Basic object tutorial

I'm in a Torque 2D class, and our first project was to build a tutorial explaining something in Torque. So I chose to explain the very basics of objects. Or what little I know of them anyways. Maybe I'll come back and edit this after I've learned a bit more, as it stands I'm pretty much completely new at this! [All of the code is from the Fish Game Demo, since it had a lot to work with at my level.] Enjoy!

Objects in Torque serve many purposes, far too many for me to cover in just one tutorial. So we'll start with something simple, moving an object.

The first thing that you need to do is to drag said object into your playing field, and to do so you need to check out your image library under the 'create' tab. (If you have no images in your library import some. Via the 'create new image map' button, or Project - Resources, then add a set images that way.)

After you've dragged your image in and resized to whatever size you'd like, you need to give it some setting before you get into the script. With the image selected go now to the edit tab, and then the scene object menu. All that needs to be done here is to set the layer of your object. If it's the only thing you have you can leave it at the default layer.

Now in the scripting menu give your object a class, something simple that relates to the object is fine. Just make sure that it's easy to remember.

The last thing you need is the dynamic fields. Give it something like vertical speed and horizontal speed. Or vSpeed and hSpeed. Give these some numerical values as well 15 and 30, respectively.

The last thing you need to do is set the world limits for your object. You wouldn't want it walking right off your playing field.

Now for the code!

function PlayerFish::onLevelLoaded(%this, %scenegraph)
{
$FishPlayer = %this;

moveMap.bindCmd(keyboard, "w", "fishPlayerUp();", "fishPlayerUpStop();");
moveMap.bindCmd(keyboard, "s", "fishPlayerDown();", "fishPlayerDownStop();");
moveMap.bindCmd(keyboard, "a", "fishPlayerLeft();", "fishPlayerLeftStop();");
moveMap.bindCmd(keyboard, "d", "fishPlayerRight();", "fishPlayerRightStop();");
}

PlayerFish is the class name that we gave the object earlier, and this code will set up what keys will move your object. We used the wasd setup here, you can choose whatever keys that you'd like.

function fishPlayerUp()
{
$FishPlayer.moveUp = true;
$FishPlayer.updateMovement();
}


function fishPlayerDown()
{
$FishPlayer.moveDown = true;
$FishPlayer.updateMovement();
}


function fishPlayerLeft()
{
$FishPlayer.moveLeft = true;
$FishPlayer.updateMovement();
}


function fishPlayerRight()
{
$FishPlayer.moveRight = true;
$FishPlayer.updateMovement();
}

All of these will update the image of your object, and give it the illusion of moving across the screen."