Weapon;

Next you'll need to add your package to the UT2003.INI? file. This tells UT2K3 about your package's existence; otherwise it simply ignores the directory. The UT2003.INI? file is fairly simple to modify. Open it in your favorite plain text editor and search for a series of lines labeled EditPackages. Find the end of the EditPackages section and add a reference to your package like so:

EditPackage=MyPackage

This will cause UT2K3 to compile your package when ucc make is executed and to load your package when the game itself runs. Your package is stored in \UT2003\System as MyPackage.u. ucc make will only compile packages it doesn't find so you'll have to delete this package each and every time you wish to compile. Mychaeel has provided a neat utility called uMake that simplifies this process. WOTgreal will also automate this process for you, to an extent. (uMake is free, while WOTgreal will need to be registered unless you don't mind a nag screen that stays up for an increasing amount of time. WOTgreal is a great deal more than uMake as it includes an IDE and other tools to help you develop, while uMake is simply a wrapper that simplifies the compilation process.)

If you're manually compiling keep this necessary step in mind.

Comments

DJPaul: WOTgreal DOES NOT require registration!

Trystan: It nags you in an increasing amount of time until you do register it. I consider that requiring registration.

Trystan: By the way I own WOTgreal. I believe it's worth the money, but in an environment like this where you can't make money a lot of people don't want to spend money, so I feel it proper to inform folks of what is free in all senses and what costs cash. WOTgreal is an excellent product, well worth the price I paid for it, but it does ask for registration each and every time you load it.

Tarquin: there's a certain amount of duplication between this and the UnrealScript Lessons, I think ... in fact, it looks like this is the same as Setting Up UnrealScript. So unless anyone objects, this is set to Delete me. If there's anything here that's not in Setting Up UnrealScript, please salvage it and move it across.