Namespace OmegaEngine.Foundation.Storage

The storage subsystem provides a unified way to locate, read, and write content files.

ContentManager lets you request files using a type and an ID.

The actual physical locations of these directories are abstracted.

Directory structure example

content/
  Textures/
    Grass.png
  Meshes/
    Character.x
  Sounds/
    Bird.wav

Base content

By default, content is loaded from a content directory next to the game executable.

You can override the location using the environment variable OMEGAENGINE_CONTENT.

Multiple directories can be specified using ; as a separator. Directories are checked in the order they are specified.

You can override the location using application settings, but you need to explicitly wire this up in your Program.cs:

if (Settings.Current.General.ContentDir is {} contentDir)
    ContentManager.BaseDir = new(Path.Combine(Locations.InstallBase, contentDir));

Mods act as an override layer. Files in mod directories takes precedence over files with the same path in base content.

You can specify the mod directory using the environment variable OMEGAENGINE_CONTENT_MOD.

Multiple directories can be specified using ; as a separator. Directories are checked in the order they are specified.

You can specify the mod directory using command-line arguments, but you need to explicitly wire this up in your Program.cs:

if (Arguments.GetOption("mod") is {} mod)
    ContentManager.ModDir = new(Path.Combine(Locations.InstallBase, "Mods", mod));

When resolving a file, the system searches in this order:

The first match wins.

ContentManager: Provides a virtual file system for combining data from multiple directories (useful for modding).

XmlZipStorage: Provides easy serialization to XML files wrapped in ZIP archives.

EmbeddedFile: Information about an additional file to be stored alongside an ZIP archive using XmlStorage.