Modding

Zeta’s engine is designed around the core functionality of mods. Anything you make on top of Zeta is a mod; even a game is just a mod running on Zeta. This modularity allows for greater flexibility in the engine’s internal workings. Please read the setup page first - make sure you can run the Zeta engine before trying to mod it.

Creating a mod

To create a mod for Zeta, simply create a class anywhere which implements com.thirds.zeta.mod.Mod. When Zeta initialises, it will search for all mods in its classpath and load them. You need to implement the methods getName() and getVersion(). The mod name should be written entirely in ASCII lower case, with digits and hyphens. Version number is arbitrary, but will be used for dependency management in the future.

How to use a mod

Creating entities

To make your own entities for use in Zeta’s levels, or to see how to use Zeta’s existing entities, visit the entities page.

Injecting code into Zeta

Zeta has lots of interesting ways to hack into its engine. One commonly used method is called a hook; these functions allow you to execute your own code when Zeta calls certain functions. They are documented here.