[epiar-devel] How can I help?

[Matthew Zweig]

Sergio,

Here are a few short and simple tasks and questions that you could use to familiarize yourself with the code.  There aren't any changes here that I would want to have in the 'official' version of Epiar, they're all for you.  The big exception here is the AI, if you create a new AI I would love to see it.

To see how the sprites are drawn, Figure out why the player is always drawn above other ships.  Also add some code to skip drawing the player (it should still exist and be able to move around, just not drawn).  Start looking from Simulation::Run and watch for Sprites.

To figure out how the AI works, Change one of the AI so that it is always firing.  Or create a new AI. For example you could create an AI that always follows the Player.  Or a "swarm" AI that will look for nearby swarming AI and "flock" to one another.

To see how user input works, check out Simulation::HandleInput and the Input class.  Add some code to Simulation::HandleInput watches for the letter 'V' and then toggles one of the development OPTIONs (For example, turn on the debug-ai flag). Also look at the command.lua and player.lua files.  Try creating a new command so that when the player hits 'G' they get 10,000 credits.

To see how the game is scripted, check out Lua.cpp and AI_Lua.cpp.  Create a new Lua function that prints something, then add some code to the Simulation that calls your function every second.  Check out "Run" or "Call".  What's the difference?  Figure out how to use Run or Call to fetch data from Lua.

How many copies of the player's ship image are loaded at the same time?  Why?  (Hint, check out how Image::Get works.)  What is a Resource?

I hope that this helps.  Don't worry, you're definitely not the first person to ask for some help learning how things work.  I'm having a hard time coming up with new primer tasks for people though, so the above aren't unique to you, I'm sorry.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
If you're interested in any particular aspect of Epiar, let me know and I can tailor some primer tasks to that area of the code.

If this isn't helpful, please tell me that too.

Thanks,
~Matt

On Aug 17, 2010, at 3:45 PM, douglas.quade at yahoo.es wrote:

> Hi Matt,
> 
> I would like you to suggest me some exercises to learn the code.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Sergio
> 
> ==========================
> Hi doug,
> 
> We have a list of tickets on our trac page (epiar.net/trac) , check those and see if anything sounds particularly interesting to you.
> 
> If you just want to get your feet wet, I can come up with some exercises to learn the code.
> 
> Welcome!
> 
> ~Matt
> 
> On Aug 16, 2010, at 2:49 PM, "douglas.quade at yahoo.es" <douglas.quade at yahoo.es> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Recently I have joined in to the project.
> > 
> >
>  I would like to know which part
>  of the code
> 
> > should I help with.
> > 
> > Kind regards,
> > 
> > douglasquade
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > epiar-devel mailing list
> > epiar-devel at epiar.net
> > http://epiar.net/mailman/listinfo/epiar-devel
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