Maybe I missed it....

[gener4]

Hey guys - Love all the work you guys are putting out there. I dig the idea of card creation... i even still have CCGMaker installed for some fun every now and then when bored.

I'm not savvy at all with programming/SQL/VB. I most definitely want to make my own cards and bring them in game for private play. Is there a noob tutorial for STEP-BY-STEP card creation? Creatures, Enchantments, Lands, and so on?

Any guidance, or a link if I missed it in here somewhere would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[spiwy]

Hey buddy, all I know, which is not much, came from investigating the unpacked content of both, the original game and the community DLC, as well as the Documentation forum in which you may be able to find a lot of things.

Anyway, if you want to start coding cards you may have a folder with a name in the format Data_DLC_XXXX where X is a number for your DLC.

After that copy the folder tree from any DLC. Now you must change the APPINFOFILE files with the information about your DLC as well as all the other files you see other DLC have in common.

Then, once you have made all this, you have the basic structure to start creating cards. Now you need a good text editor, and my recomendation is Notepad++. And for the images you should see this post . Then what i normally do is to go to http://www.magiccards.info and search for a card i like, for example, this is the one i'm going to do Card Avian Changeling

Ok, now, this is the code, i'll try to explain step by step so you can get it all:

Code: Select all

<MULTICARDS> [START LINE OF EVERY CARDS FILE]
 <CARD> [START LINE OF EVERY CARD]
  [NOW YOU GET TO THE CARD INFORMATION]
  <FILENAME text="AVIAN_CHANGELING" /> [CARD NAME, IN CAPS AND WITH _]
  <ARTID  value="99145813" /> [THIS IS THE NAME OF THE TDX CARD IMAGE, I GET THE NUMBER WITH THE ID OF THE CARDS FROM THE GATHERER, LOCATED IN Data_DLC_XXXX\DATA_PC\DATA_SHARED\ART_ASSETS\ILLUSTRATIONS , ITS 99 TOO BECAUSE IT HAS TO HAVE A DEFINED NUMBER OF DIGITS]
  <TITLE text="AVIAN_CHANGELING_TITLE" /> [THIS IS THE REFERENCE FOR THE XML FILE WITH ALL THIS INFORMATION, WHICH IS LOCATED IN TEXT_DUELTIME]
  <TYPE metaname="Creature" /> [SELF EXPLANATORY]
  <SUB_TYPE metaname="Shapeshifter" /> [SAME]
  . . . [EVERY SUBTYPE HERE]
  <POWER value="2" />
  <TOUGHNESS value="2" />
  <CASTING_COST cost="{2}{W}" />
  <COLOR value="W" /> [COLOR WHITE]
  <FRAMECOLOUR name="W" /> [THIS IS THE NAME OF THE TDX CARD TEXTURE, WHICH IS LOCATED IN: Data_DLC_XXXX\DATA_PC\DATA_SHARED\ART_ASSETS\TEXTURES]
  <EXPANSION metaname="LOR" /> [IN THIS CASE IT IS LOR(WYN)]
  <RARITY metaname="Common" /> [SELF EXPLANATORY]
  <COLLECTIONMAX value="0" /> [I DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS BUT IT WORKS WITH 0]
  <COLLECTORNUMBER value="0" /> [SAME]
  <CARDNUMBER value="0" /> [SAME]
  <ARTIST name="Heather Hudson" /> [I USE THE REAL NAME OF THE ARTISTS AS AN HONORING]
  <FLAVOURTEXT text="AVIAN_CHANGELING_FLAVOUR" /> [THIS IS THE REFERENCE FOR THE XML FILE IN TEXT_DUELTIME]

Now you've finished with the card information, and you can start with the card abilities, you have 4 types, STATIC (ABILITIES THAT ARE "ALWAYS" WORKING), ACTIVATED (ABILITIES THAT YOU HAVE TO USE), TRIGGERED (ABILITIES THAT ACTIVATES THEMSELVES WHEN A CONDITION IS MET), UTILITY (I DON'T KNOW THIS VERY WELL, BUT KICKER IS ONE OF THEM SO...)
Ok now, this will have 2 static abilities, one for FLYING and one for the Changeling thing, so:

  <STATIC_ABILITY tag="AVIAN_CHANGELING_RULE_1" layer="0" zone="any" >
   <EFFECT>
   </EFFECT>
  </STATIC_ABILITY>
 
Since i haven't been able to do Changeling the way i thought it was, i'll have to add everysubtype one by one :P

Ok, the tag is the reference for the file in TEXT_DUELTIME, you can find more about layers in a Kev's post
 
  <STATIC_ABILITY tag="AVIAN_CHANGELING_RULE_2" layer="0">
   <EFFECT>
    Flying()
   </EFFECT>
  </STATIC_ABILITY>

 </CARD>
</MULTICARD>


I think that should work, if you have any question you can ask in the forums and any dev actually working will try to answer it.

Regards!

[gener4]

Wicked man - thanks so much for the help.