Notgames Forum

I was speaking recently to my brother in law who does mostly commercial Flash work (advertising).  I was showing him some of my Flash stuff and bemoaning the fact that while I'm pretty good with flash I just don't quite have the programming chops to make a truly complete and releasable product on my own.  He then recommended I try Corona - http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/ (http://www.anscamobile.com/corona/)

I am just curious if anyone has used this before, and whether you have any opinions about it.

It uses lua.  My BIL suggests that if I can learn actionscript, lua ought to be an easy step for me.  Any programmers here have any thoughts on lua?  It seems a useful thing to learn, professionally as well as for my own work, but as an artist I want to be careful what I sink my time into learning, especially with all the actual artwork there is for me to spend my time on.

I've used corona for quite a while at work. And I would definitely recommend it for people with no or just a little coding experience. It also have a great community and allot of free code to dig into. We have deployed on ios & android with no problem and compared building and dealing with provision files in xcode for ios builds, corona makes it really slick and easy to deal with. I guess the backside is that it's only for mobile platforms so no windows or mac osx builds.(Thou you can run the simulator on both mac osx and windows)
If you compare AS3 and LUA I would say that LUA is better if you come from a non coding background, pretty easy to get into, no compiletime and pretty forgiving as a language.

Thanks for the feedback.  I think I'm going to give it a try.

I'd like to ask another question of the community before I commit to this.  Corona doesn't seem to support 3D; what are some good similar solutions that  poeple like?  I've worked with Unity, and while I like the level building environment, I'm not to keen on the coding environment, and I'm not sure I want to commit to Javascript or C#.  Has anyone used Shiva3D?  Or Nobound 3D?  Other favorites?

If you like visual programming, you could try Antares Universe (http://u3d.as/content/neo-pax/antares-universe-vizio-/1CJ) in Unity, or if you prefer something simpler and prettier (but less comprehensive) uScript (http://u3d.as/content/detox-studios-llc/u-script-visual-scripting-tool/2fc).

I use Universe all the time now. Hardly touch Javascript anymore.

I've seen you talk about visual programming, and I've been hesitant to try it because I have this feeling that I won't have the level of control I want.  I did just come up with a game idea that involves mostly navigating and looking/picking things up, so maybe that's a good entry point to try this out with.  Thanks for the suggestion.

FYI there are other scripting languages (like Python) supported in Unity via 3rd-party solutions.

There's also a 3rd-party REFL in Unity where you can simply type stuff out in a command line and see what happens.

Then you're crazy. Or really good with code.

If the tool is comprehensive (like Quest3D and Universe), it will unlock the potential of the engine and you will be able to do much more than in code. At least that's been my experiences. Our most complex projects to date (The Endless Forest and The Path) have been programmed entirely with a visual interface (Quest3D).

Ok, ok, I'm sold.  I at least owe it a try.  I am very good with logic, but not necessarily code - just because I prefer spending my time learning about art and art tools rather than the various syntaxes and vagaries of different programming languages.  But the two games you mention are complete complex virtual worlds, so that more than anything alleviates my fears.  I'll give it a whirl and report back when I have something going.

Do give yourself time to learn and get comfortable with the system. Contrary to popular belief, visual programming is not easier. It's just different.

Do you happen to know if the new release of Unity is still compatible with Antares, or should I wait to do the update?

I haven't checked yet. In my experience, it's wise to wait a bit before one upgrades software.
But you can install multiple versions of Unity on a single computer.