Mod Authoring For UT2K3/Listen To Your Mother

Listen to your Mother

Well, not your mother perhaps – but others who have been there and done that. When you begin your mod don't begin with a large scale total conversion. Chances are you're going to get discouraged and find too many roadblocks to continue on that path. Instead, start small – create mutators, modify weapons, play with pawns and controllers. Find your way around UT2K3 by examining others' code and by writing your own.

If you insist on starting with a total conversion (or if you're an experienced modder moving to the UT2K3 engine) it's truly imperative to have a schedule and design document. These things don't have to be released to the public but on an internal team they are key to keeping things on track and on schedule. The design document lets everybody know what's going on and why so there's no surprises come the deadline dates.

Good reading for those who are just starting on a team, looking at recruiting a team, or just beginning to work with UT2K3 in any way are the following articles: Mychaeel/Mod Startups, Mychaeel/Modding Etiquette, Making Mods/Building A Team, Making Mods/Mod Death, Making Mods/Why Are You Making A Mod, and Making Mods/Working As A Team. If you have multiple coders on your team it is imperative to find some sort of regulated system for code sharing: repeatedly merging in changes from other coders is not a good use of a programmer's time. Check out CVS, RCS, Subversion, or BitKeeper, to name a few SCCS systems. (CVS, RCS, Subversion are free. BitKeeper requires a type of license known as OpenLogging to be used for free; check their web site for more information.)

Advice straight from the original version of this article follows:

Everyone is an idea man. Everybody thinks they have a revolutionary new game concept that no one else has ever thought of. Having cool ideas will rarely get you anywhere in the games industry. You have to be able to implement your ideas or provide some useful skill. This also applies to mod authoring. If you become a skilled or notable mod author, you will find people propositioning you to implement their ideas. Never join a project whose idea man or leader has no obvious development skills. Never join a project that only has a web designer. You have your own ideas. Focus on them carefully and in small chunks and you will be able to develop cool projects.

From Mod Authoring/Some Advice To Start With, by Brandon Reinhart

When you hear everyone telling you to read the code, do it. They're telling you that because it truly is the fastest way to find anything in the engine. Knowing when and where things work is crucial to putting together efficient code.