Scripting .....

So I was at it again last night (keep the schedule you know :)) , and I designed my Actor and Controller classes with interfaces and base classes etc.

Then I turned to script these objects , and oops .... torque script does not know what an interface is ...

So i went to the forums , and after searching found 2 ways to do what I wanted ,

First way was to use the OO-TorqueScript - but I did not want to modify my engine (having already added the maximize box was enough for me ;)) - and used method 2 :

On the forums I found a whole post and replies about using the ":" (or scope as I like to call it) operator in your object definition

new ScriptObject(BaseClass)
{
someVar = 0;
};

new MyObject( :BaseClass)
{
};

This actually brings me to my point , after searching the forums and the site I came upon the TGE "Preview Documentation" on the garagegames site
(there is no link to this - I checked , only a search will reveal this)

There I found Chapter 5 - Scripting

EDIT : I Found the relevant pages on the TGB Wiki :) *hehe*

Boy did that help alot , I hope someone puts this chapter on the TGB Wiki page , because this really explains alot about how the scripting works etc.

Anyways I got my Actor/Controller working , then I realized that even if you associate a class in the TGB to your animated sprite , it won't recognize it unless the variable is declared beforehand and globally , this presented a problem for me as I have to create Actor objects dynamicly , luckily I started delving into the documentation and found the sceneGraph() documentation.

So basicly , I loaded my Level (without my sprite in it) with loadLevel() and then manually did a addToScene() to add my Actor.

I'm finally beginning to understand how this all fits together , but I think that newbies will be very confused when they fist start out with the tgb
(see my Perspective blog) and try to apply a "programming" approach.

I'll try and get a "getting started for coders" tutorial out on the wiki that explains to newbies (like me) how to get started making a basic level and adding/removing objects to it purely from a scripting p.o.v.

Thus the TGB at this stage is for me a "staging tool" - I use it to quickly prototype level ideas and test other stuff , once I'm done with this I'll save the level and then open it with a text editor , copy all the stuff I need to my custom classes and be done with it.

Don't get me wrong , the TGB is very useful - I love the editor , and I also love the fact that I can see immediately how a animation looks like for example and the GUI tools just rock , I haven't tried the other tools yet (particle) etc. - but I'm sure that they too will rock.

One final thing I must state is the wonderful IDE "Torsion" (http://www.sickheadgames.com/torsion.php) ,

I haven't really looked at other IDE's

(except for one who shall not be named , where when I moved a script file to another folder , lost my script file (just deleted it!)) anyways

this one(torsion) really sped up my development and debugging , it really is a great tool , It automaticly picks up your project and all associated files , and lets you debug and step into the script like any other IDE ,
one feature I would love though is the concept of a "watch" - but I saw on the forums somewhere that they are working on it.

Anyways thats my post for today

Cheers
Le Roi