Spawning an object every second to float from one side of the screen to the other

Questions
#1

Hello all,

Firstly, this community is fantastic, thanks for all the code and help over the last few months i’v been learning.

I have a question regarding the best way to spawn an object so that it floats from one side of the screen to the other. I would also like the program to spawn the same object each second creating a train of the same objects floating across the screen.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help,

Alola

#2

Not in front of a computer now. My suggestion is this:

timer.delay(1.0, function()
  local id = factory.create("#myfactory", vmath.vector3(0, math.random(0, 640), 0))
  go.animate(id, "position.x", go.PLAYBACK_ONCE_FORWARD, 1136, go.EASING_LINEAR, 1.0, 0, function() 
      go.delete(id)
  end)
end)
5 Likes
#3

I am more of a newbie than I thought. I can’t get it to work at all. It throws up errors that tell me it can’t create collections ect.

I’m sure your code is completely fine but I don’t think I even know how to make a factory. Is there a unified way to make an efficient factory that i’m unaware of?

Thanks.

#4

Please share the errors. It will make it easier for us to help.

The Simple Spawning example shows how to use a factory. And the Manual.

#5

Great! I’ll check it out. To be honest I should have just downloaded the Sidescroller game and taken a look at how it was done.

Thanks again,

Alola

#6

Welcome to Defold! I cannot recommend the manual enough if you want to learn Defold as a beginner (or at any point, really): the documentation is excellent, and comes with many great examples, like the one @britzl shared for factories.

Check through the documentation, run through some examples, and ask questions here if you get stuck. Good luck!

3 Likes
#7

I took a step back and analysed the Side scroller tutorial game, did some experimenting and implemented your code where I think it needed to be. Everything seems to be working in good order. Thanks for your help, you are a huge asset to this community.

1 Like
#8

Thank you for your contribution. I had a look at everything that has been suggested. I feel very welcome in this community as a result. Hopefully one day I can give back and contribute in a meaningful way.

Kind regards,

Alola

#9

I combined your code with the Side scroller tutorial games code and edited it down to this. Feel free to make a modification to allow it to run better.

local frequency = 0.5
local min_y = 60
local max_y = 300

function init(self)
	self.timer = 0.5/frequency
	-- make the game deterministic
end

function update(self, dt)
	self.timer = self.timer - dt
	if self.timer <= 0 then
		self.timer = 0.5/frequency
		local p = go.get_position()
		local id = factory.create("#star_factory", vmath.vector3(0, math.random(0, 0), 0))
		go.animate(id, "position.x", go.PLAYBACK_ONCE_BACKWARD, 1280, go.EASING_LINEAR, 5.0, 0, function() 
			go.delete(id)
		end)

			if math.random() then

		end
	end
end
2 Likes
#10

Happy to hear that you got it working! We released a new version of Defold this Monday and in that version (1.2.130) we included a native timer implementation. It is recommended to use the timer instead of manually doing the work in an update function like in your example.