How to make a really basic pong game for a beginner

Question

Hello.  I've read through a couple of threads on here dealing with making a game of pong in LabView, but in them the users had questions with far more complex aspects of the program than I want to deal with.  I am a beginner programmer in LabView with limited experience in Java and Visual Basic programming.  I was tasked with creating a game over winter break, and now that I finally have some time (this weekend that is), I decided that I'd make a really simple game of pong.  However, I have seriously overestimated the difficulty of this for a beginner who has very limited knowledge of Lab View.
I ask you to please have some patience with me.
I know what I want to do, and just need help inplementing it.
Here is the idea for my design to keep it as simple as possible:
-Create a field (I am not sure what to use for this, but from my reading it appears that some sort of a picture output is needed, but I cannot find that anywhere).
-Set up some simple function that can output the dimensions of this field to use with collision tracking.
-Create a ball that can be tracked by the program.
-From my reading I understand that the simplest way to "bounce" the ball off the sides appears to simply reverse the X velocity of the ball when it strikes the vertical boundaries and the Y velocity when it strikes the horizontal boundaries.
-Insert some sort of a "paddle" that the user can control with the left and right arrow keys.
Now, as I have mentioned I am a beginner with approximately one month maximum knowledge of this software, spread over about a year.  I want to take things slow.  So for starters, would anyone be willing to walk me through creating a visual output for this and creating a ball that will bounce off all sides?
If I can at least get that far for now, then I can move on (with help I hope!) of inserting an interactive interface for the "paddle."
I have found some LabView code for a simple game like this, but it also includes a score keeping loop as well as an "automatic play" option, and I am attempting to wade through all that code to find the bones of it to help me with this, but due to my inexperience, this might thake a lot of time.
I thank you for any and all help anyone may be able to provide.

Answer 1

EchoWolf wrote:
-Create a field (I am not sure what to use for this, but from my reading it appears that some sort of a picture output is needed, but I cannot find that anywhere).
 Wel, there is the picture indicator in the picture palette. In newer versions it's called "2D picture". The palettes have a search function. Using the palette search function is a basic LabVIEW skill that you should know. If you've seen the example for the other discussion, it uses a 2D boolean array indicator. The boolean array is only recommended for a monochrome very low resolution display.
EchoWolf wrote: -Set up some simple function that can output the dimensions of this field to use with collision tracking.
-Create a ball that can be tracked by the program.
That seems backwards. Properly programmed, the code always knows the dimension and the ball position. The program generates, (not tracks!) the ball movement. Of course you need to do some range checking on the ball position to see when it collides with the walls.
EchoWolf wrote:
-From my reading I understand that the simplest way to "bounce" the ball off the sides appears to simply reverse the X velocity of the ball when it strikes the vertical boundaries and the Y velocity when it strikes the horizontal boundaries.
Of course you could make it more realistic by keeping track of three ball parameters: x, y, spin.
EchoWolf wrote:
-Insert some sort of a "paddle" that the user can control with the left and right arrow keys.
Pong is typically played with the up-down arrow keys.
EchoWolf wrote:
Now, as I have mentioned I am a beginner with approximately one month maximum knowledge of this software, spread over about a year.
LabVIEW knowledge is not measured in time units. What did you do during that month? Did you attend some lectures, study tutorials, wrote some programs?
EchoWolf wrote:
So for starters, would anyone be willing to walk me through creating a visual output for this and creating a ball that will bounce off all sides?
I have found some LabView code for a simple game like this, but it also includes a score keeping loop as well as an "automatic play" option, and I am attempting to wade through all that code to find the bones of it to help me with this, but due to my inexperience, this might thake a lot of time.
Start with the posted example and delete all the controls and indicators that you don't want, then surgically remove all code with broken wires.
Alternatively, start from scratch: Create your playing field. Easiest would be a 2D classic boolean array that is all false. Use initialize array to make it once. Now use a loop to show the ball as a function of time.
Start with a random ball position. to display it, turn one of the array elements true before wiring to the array indicator using replace array subset.
Keep a shift register with xy positions and xy velocities and update the positions as a function of the velocities with each iteration of the loop. Do range checking and reverse the velocieis when a edge is encountered.
What LabVIEW version do you have?
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