Bukkit

New in ChessCraft 1.0.0, the ChessCraft piece designer allows you to design new chess sets or modify existing chess sets in-game, using whatever tools you like (creative mode, WorldEdit...).

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Getting Started

To design a chess set, you will need a free board with a square size large enough to accommodate the set you're designing. Choose a board, and while standing on it, type:

/chess design

(This can be abbreviated to /chess des, and all subcommands below can also be abbreviated)

You'll get a confirmation message, and the board's appearance will change:

• The A1,B1,C1,D1,E1 and A2 squares will be loaded with the white rook, knight, bishop, queen, king and pawn from the board's current piece style
• The B2,C2,D2 and E2 squares will be mostly empty, except for one or more 2-block high stacks
• The A8, B8, C8, D8, E8 and A7 squares will be either empty, or loaded with the black pieces from the board's current piece style if the style's white & black pieces have different shapes.
• Every other square will be mostly covered with a red wool "blanket" (those squares are not used in the designer).

For any of the following commands, you must be within the board's boundaries to use them.

Editing the Pieces

You're now free to edit blocks in the squares A1-E1, A2-E2, A8-E8 & A7 as you please. If you want to start with a blank slate, type:

/chess design clear

Use whatever tools you like to create/modify your white pieces in A1,B1,C1,D1,E1 and A2. Creative mode and WorldEdit are useful here.

How do you define the black pieces? There are two options here:

1. If your white and black pieces will be the same shape, and differ only in their materials, then use the B2-E2 squares - anywhere in any of those squares, you can place a 2-high block stack. The lower block must match a material you used in the white set definition, and the upper block will be the corresponding material used in the black pieces. Any materials you use in the white pieces which don't have such a mapping will simply be used unchanged in the black pieces. Make sure you have at least one mapping, or the black and white pieces will look identical!
2. If you want completely different shapes for the white and black pieces, then create your black pieces in A7 & A8-E8 and leave the B2-E2 squares empty. See the papercraft stock style for an example of such a set.

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Saving your set

To save a set, simply type:

/chess design save <new-set-name>

Your work will be saved to the piece style file plugins/ChessCraft/piece_styles/custom/<new-set-name>.yml. Note that the file name will be all lower-case, regardless of the set name used. So set names are case-insensitive.

You can omit the set name when saving, in which case the last name saved (or the board's current set name) will be used.

Loading a set

You can load an alternative set into the designer (assuming it will fit on the current board):

/chess design load <set-name>

Any current blocks will be overwritten so be sure to save any design work you've done first!

Exiting

To exit the designer, simply type:

/chess design exit

Again, ensure any changes you've made have been saved first. Unsaved changes will be lost!

Using the new set

You can now use your new chess set in a few different ways:

1. You can use the '-pstyle' option when creating new boards, e.g. /chess create board board1 -style large -pstyle <your-new-style>
2. While on any existing chess board, you can use /chess board set piecestyle <your-new-style> (assuming the piece style fits on that chess board). This changes the board's board style to use the new piece style (so any other boards using that board style will also have the new piece style.
3. While on any existing chess board, you can use /chess board set override_piecestyle <your-new-style> (assuming the piece style fits on that chess board). This sets the new piece style for this board only - the board style is not changed.
4. You can edit any board style file directly, and change the 'piece_style' field to your new style name. Then any new board created with that style will use your set. It's not recommended to edit any stock board style files (in plugins/ChessCraft/board_styles) - create or edit a custom board style in plugins/ChessCraft/board_styles/custom instead.