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scripting?

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 6:47 pm
by panda(monium)
Wow, this engine rocks!

I'm still trying to get my head around all the concepts, just wanted to say that on my XP+2000 w/lame on-board graphics I am getting 30 fps on the Q3 level, which rocks.

Anyways, my question is: has any work been done to add a scripting language to the mix? That way, you'd get a general system and make it do whatever you want based on the running script -- no more need to write C++ code and recompile each time to test bugs etc.

The scripting language I had in mind is Tcl: http://www.tcl.tk/

Cheers,

Panda(monium)

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 7:23 pm
by hearsedriver
Where could scripting make sense for a 3D engine (with emphasis on "engine")? Such a core component could profit from some general configuration data which could base on XML files or something like that. But where would you need control structures etc.? If you are writing a game, scripting is part of a superior layer (the GAME engine), but not of the 3D engine. But this is just my personal opinion, others might see this different.
We are using Lua for all our scripting. It's easy to use, amazingly fast, and well supported.

Cheers.

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 9:41 pm
by panda(Monium)
I guess I didnt explain well. What I want is to make all the capabilities of the engine available in a scripting language so that you dont have to write the demo programs in C++. Of course you still write the engine in C/C++ for efficiency.

Like you said, then you can write your games in a scripting language like Lua or Tcl.

So: is there any support for this? What would be needed is a way to both call all the engine's APIs from the scripting language, as well as delivering events to the scripting language for handling.

PandaMonium

Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2003 10:16 pm
by hearsedriver
Maybe I just didn't get it right, English is not my native language ;)

There is no such functionality yet, and it would make sense at all. The reason is that still a lot of things change from version to version. If Niko would use scripts to write the demos, he would not only have to change the engine and demo source code, but also the scripting API.

Nevertheless, it's a nice idea for some final version.

Cheers.

Edit: Typo

Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2003 8:29 am
by niko
A agree, would be a nice idea, but it is too soon. Maybe I'll write a java wrapper for irrlicht once the final version is out.

Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2003 4:05 pm
by Panda(monium)
Java... Gag barf urk... yuck.

Get the bug spray out!

Panda(monium)

Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2003 5:06 pm
by Raumkraut
A PHP wrapper would be just spanky! ;)

In the meantime, back to c++...