From the Devs: “How do you learn to script?”

From the Devs: “How do you learn to script?”

There?s a question I?m asked a lot by people in the Roblox community:

?How do you learn to script?.. It?s so hard!?

To answer this question, I wouldn?t say that it?s ?hard?; instead, I think there?s so much useful information out there that people don?t know where to start if they want to learn how to script. So, in this article, I?m going to show some of the best places to learn how to script- and how to not get overwhelmed when learning all the new scripting concepts.

Each person learns scripting their own way. Some people may learn by watching others, reading documentation or by having a go for themselves in Studio. I think the best way to learn is to watch a demonstration and then have a go yourself afterwards ? that?s how I learned. I must stress, however, you can NOT learn scripting overnight ? it?s just not possible!

The places I would recommend to go to learn scripting would be YouTube tutorials, the Roblox Wiki and discussion forums such as the DevForum or ScriptingHelpers to get help on a topic or for more explanation. You can watch a series of tutorials on YouTube about a subject (more on those later), read up on it afterwards on the Roblox Wiki, try scripting it for yourself and then if you have any issues or problems, you can ask people on a forum and get support.

Image for postStudio in 2011, when AlvinBlox began scripting (Source: wiki.roblox.com)

When I was starting out and learning how to script, I really didn?t know how I would be able to remember all the information belonging to each topic. Instead of learning it all at once, I decided to take it slowly and write down the most important topics to remember on paper or in a notebook. A lot of the scripts I?d make would be full of errors and mistakes because either I?d written a line from memory incorrectly, or I?d forgotten to capitalize something. Even though I made a mistake, I learned from it because I knew how to type that line again in future. So my advice to you is ? experiment! If you make a mistake, you make a mistake and that?s fine because you can always learn from them! Take on a variety of small projects that you know you can handle, and don?t try to over-work yourself.If you do that, you?ll begin to lose interest due to you thinking it?s too hard. Using Free Models is also a good way to learn ? picking apart what other scripters have written can help you pick up new topics. You can even edit Free Models to your liking, so you can change parts of the code to see what they do.

I upload scripting tutorials on my YouTube channel, AlvinBLOX, and have a dedicated series of videos for beginners, but I want to also recommend Eppobot and SteadyOn. Both of these resources have good content and are easy to understand, especially if you?re new to scripting. Eppobot also has some quality building tutorials, so if you?re more of a builder and want to learn some scripting (as well as sharpening up your building skills), his videos are worth a watch.

Don?t forget, if you find it hard to understand, it doesn?t mean you?ll never be a good scripter. You have to keep trying and experimenting, and if you still don?t understand a topic, give it a rest and try a different one. Come back to it another time and give it another go when you feel more confident. I know how it feels to want to get started on your huge, awesome game with hardly any scripting knowledge ? but mastering scripting is the key to developing your own Roblox games and should always come first. That way, you?re ready to make any game you think of!

I hope you found this tutorial useful. If you want to see more, click the clap button on this Medium article so that we know you liked it. My YouTube channel is AlvinBLOXX, and I also write blog posts on my website https://www.alvinblox.com, some of which provide scripting help.

Check out AlvinBloxx?s Roblox profile, and all of his work, here.

Image for post

Follow him on Twitter, or YouTube, for tips on scripting, and to see what else he?s working on!

23