PocketMatrix

Greetings;

I'm starting development on my first ppc project. I'm finding that a number of tasks would lend themselves well to a scripting solution, such as python or somesuch.

Do script interpreters currently exist on the PPC? I'd rather not write my own if I don't have to

Thanks!

There's always http://www.rainer-keuchel.de/wince/perlce.html
Our very own PPL might be suited too

LUA. Easiest to use/integrate. Does the job. Nice runtime performances (memory footprint and execution speed).

http://www.lua.org/

Hyperspace Delivery Boy (by Monkeystone) uses Lua as well.

- Erick

More and more games use LUA. It is that good. We used it in Homeworld 2 and are currently using it in Warhammer 40K + all our other unannounced products (whatever that means).

I haven't tried it on WinCE, but I was told it was straighforward to port. It is actually quite straightforward to port to any platform as it is purely standard "C".

What's with the sudden surge of popularity on the PC side? I remember Far Cry making extensive use of it, seems like you're hearing about it everywhere now.

LUA is popular for the following things:

1) Fast (it uses a simple bytecode processor)
2) Can load text scripts or compiled ones (bytecode)
3) It is as easy as it get be to integrate with C and C++. You can bind whole classes and call LUA from C++ and the other way around, easily.
4) It has a very small memory footprint.
5) There is tons of librairies to extend it... Even visual debuggers that integrate with VC.
6) It's cross-platform. It works everywhere with little or no modifications.
7) It's free.
8) The community is big.


I am sure there is more, but in a nutshell, that's it. It's simply the best there is.

It seems like it came out of nowhere overnight, to be included in all these big name games, although from my limited experience, it's obvious why. That PPC standalone interpeter might give me a reason to start learning LUA a bit moer.

Oh it's been around for a long time... It is simply that more and more people know about it.

Thierry or someone else, can you explain briefly, as if to a child, what scripting does within a game. What would I use it for?

In Stuntman Evolution, it handles all the missions, and vehicles. Far Cry also has scripts done in LUA, and configs, etc. Basically, if you add a scripting language for any part of your game, you can open it up to easy modding by the end-user, instead of hard-coding it in your language of choice.