Adding Items

Adding items is fairly easy with Forge. In this tutorial I will show you how to add items into your mod. My tutorial might be different with others, but my tutorials are made to be the most organized.

Instead of putting everything in your main mod class, we will create a new class solely for the items. And then, add an init method into it, like so:

package com.emx.tutorial.init;

public class ModItems
{
    public static void init()
    {

    }
}

As you can see, I put it in the init method. The key is, I am trying to make the mod as similar as the Minecraft code in terms of organization. This will make your mod easier to read for yourself and other modders, if you are planning to make it open source.

To add a basic item, you don’t need a separate class. You only want a separate class if you have custom functions to the item. But for now, we won’t do that. In this tutorial I will add a red diamond item.

package com.emx.tutorial.init;

public class ModItems
{
    public static Item red_diamond;

    public static void init()
    {
        red_diamond = new Item().setUnlocalizedName("red_diamond").setTextureName(TutorialMod.MODID + ":red_diamond").setCreativeTab(CreativeTabs.tabMaterials);
    }
}

There are a few basic methods needed to make the item:

• .setUnlocalizedName() :: This sets the mod-unique ID of the item. No two items can have the same unlocalized name.
• .setTextureName() :: This sets the image texture of your mod. In this case, I used TutorialMod.MODID instead of rewriting the mod ID. But the real value is “tutorial:red_diamond”, and it points to the file “red_diamond.png” inside package “assets.tutorial.textures.items”, which we will make in a minute.
• .setCreativeTab :: This sets which tab your item will be in in the creative menu. This is not needed if you don’t want your item to be obtainable in the creative menu.

Like I said before, let’s add the actual texture into the project. For this tutorial, I will use this texture:

 

Create a new package in the “src/resources” source folder. You’ll need to name it “assets.modid.textures.items”, so in our case it will be “assets.tutorial.textures.items”.In it, drag and drop the image from your file explorer, and make sure it is named “red_diamond.png”, just like how we coded it.

Alright, now we have to register the item so that Minecraft knows we added an item to it. Add this line to your init() method:

GameRegistry.registerItem(red_diamond, red_diamond.getUnlocalizedName());

So, your final code will be like this:

package com.emx.tutorial.init;

public class ModItems
{
    public static Item red_diamond;

    public static void init()
    {
        red_diamond = new Item().setUnlocalizedName("red_diamond").setTextureName(TutorialMod.MODID + ":red_diamond").setCreativeTab(CreativeTabs.tabMaterials);

        GameRegistry.registerItem(red_diamond, red_diamond.getUnlocalizedName());
    }
}

Alright, we are done. Now, we need our main mod class to call this method, so what we coded will be executed. Go to the main mod class, and enter this line in the preInit method:

ModItems.init();

So, your main mod class will now look like this:

package com.emx.tutorial;

@Mod(modid = TutorialMod.MODID, name = TutorialMod.NAME, version = TutorialMod.VERSION)

public class TutorialMod
{
    public static final String NAME = "Tutorial Mod";
    public static final String MODID = "tutorial";
    public static final String VERSION = "1.7.10-R1";

    @Mod.Instance("tutorial")
    public static TutorialMod instance;

    @Mod.EventHandler
    public void preInit(FMLPreInitializationEvent event)
    {
        ModItems.init();
    }

    @Mod.EventHandler
    public void init(FMLInitializationEvent event) {}

    @Mod.EventHandler
    public void postInit(FMLPostInitializationEvent event) {}
}

Alright! Seems finished, but if you try and run Minecraft, the item will show up as “item.red_diamond.name” instead of Red Diamond, that’s because we haven’t added a language for it.

If you haven’t already, you need to make a language file. To add a language file, create a new package called “assets.tutorial.lang” in the resources folder, and create a new file called “en_US.lang”. In there type in the following:

item.red_diamond.name=Red Diamond

That’s it for this tutorial! In the next tutorial I will teach you how to add blocks.