Lua
Lua is used as the scripting language for a variety of applications, including Roblox, Sonic-Pi, Pico-8, and Norns. In other words, it is a an ideal creative coding language to learn as a software engineer using high level tools.
Loops
Today we’re going to talk about loops in Lua. A loop is a block of code which repeats until a desired condition is met. Let’s look at how a for loop is implemented.
//Luafor i=0,5 do print(i) end// 1
// 2
// 3
// 4
// 5
for is a reserved word in Lua which tells the compiler that either a numeric or generic loop is to follow. In this case we have numeric loop which is printing a number.
i=0 is our variable declaration. It states that the variable i is a number (data types in Lua can be numbers, boolean, objects, or string), and that its initial value is 0.
,5 is the setting of the condition for the loop. It creates the end condition for the loop; when i is equal to the value 5 the loop should end.
It is important to state here that the implied numeric operation is i = i+1 ; each loop iis incremented by 1.
do is another reserved word in Lua; which sets the beginning of the functional scope of the loop. The block of code which is listed between do and end runs each time i is incremented. In this case, we are printing the value of i to the terminal.
So that is a breakdown of how a loop works on its own using the terminal. How do we use it in a game framework like Roblox, which features 3D objects?
Getting started in Roblox; The “Part” object
Roblox is a game framework which offers a large variety of objects in its local library. One such object, Part, is useful in demonstrating code concepts.
In this project example we’re going to show how during runtime, we can instantiate (create an…
