How to learn LUA and Corona? Where?

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

My question is more about how to learn to code, (in this case LUA) not much about corona probably.

So i finished the corona tutorial last week, but now i am stucked/confused, dont know how to progess, learn further in general.

Should i repeat the corona tutorials ? if yes…how many times ˇˇ

what i did also, was to print out this LUA document (almost 100 pages)

https://www.lua.org/manual/5.3/

 and i am planning to buy an e-reader and get these 4 episodes of LUA books:

https://www.lua.org/pil/

Do i need something else, or i should do somehow my learning different?

How/where i will learn about how to structure/skecth game-codes for different type of games, and games in general? do those LUA books will teach me how to?

I saw this thing als: .https://docs.coronalabs.com/guide/start/introLua/index.html

this means i should look after LUA 5.1 when learning, since its what corona is using?

Does that introduction covers everything about the LUA used in corona? or i need to learn more about LUA from official LUA site, for using corona.

#2

Lua teaches you about Lua, Corona teaches you about Corona. 

Corona uses Lua as its programming language, but without the extensive Corona APIs, you can’t do much with Lua.

As for the Corona tutorial, don’t repeat it, but add new stuff to it. I believe on the second-to-last section, it told you to add asteroids that break apart, etc. 

The Corona Documentation is also extremely helpful.

https://docs.coronalabs.com/guide/index.html

https://docs.coronalabs.com/api/index.html

https://docs.coronalabs.com/tutorial/index.html

#3

Structuring game code requires an understanding of pseudocode and you will have to know what you will need for your game in advance.

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Pseudocode

#4

Consider trying to find a free or paid tutor.  Or, if you can, find a mentor.

Also, I’m sure there must be a number of online entities where you can take to learn Lua and/or Corona. 

#5

Question - What is your current experience at programming and game dev?

If you list your background and current experience that will also help folks answer you.

#6

Let me chime in here.

First, if you get stuck on the Getting Started guide (or anything for that matter) ask for help here. None of us want you to get stuck. We are here for you to ask for help. 

To me Lua and Corona have to be learned hand-in-hand. The Learning Lua link above is a good quick overview, but it helps if you already know a programming language. The Lua docs themselves, even as someone who has been programming for nearly 40 years, are a tough read for someone new to programming.

If you’re new to programming in general, it may be worth some of  your time to visit https:/code.org or find some other basic programming tutorials/courses.  With a few exceptions programming concepts are the same regardless of the language. About all the changes is the syntax or language rules.

They all have a way to hold numbers and strings (variables) or hold groups of data (tables, arrays). Languages have a way to make decisions (if-then-else), ways to do things multiple times (loops) and a way to block code together to let you executed it and different points (functions).  One you learn how to use variables, make decisions etc. Then learning any other language is easy.

One of the things we like about Lua is that it’s a low syntax language. 

Also people learn differently. You might find Video tutorials better than text tutorials. You might find reading code from existing projects and tinkering with them better than trying to create your own from scratch.

Rob

#7

thx for the replies

I am very beginner, i dont have any experience or knowledge about coding or game development on any level. the only thing i did is just playing games and sometimes i used mapeditors which were very noobfriendly. (doom4, Reflex arena, arma 3)

Also i completed the corona tutorials (chapter 1-7), and first tutorials in gamemaker/ clickteam fusion engine. Chapter 8 in corona was too hard for me already.

As for paying for tutorials or mentor lessons, thats maybe bad a idea cuz i am not native english speaker and mentoring is maybe too early for me anyway/not efficent?. Not to mention i am not sure if i can spend money on this, or atleast not nowadays. In general, text tutorials/documentation is the best way to learn for me i think (however i am a visual learner), for the reason english being not my native language. Also text can be printed or used with e-book, which is better for my eyes.

I just rly have trouble to find out what to do, cuz not only i have no clue of what i need to learn, but its hard to find it even, i feel.

#8

Let me add in. Chapter 8 is about deploying your app. That has nothing to do with coding. Neither Apple or Google make the process easy. The terminology alone: keystore, code-signing, provisioning profiles, Bundle ID’s etc. is a foreign language to every one. It’s tough.

But I would suggest, that you’re not there yet. To many people want to rush their idea to market and end up putting out something that’s not that good. Understand you have a learning curve and you’re fighting a non-native language and you’re learning concepts that in themselves are abstract. Be patient. Make several to many small apps that may accomplish only one thing.

Start with something as simple as putting a circle on the screen and have the computer move it around the screen. Then allow the user to move it around.  Work on these individual concepts until you understand them

Rob 

#9

about chapter 8 i meant the icon and the tweaking with asteroids etc…there it suggest me to modify my tutorial game to some extent.

#10

Got it.

You don’t need to worry about the icons until you’re ready to deploy or ready to test on your device. If you’re only working on Android, we will provide a temporary icon for you. If you are testing on iOS, if you don’t provide an icon, you get a default icon, so you can test on device even with out it.  

Once you’re ready to build your own game then the icon will be a very important part of submitting your app because it’s the very first thing any one will see of your app/game and it may be the most important “selling point” of your app. But again, worry about that closer to the time you need to deploy the app.

The rest of it: Making it your own: were just suggestions. At this point you might be ready to go build something else. Following my suggestion above, maybe it’s time to break down individual tasks and get good at those. A major part of making apps and games is imagining what to do next.

For instance, how can you change up the asteroids?  You need to study and understand how the graphic sheet was constructed (look at it in an image editing software like Photoshop). See how that maps to the code that defines the various frames in the game. See how the current asteroid is being put on screen. Then maybe look at generating random numbers (I’m not going to give you specifics here, it’s like a scavenger hunt, you need to learn to find answers) and when you put an asteroid on the screen, have it use a random asteroid.

Let’s start with that and see if you can accomplish that task.

Rob

#11

Lua teaches you about Lua, Corona teaches you about Corona. 

Corona uses Lua as its programming language, but without the extensive Corona APIs, you can’t do much with Lua.

As for the Corona tutorial, don’t repeat it, but add new stuff to it. I believe on the second-to-last section, it told you to add asteroids that break apart, etc. 

The Corona Documentation is also extremely helpful.

https://docs.coronalabs.com/guide/index.html

https://docs.coronalabs.com/api/index.html

https://docs.coronalabs.com/tutorial/index.html

#12

Structuring game code requires an understanding of pseudocode and you will have to know what you will need for your game in advance.

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Pseudocode

#13

Consider trying to find a free or paid tutor.  Or, if you can, find a mentor.

Also, I’m sure there must be a number of online entities where you can take to learn Lua and/or Corona. 

#14

Question - What is your current experience at programming and game dev?

If you list your background and current experience that will also help folks answer you.

#15

Let me chime in here.

First, if you get stuck on the Getting Started guide (or anything for that matter) ask for help here. None of us want you to get stuck. We are here for you to ask for help. 

To me Lua and Corona have to be learned hand-in-hand. The Learning Lua link above is a good quick overview, but it helps if you already know a programming language. The Lua docs themselves, even as someone who has been programming for nearly 40 years, are a tough read for someone new to programming.

If you’re new to programming in general, it may be worth some of  your time to visit https:/code.org or find some other basic programming tutorials/courses.  With a few exceptions programming concepts are the same regardless of the language. About all the changes is the syntax or language rules.

They all have a way to hold numbers and strings (variables) or hold groups of data (tables, arrays). Languages have a way to make decisions (if-then-else), ways to do things multiple times (loops) and a way to block code together to let you executed it and different points (functions).  One you learn how to use variables, make decisions etc. Then learning any other language is easy.

One of the things we like about Lua is that it’s a low syntax language. 

Also people learn differently. You might find Video tutorials better than text tutorials. You might find reading code from existing projects and tinkering with them better than trying to create your own from scratch.

Rob

#16

thx for the replies

I am very beginner, i dont have any experience or knowledge about coding or game development on any level. the only thing i did is just playing games and sometimes i used mapeditors which were very noobfriendly. (doom4, Reflex arena, arma 3)

Also i completed the corona tutorials (chapter 1-7), and first tutorials in gamemaker/ clickteam fusion engine. Chapter 8 in corona was too hard for me already.

As for paying for tutorials or mentor lessons, thats maybe bad a idea cuz i am not native english speaker and mentoring is maybe too early for me anyway/not efficent?. Not to mention i am not sure if i can spend money on this, or atleast not nowadays. In general, text tutorials/documentation is the best way to learn for me i think (however i am a visual learner), for the reason english being not my native language. Also text can be printed or used with e-book, which is better for my eyes.

I just rly have trouble to find out what to do, cuz not only i have no clue of what i need to learn, but its hard to find it even, i feel.

#17

Let me add in. Chapter 8 is about deploying your app. That has nothing to do with coding. Neither Apple or Google make the process easy. The terminology alone: keystore, code-signing, provisioning profiles, Bundle ID’s etc. is a foreign language to every one. It’s tough.

But I would suggest, that you’re not there yet. To many people want to rush their idea to market and end up putting out something that’s not that good. Understand you have a learning curve and you’re fighting a non-native language and you’re learning concepts that in themselves are abstract. Be patient. Make several to many small apps that may accomplish only one thing.

Start with something as simple as putting a circle on the screen and have the computer move it around the screen. Then allow the user to move it around.  Work on these individual concepts until you understand them

Rob 

#18

about chapter 8 i meant the icon and the tweaking with asteroids etc…there it suggest me to modify my tutorial game to some extent.

#19

Got it.

You don’t need to worry about the icons until you’re ready to deploy or ready to test on your device. If you’re only working on Android, we will provide a temporary icon for you. If you are testing on iOS, if you don’t provide an icon, you get a default icon, so you can test on device even with out it.  

Once you’re ready to build your own game then the icon will be a very important part of submitting your app because it’s the very first thing any one will see of your app/game and it may be the most important “selling point” of your app. But again, worry about that closer to the time you need to deploy the app.

The rest of it: Making it your own: were just suggestions. At this point you might be ready to go build something else. Following my suggestion above, maybe it’s time to break down individual tasks and get good at those. A major part of making apps and games is imagining what to do next.

For instance, how can you change up the asteroids?  You need to study and understand how the graphic sheet was constructed (look at it in an image editing software like Photoshop). See how that maps to the code that defines the various frames in the game. See how the current asteroid is being put on screen. Then maybe look at generating random numbers (I’m not going to give you specifics here, it’s like a scavenger hunt, you need to learn to find answers) and when you put an asteroid on the screen, have it use a random asteroid.

Let’s start with that and see if you can accomplish that task.

Rob