PROJECT HIGHRISE™ by SomaSim Project Highrise Modding, Part 1: Decorations Hi there! In this guide we’re going to learn how to make our mods, such as additional decorations for the game. All you need is an image editor and a text editor. We’re starting with decos, because they’re the easiest to work with. For image editing, you’ll need something that can handle transparent PNG files ­ so unfortunately Windows Paint isn’t going to cut it. But if you want a free alternative, Paint.NET (for Windows) or GIMP (for multiple platforms) are good solutions. In this tutorial we’re going to make a plant. Let’s say it’s a ficus plant, but with big scary eyes and fangs. Naturally, we’ll call it Audrey, because reasons. Ready? Let’s go. NOTE: THIS GUIDE ASSUMES YOU’RE ALREADY FAMILIAR WITH STEAM WORKSHOP We will only cover parts that are specific to Project Highrise. If you’d like more information

about Workshop, check out their documentation here: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/

Copyright © SomaSim. Revised 11 Aug 2016

Step 1. Preparation First, let’s set up a directory where we’re going to put our mod. Under Windows, open this directory in Explorer:

c:\Users\USERNAME \AppData\LocalLow\SomaSim\Project Highrise Under Mac OS, the directory is

~/Library/Application Support/unity.SomaSim.Project Highrise

TIP: in Windows, AppData can be set as a hidden directory. To get there, hit WIN+R to open the “Run” dialog, then type the path %appdata%\..\LocalLow ­ as seen in the screenshot below ­ and then navigate into SomaSim and then Project Highrise

This is where the game stores all of its local files. You should see three directories like this:

Now go into the mods folder, which should be empty. We’re going to make a new directory for the new mod, and then download a deco template and unzip it inside that folder. Here are the steps:

1. Inside the mods folder, make a new folder called test­plant­audrey. 2. Download this deco template:

https://storage.googleapis.com/highrise­modding/templates/deco­simple­1­tile­wide.zip 3. Open the zip file, and copy the files inside it into your test­plan­audrey folder.

a. TIP: In older versions of Windows you may need to unzip it first: right­click and

select “Extract All” into a temporary directory, and then move those files over.

Now your folder should have files that look like this:

Ok, so far so good. Now let’s start modifying things :) Step 2. Plant Image The first thing to do is to make a plant image! The plant will occupy exactly one tile in the game, and each tile is 100px wide and 300px tall. So we need a plant image that’s 100x300px. Fortunately, the developers (hey, that’s us!) released a bunch of sample images that can be used for modding. You can find them here, in one zip file (~ 900kb): https://storage.googleapis.com/highrise­modding/project­highrise­modding­props.zip Please note these sample media are only available for use in modding ­ please don’t go and make a competing tower simulator game using them ;) Take one of the plant images from the subfolder named “decos”. Most of those plants should already have the right size for a single tile decoration. In your image editor, add some googly eyes to it, and scary fangs, for example like this:

Save this as a PNG file named Deco.png somewhere on your computer (eg. on your desktop).

TIP: when using GIMP, use “Export” option instead of “Save” to export a PNG file. Then once it’s ready, move it over into the data subfolder inside test­plant­audrey, overwriting the old sample Deco.png that was there before. Your files inside test­plant­audrey / data should look like this now:

Step 3: Decoration definition Now we’re going to add a bunch of data, to define how this decoration can be used by the game. Open the text file called Definition.txt in the data directory. You should have a file that looks like this:

We will discuss what exactly all this means in one moment. But first, in your text editor, do a “search and replace” to replace MY_MOD_ID with the name of our mod folder, test­plant­audrey like this:

To end up with a file that looks like this:

So what does all this mean? Here it is again, color coded:

From top to bottom:

­ “test­plant­audrey” is the unique ID of this mod. Once you make a mod, don’t change this ID, because this is how the game remembers which object is which. :)

­ Size of “x 1 y 1” means this deco is 1 tile wide, and 1 tile tall ­ “Deco.png” is the image we just created with the evil looking plant ­ The two stings highlighted in green are what’s going to be displayed in the game when

you click on the deco. Name should be short (a couple of words), while the description can be a little longer, such as one short sentence.

HOMEWORK 1: Replace the two highlighted strings as follows:

Step 4. Item description for Steam Workshop We’ve now created an item definition for the game. But before we can try it, we need two more things for Workshop:

1. an item description (how it will be described on the Workshop website) and 2. a preview image.

Go back up to the test­plant­audrey folder, and open the file called Description.txt. It should look like this:

Then do these three steps:

1. Replace “MY_MOD_ID” with “test­plant­audrey”, as you did before 2. Replace “WORKSHOP NAME” with “Plant named ‘Audrey’ ” 3. Replace “WORKSHOP_DESCRIPTION” with

"A mysterious plant. Don't be alarmed if it yells: 'Feed me, Seymour, I'm hungry!' " Finally, we’ll need a preview image, which ideally should be square, but for now we’re testing, so we’ll just use the plant image itself. The steps are:

1. Delete the current Preview.png (it’s just a yellow square for testing :) ) 2. Copy your data / Deco.png file, and paste it here, then rename it as Preview.png

In the end you should end up with the following files and folders, and a Description.txt file:

Step 5. Testing The time has come to see it in the game, and see if it works! :) Start the game in Steam, and then go into the Mods dialog in the main menu. You should see your plant listed there!

Do you see that little check box to the left of the name? Click on it. This will enable this mod for use in the game:

Now let’s see it in action! Close this dialog, and start a new game.

In the build menu at the bottom, you should see a new button for Workshop content: Click on that button to get a list of placeable user­generated decorations:

Now click on the new item and place it in your building:

Ta­dah! Your first workshop item. :)

Step 6. Additional Logging Before we proceed any further, let’s enable additional logging, to give us ample warning when something is going awry. In the mods menu, click on the options button in the lower right:

Turn on the “Enable Additional Logging” option to get more feedback about any errors.

This will cause errors to write additional information into player text logs, as well as displayed in the game (which is turned off by default). Player logs can be located at:

Windows: (game install directory) \ Game_Data \ output.txt Mac OS X: ~ / Library / Logs / Unity / Player.log

(Steam’s default game install directory should be something like: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Project Highrise ) Also, please keep in mind that the logging option gets cleared every time you quit the game , so you’ll need to enable it again next time you’re making a mod.

Step 7. Making Your Own Item Now that you know how to make a playable plant named Audrey, here’s a challenge: HOMEWORK 2: make something different , something you want to see in the game! Here’s what you’re going to need to do:

1. Pick a name and a new ID for your item. I’m going to continue on the theme of campy scifi horrors, and make “The Killer Tomato”, and use the id “killer­tomato”. But you should make something else!

2. Now make a new folder for it under “mods”:

3. Like in step 1, grab the template from here, and unzip it into your new folder: https://storage.googleapis.com/highrise­modding/templates/deco­simple­1­tile­wide.zip

4. Make a new Deco.png file for your decoration (inside data folder). I made a tomato. Your data directory should look like this:

5. Open Definition.txt and make the changes we did before. a. Replace MY_MOD_ID with your new ID (eg. killer­tomato) b. Replace name and description with your own text

6. Open Description.txt, and once again replace the three templated names with the mod id, workshop item name, and workshop item description:

7. Update Preview.png with an image of your choice. That image will show up in Steam Workshop. I’m going to just use my tomato png file :)

8. Start the game and look in the mods menu ­ you should see your new mod!

Feel free to enable it and test it in the game.

Step 8. Sharing Finally, to share it with the world, go back to the mods menu (you’ll have to quit to the main menu first). Select your newly generated mod again, and this time click on “Share”.

You should get a few status updates, like “uploading files”. NOTE: if this is your first time sharing content on Workshop, you will be redirected to Steam’s End User License Agreement page, and required to declare that you agree to it, before your content will show up on Workshop! Finally, status should change from “Local file, not shared” to “Shared on Workshop”, like this:

Ok, so now the item is in Workshop, but it’s not visible to the world yet. As described in their docs, you need to set its visibility:

1. In the Steam client, go to your user profile page, from there go to “Workshop Items”

2. If needed, on your workshop page, under the “Filter by game” drop­down, select “Project Highrise”

3. You should see your new item. Click on it

4. Down the page, on the right side, you will see an option to “Change Visibility”.

5. Initially it’s set to “Hidden”. First, set it to “Friends­only”, and have a friend of yours subscribe to that item, and test it to make sure it works well! :) After you’ve tested it, changing visibility to “Public” will make it available to the world.

FAQ Downloading Your Own Item From Workshop By the way, see that button that says “subscribe” in the screenshot above? To test your mod, it’s a good idea to subscribe to it first, to get the same experience as someone who just downloaded it.

After you subscribe to your mod, quit the game and restart it to make sure it’s downloaded. Just be aware that when you do that, you will end up with two copies of the mod, one that’s local and uploaded by you, and the other that’s been downloaded from steam. You can tell them apart because they will have different status info lines:

­ The copy you created will say:

­ The copy from workshop will say: If you unsubscribe on workshop, that will get rid of the second one, but the mod you created will remain in your mods library until you delete it using the delete button.