new project, need some help!

[dadrester]

i've just realised that my original post was probably in the wrong forum, so i thought i'd start this thread. basically i'm after some help, advce and ideally a coder with experience of 3D for a project i'm strating...

find out a bit more here (onsite link) (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=28072). there's also a little lua script i spent 20 minutes messing around with to see what it was all about (it's pretty straight forward really isn't it!)

[jman420]

Strating you say?

I think that this project looks fairly interesting :D if you wanted I could tell you a few methods to create a 2D version of what your talking about in Lua..
I accualy have no experince in any other languages of programming, so I cant help you there.. However if you need a 3D model for any reason, I work in 3D, so I could do some 3D modeling work for you if you need it.

[dadrester]

well want to start really... i guess if i can't get any help on the 3D side of things i might ditch it and try to do some other (simpler) ideas myself since i had quite a bit of fun with lua last night.

basically i want to do a bit of a remake of sensible software's wizball in 3D. graphically it'll be very simple (but kind of stylised, with a neo-retro chic ;)) and in terms of stuff like ai they'll just be static or move along a predefined path.

the main thing i want to find out about is if it were possible to do in 3D using lua or if i'd be better off modding something like iris? bearing in mind i have next to no coding experience.

[dadrester]

Strating you say?

I think that this project looks fairly interesting :D if you wanted I could tell you a few methods to create a 2D version of what your talking about in Lua..
I actually have no experience in any other languages of programming, so I cant help you there.. However if you need a 3D model for any reason, I work in 3D, so I could do some 3D modeling work for you if you need it.

sounds good! what package do you use? i'm using max7 at the moment but i'm wondering how i can export these to something lua can read. do you know if it's possible of if someone has written any kind of max script for it?

the main objective with the wizball idea would be to do it in 3D. i'm not really interested in simply doing a 2D remake, since the original works just perfectly in pspvice (if it ain't broken, don't fix it). so if i can't get it started in 3D i'll probably move on to do another idea(s) which are much more simple but might still require a bit of help with some lua stuff so any help will be appreciated.

[GeEkPiE]

well everyone around this forum seems to be very nice saying they will help out with anything like modeling and 3d texture coding, i was just wondering whether ur all really nice people just here to help out with the homebrew scene coz its a hobby or whether your doing it for a fee.

coz to me it seems a bit of a waste of your time that your doing stuff for people and getting nothing in return

[dadrester]

most definitely a hobby... although for some they can put it on a cv and it might be of interest to potential employers too.

in terms of not getting anything in return, are you suggesting that homebrew developers should start charging for their services?! because you realise then that you'd be the one ending up paying don't you!

if a coder has to pay an artist to do something for a project or vica versa that cost would be passed on to the end user... you! effectively this would completely kill the whole homebrew scene.

people do this as a learning experience and a bit of fun. jman420 kindly offered his support and also asked if i needed any help with the 3D moddeling side of things... now coming from a commercial game design background i know plenty of very good 3D artists who do this for a living and would no doubt do a much better job than jman (no offence intended jman, some of them have 10+ years industry experience) but he no doubt wants to improve his skills, and do something creative with his spare time. as do i. that is the reward, for me at least...

[10shu]

well everyone around this forum seems to be very nice saying they will help out with anything like modeling and 3d texture coding, i was just wondering whether ur all really nice people just here to help out with the homebrew scene coz its a hobby or whether your doing it for a fee.

coz to me it seems a bit of a waste of your time that your doing stuff for people and getting nothing in return


I never done anything for the psp scene...
however in my time i ve done a lot for the amiga scene and somehow it help me getting the job i ve got now...it s not a waste of time, wile working on homebrew games, softwares or demo...you share a lot of informations, practice your skill, etc...

[dtothabreezy]

its summer nuttin else to do but go to football untill the wekends

[jman420]

sounds good! what package do you use? i'm using max7 at the moment but i'm wondering how i can export these to something lua can read. do you know if it's possible of if someone has written any kind of max script for it?

the main objective with the wizball idea would be to do it in 3D. i'm not really interested in simply doing a 2D remake, since the original works just perfectly in pspvice (if it ain't broken, don't fix it). so if i can't get it started in 3D i'll probably move on to do another idea(s) which are much more simple but might still require a bit of help with some lua stuff so any help will be appreciated.

Well I have and use 3D Studio Max 7 aswell, and accualy, its not possible to "export" to a file format that you can use, I was thinking more like rendering an image of a ball, and blitting it on the screen.. Its just because of Lua, as far as I know, there isnt a way to do any 3D rendering in Lua. I can help you with some Lua code, I'm currently learning Lua aswell, but I've learned enough to make a small RPG game. If you do need any help, you can PM me or send a message to my AIM, MSN, or Yahoo IM's.


And well, I think that its just a hobby for us, personaly, I just want to help people make things, I've always been interested in making my own games, and I'm sure a lot of other people are too. So I help if I can. I also share stuff I learn with people.
It's a lot like a hobby, but its still more like an intrest, and yeah, I only help people on the homebrew PSP scene. (but I used to be the "know it all" for a MMORPG called: Runescape, I'd be the person to ask about anything, so I have experince helping people) :D

[dtothabreezy]

it took my life away from me after i beat the game thing though it sorta got boring made a lvl 20 newb the happiest noob ever i jus gave all of my stuff to him neva going back to that game

[yaustar]

Dont use Lua for the project. It wont be fast enough to do what you intend to to my knowledge.

[jman420]

it took my life away from me after i beat the game thing though it sorta got boring made a lvl 20 newb the happiest noob ever i jus gave all of my stuff to him neva going back to that game

Well, I feal bad for you, you kind of have to get set on doing somthing on RS, and I always had 4 or 5 friends on at a time, so I always had someone to talk to, and somthing to do... I got to a level 96 combat 1398 total level account, and it gets much more fun as you get up in levels..

And there is NO WAY to beat the game, you may have done one of the quests, but you can not beat the game untill you out-rank zezzima on the highscores lol.

[dadrester]

Dont use Lua for the project. It wont be fast enough to do what you intend to to my knowledge.

unfortunately i don't hold a bachelor of science or a master of science degree so i'll not be throwing myself in at the deep end with c++ just yet. ;)

actually i'm trying to learn something in lua right now, and someone might be able to help. i'm doing a simple pong variant and i want to rotate an image on screen by player control.

i've got the controls bit sussed but i've no idea how to rotate the image. basically i want to rotate a full screen png clockwise (with the axis in the centre of the image) using the right shoulder button and anticlockwise with the left shoulder button, but i can't find anything of use. anyone have any ideas or decent resources.. this is in lua by the way.

[yaustar]

There is no direct support from Lua player to rotate the image.

You can do this by either uisng matrix math (rotation matrixes) and directly manlipulate the pixels on the surface/buffer/image.

Or

Have predefined rotations of the image,

[jman420]

well, and if you think about it, Pong never had rotation anything, all you realy need is collision information, and some math to tell the ball how to bounce off. and of course Movement controlls, and maybe a scoring system

but the scoring system would be easiest of all, just make a variable named 'player1score' set it to = 0
and with the collision information, tell the game that if the ball hits one of the screen boundry's (left or right) that it should add for the side that would add a point. and then screen:print the variable.

Same thing with player2.

I dont know how to rotate, but from Yaustar's animation code, I figured out a way to display a picture from a tiled PNG without animating it, so it would be possible for you to make an image with the angles you want, and just display the images at the time you want them rotated (this would make it so you could have 4-8-12-16 identical angles depending on how many times you wanted to be able to angle it but if this was going to be one of the paddles, or anything that would require collision information, this probobly wouldnt work, because I'm not sure it would know where the solid color started, and if it would bounce off from there, or the outer box edge.

I'm not sure if I helped at all, but I hope I did :D

[dadrester]

right you are... since i'm no mathematician, i guess i'll go with controlling an animation. is there any way of detecting collision between a certain colour in the image and another object.

[yaustar]

You can get pixel information from an image/surface (check the LuaPlayer wiki) so in this case, it be a collision with a box and a point.

[dadrester]

excellend help. cheers

the reason for rotation is that it's not just regular old pong... basically the paddle is just a curved section of a circle and there is only one paddle. the ball starts in the middle of the screen and you have to rotate the paddle round it to keep it in play.