New to Corona & new to Lua

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#21

1. Light Effect :

Meaning “Light Node” that illuminates the scene and make objects cast shadows, like the ones you find in Cocos2d or SpriteKit

2.   Particle Systems  -:

Meaning effects like fire, explosion, lightning. I took a look at the links, the first one is related to the physics engine, the docs are not clear enough on why would I set collision properties on an effect like that, it might be something other that what I meant, others are 3rd party tools.
  

Can you modify your code locally (on PC/Mac) and have the app (nearly) instantly update on device**  for fast testing?  Yes, and this is a supported feature of Corona.**

But I read something about having Corona compile first in the cloud and then push it on the phone?!
 

Note: I took significant time and effort to answer this post, so I’d appreciate some info in return.  How are you learning to use Corona?

I appreciate that.
 
 

(I’m not picking on you here.  I want to understand your technique/approach so I can help better and so I can see where your friction points are.)

 
Specifically are you:

  • Reading the blogs, both old and new?  N

  • Searching the forms**?** Y
    Reading the API Docs - Y

Using Google to make searches like this?

  • Corona SDK Particle System

Y, and also searching for tutorials to follow, I was disappointed when I didn’t find any official tutorials by Corona team, they are all just examples of different features, I wanted to know the official and recommended way to structure and build an entire game with Corona.

Also, you forgot to mention the part about the Composer GUI, I read that it’s been suspended for a while now. 
 
I come from Objective-C, SWIFT, Xcode, SpriteKit background, I made few apps and games with it already, I tried several others engines but did not get very comfortable with any, Unity was the best of them all but a little pricey for us. As a developer, I want something more versatile than SpriteKit and also multiplatform.
 
My worries are that I invest time, effort and money in developing with Corona just to find it fading out or getting left behind in a year or so, I had to ask myself some questions like:

  • Why some of those features are not yet integrated(mentioned above)
  • Why did not the devs create a fully integrated IDE
  • Why a feature like 3D touch (for example) had to be requested by the users in order to get implemented

And others that I won’t bother you with because I don’t want to be more burden than I already am.
 
I recently received a beta to Defold which I’m currently testing, I’m torn between it and this one, on one hand Corona has been around for a couple of years, with a huge community, on the other, Defold already looks  much more advanced. 
 
Difficult decision to make so I need to weigh all my options.
 
Thank you again for taking up the time to assist me on this.

PS: I tried putting each of your quotes inside actual quotes to better format the post, but the editor complained of too many quotes.

#22

@Abdou23,

  1. Thanks for the formatting.  It was easier to read.

  2. Composer Editor (not scene library) - I’m not clear on the status of that.  I don’t personally use it (I do use the scene library).

  3. Particles - I’d suggest the second link and/or Calebs work Prism/CBE depending on what you need.  They each have different uses.

  4. Blogs - I know it is hard to search them, but man there is a ton of great info in the blogs over the past few years.

  5. Defold - I was on the beta and while I’m not sold on it I see some things they do better that I’m looking into addressing here.

  6. IDE - You mean like Unity’s IDE?  Code editor, object inspector, performance tools, etc.?  This is very interesting topic to me, but I’ll say little more for now other than I’m considering how this could be resolved.

  7. Burden?  - Totally not a burden.  Welcome to the community and thanks for asking interesting questions.

-Ed

#23

Thank you very much, appreciate everything. Glad to be part of the community :slight_smile: