Codea tutorial for beginners ?

Questions
1

Hi, I’m looking for a coda tutorial made for beginners.
I know there is this tutorial http://codeatuts.blogspot.com.au/ but much things aren’t explain in the code who is show.
Thanks

2

Look this https://bitbucket.org/TwoLivesLeft/codea/wiki/GettingStarted

3

Hi @eloi67 - is there something in particular that you would like help with?

4

Hi Reefwing, your tutorial is good but I think it’s don’t made for beginners.
At the second and the third, some things aren’t explain Like how to use classes and what are classes in codea ? I think this tutorial is more made for people who know codea and lua good but doesn’t know how really use it to make functionnally programs .If you want to make a tutorial for beginners, I think you should first explain bases ( variables, conditions, loops, functions …) and then ask them to make a little program with this and “correct” it by show your code program in your tutorial. Then you can explain and continue like this up with things more advanced .
So if you know any simple tutorial to explain me classes …
Thanks
Eloi

5

.@eloi67 - fair comment, my tutes do assume some background in coding. I will have a go at doing something along the lines you suggested on the weekend.

In the meantime, you could have a look at: http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaDirectory

While not being Codea specific, this explains the basics of Lua.

6

there are bits and pieces here and there but nothing to deep. however I believe that more tutorials will be added to the app itself

7

Just wanted to say thanks to Reefwing for all of the help that you have provided. I know it has to take a lot out of your time to do what you have done so that we can learn from your examples. I know I have gleaned a lot from what you have provided.

Cudos to you.

8

Thanks @Keebo

9

.@eloi67 - I had a crack at explaining classes. Let me know if it makes sense. Link is:

http://codeatuts.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/interlude-11-classes-in-lua-and-codea.html

10

Thank you very much.

11

Good start, Reefwing, I look forward to next chapters. Thanks!

12

@Reefwing. In your tutorial you do this:

self.image = readImage(“Tyrian Remastered:Boss D”)

I thought it had to be in this form: sprite(“Dropbox:imagename”)

Can you elaborate on what the 2 key differences for a noobie like me please? what is the defferences between readImage and sprite? Why does readimage not have the “Dropbox:” part in there but instead you have Tyrian Remastered:" in its’ stead?

Thanks!

13

Hi @Gib,

readImage() reads a stored sprite into an image type.
sprite() draws the sprite onto the screen.

If you select a function you can use the lookup function (the button that looks like an eye) to read all about it.

It doesn’t say “Dropbox:” because the image is being loaded from the sprite pack included with Codea (not from dropbox).

Let me know if you have any other questions.

14

I have over 100 tutorials and 2 ebooks listed on the wiki link above, and there is other stuff there as well, including step by step projects

15

TY both! I understand now I think :wink:

16

So using both your examples, should I read in each sprite I am going to use once into variables so that multiple copies don’t need to be loaded and use up memory?

IE: my grass tile that will apear 100 times on screen like imgGrass=readImage(“Dropbox:grass”) then do sprite(imgGrass,x,y,xs, ys) for each location to draw it at on the map?

Am I catching on?

17

@Gib the second part is fine. The point about saving memory - I’m not really sure if that makes a difference. The main difference is that an image and a sprite are different objects which you can do different things with (for example you can get the colours of individual pixels in an image whereas you can’t do this directly with the sprite object.) A sprite object uses an image, but the image can also be used by other objects such as meshes. The sprite object also has a position on the screen, whereas the image is really just held in memory and is realised on the screen via specifying it in a sprite(or other object)

18

@Gib - the main advantage of reading images into memory is that it is faster to sprite them from memory than repeatedly read them from the disk

19

Ty both

20

I have one or two made, i can repost or PM you with them?