Let the fun begin~!

[Hiro]

Ok, this is awesome. Using the files found in the new patch's main directory I believe I have found a way to get the vanilla game into the mod system. Havn't tested it fully yet but I loaded homewaters and was able to enter Naija's home from there, no hitches (except when I loaded the level I was at (0,0) and so was stuck.  Had to teleport out).

This is perfect. This is exactly what we modders have been waiting for. All the resources, even the maps if you want them. Examples of how to use nodes...

I'm going to fix up this mod folder and then put it up for download, be warned though, it might be a bit big (all the oggs and stuff).

Or I guess I could just set it up so you download it, then populate those folders yourself from the maingame folders.. shouldn't be too hard for someone whos looking into modding.

What do you guys think?

[EDIT]
Oh, and uh, thanks so much Alec (I can't believe I almost forgot this bit  ).

[TheBear]

Yeah you're always going to get put at 0,0 unless you start from the very first map as it is the only map that uses NaijaStart (loading from another map otherwise). A lot of the core game exists by default so you don't need everything (audio, text etc) copied into the mod folder.

[RobertWalker]

With all this stuff opened up to us and with the modding wiki gone, we really ought to look at reestablishing some central repository of modding info.

[Dolphin's Cry]

Or I guess I could just set it up so you download it, then populate those folders yourself from the maingame folders.. shouldn't be too hard for someone whos looking into modding.

I'd go with that option. As far as I understand the alternative would involve uploading massive amounts of the game's original content to the web where it would be available for everyone - not just the people who bought Aquaria. I don't know how Alec would feel about that, but it sounds fishy to me.

With all this stuff opened up to us and with the modding wiki gone, we really ought to look at reestablishing some central repository of modding info.

I agree. I had intended to do some modding during or around the holidays (nothing large, just for fun), when I discovered the wiki was gone. I then changed my plans to set up a new wiki (only locally), populate it with data scraped from archive.org and then publish the data files on the forum.

[Hiro]

Great ideas guys.

TheBear makes a good point, you can access all the musics and sounds without having them in the mod folder can't you? That saves a lot of space if we want to upload native Aquaria as a mod.

One thing I did find that I don't really know about: When I died in the mod, I was respawned at a save crystal (happens to be the first one you see in the game normally). Heres the thing: I never saved in the mod, not there or anywhere else. It had loaded my save from the main game into the mod.  And when I went to use the crystal (to have a look) it had my main game save there.
Something in some of the files I copied over (I just copied all the files from folders in the main aquaria that have the same name as folders you can use in mods xD) must have linked my mod to native aquaria.
While thats not really a problem in itself, it would pose a problem if someone wanted to use this as a template and make their own mod based on the native aquaria game... they'd have save file crossover issues.
It also brings up the problem of being able to cheat the main game by like giving your self lots of food, or a new form, and then saving. xD Or like if you're stuck, you can teleport somewhere else, save, and load back into the main game.
Not sure on all the details, havn't tested it all yet. But its food for thought.

And a new wiki sure would be useful.

(ps, I can't believe I got like 3 forum/modding giants to reply to my topic straight off    )

[Chibi]

I believe you qualify as a forum giant, Hiro. 

Another problem with having the main game in a mod is the rampant use of whatever key displays the level editor to find Easter eggs, treasures, and enemies.

[Hiro]

Heh heh, thanks  . It feels odd, I've never thought that people might think of me as like a forum giant type or someone to listen to..

Yeah, that might be a problem. But I figured anyone whos in on the modding scene has probably finnished the game. Plus if they wanted they could just look in all the threads around that have all the hints and easter eggs and stuff already laid out...

!! I just realised that by tweaking numbers of enemies this could be used to make an easier or harder version of native! :O So many people have wanted those...

[ChimeraThing]

Cool, i have a question, how do you add entities to the list?

[Hiro]

In your mod folder there will be a text file called entitygroups.txt. It contains group titles, and all the entities for each group. If you know the name of an entity you want to add to the list in your mod you can add it under the correct title in that text file. Problem is, if you don't know all the specific names of everything in the game then you're stuck..

So what you really want to do is download my battle mod, which has all the entities already listed for you (courtesy of..I think it was TheBear's map mod I got that from).
There are similar things for tilesets and stuff, all of which is easiest solved by getting a mod that already has it set up for you. (Actually, if you have 1.1.1 then you can get tilesets from the main game folder, just an idea if you want).

[Danger Mouse]

Hiro, i think this is a great project, and have thought about it when I first found all the extra content in v1.1.1

[Hiro]

More info: Anything you save with this mod, is loaded in the mod. So you can't hax up your food and songs and then go back to the normal game; which is a good thing.

I've found that not everything works in the mod version. For example I can't click on the mural in the song cave of the door and the singers. I'm sure in the normal game you can click on it and it shows the real door and Naija giggles. So there must be some things missing. Looking for them now.
I've gotten it to start in the right map so thats a start.

[EDIT]
Ok, made plenty of progress. 
I decided to take a minimalist approach and include each thing one by one untill I had a working mod. That way no unnecessary files like music would be included since the mod can load them from the main game. I discovered that you only really need 6 things in your mod folder, as well as the mod defining xml file in _mods of course:
You need the maps and tilesets folders from C:\Program Files\Aquaria\data;
You need all the scripts from C:\Program Files\Aquaria\scripts\maps, in a folder called "scripts" (it doesn't work if they're in a sub-folder, so you have to move them to the 'scripts' root folder for them to work);
You need a mod-init.lua that points to the right map, for us its 'naijacave';
You need a full entitygroups.txt, which can be found in C:\Program Files\Aquaria\scripts\entities;
And a mod icon is nice too.

With this, as far as I can tell, the main game runs just fine as a mod  (although it being a mod you can't look at the world map, could be a difficulty there  ).
I've tested that nodes work, and you can place entities just fine so as far as modding the native content it looks all good; unless someone finds something else that causes the game to crash. 

Now you can actually copy and put together all that stuff if you want, or its a 2.2MB download if you want my setup that should work as expected. I'm gonna make a new topic for the Copy of Native mod so that'll be where to look.
[EDIT]
link: http://www.bit-blot.com/forum/index.php?topic=1423.0

[Danger Mouse]

Again Hiro, thanks for all the work you have put into this. It definitely helps the modding community.

[Xiagan]

Nice job.
Haven't you said once that you most of the time lose interest before finishing a project? Better not this time...

[Hiro]

Yeah I think I might've said something like that.. xD
But thats ok, the Aquaria modding scene is really picking up at the moment. Got that battle mod out, and got this mod out. Going pretty well so far if I do say so myself. 

Glad to be of some help DM. I've always felt like a leech since I just use other people's resources to make stuff... Hopefully this'll ballance things out if people use this mod as a basis for their own mods.

Heh heh, it was actually pretty fun working on this. I spent quite a while teleporting around the bubbles in the frozen veil, and spamming ekkrits untill I noticed the frame rate started dropping etc. .
Although listening to the intro got bad after like the 5th time >.<;; (yay for the new skip scene option! ).
But yeah, let me know if something doesn't work right. I think it has everything it needs in it now..

[Danger Mouse]

Yeah I noticed that skip intro scene too, nice add Alec. And definitely a plus when starting up that native mod. I had to rename it though for my own tastes. Sorry, but Native Aquaria is what i changed the mod name too.. that "copy of" was a bit to redundant for me. Plus I like to keep it simple.