New scripter, I'd like some help

Help and Feedback Scripting Support
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#1

Hello! My name is Mono. I am a young artist and animator and, as of recent, I’ve discovered that programming is my passion and I’d like to make video games as a future career. Currently, I am using Roblox as a starting ground to help me learn some things and get the basics down. However, I’ve run into a few problems.

For one, I know next to nothing about Lua. I can model, animate, design and illustrate, but when it comes to scripting I’m just completely lost.

Not only this, but I’m just not quite sure where to learn Lua. I’ve been doing a week’s worth of searching for any way that would maybe help make the learning process a bit easier for me, but I always get the same answer: Just do what works best for you. That’s the problem; I don’t know what “the thing that works best for me” is.

YouTube tutorials are confusing and are often too fast paced for my liking. Devforum guides are widely a hit or miss and often instead of teaching something they just give instructions. (Which is expected and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t help me at all.)

If you’re an experienced scripter, know how to script, or even just have a general understanding of coding, how did you get to where you are now? Is there anything you recommend for me to try to get better? How did you learn Lua and how can I?

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#2

Here are 2 Great articles if you’re trying to learn the basics.

A big part of learning is actually trying it out yourself. You wont get better if all you do is read tutorials or articles but never actually try those concepts in practice. So you want to actively try applying ideas you learn in Studio, for example making a Script that changes the Color of a part. You’ll learn basics like variables, functions, references and properties by doing this.

5 Likes
#3

@Alvin_Blox and Roblox Documentation really helped me! Alvin_Blox’s lesson on Remote Events is a little long, so I’d recommend using Documentation to learn about that.

6 Likes
#4

I’m also currently learning scripting and something that really helped me out is the BlockLua plugin for studio!

If writing out scripts is too confusing and overwhelming, much like it was for me, then block scripting might be a good way to start! What’s awesome about this plugin is that after you place a bunch of code blocks, it shows you how the actual script would be written right beside them! I found this helps a lot with understanding the flow of scripts better.

The plugin does cost a bit of robux but if you’re able to afford it, its a pretty beneficial tool in my opinion!
Good luck with your journey!

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#5

The way I started was youtube tutorials and then after that editing scripts that I still didn’t fully understand, then back to tutorials and just did that over and over again until I understood the basics and then from then on I was finally able to be released from my creative cage because my lack of knowledge didn’t limit me anymore and then I started working on stuff I was interested in

You say youtube tutorials are confusing and fast paced then maybe reading the documentation might be something more fit for you, if that doesn’t work for you then maybe get a tutor but i’d argue that’s basically just a youtube video but without the ability to pause

Just whatever you plan to do just dont give up and when you feel like quitting just remember why you started, your code is going to be inefficient and look like absolute garbage, but that’s totally okay because each day you’ll be learning and growing. Just put one foot in front of the other thats progress, you’ll get there. Don’t quit

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#6

I learned from youtube espacially from alvin_Blox TheDevKing and gnomecode they have really good tutorials on roblox scripting in general it will take take the videos are long but it’s worth it and you probably will need to rewatch either because it’s hard to understand ot just learn the syntax the devforum is a great place to search for solution for your problems and i highly recommend scripting while you are learning in the videos just rewriting what they worte in the script also a big thing is not to create a game that is too hard for you and if you don’t get something right don’t get discouraged even if you learned lua if you don’t like watching youtube tutorials the roblox documentation is here but it’s really harder to understand

4 Likes
#7

Something that helped me a lot is starting with computercraft, a minecraft mod that allows you to write lua programs on virtual computers. It’s a lot simpler imo because you deal with actual lua, not luau, which is the altered version of lua roblox uses. Roblox also uses a lot of services, which computercraft minimizes (computercraft really only has I/O (input/output) APIs). I just used CC:Tweaked to sort of automate bases i built and make some systems like a nuclear football and modular nuclear missile silo using HBM’s Nuclear Tech Mod. I also feel like CC:Tweaked helped me get used to systems like HTTP requests and just actual coding environments, which is ideal when you want to make the switch to JS or python.

Here’s the website for CC:Tweaked:
https://computercraft.cc/
Here’s the website for computercraft’s documentation:
https://computercraft.info/wiki/Main_Page

When I went into Roblox scripting, I started with personal projects and just trying to make cool stuff like a rappel system or just doors or stuff that just interested me that I wanted to challenge myself to make. Then, I asked my friend for studio access to see how scripts in his game worked, even if most of them were just free models. At this point, I couldn’t make scripts like the ones in the game myself but I could fix them if they broke.

Then, I met some other devs and wanted to make a mall game with them. I made a building system but it didn’t work out because the owner had paranoia or bipolar disorder or something and just fired devs for the most trivial things.

After that, I looked for work as a dev but didn’t ask for pay, I just wanted experience in an actual development studio and I got that in a restaurant game, which was pretty good actually but I had too much on my schedule.

I quit that and then I found an SCP project that I’m a dev for now. This project has helped me see how OOP (object oriented programming) really helps in big games, especially with things like doors or weapons. Lua isn’t that great for OOP, mainly because it wasn’t made for it, so there’s some complications sometimes. But generally, it’s much better for a big project.

I didn’t really look at a bunch of tutorials when I first started. What I did and still do now is just try to conceptualize what I’m gonna do and then try to find a way to do it (mainly by googling stuff like “how to move a part roblox”). I’ve found out this is how most programmers do it. Always remember: a programmer’s best skill is googling efficiently. And if you can’t find the answer on google, I’ve found the people here on devforum are really nice and will help you out when they can.

However, if you really are just starting out, learn the basics of lua first and then learn how roblox’s variation of lua works (systems, explorer structure, etc). After that, you’ll be fine.

3 Likes
#8

All of the above answers are great. I have another thing you could try if you are a visual learner (maybe not so useful if you aren’t a visual learner).

ChatGPT helped me learn to script, to the point where I largely script on my own. If you read and take time to learn and understand why ChatGPT scripts the way it does repeatedly, the first thing that happens is that you will start to be able to translate basic Lua (think of it as an actual speaking language) to English or whatever your native language is. Essentially, you will understand what the code does. Then, what happens is you are able to not only understand much more complex code, but also start to write (by yourself) in Lua, meaning that you will start to be able to translate your native language to Lua. At this stage, if you ask it to write more complex tasks and create whole systems of code, you can continue to learn from it.

My advice with it is first, tell it to write basic code for something simple (like how to change the color of a part or how to move a part). Then maybe move on to how to write a function. Every time you tell it to write something, always follow up with what does this code do?. If you are confused about anything, tell it to ChatGPT, and explain.

Also, be sure to paste the code into Studio and test it, to see what its result is. If it makes a mistake or an error comes up, copy and paste the code back into ChatGPT and tell the error. It should fix itself after 1-3 prompts, and if not, elaborate what the issue is in more detail.

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#9

What i recommend and this is the way i’ve learned is to just create things. Yes just open up roblox studio and start making things. It could be anything … a door, part that changes color when you touch it, speed increases the more you run etc… anything that comes to your mind try to make it and of course watch youtube tutorials for it you will eventually get the hang of things

4 Likes