Dev Dairy 10; Moo

zomg i so tired again. good ol 8 till 5 of hard coding. the entire point of a dialogue editor and map editor is to help facilitate community driven stories. And obviously, a part of that would be mods. So im putting in modding directly into the application. I build the skeleton and the UI for users to create a mod directory, put in sprites or sprite sheets, chop those into cells and those cells will have JSON data tied to them. EVERYTHING is date driven now (or soon will be).

I want to get this part done as fast as possible, so i may take a nap and then go and try to work through the night. See what happens, i am a lazy boi after all.

here is chat boi to give you a breakdown on what we implemented today.

Dev Report — Sprite Sheet Authoring & Mod Pipeline Progress

Focus: Runtime content authoring + mod-safe export pipeline Status: Core loop functional, UI stabilization in progress

What shipped today

1. Runtime Sprite Sheet Authoring Tool (WIP)

• JSON-first authoring (Unity is renderer/executor only)

• Sessions load/save at runtime (no editor dependency)

• Entries represent data only (id, name, rect, type)

• Immediate mutation model with rehydration (no Apply button)

1. Grid-based Sprite Slicing

• Grid cut supports:

  • Cell width / height

  • X/Y cuts

  • X/Y padding (for spaced sprite sheets)

• Grid slicing logic moved out of UI → dedicated service

• UI now only parses inputs and dispatches intent

1. Mod-Safe Export System (Runtime)

• Export root lives in:

  Application.persistentDataPath/Mods/_Exports

• In-game folder browser (no OS dialogs, no editor APIs)

• Can:

  • Create export directories

  • Select export directory

  • Persist selection per session

• Export path is logged and fully deterministic

1. Content Registry (JSON SSOT)

• Generic [c]ContentRegistry [/c] with:

  • Deterministic load order

  • Base + override folder support

  • ID-based override semantics

• Shared data shape for tiles / walls / overlays

• Schema-sniffing groundwork in place (type-safe without hardcoding)

1. UI State Hardening

• All controls start [c]interactable = false[/c]

• Interactivity now derives strictly from state:

  • Has session

  • Has export directory

  • Has selected entry

• Prevents invalid actions and “dead clicks”

• Makes tool behavior predictable under fatigue

What’s intentionally not done yet

• Free-cut slicing (disabled on purpose)

• Visual surface selection

• Map editor integration

• Workshop packaging

• Cross-platform file dialogs (Windows only for now)

Why this matters

This moves the project from prototype tooling to a real authoring pipeline:

• Mods are first-class

• JSON is the source of truth

• Tools run in builds, not just the editor

• Content can be authored, shared, and overridden safely

This is foundational work that unblocks:

• Map editor consuming JSON tiles

• Community content

• Steam Workshop later