MIT licensed Torque 3D GitHub repo is ready

[vexed]

http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/21886



This looks pretty nice... it gets the ideas churning.

repo: git://github.com/GarageGames/Torque3D

[Terminator]

looks pretty good a little bit like a cryengine.

[Rman Virgil]

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Wow. Open source Torque 3D - game changer me thinks. Torque 3D is quite mature and robust.

Though I was wondering how Torque Script fit into this development. Key question. Looked but couldn't find any mention. Maybe I missed it.

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[Goth Zagog-Thou]

That's very impressive. I especially like how it can scale, but after looking at some of the demos I'm not sure how well it could handle 2-300 units onscreen without a massive performance hit.

For my money, I still think that the Warzone 2100 engine (past and present) does its' job better than its' contemporaries.

[Rman Virgil]

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LODing...?

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[stiv]

Wow. Open source Torque 3D - game changer me thinks. Torque 3D is quite mature and robust.

All the l33t kids will tell you it's old and crufty. But there is a lot of value in something that's been around long enough to get debugged.

The scripting language is allegedly a C++ish language. I'm guessing like Quake C. Code itself is C++.

Looks like a fun thing to mess with. I wonder how well it handles 400 units?

[Rman Virgil]

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Yeah. Started following Torque / Garage Games in 2003 and got into it seriously ’08 - licence, the whole nine yards for about a year.

Did the whole game creation thing with Torque Script. Everything is externalized / modularized from the engine / Torque 3D. If it absolutely makes no sense to do it in TS (speed constraints, whatever) then its put into the T3D engine code base itself. This approach was very appealing.

But more interesting to me right now was Garage Games strategic goals with this move as well the present and future currency of T3D itself - which would also speak to what you raised in your post.

Here are the answers I found to those questions -

Why are we doing this? Nine months ago, we realigned the goals of GarageGames; making Torque 3D available via a permissive open source license is a strategic move towards fulfilling the company vision.

Our first goal was to use iTorque to build a new product we call 3 Step Studio. We envisioned a game development tool that requires no programming at all and began to build it. This product is available today for free, but it’s very, very, early in development and we expect to iterate many times before it is a commercially viable product.

I'm starting checking out 3 Step Studio.... very interesting project.

Our second goal was to build a service division. I’m happy to say that we’ve already booked our first million dollars in service work and we expect the growth trend to continue as we make Torque 3D more accessible. You can visit our services site at services.garagegames.com. We are very well prepared and staffed to provide support, training, and custom development.

Our long term plans are to focus on innovative uses of game technology.

Currently, all GarageGames employees have the option to work on any project on Fridays. We are working on some really great projects under the initiative and it’s our hope that we will be able to invest in several of these projects as they evolve.

We’ve encouraged our developers to open source these projects. If you think you have what it takes to be an innovative developer using game technology, consider applying for one of our open positions.

~ Is this version different or a subset of T3D?

We've split off some modules as separate downloads and we've removed some art to bring down the payload size. Other than those changes, the versions are the same.

~ Is this just a way for you to dump Torque 3D?

No. We've been using T3D internally for service projects and we expect that to continue. In some cases, our service work will directly benefit the core code base.

I still think the answer to your and Goth's question is in the LODing… My understanding of T3D is that is equal to (or exceeds) high-end HW in its poly handling. When it comes to RTS and hundreds of units on the screen I think it falls back on the art LODing approach. But, admittidly, my understanding is a few years out of date in practical terms.

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[vexed]

That's very impressive. I especially like how it can scale, but after looking at some of the demos I'm not sure how well it could handle 2-300 units onscreen without a massive performance hit.

For my money, I still think that the Warzone 2100 engine (past and present) does its' job better than its' contemporaries.

There was a reason why Pumpkin limited the units to that low number on the original...
The current and past WZ engine can't even handle that, without getting massive performance hits, unless you got very good hardware (and even if you do, it still is a huge hit)

Look at it this way, in the above screenshot, that uses many more polygons than the current WZ engine could even dream of handling at acceptable frame rates.

Torque has a very good feature set, and even a much needed client-server model, along with "To resolve latency issues, Torque 3D includes optimal usage of interpolation, extrapolation, and client-side prediction to synchronize clients during gameplay." Which would be really nice. This would also pretty much stop cheating for most all users.
They also have nice tools / map editors as well.

Using Torque to make a RTS is doable.

Then the question is, which direction would be best to proceed with.

One school of thought would be of basically starting over from scratch to remake Warzone, but, who would help with that massive task ? While all the art/sound assets could be used, pretty much everything else would be questionable for a variety of reasons.

The other avenue would be to use the orignial codebase (well, maybe not that far back, since that wasn't 64bit clean, and all of that) to start as a platform, but I am really wondering if it would be wise, since you still need to rewrite tons of stuff to fix all the bad design choices, and so on.

Either way, without dedicated people, it isn't going to happen.

To get people started, they even show this...
https://www.garagegames.com/products/to ... tutorial76

[Rman Virgil]

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…Either way, without dedicated people, it isn't going to happen.

Always comes down to that.

With this move by GG, the Torque dev forums have been made public. Might be worth posting to these points there. Something good could come of it for a small investment of time. When I was participating I found the folks there knowledgable, quite able, energized, and amiable to boot.

Just a thought.

Also, in passing....

After all these years, WZ still stands alone in the components that make it unique in the RTS genre. In all this time no other RTS has subsumed that component set. That is amazing to me. While one of those components is still quite rudimentary, in combo with the other unique, more mature, components, yields a totality that is the basis of a yet to be realized greatness, I do believe with all that T3D has to offer, that greatness could alas be realized. If that was understood by but a few in the Torque dev community, an infusion of fresh, dedicated, blood could possibly emerge.

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[Per]

Then the question is, which direction would be best to proceed with.

As always, in small steps.

Why not start making a tech demo of how it could be used to make an RTS with some random assets from Warzone used for graphics, without any pretense of actually being a playable game or how it would actually be when ported? That could be done in a relatively short amount of time, give a good indication of how useful the platform is for a Warzone port and/or RTS in general, and generate much needed enthusiam for a wholesale port.

I might help out if anyone would be interested in going ahead with it.

[Rman Virgil]

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Quick RTS T3D Prototyping of WZ... good idea.

Here's the T3D documentation to do just that:

http://docs.garagegames.com/torque-3d/o ... otype.html

And do check this directly related community developer blog:

http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/21247

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[MaNGusT]

Is Torque3D really better than Ogre?

[Rman Virgil]

Is Torque3D really better than Ogre?

M.I.T. made this same relationship with Ogre several years ago begining with v.1.7.

Here we are several years later and M.I.T. came to the conclusion that they would like to proceed with GG's T3D in the same fashion.

Why?

I donot know.

Also, I donot know Ogre with anything approaching the depth I know Torque.

But have to think something of substance went into M.I.T.'s decision making process to making this move now when they already had a years long relationship with Ogre that is still in good standing.

This doesn't specifically answer your question, to be sure. Just a quick thought.

EDIT: After some research I think I can answer your question better now.

OGRE is just a 3D Renderer. You have to plugin about a dozen frameworks to make it a game engine.

What is a game engine exactly?

A "game engine" is defined as a framework which incorporates more than one of a number of facilities that are of importance to game development, including graphics, I/O, networking, file system, physics, GUI and scripting.

A "complete game solution" denotes a system integrating at least graphics, physics, input, gui, network and scripting; that is, the major requirements of most games.

A full game engine will expose an API and provide the option of full programmatic control.

~ Thanks to Mikademus for aggregating this succinct definition.

Torque 3D is a bonafide game engine outta the box.

==========>

Some 29 Torque 3D Development videos on Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/album/56464

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[vexed]

Then the question is, which direction would be best to proceed with.

As always, in small steps.

Why not start making a tech demo of how it could be used to make an RTS with some random assets from Warzone used for graphics, without any pretense of actually being a playable game or how it would actually be when ported? That could be done in a relatively short amount of time, give a good indication of how useful the platform is for a Warzone port and/or RTS in general, and generate much needed enthusiam for a wholesale port.

I might help out if anyone would be interested in going ahead with it.

I suppose that would be possible, but, I know I just don't have enough time to do something.
Seem like it would have to be sometime in '13.

Oh, OGRE, isn't a complete solution, like this would be.

[Rman Virgil]

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Ahhh...get it now. Clear as whistling Dixie or, better yet, a buzz kill.

How's 'bout invisible pixels? Dead pixels, maybe? Yeah, that's it.

Nah, j/k.

Seriously, more like....

Viva la libertad ! y la esprit de corps.

In tandem, no end to sweet spots. However, the former absent the latter tends to life support in perpetuity.

Edifying, no less. Unless you think you're there already. 'Course how you get there is where you'll arrive. The Mad Hatter was no fool.

On that note...time to vamoose to greener pastures. In perpetuity, to be sure. Viva la libertad !

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