Hey all! New to modding and wanted to understand the complexity before diving in.
I want to build a mod that gives step-by-step building instructions – each step shows exactly which blocks to place and how many (e.g., "4x Oak Planks", "2x Cobblestone"), along with a visual guide of where they go.
Basically, it turns into easy-to-follow tutorials with material counts per step.
I'm a mobile app dev (Java/Kotlin), actually building a Minecraft building guide app right now, but I have zero experience with Minecraft modding. Is this doable for a first mod, or am I in over my head?
Image 1 – reference example
Image 2 – my app for which im planning to build the mod
by SimpleEye8997
2 Comments
Its doable, just lots of work. There is also the other side of the coin, there is already schematic/building mods that have this function. Not all of them are layer by layer but they give material cost and show ghost blocks where they need to be placed.
I agree with the first commenter, I think this mod is definitely doable just not practical.
I think pre-built schematics kind of do this better. If I want a very specific structure, I will find and implement the schematic for it. There is a deeper problem here as well where most of your audience who would be interested in this mod are probably already using and comfortable with an existing schematics mod.
As far as modding Minecraft in Java. I think you will find that the things you don’t expect to be hard will be the hard part – that is, the supporting logic for this mod would be simple, but dealing with forge and fabric to set up and register interfaces would be trickier.