Torque Modeling Tool Available FREE Next Week
Jussincase you are all ready to take the plunge and create a prize-winning RPG... here's something to help.

GarageGames just announced that their long-awaited Torque Constructor will be available at the beginning of next week. Pricing will be something to everyone's liking... they will be offering the product as a free download.

Torque Constructor is a brush-based CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) interior-level design tool, comparable (we believe) to tools like the Quake Army Knife (QuArK), Valve's Hammer, or 3D World Studio. The advantage for Torque developers is that it is written in Torque itself, giving more of a "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) experience, along with better support for many of Torque's unique features. In theory, it should be a lot easier to work with, should really improve the art pipeline for Torque, and has been developed to appeal to users conventional 3D modeling tools like 3D Studio Max.

And it works on the Mac.

Not that Torque Constructor is supposed to replace high-end modeling packages... it is exclusively (AFAICT) for doing CSG-based objects... read "interiors" for Torque. Quake-style levels. Dungeons. Taverns. Stuff like that, where complex collision detection and rendering management must be optimized.

Why free? Tools have been a shortcoming in the Torque Game Engine for years. They've been reliant upon third-party tools (and upon the community providing exporters for the third-party tools) for a very long time, and it hurts when they get compared to some of the other 3D game engines out there. GarageGames is pretty frank about the rationale on the product page: "Torque Constructor improves TGE and TGEA in an area which has been in need of improvement for some time: the art pipeline. We recognize that, and are making Constructor free not only to thank those of you who have supported GarageGames and the Torque Technologies for the past seven years, but also to increase the value of our 3D engines for new users. Hopefully, releasing Constructor for free will encourage more artists to consider Torque a viable and attractive engine to create art for."

Well, here's hoping it rocks. I've spent some time with QuArK --- not enough to come to love it, but enough to at least come to an uneasy truce where I agree not to swear at it too much and it agrees not to eat my maps very often. I think this might be a perfect time for an amicable departure.

Labels: game art, Torque

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