Suggestions
 

Hi there people, well i love the tutorials and know that its expanding to cover most of the topics. Just wanted to suggest a beginner type coding for LWScript tutorial. Maybe a small tool creation or explanation. That will be so cool.

That would be neat. Mabye if we can shower Philip with Praise and love he can whip somehting up ;)

I've been wanting to learn about this myself since I could use that knowledge to write import/export plugins for games.

Unfortunatley finding good LScript tutorials and documentation seems impossible. There is the LScript PDF file but it's rather dry and doesn't do a good job of teaching you the language.

Also, from what I've seen most plugins written for LW are rarely composed entirely of LScript but instead a core written in some other high level language and a small LScript used to establish a link to LW. I assume the reason behind this is LScript alone is not as powerful as Newtek would have you believe.

I would want it, so y'all can learn it and I can tell you what you need you to write. :)

im not sure but i believe the newtek website has a tutorial on scripting....please correct me if I am wrong:)

LScript itself is reasonably powerful. The main problem with it (like any interpreted scripting language) is that its slow (even when the scripts are compiled - it's still a semi-interpreted language). There are, also, some functions that really can only be accessed by the main Lightwave APIs.

Take a look in the LScripts folders within your Lightwave installation and you should find plenty of examples that ship with the product.

I do admit though that there is a lack of accessible documentation on the subject. One aid to learning though is LScript Commander (although that is only available for Layout scripts - Look under Generic plugins). This allows you to take a sequence of Layout commands and then convert them to the corresponding LScript.

Hmm, guess you are right, there are just not enough documentation to get the beginners up to speed. And even if they do its just a little huge or confusing often resulting in time spent on exploring and trial and error. Not that i dislike the trial and error. Hehehe Hope there is a video tutorial of it... I would surely buy and spend points on it.

The only problem is that programming doesn't really lend itself too well to video tutorials since by its nature it is a reasonably slow paced and analytic subject (not to mention reasonably math intensive when working in 3D apps).

To be honest, the best method for learning development is to look at existing code - alongside the reference manuals and then butcher that to perform the tasks you require.

If you've had no prior exposure to programming then I'd suggest getting a good introductory book on the subject. Believe me - I'm a developer by trade and the I learnt pretty much all I know about programming constructs and the like from reverse engineering existing code and reading books on programming waay before I went to Uni to study it formally.

Yep! There is a series of video tutorials about scripting at the NewTek site. I'm not posting a link cause it will get edited out. ;)

Also there is supposed to be a book about scripting in LightWave (I don't know if it is only LScripts or also plugins) that should come out soon.

What? If we can't link to NewTek then Mark and Erwin are in big trouble. :)

Yep - I don't think that linking to NewTek will cause any problems. It's linking to other commercial tutorial sites that really causes issues since that's the way that the simply sites keep themselves alive. I don't see there being too much of a problem linking to free tutes on other sites that are not strictly tutorial oriented. (Kevin, feel free to comment on this though if I'm wrong)

I link from other sites to Simply's free tuts, so... I would think its not a problem. <shrugs> :)

There is no problem posting a link to the NewTek site, but I guess there is a problem posting a link to a page that has nothing but free video tutorials (that happens to be on the NewTek site).

I'm saying this since once someone created a simple, short, sped up video tutorial showing how he models ears. It was completely free and couldn't even compare to what this site offers. But the link was edited out (I think by Kevin), and the user left.

Maybe SimplyLightWave isn't so strict as it used to be but that happened. :)

Well, that could depend on how much coffee Kevin needed at the time. :)