RE: History of Lua aside... note about game usage!

[Falko Poiker <fpoiker@...>]

We here at Relic are using lua for both our projects now: Sigma and
Homeworld 2.   Sigma moved from Python to lua a few months ago.  I can't
speak for the Sigma project, but Homeworld 2 uses lua for the following
tasks: simple configuration of tweakable modules in the game (camera,
weapons, races, formations, construction, ship stats, sound and more),
defining mission flow and events (i.e. movies that get played in the single
player game), defining winning/losing conditions (using lua function
callbacks) and for ship classifications (using various lua tables).   By far
the most impactful use of lua will be our AI - we've adapted our in house
state machine language (KAS - Kick Ass Scripting) to be a thin layer on top
of lua. 

I wrote an article on GameSpy's developer's corner about
scripting/modability that mentions lua
http://www.gamespy.com/devcorner/january01/poiker/
This article was meant primarily for our fans, of whom there are quite a few
people interested in modifying our game, but may not understand what a
scripting language is or how it works in a game like ours.  The article
doesn't go into any considerable depth, though.  

In addition, I talked to many Artificial Intelligence people (both game
company types, and academics) about lua at a recent AAAI Symposium at
Stanford University, so awareness may be growing on that front as well.

Anyway, thanks for a great language!

Falko Poiker
Programmer/Designer
Homeworld 2
Relic Entertainment Inc.



-----Original Message-----
From: Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo [mailto:lhf@tecgraf.puc-rio.br]
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 5:24 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: History of Lua aside... note about game usage!


I wrote this last week:

 We have this problem: we *feel* that Lua is being used in many places
 but we don't *know* any other than the 50 or so listed in our site.

 Is it just a feeling or what? How widely would you say that Lua is used?

This appeared yesterday in comp.games.development:

 Of course, the most popular extension languages (Lua, Python, Tcl)
 are licensed without such strings attached.

So, at least to this person, Lua rates among the "most popular" languages!
(With Lua listed first, but he may have sorted the names...)

This kind of statement is not infrequent in usenet messages that mention Lua
(see "Lua usenet citations" in http://www.lua.org/links.html ); Lua is
mentioned as a language that people are (or should be) familiar with.
Despite this, we still only know those 50 or so uses listed in our site.

What is your experience? Do people around you know Lua? How did they know
about
it? Did you tell them yourself or was it the other way around? Do you know
other people that are using Lua but who are not in lua-l? Would you rate Lua
as a "popular" language? Do you see its popularity increasing?

We'd really like to know a realistic estimate of the impact of Lua.

Thanks for any info.
--lhf