Jason van Gumster - Farming Simulator Modding For Dummies

Jason van Gumster is an animator, educator, and entrepreneur responsible for animations and visual effects for television, film, and video games. His fascination with the creative, technical, and business challenges associated with collaborative productions has allowed him to manage large international production teams on ridiculously tight deadlines (4 to 7 minutes of animation in just two days) for fun. A big proponent of open source software, Jason uses open source tools where ever possible. Author of Blender For Dummies (and co-author of GIMP Bible), he is heavily involved in the Blender community. Hes an administrator on the largest Blender user forum and a member of the Blender Certification Review Board.

Currently based just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, Jason spends the majority of his time drinking coffee and trying to be awesome. Hopefully every now and again, he succeeds at the latter.

Christian Ammann is co-founder and CEO of GIANTS Software. He holds a masters in computer science from the University of Berne in Switzerland.

Before founding GIANTS Software in 2006, he gained experience in the game industry at Sony Computer Entertainment and NVIDIA.

To my wife and sons. Thanks for tolerating the long nights and missed weekends.

Of course, the biggest thanks goes to GIANTS Software. Not only have they produced an immensely enjoyable game in Farming Simulator, but theyve also made it incredibly accessible to modders. Their foresight in design and openness with their tools stands as an example of doing it right. And the insight they provided on technical matters was immensely valuable in ensuring the books accuracy.

Just as important, I need to acknowledge the team that brought this book to life, especially Kyle Looper and Chad Sievers at John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Without Kyle, this book wouldnt exist at all. Without Chad, my ham-fisted attempts at wielding the English language would be revealed for what they really are.

And to close, I must not only thank my wife and sons, but applaud them. Their patience for my sleep deprivation and tolerance for my absent-mindedness while writing this book are beyond compare. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're the best.

Publishers Acknowledgments

For general information on our other products and services, or how to create a custom For Dummies book for your business or organization, please contact our Business Development Department in the U.S. at 877-409-4177, contact info@dummies.biz , or visit www.wiley.com/go/custompub . Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Development Editor and Project Editor: Chad R. Sievers

Acquisitions Editor: Kyle Looper

Editorial Manager: Rev Mengle

Brand Licensing Manager: Ali DellaPenna

Custom Publishing Project Specialist: Michael Sullivan

Cover photo: Courtesy of GIANTS Software

Dummies Marketing: Jen Webb

Project Coordinator: Melissa Cossell

Appendix

Running into errors isnt uncommon when working with mods. A file may be missing or misnamed. A sound will be in stereo and not mono. A texture will be in PNG format instead of DDS. Some of these problems only cause a minor bump in performance or prevent part of your mod from appearing in-game. Others can cause the game to crash. GIANTS Engine spits out errors and warnings to the game log. This appendix gives a rundown of the possible warnings and errors you may see so you can track down the related issues and squash them before you release your mod to the general public.

These types of general error messages point out problems with loading files in the engine:

• Error: Could not init 3D system. Shader Model 3.0 is required. Please install the latest video drivers. This message means that either your video card cant run Farming Simulator or your video card drivers for your operating system arent up-to-date enough to run Farming Simulator. You can try updating your drivers, but if theyre already updated, you may need to investigate getting a new video card.
• Error: CRC64 files check failed. Data files are changed. Please reinstall application. Continue anyway? If you get this error, it means that a vital file in GIANTS Engine has been corrupted somehow, and the only way to fix it is to replace the file. Because you cant be sure which file is the offending one, the recommendation is to reinstall the game.
• Warning: CharacterXnot found in texture font (myString). Farming Simulator ships with a fixed set of characters it can display. If you have a string that uses a character that isnt available, youll get this warning.