Torque Game Engine

The Torque engine can be quite cumbersome to use. The art pipelines and workflow architecture can cause many headaches. The process of successfully exporting a model from 3D Studio Max is my main gripe with the engine to be honest. Your finished model has to have a number of dummies and bounding boxes linked to it, both with naming conventions etc etc.

Now if you know someone that can use maxscript, you can cut down greatly on the amount of time you spend preparing your art assets, by creating a button that will automate all these things for you.

Also, Torque doesnt contain any bsp editor so you will have to use an external editor such as Quarke, or Radiant. There is too forms of models that torque uses, .dts (world models such as characters, props etc) and .diff (buildings, or bsp brushes.) All .dts are made in Max or your preferred modelling package. And keep in mind, only .diff models cast and recieve shadows.

The engine is quite robust however and the terrain editor is superb. The GUi (graphical user interface) editor is also very intuitive and easy to use. Once you get models into the game, its easy to add in scripts, which is done through the console.

The Torque engine is becoming more and more outdated each week, and the Shader engine is on its way soon, but it does have a comprehensive toolset and there are a number of add-on packs and plugins that you can buy for nothing, that will update its lighting code etc. These are all legitimate and can all be purchased via Garagegames.com

Gotta run to work now, but PM me if you have anymore questions.

Paul

Alrite so folks with 3rd year approaching I think its time I start focusing on what I’m going to do for my project. It’s obviously going to be a game (well duh! :D ) so my project partner and I have been looking at the various engines available. While abit has been said on the other engines available, no one has really talked about Torque, just wondering If any of you have used it and what your opinion of it is. Thanks a mill!

Oh and the $100 doesnt bother us in the slightest so please don’t let that influence your decision, we may be students but we ain’t that bad! :D[/quote:62751fc0bc]

Torque seems to be a good engine alright, and great value for money. Lots of university researches use it to prototype environments so as to try out new algorithms (especially for the ai community). You can do some very cool things with it.

Gonna need very solid C++ knowledge to use it though. Although I suspect if your attempting to make a game you have good programming skills. Have you made any games before? If not I recommend you bang together a quick 2d game. You’ll learn alot (states, keeping scores, animation etc) and it will help you to analyse your 3d game much better.

Remember keep it to a manageable size though, small and add new features\functionality etc. continuously. but that obvious i guess.

We are using TGE on all 3 games here (Terra going TSE very soon)
If Paul is willing to help answer more of your questions, take it! :)

http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=7571

http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=7658

http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/38111/7699

http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/5588/8013

The online documentation on GarageGames.com isint the best. Some of the tutorials miss some valuable points and will have you pulling your hair out wondering what your doing wrong.

Do not fear, I have a solution! If you are willing to splash out another 50 euro, you can purchase a book called 3D Games Programming all in 1 by Kenneth C Finney. The book goes through the FULL development of a small game demo, covering all aspects of production. And guess what? It uses TGE to develop it on. So that means everything in the book is directly related to Torque, its processes, art pipelines, scripting etc. It will have you up and running in no time. It was a life saver when I was in Starcave last summer, saved me from going bald.

Like i said, PM me if you have ANY queries on TGE.

Oh and its really great to see things are progressing nicely Keith :) Really happy for you and Starcave. :)

Paul

You might also want to check out TrueVision3D – its the engine we use for our 3D stuff.

The currently release (6.2) is kinda outdated, but the version under development (6.5 beta) is pretty much up-2-date. You`ll get 6.5 if you buy a license ~$100.

Check it out @ http://www.truevision3d.com

Look into Cipher, its easier to use than Torque, better docs, and better tools. The only problem with it is that you may be more restricted for a larger project. But it depends on what type of game you are looking to create.

Also pop over to source forge, and do a search for CatMother, thats a very good DX9 engine that was developed by a failed studio. Pretty good.

If you want books, cd’s etc. Open up outlook type in my name and pop down to my seat. No point having an intra net if you dont use it.

CHeers
Ronan

Will do Ronan, thanks a mill…

Well the only genre we’ve definitly ruled out is Sports…however I’m iffy on doing a Racing game either.

Ideas wise I was thinking of a Western style FPS…have you guys ever played the LucasArst Classic Outlaws? Well a cross between that and the SNES game Sunset Riders was what I was thinking…[/quote:060d434120]

sunset riders is a great game. rocks in two paper. dont forgot the sticks of dynamite.. :)

Also, Torque doesnt contain any bsp editor so you will have to use an external editor such as Quarke, or Radiant. There is too forms of models that torque uses, .dts (world models such as characters, props etc) and .diff (buildings, or bsp brushes.) All .dts are made in Max or your preferred modelling package. And keep in mind, only .diff models cast and recieve shadows.
[/quote:53cbea1a62]
By the way, how does one make .diff’s so? I would have thought you could do them in Max aswell? :?[/quote:53cbea1a62]

The .diff file format are basically any geometry that you have exported from a map editor such as Quark or Radiant. We had some major trouble as we tried to make our buildings in Max using the .dts format. Well for a number of reasons, it was a very bad desicion.. The buildings looked nice in the engine, sure, but they didnt cast and recieve any shadows which made them look like they were floating a few inches above ground. Also, when we filled up a street with buildings, the frame rate began taking a huge hit. Basically, with .dts, the engine renders everything behind the model, if its visible or not. There really is no way around this, so I advice you to learn one of the may bsp editors, either for free or for a small price.

We werent to fond of Quark etc, so we purchased a lovely little package called Cartography Shop. http://cartographyshop.thegamecreators.com/

It will set you back about 50 euro, but it is a brilliant little program that will have you up and running in no time.

I have to add, it is possible to make .diff’s in Max, using a little script known as Game Level Builder. http://www.maple3d.com/MainFrameScriptsPage.htm
You can download the last release (2.2) for free. Its a little program that will let you create all of your convex geometry in Max, but it will only let you export as a .map file when you are finished. You then have to bring the .map file into an editor like Quark, Cartography shop etc, and export again, only this time a .diff. They are rendered much faster in the engine and nothing is rendered behind them. They are also great for culling and LOD.

Cheers,

Paul

I assume your talking about the starter pack that comes with the initial purchase of the SDK? Well if so, then you get pretty basic stuff to be honest.
There is some basic weapon and enemy scripts, but they are good foundations for you to build on. There is basically one bug open map with a few buildings and an enemy running around in a set path. All you can do really is shoot him and kill him and he doesnt even fight back. He spawns then at a few random set locations and thats about it. It does have multiplayer code built into the engine and you can set up matches fairly quickly.

Other than that your pretty much on your own.. :(

Having used both Torque and Cipher, making a decision based on solely support and documentation, I would have to go with Torque. Cipher is a nice engine to use, but its being developed and supported by 1 guy only last time i checked, so Torque is also the safer bet.

Thats just my two cents..