This project contains source code that aims to demonstrate how to compile the example plugin shown in our documentation. In dllmain.cpp, you will see how every function exported by the SDK can be implemented in your plugin.
You should be familiar with C++, the development of Windows applications in C++ using Visual Studio and you might also need to reverse engineer the base game you wish to mod to achieve meaningful results with your plugin. There are already a lot of existing plugins written in C++ for every CoD game Plutonium supports. Feel free to ask in a modding channel or on our forum and we will be able to point you in the right direction. Learning from existing open-source projects can provide you with a lot of background information on how the underlying CoD engine works and can help you get started.
This project utilizes Premake5, a versatile tool capable of automatically generating project files for various build systems, including Visual Studio. The Plutonium team strongly recommends adopting Premake5 to expedite the development of your plugins. We have chosen Premake for its utilization of the simple yet powerful scripting language called Lua. The project's build configurations and settings are defined within the premake5.lua file. So far, all open-source plugins written for Plutonium have used Premake5. It is the most widely used tool by the community and you are very likely to receive support from other users and the original Premake5 maintainers on GitHub if you need further assistance.
Here is a quick overview of how this project is structured:
├───src
├───vendor
| ├───plutonium-sdk
As mentioned previously, the entry point for this plugin can be found in the src folder (dllmain.cpp), while the SDK header files are found in the vendor folder. The vendor folder will contain all the other third-party dependencies that you might need when you start developing more complex plugins. As we will explain, later you should try to include third-party dependencies using the submodules feature that comes with Git.
Given that this project is hosted on GitHub, you will use Git for version control. To obtain the source code, you will need to clone the repository. Additionally, it is essential to initialize the Git submodule(s) to acquire the SDK. If you are new to Git, or you have not utilized the submodule feature before, we recommend familiarizing yourself with these concepts by reading the following articles before proceeding:
Here is an example of how you can add the plutonium-sdk to an empty project using Git:
git submodule add https://github.com/plutoniummod/plutonium-sdk.git vendor/plutonium-sdkYou will find this submodule is already included in this example plugin repository. All you have to do is initialize it as explained by the build instructions below.
Please read the documentation at plutonium.pw/docs for more information on how to start from an empty project.
- Install Visual Studio 2022 and enable
Desktop development with C++ - Insatll Git
- Install Premake5 and add it to your system PATH
- Clone this repository using
git clone https://github.com/plutoniummod/plutonium-sdk-example.git - Update the submodules using
git submodule update --init --recursive - Generate a solution for Visual Studio 2022 with Premake using
premake5 vs2022 - Build the project via solution file in
build\plutonium-sdk-example.sln