Setting up Visual Studio 2008 for UnrealScript development with nFringe

by Jade on Thursday, March 26th, 2009, under Computer Programming, Tutorials

If you want to start writing mods for Unreal Tournament 3, this series of tutorials will cover everything you need to get you going. Today, I am going to walk you through installing all of the software you need so you can begin working on your first mod. All of the software we will use is free (as in beer) for non-commercial use, so the only thing you need to buy is Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3).

Required Software

First, install UT3 and upgrade it to the patch you wish to develop for. To get the latest patch (recommended), go to UnrealTournament3.com and look for their downloads section. You should easily be able to find the latest patch there. I am using patch 4 (aka 1.4, aka UT3 v2.0) so if you want to use the same version that this tutorial uses, you can download it here.

If you don’t have Visual Studio 2008 installed, or if you only have the Express Edition of Visual Studio 2008, you will need to download and install the Visual Studio 2008 Shell.

Now we need to download and install the .NET Framework 3.5 (this step may not be required; look for “Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5″ in Add/Remove Programs to determine if you need it).

Next, download and install nFringe from PixelMineGames.com. You can probably get the latest release and follow through my other tutorials just fine, though this tutorial uses version 1.0.19395.0

Finally, you will need to get the source code for Unreal Tournament 3 that matches your patch. You can download the latest patch source from EpicGames.com (look for the downloads section about half-way down on the page). Extract the ‘Src’ folder from your download into “My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\”. For example, in patch 4, the rar contains the folder “UT3ScriptSource_1.4\Development\Src\…” with a bunch of stuff under it. Put that folder into your UTGame folder so that you end up with “My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Src\…”.
NOTE: If you cannot open the download, try using WinRAR

Start Modding!

You are now ready to create your first project and begin hammering out some serious mods. You may also want to check out my tutorial on creating your first Unreal Tournament 3 mutator (the SuperStinger).

Happy fragging!