Hi everyone! I new in codea and I have some questions :)

Questions
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Hi everyone! I new in codea and I have some questions :slight_smile:

Questions

1.when will the new update be released? It was some months ago the latest update was released

  1. will it be an easier way to make 3D games / figures and games effects in codea? so that you can draw it in a 3D moddel and then put it into the game as you can with the plane cute: character boy etc. the same with 2D games

3.and are the any good tutorials for beginners like me?

I love the app and really enjoying it. Keep doing a great job!!

@Simeon

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@llEmil - welcome to the forum. We all enjoy Codea, too!

The next update doesn’t have a release date. They are usually released once all the bugs are gone, and that can be unpredictable.

All the tutorials are on the wiki link at the top, and Codea has built in reference help (the little arrow at top left on the main Codea screen).

I have written some ebooks for beginners, here

http://coolcodea.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/index-of-posts/

If you use these, I would start with the Lua book, then the Codea book, then the 3D book

Codea doesn’t help you to draw 3D models (other than simple blocks and maybe spheres), so use something like Blender for that. Some of my posts show you how to import a full 3D model into Codea, but that is pretty hard, and you need to be familiar with Lua and Codea and 3D before you try any of that.

If you’ve not done anything like this before, it will probably be six months of hard work before you are ready to try 3D models. (If you have previous experience, it may be much faster, of course).

Feel free to ask questions as you go, but we recommend you keep all your posts for a single project, in the same thread, to avoid clutter. If you post code, put three ~ on an empty line, before and after the code, to format it nicely.

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Thank you so much for the answer @Ignatz
I wonder how I should do to make the game look so great as possible, how do I do to make the best graphic to 2D games and the best graphic to 3D games? Do I need to use my Mac to do that?

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@llEmill - learn, practise, learn, practise. Don’t expect to be writing a great app in a week, it is likely to take months. And if you want great graphics, you have the added challenge of designing them.

The best way to learn is up to you, but I suggest learning the basics of Codea first, then trying to write some simple programs and learning from the posts on the forum.

Above all, be patient. Codea may be the easiest way to write graphic apps, but it’s still hard. So don’t worry if you feel stupid for a few weeks, that is quite normal.

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@llEmill - Welcome to the forums! To make great graphics a Mac/PC isn’t necessarily needed, there are many great apps on the App Store as well.

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@Ignatz yeah I know! :slight_smile: I will practice every day, I just want to know what I should use in the future to make a so good game as possible :slight_smile:

@Saturn031000 have you any tip on apps you can use to make 3D sculptures and 2D for codea on your iPad?

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@llEmill — 3D : I don’t think that 3D sculptures, etc. can be imported into Codea.

As for 2D, I don’t use any app myself, but I think some people on the forum use iDraw.

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Do I need a Mac for 3D? It is any videos or descriptions for 2D how to do it?

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Try Blender for PC if you want to build 3D models. It’s the best free program, I believe, but I found it very difficult to use . Otherwise google for free 3D models.

And yes, as I said earlier, you can import 3D models into Codea, but it’s tricky. It’s also tricky to work with 3D models once you have them in Codea. Basically, 3D is difficult (once you get beyond drawing cubes, anyway).

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@Ignatz Is iExplorer involved?

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Nope, the problem is not loading the datafile into Codea, but getting Codea to understand what it means. It can only read .OBJ files, and even then, you have to write code in Codea to get the vertices and textures from the data.

I have done it, but it is hard. See here

http://coolcodea.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/139-importing-full-3d-models-into-codea/

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@Ignatz Wow that’s hard. Great work.

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@IIEmill I learned the basics using @Ignatz’s ebooks so I recommend starting there.

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I agree wholeheartedly with @Ignatz - the 3d stuff is tricky unless you’ve got a bit of background in 3d, the maths/concepts involved and of course, generating your own content with a 3d package. Its all a bit of a learning curve if you’ve never done this before, let alone programming in Lua/using Codea. His guide is a great intro, although I’d probably start off with the 2D/Sprite stuff first to get a bit of handle how Codea does things.

My own project : Buggyz - uses 3D extensively in Codea and I’m trying to see how far I can push the 3d stuff, and I’ve had to write a lot of my own tools and routines (just like @Ignatz) to get the 3D data in and manipulate it as well as optimising everything for speed.

Check the thread out here if you’re interested - happy to answer any questions as well… :smiley:

http://codea.io/talk/discussion/4496/buggyz-a-fast-moving-retro-slot-racing-game-set-in-the-future/p1

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As a footnote regarding 3D/Modelling packages - if you’re looking for something simpler than Blender (a bit of a learning curve) and is free… check out: http://www.clara.io

Its browser/cloud based, runs on most platforms and is (most importantly) has a free version - it can import/export most popular 3d formats (inc. .OBJ) as well - which is, all in all, great for hobbyists and beginners etc… (p.s. I use Maya, but thats another can of worms!)

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