Love2D - A Lua Based Game Engine


vertice

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I've been looking into learning some Lua, because in my mind it looks like the bastard child of javascript and python, and i stumbled across love2d.org

It's basically an SDL binding for lua, but it also includes things like a physics engine based on box2d and a useful packaging mechanism.
and it's Fast. very fast.

After checking out the code, it looks like it's all very nice and portable C++ , with a bunch of lua on top of it. All of it (from a cursory glance), should compile
on arm-linux. at the moment it's targeted for linux, windows and mac (ppc + intel).

The only hold out is that it uses OpenGL instead of OpenGL/es , but it also only uses it to accelerate 2d.

it's dependencies

lua - portable c , available for pandora
love - portable c++ ..
opensdl - portable c, available for pandora
openAL - portable c, it supports arm , but i don't know about pandora support
OpenGL - portable c , needs to be ported to opengl/es
DevIL - unknown .. it's an extension to sql for image loading/saving .. it will need to be ported to arm and possibly opengl/es

Does anyone have any more experiences with the status of these dependencies/libraries on the pandora ?

what's nice about this is that they already use a packaging mechanism similar to .pnd files that ship the entire stack alongside the
cross platform game file (called ".love") , so it would open up an entire community of games that can be easily ported.

theoretically some of this could be used to target iphone os / android too, with minimal changes.

Oh.. and i also found this - code.google.com/p/lov8/

some people are replacing the lua scripting with the google v8 javascript engine, which means you could write kickass games
in javascript.
 
We did some more evaluation and every should be completely portable, after the opengl/es port is done.

even then , it might work with a compatibility layer out of the box.
 
Vertice said:
We did some more evaluation and every should be completely portable, after the opengl/es port is done.

even then , it might work with a compatibility layer out of the box.

Has there been any progress on this? I got to reading about Lua because of this thread and decided that I had to learn the language sooner than soon. Is an ES port under way, or do the Love devs need more convincing?
 
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Vertice said:
I've been looking into learning some Lua, because in my mind it looks like the bastard child of javascript and python, and i stumbled across love2d.org

It's basically an SDL binding for lua, but it also includes things like a physics engine based on box2d and a useful packaging mechanism.
and it's Fast. very fast.

After checking out the code, it looks like it's all very nice and portable C++ , with a bunch of lua on top of it. All of it (from a cursory glance), should compile
on arm-linux. at the moment it's targeted for linux, windows and mac (ppc + intel).

The only hold out is that it uses OpenGL instead of OpenGL/es , but it also only uses it to accelerate 2d.

it's dependencies

lua - portable c , available for pandora
love - portable c++ ..
opensdl - portable c, available for pandora
openAL - portable c, it supports arm , but i don't know about pandora support
OpenGL - portable c , needs to be ported to opengl/es
DevIL - unknown .. it's an extension to sql for image loading/saving .. it will need to be ported to arm and possibly opengl/es

Does anyone have any more experiences with the status of these dependencies/libraries on the pandora ?

what's nice about this is that they already use a packaging mechanism similar to .pnd files that ship the entire stack alongside the
cross platform game file (called ".love") , so it would open up an entire community of games that can be easily ported.

theoretically some of this could be used to target iphone os / android too, with minimal changes.

Oh.. and i also found this - code.google.com/p/lov8/

some people are replacing the lua scripting with the google v8 javascript engine, which means you could write kickass games
in javascript.

Sounds very nice :)

I do have one question though...you mentioned this:

lua - portable c , available for pandora

Any idea where I can get that version of Lua from?

I have already used Lua for Win32 for a while now, but I would like to get Lua running for my gp2x and hoped it would be similar to the Pandor version :)

cheers,
Paul
 
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I've used LUA to program addons for World of Warcraft. Is using it outside of WoW much different?
 
DasFool said:
I've used LUA to program addons for World of Warcraft. Is using it outside of WoW much different?
I dunno.
I've used Lua to write standalone programs. Is using it inside of WoW much different?

*shrugs*

It will be the same language, but instead of calling WoW functions, you'll be calling graphics functions.
 
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DevIL is portable, it's made up of a bunch of image libraries (DevIL = Dev Image Library), I've got it compiling from source on PS2/PC in the past, quite a few dependencies so takes a little while, but I don't remember it being a particular ball ache.

Steve
 
Personally, I'd love to see a port of LoV8. Basically it's the exact same API, except you program it Javascript. It's pretty slick, and speedy too.
 
Anyone willing to try this out now
it seems to have got a make over
 
Anyone

planning on trying this tomorrow, but in all honesty, have never really had to bother with processor type
so im doubt if ill beable to
 
I've been adding Lua support to WakeBreaker, sort of a bastard-child attempt to make a Gridwars clone and use Lua for all the AI .. I'm a huge fan of Lua right now, although still quite a newbie at doing anything productive with it.

BTW, you can very easily build Lua on the Pandora - just download the 5.1 package, set up bollocks-style development on the Pandora, and build lua/luac like normal. Very clean and easy.

I'll have a look at Love2D some time tonight - if all they're using OpenGL for is 2D acceleration, it should be quite easy to add GL/ES (1.1 at least) support ..
 
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