Total noob asking for a bit of help

Hey guys I'm extremely new to 2nd life. I'm a game design major at WPI, and part of our social issues in games cirriculum is exploring current popular games. Second life is one of them. One of our assignments is to create an object that performs an action. My task is to design a simple cannon. (When the object is touched, it will project a ball out)

I have a good background in programming with Java, having taken 2 semesters already, but I'm new to the SLS language. What I have so far is just a tube, and a ball. How would I rig the cannon to create an instance of that ball when touched, and then give it a velocity and direction depending on that of the cannon?

Much thanks for all help.

Hi Asdrubael. Welcome to SL.

I too started in SL as part of a class. Needless to say, I got pretty hooked on it. I'm still here, more than 2 years later. I hope you'll enjoy it as well.

Anyway, to answer your question, the basics of what you're trying to do are in the popgun script, which should be in your library. All the commands are in there for how to make an object rez a bullet and fire it. I'm afraid I'm not much of a scripter, so I can't advise you on all the modifications, but since you're a game design major, I'm betting it won't be too tuff for you to figure out. Game designers are generally have a solid programmig background, unlike us lowly modelers/texture artists.

As is the case with many who frequent the building and texturing forums, all I can do is make stuff look good, and then I usually need other people to help make it work. So, if you want advice on how to make your cannon pretty, you're in the right place, but as for actually making it do things, I'd recommend asking for help in the scripting forum. That's where the programming gurus hang out.