New modder getting started - looking for some guidance

[techmonkie]

TL;DR:  I'm looking for some form of 'official' supported documentation that is considered authoritative on developing/coding with Forge.  My experience with MC coding is a bit old, and 1.7.x is scary. :-/

 

This post will serve as both an introduction and a plea to the community.  I've taken a couple of stabs at learning the Minecraft source code, working in Eclipse, and have had varying levels of success.  My youngest son has also expressed an interest in Minecraft modding, and being the good father that I am, would like to share in this experience with him in order to enhance both of our Nerd Factors to obscene levels :-).  Hell I've even gone so far as to buy an online course that will help expose him to Java in the context of Minecraft (Youth Digital, should anyone be interested, not affiliated in any way with them, but I did run through the course in 2 days time, and there's a fair amount of useful data in it.. sadly it's geared towards 1.6.x).

 

That being said, I've just recently started reading into modding for 1.7.10, and I must admit, I'm a bit disheartened.  There are some benefits that stand out immediately to me (hello not having to declare and/or deal with conflicting BlockIDs by hand), but the process of setting up and sorting through the decompiled code in the referenced libraries leaves a lot to be desired.  Couple that with the fact that the last time I really took a stab at anything modding related was several major revisions ago, and you have a recipe for a very confused newbie.

 

I've spent several days looking around, watching YouTube videos, reading various tutorial sites, and I find that everyone has their own style of modding, ways they go about declaring and instantiating their objects, etc.  What I've *not* found at this point is a de facto documentation/guide for coding and development with Forge.  I see plenty of people's takes on how to do it, and I have to take those with a grain of salt when I see people commenting out code, not being able to explain why something works (or doesn't work), etc.

 

I've got previous programming experience, and have programmed on computers since the days of Apple IIs.  I have a passing understanding of Java, and continue to grow my skill set at every opportunity, and would *really* like to take some of the ideas I have for modding and put them into code, so I can develop something meaningful.  I'm just having a really hard time finding the resources I need to do it effectively.

 

Anyone that is willing to help point me in the right direction, or even consider taking a newbie under their wing would have my eternal gratitude.  I'm not looking for 'this is how you make a really l33t sword'.. I'm looking for understanding things like IC2s/Thermal Expansion's power systems, how to interact with the OreDict, moving around fluids and power, and making Multi-block structures.

 

I'm a quick study, and with the right guidance, I feel like I could make real contributions to the community.. I just need a helping hand to get the ball rolling.  Please have mercy on a newcomer, and help point me in the right direction. :'(

[Draco18s]

TL;DR

You mean http://www.minecraftforge.net/wiki/ ?  The wiki has all kinds of things

http://www.minecraftforge.net/forum/index.php/board,120.0.html ?  This board has tutorials, though dominated by 1.8 things, but there's still 1.7 stuff in the archives

http://www.minecraftforge.net/forum/index.php/board,118.0.html ?  This board has everything to do with Forge Gradle, the "replacement" to MCP

[techmonkie]

You mean http://www.minecraftforge.net/wiki/ ?  The wiki has all kinds of things

http://www.minecraftforge.net/forum/index.php/board,120.0.html ?  This board has tutorials, though dominated by 1.8 things, but there's still 1.7 stuff in the archives

http://www.minecraftforge.net/forum/index.php/board,118.0.html ?  This board has everything to do with Forge Gradle, the "replacement" to MCP

 

I had looked at the Minecraft Forge Wiki, but the tutorials all appeared to be for older versions of MC.  I'll have to go back through and look at some of the older stuff and see if it still applies/is relevant to 1.7.  I have to assume that there's value there, I just didn't want to learn something the 'wrong' way to have to unlearn/relearn it for the correct/current version.

 

The tutorial board you linked was one of the first places I went.  I've also BM'ed and am working through some of the tutorials that have been put together by the community (Bedrock Miner's specifically at the moment).  As it stands, I only see one page worth of threads to work from, though I'm sure a couple of the 'Tutorial series' threads have multiple lessons in them, which I plan on reviewing in detail.

 

The last link I'm going to have to read more into to get a better understanding of.. I understand Gradle is used in the process, but aside of using it in the initial build of my workspace and unpacking the resources, I've not fully wrapped my head around everything it's used for.

 

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

[Draco18s]

Aside from some method renaming and a annotation renaming, 1.6.4 guides are 98% identical to 1.7 code.  It's really really easy.

 

I thought there were big changes I had to pay attention to, but as it turned out it was pretty much same-ol same-ol.