Rick

Oh, maybe I just forgot to check out page 2 Hey, I like to really think about what I'm going to say lol

My main reason now for not using gamelib is because Thingoids is all the craze and those are what I'm making. Before 2.3 I did use gamelib, but I wasn't a fan of the structure. Honestly, just because you have the code that doesn't things doesn't mean people will like using it. I think you put more time into functionality than making the code enjoyable, structured, and scalable. Lumooja, the reason gamelib won't make it anywhere is because of how stubborn you are. People have time and time again said how messy and NON STANDARD (there is no standard for a game library so please stop calling yours standard) it is, yet you don't listen to them. If you want people to use your library then you must listen to the people, but you have this idea in your head of how the world of coding should be and almost no one shares that view. So now I'll give my advise. Make it OO. Use classes instead of structs. Don't make every single variable public. Get a class diagram going so people can visually see the components to it. Make each component as independent as possible. Make it so if I need to use a Tag class to put name tags over my characters I can easily use that class and it works. Every class should be like that. Every class should allow to be hooked by other classes you make OR from plan LE code, but this needs to be more eloquent than just making every class variable public. The readability and usability of a library is more important than the functionality. If no one uses it because they have a hard time figuring out how to use it, then it's worthless to them. [EDIT] My bad. I was writing my post when you did this. We should discuss this though because I think gamelib is a good idea just done incorrectly.

You are going to kick yourself. Notice anything wrong here? if key=="idle_start" then return self.idle_start elseif key=="idle_end" then return self.idle_start

You wouldn't? That's planning for the future Well let's put it this way then. Besides XBox because of it's XNA community, for you as an indie developer to actually get someone to make the CD's and packaging for your console game is pretty slim. There may be more money in consoles, BUT as an indie developer, which really we all here are, you are more likely to make money on the PC than console because of the PC distribution model. If you are a company with a few million dollars then making your game for the console makes sense, but let's be honest, no one is buying LE to make their games if they have a few million dollars in their bank account.

I think our point is, that will change with time. Let's face it, back in the day hardly anyone used a PC. Today you have 5 year old kids who are better at using their PC than their parents are. The more comfortable the population gets with PC's and the more TV's that have the right inputs, the more the general population will realize that having all those devices is a waste of money. They'll realize that having a PC or laptop hooked up to their TV will give them a far better experience. In 20 years those 5 year old kids will be 25 and in a better position to change the way things are done. They will all be more comfortable with computers and will realize the benefit of hooking one up to their TV. On a side note, the money is everywhere. PC has a huge gaming market also. If you make a good game it doesn't matter what platform it's on. People will play it. I'd worry more about making a good game than worrying about the platform.

Very handy. Thank you!

I think you are being to picky. Is it really that big of a deal to have 4 or 5 dlls in the same directory as your exe? Look at most games out there. The directory that has the exe is mostly clouded with other files. If it's good enough for these companies making millions of dollars I think it's ok for you

I think console games have their place. I prefer sports games on console and they are good for some party type stuff with a small gathering. I don't see console gamers as "hardcore" gamers though. I think the PC gamers still hold that. Console games generally don't give enough gameplay hours because of space limitations. I generally give the title of "hardcore gamer" to MMO players though because not many games can draw a person in like an MMO. When you play the same game for 4+ years near every day, that's hardcore. Nobody does that with any other type of game and MMO's are only on PC. I don't understand consoles though. They are becoming more and more like PC's. So at some point you have to think what's the difference? The more kids get comfortable with PC's as the digital age goes on the more I think PC games will become the main game platform. PC's are only going to be more and more powerful and able to be smaller and smaller. They also accept different input types. So what's the difference if I put a PC under my TV or a console? Just the games. Me being an IT guy I feel I'm ahead of the time of most common people when it comes to computers. I have a smaller PC under my TV. Why would I need a Tivo? Why would a need a separate DvD player? Why would I need a SlingBox? Why would I need anything but a PC? Currently it's because of the controlling device for a PC. The keyboard and mouse isn't very easy to use when sitting on your couch.

Does anyone have any code to scale/rotate a texture painted on a model? Say just a cube?

File Name: Pi-MoveTo File Submitter: Rick File Submitted: 16 Jan 2010 File Category: Lua Scripts This will move a body with SetPosition() as long as the Thingoid you are moving has a object:GetBody() method. Works well with Pi-Body. Target 0 is the body to move. All the other targets should be Pi-Pivot (1-6) is the points to move between. In the code you can change between Reverse or Loop. This determines what will happen when it reaches the last Pi-Pivot. This will be a setting in the next version. Click here to download this file

This is exactly why I'm really big into Thingoids and pushing them. This is what it can be like with the LE editor. We just need more people to get into Thingoid programming to make this happen.

I deleted the first Pi-Cube I posted, which apparently doesn't delete the post it makes.

File Name: Pi-FixedJoint v0.1 File Submitter: Rick File Submitted: 16 Jan 2010 File Category: Lua Scripts This creates a FixedJoint between 2 bodies. You can use this with your custom Thingoid that creates a body as long as your Thingoid defines a function named object:GetBody() and returns a body. The link 0 is the parent and link 1 is the child. The fixed joint is created as soon as you define both parent and child. Click here to download this file

File Name: Pi-Body v0.1 File Submitter: Rick File Submitted: 16 Jan 2010 File Category: Lua Scripts This is much like Pi-Cube. It allows you to create a dynamically sized physics body. When in editor mode a white cube mesh is shown, but when in game mode nothing is shown. TODO: Working on getting collision working You might ask what good this is if no collision works. When I combine this, the Pi-Cube, Pi-FixedJoint, Pi-Pivot, & Pi-MoveTo I am able to get a cube that moves from pivot to pivot that has physics. I joint a Pi-Body to a Pi-Cube, then Pi-MoveTo calls EntityMove() on the Pi-Body to move from pivot to pivot while Pi-Cube still retains physics collision. Click here to download this file

File Name: Pi-Cube v0.1 File Submitter: Rick File Submitted: 16 Jan 2010 File Category: Lua Scripts This allows for dynamic cube sizes with matching dynamic body size and you can apply any material file to it. The body mass is not set until you run game mode (and are running the Pi-Main lua game script). TODO: It needs to be able to scale/rotate the texture assigned. If anyone knows how to do this please let me know. Click here to download this file

File Name: Pi-Cube v0.1 File Submitter: Rick File Submitted: 16 Jan 2010 File Category: Lua Scripts This allows for dynamic cube sizes with matching dynamic body size and you can apply any material file to it. The body mass is not set until you run game mode (and are running the Pi-Main lua game script). TODO: It needs to be able to scale/rotate the texture assigned. If anyone knows how to do this please let me know. Click here to download this file

File Name: Pi-Main v0.1 File Submitter: Rick File Submitted: 16 Jan 2010 File Category: Lua Scripts This is the main script that works with all my other Pi Thingoids. Place this in \Scripts\Games and then point your editor to this script via Tools->Options->Paths->GameScript setting. This is a very simplistic main loop game file. I designed it this way to allow the Thingoids to do the main work of the game and not have custom game code in the main lua file. Ideally, when the Pi library of Thingoids is complete, you would only need to use this main game lua file for all your games that you make in lua. Click here to download this file

Would there be any chance that SetEntityCallback() could be setup in lua to accept lua functions as the callback? This is holding me back in making some cool things that are dynamic in size.

I often require to do some code in a Thingoid just once on startup of game mode. Until now I just made a bool variable in a Thingoid and checked it in the Update() method and that's how I did my init code. I've decided to come up with a better way now. Inside your main lua file right before the main loop do this: for k,v in pairs(objecttable) do if v.Initialize ~= nil then v:Initialize() end end Then in your Thingoid you can, but don't have to, define: function object:Initialize() end You can do this with any kind of function. Enjoy!

From what I know IF you use engine.exe to make your game you don't need any dll's. I think it's all linked statically. I must be honest though, that seems like a very silly reason not to upgrade. I'm interested in why it really matters if the dll's are in the same directory or not as the exe.

Welcome to Thingoid programming lol. I also have an idea that I'm going to test out for the oneTime stuff I do. Basically sometimes I need to run stuff that is kind of like init code when running in game mode. What I can do is add a function object:Initialization(). Then in the main lua file loop through all objects in the objecttable table and if it has that function call it. That should help clean some of that oneTime stuff. I don't like how I did that. Also, I'm about to release 5 more Thingoids. Pi-Cube Pi-Body Pi-Fixed Joint Pi-Pivot Pi-MoveTo With these 5 Thingoids I'm able to move the cube between 6 pivots and have it still have physics. Just cleaning some code up.

I love it!! About time someone gets in on this stuff. I'll put it in the next version. So the needed yet: "Way to check what the message recieved from key board controller for movement animation" Wouldn't the ReceiveMessage() part be doing this already? I see you added the animation part in the ReceiveMessage(). So what more is there to do? Also, I really need to figure out if I can make dynamic property fields. Would be really cool if we didn't have to hardcode the settings but could add new animations at will just from the properties window. But that can wait for now.

Try replacing the function with just a normal C function once and see if that helps. Just for testing.

So any ideas on this Josh? Would be really helpful to be able to get collisions somehow from bodies we create via lua code.

So if you remove the part that assigns this as a callback the framework Update() method doesn't give an error? The paddle or ball doesn't get destroyed at any point in this?