Assets

Assets are the JSON files that describe BlockFront’s content: where a match is played, how a map looks and sounds, and how each game mode is set up. They hold no blocks. The blocks come from the Minecraft world, and assets describe what happens in it.

Asset types

Type	Folder	What it holds
Templates	templates	Reusable map effects. See Effect templates.
Maps	maps	A map’s name, author, teams, music and environments. See Map assets.
Games	games	A playable setup of one game mode on one map. See Game assets.

A fourth folder, scenes, holds Movie Studio recordings.

An asset’s name is its file name without .json. Names can be up to 128 characters and can’t contain slashes or ...

Where assets live

Assets are read from your game folder:

blockfront/assets/server/
├── templates/
│   └── tmp_positioned_sound_church_bell.json
├── maps/
│   └── Brittany.json
└── games/
    └── dom_brittany.json

Load order

Assets load in a fixed order, because each type depends on the one before it:

1. Templates load first.
2. Maps load next, and fill in the templates they use.
3. Games load last, and find their map by name.

A file that can’t be read is written to the log and skipped, and everything else still loads.

How references work

Assets refer to each other by name:

• A game names its map in mapName. If that map doesn’t exist, the game falls back to a blank map called Custom.
• A map environment names its templates in mapEffectTemplates. A template that doesn’t exist is written to the log and skipped.

Reloading follows the same order as loading, so games always pick up the newest maps.

The /assets command

/assets needs permission level 3.

Command	What it does
/assets list <type>	Lists every asset of a type.
/assets create <type> <name> <arg>	Creates an asset. For maps, <arg> is the author. For games, it’s the game mode id. Templates can’t be created this way.
/assets edit <type> <name> <args>	Runs an edit command on an asset.
/assets remove <type> <name>	Removes an asset. Its file is deleted on the next save-all.
/assets reload	Reads every asset from disk again.
/assets save-all	Writes every asset to disk, and deletes the files of removed assets.
/assets test	Checks every game for missing pieces, such as a lobby, spawns or a map.

<type> is templates, maps, games or scenes.

Caution

reload and save-all each replace one side with the other, so use the right one:

• After /assets create or /assets edit, run save-all. Those commands only change the running game, and reload would throw the changes away.
• After changing a file by hand, run reload. Files aren’t watched, and save-all would overwrite your change.

Assets in a campaign

A campaign carries its own assets in the pack’s server_assets/ folder, laid out the same way. See Pack format.

When a player starts a campaign, the game clears blockfront/campaign/assets/server/ and copies the pack’s server_assets/ into it. The mission then runs with only the campaign’s assets, and your normal assets folder isn’t touched.

On a dedicated server, server_assets/ is copied over the server’s own assets folder instead, replacing any files with the same name.

Caution

That folder is cleared on every launch, so anything you change there with /assets or the wands is lost next time. Copy the changed files back into your pack’s server_assets/ before you restart the mission.