Your first planet

This walk-through makes a small pack from nothing: a level on your own geometry, a start point, an ant squad that keeps a door shut, an exit home, a message when you arrive, and a planet on the map that leads to it. It takes about half an hour. You need Studio set up with your ROM, the decomp and the port.

Don’t have a level model yet? Open the example world first and copy one of its .glb files from geometry/, or follow Modelling a level to make a simple floor in Blender.

Create the project

File › New project… opens the dialog:

The New project dialog with Name, Mod id, Folder and Geometry fields — Name, mod id, where to create it, and (optional) your first level's .glb.

Name: what players see in the Mods list, e.g. My Planet.
Mod id: lower case and unique to you, e.g. yourname.my_planet. It names the pack and keeps your content apart from other people’s, so don’t reuse someone else’s.
Folder: where to make it. Studio creates my_planet.jfgproj inside.
Geometry: your .glb from Blender. Studio copies it into the project, makes the first level on it, and puts start point 0 in the middle, on the floor. Markers from the Blender add-on become objects.

Press Create. The level opens in the Scene and the import check runs: its report is in the Console (segments, triangles, new images, whether it fits the game’s track buffer, and the special surfaces it found).

Look around

Hold the right mouse button and use WASD to fly, Q/E to go down and up; the mouse wheel changes the speed. F frames the selection, or the whole level from above.

The Scene: a green field with stone walls and ramps, markers and labels over the objects — The Scene draws your geometry with its textures, vertex light and fog; objects are markers or the game's models.

Set up the level

Open the Level window (right side). Give the level a Name (31 characters at most), pick its Music (any stock tune, or your own OGG), a Sky and Fog.

The Level window: name, world, track, music and sound, sky and fog — The Level window. Changes here can be undone like object edits.

Add an ant squad that locks a door

In Prefabs (bottom), open Groups and drag Squad, region and locked door into the Scene. Before you drop it, pick the Squadron (an enemy type and its count), a Door, and how many Members.

The Prefabs window: search, In stock, Groups, Pack kinds and categories — Prefabs: groups at the top, your pack's kinds, then every object type by category.

You get a squadron, its members, a square navigation region they keep to, and a door that stays shut until they’re all dead. The Inspector shows each part’s fields.

Every squadron needs a navigation region with at least three corners, or the game crashes when the level starts. The group makes one for you; the validator catches a missing one.

Place pickups and move things

Search Prefabs for health and drag a few in. Select an object (click it, or in the Hierarchy) and:

W moves it; with Floor on (toolbar) it drops onto the floor below. Snap moves in grid steps.
E turns objects that have a facing; R sizes those that have a size.
Drop to floor in the Inspector puts it on the floor, a little above it so it doesn’t spawn inside a slope.

The Inspector for a squadron: name, position, Drop to floor, and its fields — The Inspector: the selected object's name, position and fields. Dimmed values come from the stock entry.

Add the exit home

Drag Groups › Exit and return start point near the edge of the level. Select the exit, and in the Inspector’s Destination pick Leads to (any of your levels or a stock level: Goldwood’s Forest First is a good one) and the Start point to arrive at.

Say hello

Open Triggers, press New trigger, and set When to level start. Its first action is a message: type your welcome. Press Save triggers.

The Triggers window with two triggers, their level, condition and actions — Triggers: when something happens in a level, then actions. No code needed.

Put it on the map

Open Planet and press New planet. Give it a Name, then click empty map space to place its disc and a stock planet to draw the route from (only free stick directions are offered). Set Entry level for Juno, Vela and Lupus to your level. Opens decides when it shows: with the stock point its route leaves is the simplest.

The Planet window: the map with planets and routes on the left, fields on the right — The Planet window, here on a galaxy of the pack's own. See A galaxy of your own for that.

Validate, save and play

Press Ctrl+S, then Validate: the Console lists problems; click one to jump to the object. With no errors, pick a hero next to Play and press it. Studio builds the pack, installs it into the port, and starts the game in your level.

The Console with the Validate button and 0 errors, 0 warnings — The Console: validator results and the build and play output.

Build › Build pack writes my_planet.jfgproj/build/<mod id>.nrm. That file is your mod: players put it in their mods folder. It carries only your content; the game’s parts are filled in from each player’s own ROM.

Look at how the example world does more: a galaxy, hidden planets, a reskinned enemy, talkers and a finale.
Tutorials for single features.