How to create custom furniture [Tutorial]

[theevilmeow]

Hello! Exactly as the title says, this is a tutorial on how to create your own furniture and add it to the game.

This does not require any coding knowledge. I tried to elaborate on everything as much as I could; skip what you don't need, and if you're having trouble understanding just ask!

You will only need to know how to create images and edit text.

WARNING: Modding like this is unstable, temporary, and may cause issues! (I have had no problems so far but be careful!!!!!) This method should become obsolete when official modding is added.

PLEASE especially be careful with parts 3 and 4 as those can likely crash your game if you do it wrong!

(Also note: I am using Windows 10. I don't know if this would be different for any other systems. Sorry to any non-Windows users!!)

1. Access the game files.

You can do this by going into your steam library and right clicking Cattails: Wildwood Story in your games list, then click manage, and then click browse local files.

This will open up your file explorer:

Click the "gameresources" folder, and then the "furniture" folder.

(File directory if you're on Windows should be: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cattails Wildwood Story\gameresources\furniture)

2. Create a sprite (image texture) for your furniture item.

Inside of the furniture folder, there should be a "sprites" folder, which is where all the furniture sprites are located.

You will need some kind of image editing software; I used Krita but you can use whatever you want as long as it allows for transparency.

If you're unsure how big to make your image, I suggest looking at the image dimensions of all the other sprites and copying the dimensions of whichever is closest to the size you want your furniture to be. You may also have to take rotation and seasons into account, which I will explain next.

(Also note that one tile is 32x32 pixels)

This will be my example sprite:

Some furniture can be rotated, change with the seasons, or have animation.

If you want your furniture to just be one static image (no rotation, no animation, etc), you can just leave the image as is and skip to saving it.

Rotation:

If you want your furniture to be rotate-able, make your image width four times as long.

Imagine that your image is now split into equal fourths like this:

In each of those spaces you will draw your furniture in a different direction. Make sure each version stays in its own equal width space or the game will get confused and cut it incorrectly!

Here is my example sprite with rotation:

You can save it like that and the game will cut it into fourths automatically.

Seasonal:

This is similar to the rotation. Make your image four times as long, split it into fourths, and make 4 versions of your furniture.

Again: make sure each version stays in its own equal width space or the game will get confused and cut it incorrectly.

Each space will correspond to a certain season:

1: Spring

2: Summer

3: Fall

4: Winter

Make sure it is in that order or you will get the wrong sprite at the wrong time.

You can also make furniture rotational AND seasonal at the same time. To do this, you need to make your base image 16 times as long.

The first four are spring, next four are summer, then fall, then winter, as so:

Animation:

For animation you will make multiple images rather than just one.

You will make one image per frame. When you save your image you will have to save each image as [name]#.png. # should start at 0 and then increase by 1 for each frame.

Example:

Frame One: testobject0.png

Frame Two: testobject1.png

Frame Three: testobject2.png

And so forth.

You can also do this with seasonal/rotational furniture!

Save:

When you are done drawing your sprite, save it as a .PNG into the sprites folder. You can name your image whatever you want, just make sure you remember it because you're gonna need it later!

(Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cattails Wildwood Story\gameresources\furniture\sprites)

3. Add a .meta file

Go back into the furniture folder. Here you will see a bunch of .meta files. The meta files tell the game the properties of your object (how big is it, can you walk through it, etc.)

When you open up a .meta file, it may ask you to choose a program to open it with. Any basic text editor should work, but I used Notepad.

First copy and paste any of the other meta files (doesn't matter which, it will be changed), and rename it to your furniture name. This is so that you don't have to type all of the text out manually.

Here are the (as far as I know) required parameters:

• "attachment": "freestanding",
• "unlocked": true,
• "is_rotatable": false,
  
• "is_seasonal": false,
  
• "sprite": "spritename",
  
• "function": "none",
• "is_solid": false,
• "blocker_width": 32,
  
• "blocker_height": 32,
  
• "blocker_x_mod": 0,
  
• "blocker_y_mod": 0,

(If you have an animated sprite you will also need to use "animation_speed": #,)

Also Note: Do not delete any of the spaces, quotations, colons, or commas, or else the game will not be able to read the file correctly.

"attatchment":

Options: "freestanding", "floor", "wall"  (Make sure these are in quotes or it will break)

Freestanding means you can put your object anywhere other than walls, and on top of floor objects.

Floor objects can only be placed on the floor, and cannot intersect with other floor objects, but freestanding objects can be places on top of them.

Wall objects can only be placed on the wall.

"unlocked":

This is whether the furniture is unlocked at the start of the game or not.

true = you will be able to access this item by default.

false = it would have to be bought/obtained in some way.

"is_rotatable":

Can your object be rotated?

true = yes

false = no

"is_seasonal":

Does your object change with the seasons?

true = yes

false = no

"sprite":

This corresponds to the name of your sprite file.

I named my sprite image file "testobject.png" so for sprite I would put "testobject" (no need to include .png as it is assumed).

Make sure the name is in quotes or it will break!

"function":

If your object has a function or not.

Options: "none", "bed", "storage", "recordplayer", "pond" (Make sure these are in quotes or it will break)

Pretty self explanitory.

none = it does nothing.

bed = it can be used to save or sleep.

storage = it can be used to access storage

recordplayer = it can be used as a recordplayer

pond = it can be used like the crystal clear pond

"is_solid":

Can you walk through this object?

true = no, you cannot walk through this, it is a solid object

false = yes, you can walk through this, it is not solid

"blocker width" and "blocker_height":

Tells the game how big your object's hitbox is. If is_solid is true then your player cat will not be able to walk through this region.

blocker_width is how wide the object hitbox is in pixels, and blocker_height is the same for how tall it is.

For my example furniture I set both blocker_width and blocker_height to 32 because that is the dimensions of my sprite image:

"blocker_x_mod" and "blocker_y_mod":

This offsets the blocker from the origin.

If you set both to 0 the blocker will start at the top left corner of your sprite.

If blocker_x_mod is a negative number, it will move the box to the left, if it is a positive number it will move it to the right.

A negative number for blocker_y_mod will move it up, and a positive number will move it down.

Here I set blocker_x_mod to 16, and blocker_y_mod to -16. My player cat can move over the actual image, but not where the box is (see on the left).

If your sprite is animated:

"animation_speed":

How fast the frames change.

Higher number = slower

Lower number = faster

Now there are still more options to cover but you can leave them out and skip to part 4 if you don't need them.

Light Options

Use these if you want your object to give off light.

"is_light":

Self explanatory. Does the object give off light? (Defaults to false)

true = yes, show light

false = no, do not show light

"light_color":

What color is your light? Uses RGB color system.

Input it like this:

    "light_color": [255, 255, 255],

Numbers must be on a scale of 0 to 255

Setting all three numbers to 255 will make the light white.

"light_radius":

How far does the light extend from the middle of your furniture sprite in pixels

"light_intensity":

How intense (bright) is your light?

The higher the number the brighter the light!

Must be on a scale of 0 to 1.

"light_x_mod": and "light_y_mod":

Like with the blocker mods, this offsets the origin of the light from your sprite by the given number value in pixels.

If you leave both at 0 the light will come from the top left corner of your sprite.

If you want the light's origin to be in the middle of your sprite then you'd have to set light_x_mod to your sprite's width divided by 2, and light_y_mod to your sprite's height divided by 2.

Here is part of my furniture's .meta for reference:

         "is_light": true,
         "light_color": [0, 255, 255],
         "light_radius": 64,
         "light_intensity": 1,
         "light_x_mod": 16,
         "light_y_mod": 16,

Table Options

"tabletop_placement":
Can this be placed on a table? (Defaults to false)
true = yes, it can be placed on a table
false = no, it cannot be placed on a table

"is_table":

Is this object a table? (Defaults to false)

true = anything with tabletop_placement as true can be placed on this furniture object

false = objects cannot be places on this furniture object

Rotational Blocker Options

If you have a furniture object that can be rotated, you can use these to make the blocker settings change when it's rotated

If you want your object to have a specific hitbox ONLY when facing north, you can set these:

"blocker width_north": and "blocker_height_north":

"blocker_x_mod_north": and "blocker_y_mod_north":

Or for any other direction replace "north" with "east", "south", or "west".

Here are the blocker options for the stone table for reference (only showing north and west to keep it short):
        "blocker_width_north": 56,
        "blocker_height_north": 24,
        "blocker_x_mod_north": 4,
        "blocker_y_mod_north": 40,
        "blocker_width_west": 24,
        "blocker_height_west": 56,
        "blocker_x_mod_west": 20,
        "blocker_y_mod_west": 4,

(Left showing North, right showing West)

That should be all for .meta options. Now you can continue to the next part!

4. Add a .lang file

Inside of the furniture folder, there should be a "lang" folder, and inside of that folder is another folder titled "english".

(Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Cattails Wildwood Story\gameresources\furniture\lang\english\)

Inside that folder is a bunch of .lang files. Copy and paste any of the other lang files (doesn't matter which), and rename it to your furniture name. This is so that you don't have to type all of the text out manually.

Now open the file. When you open up the file, it may ask you to choose a program to open it with. Any basic text editor should work, but I used Notepad.

It will have these options:

        "lang_furniture_name": "name",
        "lang_furniture_description": "description"

Like with the meta files, make sure you don't delete any of the punctuation or it will break your game.

Replace the name and description with whatever you want.

Example:

       "lang_furniture_name": "Test Object",
       "lang_furniture_description": "This is an object made for a tutorial."

5. Load the game!

Hooray! You've made it! If you load up your game, you should be able to add your furniture to your den.

Make sure you've saved all your files!

Here is the test object in game:

Thank you for reading! I hope this was helpful and please let me know if you think I missed anything.

(This is also the first tutorial I've posted in a long time (and Im writing this at 3am), so please tell me if I worded something poorly)

[Sol]

THANK YOU!!!
I've never been able to mod before but I might give it a try with this game