Fireworks Mania - Mod Tools

This is the place to start when creating mods for Fireworks Mania.

📖 Full Documentation — https://laumania.github.io/FireworksMania.ModTools/

The documentation site covers getting started, best practices, optimization, and a complete script reference for every component in the Mod Tools.

Video Tutorials

I have created a playlist with various videos about creating mods for Fireworks Mania. That playlist starts with a video of me going through all the stuff below. Further more it contains videos on a lot more stuff you can do with the Fireworks Mania Mod Tools.

Mod Support | Fireworks Mania

The firework effects are made with the Unity Particle System and here is a guide that goes through how it works. This video is not specifically about making firework effects, but it explains the basics of the Particle System, which you need to know so you can create your own custom effects. Getting Started with PARTICLES in Unity

Recommended prerequisites

To be able to build mods for Fireworks Mania there are a few recommended prerequisites.

• Basic knowledge about Unity
  • If you want to get started I recommend Imphenzia's "LEARN UNITY - The Most BASIC TUTORIAL I'll Ever Make"
• Basic 3D modeling skills (Blender is the tool I use, but there are others. As long as they can export to .fbx I think it's all fine)
  • If you want to get started I recommend Imphenzia's "Learn Low Poly Modeling in Blender" if you are all new to Blender.

Keep in mind that there are tons of good tutorials out there for basic Unity and Blender stuff, so go check out what YouTube have to offer, the two recommendation are just one place to start.

It is very important to note that NO CODING SKILLS ARE REQUIRED to be able to build a mod - it can all be done via the Unity editor.

So, none-coders, fear not.

Coders, fear not either, you can do custom scripting 🤓

Getting started

1. Getting Unity Hub & Git

Download and install Unity Hub - The Unity Hub acts a a "launcher" and it's via this that you will install the actual Unity Editor.

Download and install Git - Unity need this to be installed to be able to install the Mod Tools package later one, so you might as well install it right away.

After the two above have been installed, restart your PC and come back here.

2. Getting Unity Editor

To avoid unintended behavior and issues you always need the specific version of Unity that the Mod Tools are built with.

When you have the Unity Hub installed, it's easy to install the specific version you want. Also know that you can have multiple versions installed at the same time.

You find the current target Unity version in the Change log.

If you don't have the given version installed, just click on the version number in the Change log. This will take you to Unity's website where you can click the "Install" button and it will open up in your Unity hub and install that version. Really easy!

3. Create empty Unity project

Fireworks Mania mods are build from a Unity Project. So create an empty 3D (Build-in Render Pipeline) Unity project.

Naming your Unity Project

One important thing to know when naming your project is that you can have multiple mods within a single Unity project.

This means that you might want to name the Unity project something more generic like, "YourNickNameFireworksManiaMods", "YourNickName.FireworksMania.Mods" or simply "FireworksMania.Mods".

These are just suggestions and you should name the Unity project something that make sense to you and how you structure things. The name of the Unity project have no impact on actual mod(s) name(s).

At this point you should now have an empty Unity project that should look something like this:

To make sure we are off to a good start and all is as it should, it's a good idea to enter Play-mode. Click the Play button in the top and make sure there are no errors in the console. Click the Play button again to exit play mode.

4. Install Fireworks Mania Mod Tools

Now we need to install the Fireworks Mania Mod Tools.

Go to Windows->Package Manager, click the little + button and select that you want to add an git package.

Paste in this url and hit Add:

https://github.com/Laumania/FireworksMania.ModTools.git

The installation can take some time, so let its do its work.

Once its done you might get this popup. Just click Yes and it should automatically restart the Unity Editor.

You now have the Fireworks Mania Mod Tools installed and are ready to create your first mod!

Close the Package Manager window and hit Play again to make sure we don't have any errors. Click Play again to exit Play mode, which is important, as we dont want to be in Play mode.

Create Your First Mod

This is the point where things start to get interesting.

As mentioned previously, it is important to remember that you can build multiple mods from this single Unity project.

Create Mod & Folders

Lets first create an "Mods" folder where we can have all our mods in.

Then let us go and create a new mod.

Now give the mod a good descriptive and unique name. It's always an good idea to prefix it with your nickname like I have done here.

Avoid spaces and special characters in the name.

Make sure to put the mod in "Assets/Mods" as shown.

It is not a requirement, but the more structure you have on your things, the easier it is to find and navigate as the project grows.

You can think of this folder, "Laumania_TutorialMod_01" in this sample, as the mod itself.

Simply put, everything you want to include in your mod needs to be inside this folder.

Now that we are in the mod folder, lets create some more folders that will help us better organize our files as we go.

You can organize your mod as you want, but if you are in doubt I recommend using this folder structure for a start.

Right click and create the following folders:

• Definitions
• Icons
• Models
• Prefabs

Now head to the Export Settings to setup metadata on your mod, some build options etc.

Fill out the following fields under "Mod Information" with what fits your mod, the rest can be ignored as they are not really used in the game.

• Mod Name
• Mod Version
• Mod Author

The "Mod Export Directory" is there you mod is eventually going to be placed everytime you build it. To make it easier and quicker to test, it make sense to set this directory to the local "Mods" folder of the game. This way, everytime you build the mod, all you have to do is restart the map in the game. The game will detect the mod have changed and reload it and you can test your changes.

As this "Mods" folder is placed in a location under your user on your PC, the path to it is unique to your machine and user.

Click the 3 dots to set the "Mod Export Directory".

This will open the normal file explorer. Copy/Paste the below into the adress bar in the top.

%userprofile%\appdata\locallow\Laumania ApS\Fireworks mania\Mods

Hit Enter and you will get to the folder we want.

Click the "Select folder" button and the correct path will be set as the "Mod Export Directory".

On the "Build" tab, set the "Optimize for" to "File Size".

This is very important! If you do not do this your mod will take up more space on players harddrive, take longer to download and take longer to load into the game. So do this for your own and all other players sake :)

After this you can close the "Export Settings" window and continue.

Create an EntityDefinition

Now we are starting to hit Fireworks Mania specific stuff, EntityDefinition - what is that?

An EntityDefinition i