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This Guide has been updated to 1.4.4. If you need to view the old 1.3 version of this wiki page, click here

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Basic Item

This guide serves to explain common things shared among all items.

What is an Item?

It is important to be aware of the distinction between Items, Projectiles, and Tiles. Starting out, you may inadvertently confuse concepts if you aren't clear how they are different. For example, some people might get confused and try to add a workbench item to a recipe when really they wanted to add the workbench tile. It is also important to realize that many something like a boomerang weapon consists of both the item and the projectile. While a simple concept, try to remember.

Making an Item

To add an item to Terraria, we must first create a "class" that "inherits" from ModItem. To do so, make a .cs file in your mod's source directory (My Games\Terraria\tModLoader\ModSources\MyModName) and then open that file in your text editor. Paste the following into that file, replacing NameHere with the internal name of your item and ModNamespaceHere with your mod's foldername/namespace. (A common mistake is to use apostrophes or spaces in internal names, don't do this, the computer won't understand.)

using Terraria;
using Terraria.ID;
using Terraria.ModLoader;

namespace ModNamespaceHere
{
    public class NameHere : ModItem
    {
        public override void SetDefaults()
        {
            Item.width = 20;
            Item.height = 20;
            Item.maxStack = 999;
            Item.value = 100;
            Item.rare = ItemRarityID.Blue;
            // Set other Item.X values here
        }

        public override void AddRecipes()
        {
            // Recipes here. See Basic Recipe Guide
        }
    }
}

Now that you have a .cs file, bring in your texture file (a .png image file that you have made) and put it in the folder with this .cs file. Make sure read Autoload so you know how to satisfy what the computer expects for its filename and folder structure.

SetDefaults

The most important part of an Item is the SetDefaults. SetDefaults is where you set values for the item, things like what ammo does the item use, how big is the item, and which tile the item places. See Item Class Documentation to see what values commonly set in SetDefaults mean. You can also view vanilla item values by visiting Vanilla Item Field Values. Many examples of different items can be found in ExampleMod.Content.Items

Localization

After you build your mod, the localization file, typically found in My Games\Terraria\tModLoader\ModSources\MyModName\Localization\en-US_Mods.MyModName.hjson, will be populated with entries for the newly added items. For items you'll see entries for the DisplayName and the Tooltip. The DisplayName will default to the classname with capital letters separating the words. The Tooltip will default to nothing. You can edit this file to customize these localizations:

Items: {
	NameHere: {
		DisplayName: Name Here
		Tooltip: This is a modded item.
	}
}

If you want a tooltip with multiple lines, please read the Multiline section in the Localization wiki page to learn the correct syntax.