Helping a 12 year old getting into moding.

[count_zero99uk]

Hi there, my nephew really likes Minecraft and plays it a lot on the xbox. Im wanting to bring him over to the darkside of the PC and I think a fun way of doing this would be to introduce him to moding his game how he wants to play it.

As you all seem like nice friendly people I was wondering if any of you could recommend somewhere to start. Websites, books or whatever for getting started in moding.

As a side not his dad got him a Raspbery Pi for Christmas and ive seen that there is a special build of Minecraft for that with its own way of modding, if someone could advise on this too that would be great.

Thanks in advance
Brian.

 

[Racemol]

You see "modding" as in creating a custom mod pack? Not as in creating his own mods? The first one is easier to answer than the last one

For someone to start getting into playing modded minecraft I would recommend to follow the singleplayer let's play from Direwolf20 on youtube. His building style is really not that good of an example, but how he uses and explains the mods themselves is. If your nephew then uses the same modpack, he can learn and see the possibilities from most of the common mods. After that you can work with custom modpacks and decide what road to take from there.

To start playing modded minecraft with your own custom modpack is kinda hard. How would he make a selection of mods if he doesn't know how the stuff works?

 

[count_zero99uk]

Hes got an interest in programming and I thought modding the game himself would be fun. So yes that is what I am looking for.

 

[Racemol]

Oh wow, a 12 year old starting to code. Well, I guess you can't start early enough

I would start here: http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Mods/Creating_mods
But really, there are a lot of guides how to start modding minecraft. I suggest you use google to search for: minecraft modding tutorial. Should give you a lot of pages to read through.

Keep in mind though, modding minecraft is really just programming in java and some knowledge about it is extremely handy if not needed..

 

[count_zero99uk]

So if I get a basic understanding of java I should be able to help him out. Ok thanks for that.

 

[SatanicSanta]

So if I get a basic understanding of java I should be able to help him out. Ok thanks for that.

Your nephew should also get a basic understanding of java. If not he'll end up reproducing what the tutorials tell him without actually understanding why he is doing what he is doing.

 

[Padfoote]

@SatanicSanta has an excellent point. I started to mess around with modding before I knew any Java, and I couldn't do anything on my own. It doesn't take too long to get the basics down, I sat down one day and spent about an hour reading through the Java documentation here and it makes things much easier when creating mods. Plus, it's more fun understanding what you're typing and why you are rather than just going off a document that tells you to do it "because you have to".

 

[count_zero99uk]

Thanks @SatanicSanta and @Padfoote that's what I intend to do. Im sure ive some old java books floating around.

 

[Wagon153]

I dont see 12 as too young. Look at good old ChickenBones. He created our number 1 tool, NEI, and was 14 when he started modding.

 

[portablejim]

Vswe did a good basics tutorial series. Look here.

 

[count_zero99uk]

Ill have a look at that series thanks.

Can anyone recommend a good book for Java, there seems to be a lot of types, or maybe im missing something.

 

[Shirkit]

I started out in making scripts instead of mods. I started doing Ultima Online stuff and now I'm doing research in game development =P