From The Blog: Corona’s updated roadmap

Getting Started Announcements
#21

I believe the Linux interest is in being able to use Linux as a platform to develop from and produce Android/HTML5 apps.  However, any Linux support will come as baby steps.

Consoles are not a developer’s utopia. You frequently have to get a developer account with the platform, pitch ideas to them, get the idea approved in advance. You likely will have to buy their development hardware, which could run several hundred to several thousand dollars. You may have to meet rules like being a business entity and not an individual. At a minimum forming an LLC for this purpose can run you several hundred dollars with annual filing fees. 

Sony for instance also requires you to have a static IP address (which typically costs money, your home Internet is most likely dynamic IP allocation based) and you have to have a real email address, not something from Gmail/Hotmail etc. This means having a website on a hosting service and email accounts tied to that domain. These all have ongoing fees.  The platform may also charge you a per game or per-account fee as well.  It’s definitely not like mobile where anyone can create an account, upload a packaged file, submit it, get it approved and get going.

I think many people may assume “Oh let’s build for Console Type X, output a package, upload it, and watch the bucks start rolling in”.  It doesn’t work that way.  I just want to set some realistic expectations on what it means to develop for consoles.  Microsoft seems to be moving more to the Apple/Google model with their Store model and support for UWP builds. This could be a reasonable path to Xbox One support.

Rob 

Rob

#22

That’s great about UWP. I see that on your roadmap too and I think that’s fantastic. If you can add support for UWP and the Switch that would definitely, IMO, justify sticking with Corona for a large scale project since that only leaves out the PS. But what I just read between the lines in your post is “Corona is aimed at hobbyists and hobbyists aren’t capable of doing the things necessary to get on a console”. I know that’s absolutely not what you said but that is what I heard. I’d say our last game was somewhere between the hobbyist and pro levels but we plan to reach pro status eventually. We are an LLC, have a real email, have a static IP, have several web sites, have had various dev systems*, virtually all that stuff. We understand that getting on a console is not easy. But we are serious about this and will get a game on a console eventually. Definitely not this year, and probably not next year either, but eventually. And we realize that will take time, money, blood, sweat, and tears.

If you were to push back due to customer demand for Linux versus consoles or because of dev constraints, I totally get that. Corona is a fantastic tool for building mobile games. Being able to develop for Steam, HTML, and Apple TV is really nice frosting on the delicious Corona cake.

* I was on a team at Universal Studios years ago that developed a few Crash Bandicoot games for the PS1. We had one green and one blue PS (see this page about old PS dev hardware). Once development had moved to the PS2, I got to personally keep one of these PSs. Presently, our company only has a dev Apple TV. Regardless, whether it takes a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to buy a dev kit, we will pay it if we have a worthwhile game to publish.

#23

linux is for servers surely?  if you have to run your desktop on linux (and no idea why you would want to do this) then simply fire up a WINE session for running windows apps.

spending dev time on linux is a waste of time IMHO.

#24

@redninjacat, I did not mean to imply that Corona is for small indies only. We have customers from AAA studios to one-person shops using our product. We have to balance our development efforts to try and benefit developers using Corona of all sizes and needs. 

If you’re part of our developer community who can make use of console development, then fantastic. As we get there, Corona will be great for you, but there are a lot of people who see this post and get excited over some console platform listed on the roadmap. I just want to make sure that expectations are set for those who expect it to be as easy as deploying to Google Play.

Rob

#25

@Rob, a big thanks for the info, I have to say that the possibility of opening up these huge markets to Corona developers would be fantastic.  Things are tighter than ever on the App Stores, so expanding outwards to conoles could be a big way for many of us to grow and thrive.

Greg

#26

About Linux as a target system for games … https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/

#27
  • Improve Live Builds by adding console logging

Can this also include making it work with the Gamesparks plugin? I boy can dream.

#28

It works for me. I am using the open source version of the gamesparks plugin, but didn’t do any changes to it to have it working with live builds.

#29

Yes the open source works. The plug-in version does not (last time I checked). Every time it deflates a file it restarts the app.

#30

@agramonte, I have a couple of requests for you.

  1. Can you create a new thread for this. If we continue to discuss this, it will be hijacking this thread.

  2. Can you produce a simple demo project that causes this issue? I’d love to get our engineers to look at this, but it would be considerably more difficult for them to have to guess at what you’re doing and build a GameSparks project when the plugin isn’t one we create or maintain.

  3. Have you looked at “adb logcat” to see if there are messages generated around the restart that might be useful? I’m assuming this is an Android issue, if not then Xcode’s Devices option should give you the ability to see the device’s console log.

Thanks

Rob

#31

Yes sir.

#32

Text rendering plugin *Started*

Is this about HTML style text on the feedback page?

http://feedback.coronalabs.com/forums/188732-corona-feature-requests-feedback/suggestions/6265139-manipulate-text-size-style-font-and-color-like

#33

I am curious about this too

#34

or this? -> https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/72693-text-rendering-plugin-including-meshes-triangulation-etc-wip/

I would really love to know about that plugin.

#35

Would also like to know about the text rendering plugin. Hoping it’s like the HTML style text where we can change the colour, size etc. of certain words without altering the entire display.newText object. Would be SUPER useful to highlight key words and important info to the player.

#36

@bgmadclown As I said briefly in that topic, I’m also hoping for word on Corona’s text renderer.

I mentioned that ideally the two won’t conflict but rather benefit one another. For instance, assuming it is indeed something like display.newText with an embedded markup language, the library could provide a function that would parse some text without drawing it and give us back an AST (ostensibly agreeing with what it uses internally for rendering) so we could apply it to our own needs.

Back to the roadmap itself, I would also be  VERY interested in any details about the “Open Source efforts” listed in Q4.

#37

I am weighting for AdMob revenue-sharing plugin for more than an year… :unsure:  :unsure:  :unsure:

#38

I’m also interested in some of the Q4 targets like open source and offline builds but I’m more interested in the bird at hand, the ones they started working on.

I would also love to see a *Started* sign next to Nintendo Switch :slight_smile:

#39

That’s a great list of items, certainly exciting times for Corona!

I would still suggest a way to load and render(bake)  3d obj files as 2d objects.  That would give us so much flexibility in our games without having to go 3d!

Greg

#40

@greg brady I’m hoping to get back soon to the plugin mentioned in the previous roadmap thread, maybe in a couple weeks.

A few things need finishing finish first, mentioned at bgmadclown’s link. I’m basically at the “make decent samples” stage for

all of them.

Some rather rough docs here. I’m thinking about a little revamp along the following lines:

  • Separation into “scenes” (camera, color and z buffers, etc.) and “objects” (faces, textures, etc.)

  • Being able to instantiate and destroy them

  • Cloning objects and / or some concept of a “model”

  • Per-object transforms

  • Make the memory blob optional (this was mostly for some multithreading support I plan)

  • Allow rendering X number of pixels at a time (or maybe specific regions, for a little more generality)

  • Save-to-PNG / JPEG

  • Better name!

I also have quite a few follow-up ideas!