ZDoom

Post by **randi** » Thu May 24, 2007 7:57 pm

I am seriously considering adding Lua scripting to ZDoom rather than roll my own based on UnrealScript. Lua is a cool little language, and I find it does most everything I could possibly want. Every time I start thinking about how to implement some language feature for "DoomScript," my thoughts always return to Lua. I just need to figure out a good way to interface it with the existing code. Unless I fail to do that, it's very likely that a good chunk of game code is going to get rewritten in Lua, hopefully sooner rather than later.

This post has been made as a public service announcement to warn everybody that if you "Wait For DoomScript," you'll probably be waiting a very, very long time.

skadoomer · Post by **skadoomer** » Thu May 24, 2007 9:20 pm

I guess the question i have to ask is whether or not it will do everything you dreamed doomscript can do? I never really knew to what extent doomscript (or unreal script) would allow modders to have control over actors, data types, and level scripting.

Concerning its implementation, I'm a bit skeptical because of various additions in the past (floating pont and polymost) that are now vapor ware. Perhaps some members of the community share my skepticism in such a big decision for zdooms benefit. Re-writes are heavy things that take years and are often shrouded with secrecy.

From looking at this, lua seems pretty straight forward. If it will give us better flexibility with modding zdoom, i am very interested.

Speaking of which, why did floating point and polymost become discontinued?

solarsnowfall · Post by **solarsnowfall** » Thu May 24, 2007 9:50 pm

My interrest is piqued, and I have all of the same questions skadoomer has.

Niya · Post by **Niya** » Thu May 24, 2007 11:13 pm

Lua is very alien. Its has some strange constructs that seems drastically different from traditional ACS\DECORATE so people are going to have serious problems in the beginning. However, its appears that you can code extremely sophisticated algorithms with it and that will be great asset to Zdoom scripting, once "newness" phase passes and everyone learns to code it.

Go for it.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Thu May 24, 2007 11:22 pm

Are there any easily-intimidated-n00b-friendly guides on learning how to code in Lua?

And do you need some huge compiler thing like with C++ to even get started?

Niya · Post by **Niya** » Thu May 24, 2007 11:33 pm

The link that randy provided has all the info you need, including a vast array of examples.

Post by **Nash** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:58 am

I'd say just go for it. It does look a little different but nothing impossible. As long as DoomScript isn't something like this it should be okay.

Post by **edward850** » Fri May 25, 2007 1:46 am

...

...

...

I’m sure that is the most [censored word] language known to... well... all of existence!
I hope reading that didn’t brain my damage.

Kinsie · Post by **Kinsie** » Fri May 25, 2007 1:59 am

I can only hope that Lua will not completely replace DECORATE and the like - the ease of creating new stuff in DECORATE is why I like editing for Zdoom.

Grubber · Post by **Grubber** » Fri May 25, 2007 2:02 am

I personally don't like Lua. It looks ugly.

edward850 wrote:I’m sure that is the most [censored word] language known to... well... all of existence!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge_p ... g_language

Post by **edward850** » Fri May 25, 2007 2:04 am

me got

be You kidding to

Ok, my brain has left the building

Niya · Post by **Niya** » Fri May 25, 2007 2:11 am

Nash wrote:I'd say just go for it. It does look a little different but nothing impossible. As long as DoomScript isn't something like this it should be okay.

Holy Shit!

....Alot of people really have nothing to to. Its the only way someone can come up with something that.......I dont even know WHAT to call this type of shit.

Its amusing to say the least. I can see that sort of this being used to test people and based on how well they handle it you can pretty much measure their logical capacity.

Grubber wrote:I personally don't like Lua. It looks ugly.

edward850 wrote:I’m sure that is the most [censored word] language known to... well... all of existence!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge_p ... g_language

You gotta be f**kin kidding.

Doomguy0505 · Post by **Doomguy0505** » Fri May 25, 2007 2:29 am

That's like Brain rape!

Phobus · Post by **Phobus** » Fri May 25, 2007 2:33 am

Well, just checking out that little tutorial there has given me confidence that it's a language I can learn if I have an inclination to, and after reading a little of the site, I've seen that it can be used as a scripting language of sorts for other programs, so in effect, it'd be not too different from ACS scripting, just a lot more powerful, with considerable control over everything randy would want us to mess about with.

So yeah, sounds good to me.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Fri May 25, 2007 2:36 am

Grubber wrote:I personally don't like Lua. It looks ugly.

I'd have to agree with that. I really, *really* don't like this language - at all!

It's a real shame that they had to use crap BASIC syntax as a guideline to design their language.