Thursday, October 26, 2006
Torque 1.5 And A Torque Wish-List
Over at GarageGames.com, Torque 1.5 is now available. It's $50 more than the original, but is available at a discount if you already own an older version of the Torque Game Engine.
I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, so I have to go by the changelist (which I think you need an account to see). But here are the key details:
* Torque Lighting Kit is now an integral part of the engine (it's about time!!)
* Torque ShowTool Pro is included (it's a valuable tool, and also past due for being included)
* Various improvements and optimization on the lighting (above and beyond TLK)
* New multithreaded profiler
* Updated the waterblock system to work with different terrain sizes (YAY!!!!) and they can now be moved in the editor again.
* Particles emitter fixes. I hope this prevents particles from dissapearing when their emitter is barely off-screen (sounds like their bounding boxes are now handled correctly, so you CAN prevent this from happening - FINALLY!)
* Engine and GUI Code brought up to current TGB level.
* An Elf character, new skyboxes, and some sample art from various content packs
* Alt-Tab fix for windows
* Fixes for client-only explosions (A YAY with contingencies... I really need to see how well they work now)
* Some long-overdue audio fixes
* Improved Axis Gizmo in the editor
* Bunch of work to bring Linux & Mac code up-to-snuff.
This is all well and good, and arguably worth the $50 price increase. (Actually, IMO, just adding the lighting pack and the ShowTool Pro was probably worth that). But here are some things I'd really like to see for a future release (hopefully not one with an increased price tag or an upgrade cost, but we'll see):
* MASSIVE improvement on the UI editor and UI elements. It's still a pain in the butt to use, and buggy when you try different resolutions. Ideally, the editor would see serious improvement to make it more of a WYSIWYG tool. Also, I'd like to see some more functionality in the actual UI elements, borrowed perhaps from TGB. I'd like to see animated screen elements - the ability to automatically cycle through texture animations, to automatically translate, rotate, and scale.
* Better documentation - to the level of what the Torque Game Builder currently offers, at least. A few "build your own game" tutorials would go really far.
* Full-on refactoring of the ShapeBase object & how it is subclassed. Making a custom subclass (in C++) of shapebase is a big ol' hairy pain in the neck!
* Good documentation of the C++ elements of Torque - especially working on things like ShapeBase subclasses, how you pass things from client to server cleanly (and optimally) over the network, synchronization issues (tick updates and interpolating between ticks), ghosting, camera control, etc.
* Release the Forest Pack! Or better yet, integrate it into Torque.
* Better handling of large interiors, and directly-linked interiors (with a portal between them).
* Vastly improved support for SINGLE-PLAYER games. Like better ways of bypassing the networking, or more automated ways of handling updates between client & server for games that take advantage of the fact that the client and server are on the same machine.
* Better / more intuitive / more powerful camera control, especially with respect to single-player games. Sort of what has been done with the advanced camera resource, but cleaned up, improved, and with true framerate independence instead of the "fudging" that's currently being done. Also with better support for animation & cutscenes, true zooming, etc.
* Support for localized fog (instead of just global fog settings) for area-based special effects.
* Built-in support for Python / LUA scripting. Just because I'm wishing. I guess I should wish for a million dollars, too, while I'm at it. It's not that I don't like TorqueScript... but it's not nearly as powerful (or as intuitive) as these languages.
Maybe some of these are already in 1.5, but it didn't seem so judging from the changelist. But hey, I can hope and dream, can't I?
Vaguely related rants and raves about Torque:
* Torque Game Engine Deal
* Torque News
* Torque Game Builder Quick-Take Review
* On Game Engines and Swarm Missiles
Labels: Torque
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:49 AM (Permalink)
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Hey Steve - I got your email at the feedback address, but when I tried to email you back, it bounced. Dunno why. Your filter thinks I'm a spammer or something. (Thanks, spammers, for ruining email for us!)
Anyway - I tried the C4 engine demo about a year and a half ago. I had a somewhat less-than-bleeding-edge machine that I tried it on (something like a 1.6 ghz machine with some old-model NVidia OEM 3D card or something). The machine could run Unreal Tournament 2004 "okay", but it ran C4 like a DOG. Around 4 frames per second in the demo.
I'm sure a lot could have changed in the last 18 months. But since that particular machine was my "target" customer system, I was less than enthusiastic.
Unfortunately, I don't own C4, and I can't justify shelling out for the license right now (I can't even find the time to finish my detailed review of Torque Game Builder right now). So I am really not in a position to give it much of a shakedown.
However, if some other third party wanted to write up a fair C4 review, I'd be happy to post it!
Anyway - I tried the C4 engine demo about a year and a half ago. I had a somewhat less-than-bleeding-edge machine that I tried it on (something like a 1.6 ghz machine with some old-model NVidia OEM 3D card or something). The machine could run Unreal Tournament 2004 "okay", but it ran C4 like a DOG. Around 4 frames per second in the demo.
I'm sure a lot could have changed in the last 18 months. But since that particular machine was my "target" customer system, I was less than enthusiastic.
Unfortunately, I don't own C4, and I can't justify shelling out for the license right now (I can't even find the time to finish my detailed review of Torque Game Builder right now). So I am really not in a position to give it much of a shakedown.
However, if some other third party wanted to write up a fair C4 review, I'd be happy to post it!
Bah, looks like Blogger is borked again... it's not posting updates, even for messages. Ah, well. Hopefully sometime today....
Nice wish list, I can't really improve on that. I'm most in agreement with you on:
- Forest Pack (man, I really want that)
- better UI editor (seriously outdated and difficult)
- definitely better rendering of interiors (DIFs really drag down performance)
- better support for single-player games (naturally)
I'd also really like to see more consistency in the lighting between DTS and DIF objects. TLK helps some, but it's really hard to have dynamic lights that illuminate both equally, and that's a real limitation. TSE supposedly does this due to a rewrite of the lighting code, but that doesn't really help me.
Of all those, though, I'd have to say the biggest one would be better handling of interior rendering. I don't think 1.5 does much in this regard, but overall it's a good update.
- Forest Pack (man, I really want that)
- better UI editor (seriously outdated and difficult)
- definitely better rendering of interiors (DIFs really drag down performance)
- better support for single-player games (naturally)
I'd also really like to see more consistency in the lighting between DTS and DIF objects. TLK helps some, but it's really hard to have dynamic lights that illuminate both equally, and that's a real limitation. TSE supposedly does this due to a rewrite of the lighting code, but that doesn't really help me.
Of all those, though, I'd have to say the biggest one would be better handling of interior rendering. I don't think 1.5 does much in this regard, but overall it's a good update.
# posted by 
: October 26, 2006 12:46 PM
: October 26, 2006 12:46 PM
Well, according to the changelist, they've improved the quality and speed of the interior rendering w/ respect to lighting (particularly dynamic lighting). Though it sounds like it comes at a hit to pre-processing speed during development (or the first time a level is run), which doesn't bother me much.
I'll have to see what 1.5 does. You may be in a better position to judge, since the interiors in my current project are pretty simple.
I'll have to see what 1.5 does. You may be in a better position to judge, since the interiors in my current project are pretty simple.
No! I knew this would happen. Oh well, it's just as well. The price difference was only $50 for Torque and $100 for C4.
Don't ask me about C4 though. I haven't even had the chance to look at it. Too busy doing the prototype for the game, and then I'll hook up the nifty graphics. (The prototype is text mode, believe it or not).
Don't ask me about C4 though. I haven't even had the chance to look at it. Too busy doing the prototype for the game, and then I'll hook up the nifty graphics. (The prototype is text mode, believe it or not).
Jay K.- I REALLY want to hear about how that turns out. I've often considered prototyping in text-mode for specific games (RPGs / Adventures). Though as Mike Rubin has pointed out, it's not an easy upgrade.
But at least as a prototype for testing things like game rules, or non-visual puzzles in an RPG, it sounds like it should work. Better to find out that the "trip" action is overpowered, not much fun, and not worth implementing BEFORE you spend a bunch of time and effort making "trip" animations for every character model in the game...
But at least as a prototype for testing things like game rules, or non-visual puzzles in an RPG, it sounds like it should work. Better to find out that the "trip" action is overpowered, not much fun, and not worth implementing BEFORE you spend a bunch of time and effort making "trip" animations for every character model in the game...
hey mike for interior lighting check out the resource I posted a while ago under "TGE dynamic lights on interiors fix" it helps a bit with the differences when using dynamic lights. I don't know if it made it into 1.5 or not though.
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# posted by : November 25, 2006 12:32 PM
: November 25, 2006 12:32 PMLinks to this post:
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