Torque 3D Engine...

[Mickey Crocker]

I've never created a game in 3-D before... However I am interested in learning how it all works.

I was thinking of using the Torque Engine but have a few questions first. Does the Torque Engine have a 3-D editor that would allow me to design my own NPC objects and items for my game? Or do I have to use 3D Studio Max for that type of stuff and import them?

Also, does Torque create huge filesized games? Is it reasonable to use it for indie development that does all of it's shipping online... I guess to put things simpler, can you make a half decent game with it that will stay around the 15 to 20 MB filesize limit of the game's setup file?

Thanks.

[Bluecat]

Torque is able to use models created from a variety of packages, there are converters available to change them into Torques format.

You can use 3DS if you want to pay an outrageous price for it, but you can also use Lightwave, Truespace/Gamespace, Milkshape and Blender (in decreasing order of price... Blender being opensource/free software.)

I suggest heading over to GarageGames and have a look at the forums. There is tons of info about the engine there. If there is something you need to know that you can't find, just ask.

cheers

[Bluecat]

Oh, and I should have said.

If you just want to find out how 3D engines work, there are a few opensource ones available around the net. You'll have to pay for Torque before you get the source code... it's only US$100, but I'd check out some free ones first.

Crystalspace ( http://crystal.sourceforge.net/tikiwiki/tiki-view_articles.php )
OGRE ( http://www.ogre3d.org/ )

are two. There are plenty of others, just do a google.

[Mickey Crocker]

I'll look into Blender. Is it quite a large learning curve to design 3D objects? With zero knowledge in that area, does blender have nice easy to understand tutorials?

[gmcbay]

Blender is just about the worst 3D tool to start off with as a beginner. The UI is extremely unintuitive.

However, it is a great program... especially considering that it is free, and once you do know what you're doing, you'll find it has a great set of tools and is very quick to work with.

A better way to go might be to try out the free version of Maya which is downloadable online and then when you're comfortable with that, switch to Blender. Even though you then have to learn two packages, I honestly think the beginning user would be better off doing that than walking into Blender cold.

[Coyote]

Another great one to start out with just for sheer ease of getting a 3D game up-and-running is Irrlicht (irrlicht.sourceforge.net).

I got the basic "Hello, world" application with a (pre-built) 3D model rendering in windowed mode in about 10 lines of code.

[Sybixsus]

Torque is good for programmers, but bad for artists. All the artists I've talked to about it say that it has a truly horrible artpath. You get your models looking just as you want them, export them to Torque and then - BAM - everything's gone again. From what I can recall, GameSpace is the only tool which works properly with Torque, and GameSpace is not for everyone ( very quirky interface. )

There is now a free version of GameSpace, called ( unsurprisingly ) GameSpace Lite. It has a polygon limit, but it gives you an idea of what you're getting yourself into.

As for Blender, well heck Blender is hard to learn for experienced users, and the thought of trying to get the models into Torque when I was finished would drive me up the wall. I appreciate that Gamespace is not the cheapest package around, but it's just such a frustration when you can't get art smoothly into your game. It sounds a bit harsh, but if you don't like GameSpace, it might be a good idea to find an engine with a better artpath.

I keep hearing good things about Truevision, and the next version is due to have a whole bunch of plugins for various modellers.

[Coyote]

Not having done much with Torque yet - could you tell me: Is this a limitation of the engine, or a limitation of the exporter? Or both?

[Nemesis]

You can use 3DS if you want to pay an outrageous price for it, but you can also use Lightwave, Truespace/Gamespace, Milkshape and Blender (in decreasing order of price... Blender being opensource/free software.)
cheers
And last (and for a change, least), is Wings3D.. it is free and I have found it a really good tool. The interface is not as -Windows-ized as much as I'd like, but I find it quite intuitive nevertheless. Check it out on www.wings3d.com (http://www.wings3d.com).

As for knowledge, I started out with zero knowledge on 3D graphics (save some generic math theory) and virtually no c++ experience.. if I managed as far as I did up till now, so can anyone else! I would however suggest you try out simple demos and tests before taking in a game project. It will serve you to (1) get a solid grounding and (2) identify the limits of whatever engine you're using

Good luck

[Sean Doherty]

Another great one to start out with just for sheer ease of getting a 3D game up-and-running is Irrlicht (irrlicht.sourceforge.net).

I got the basic "Hello, world" application with a (pre-built) 3D model rendering in windowed mode in about 10 lines of code.


What are you doing? I thought you were pushing Torque? :) I played with Irrlicht and OGRE; and out of the two of them I like Irrlicht much better. I also have gameSpace; the gameSpace tech support is not what I would like; but it does the job if your not going to do the modeling yourself.

You can pull 3DS files into gameSpace and export tham to DirectX or I guess Torque. The big problem is that many of the modelers use 3D Studio Max; and gameSpace will not import a Max file without a third party plugin on the artists machine. Therefore, you generally have to save the max model in the 3DS format in order to import into gameSpace.

[Sybixsus]

Not having done much with Torque yet - could you tell me: Is this a limitation of the engine, or a limitation of the exporter? Or both?

Possibly a bit of both, but primarily with the exporters. Some of the issues I can remember being told about were no support for cube maps, no multitexturing, only one UV channel, and problems with lighting ( which I assume were related to vertex normals not being exported correctly. )

I believe Caligari wrote their own exporters, and that they work pretty well. Caligari's new Director of Marketing posts quite a bit at Blitzcoder and I'm sure he announced when GameSpace had the Torque exporters going well. The Max, Maya and Blender exporters were the offenders.

[Sean Doherty]

Some of the issues I can remember being told about were no support for cube maps, no multitexturing, only one UV channel, and problems with lighting ( which I assume were related to vertex normals not being exported orrectly. )


Yikes, wouldn't the lack of multi texturing be a huge limitation?

[Coyote]

Hmmm....

I banged out some exporters for MilkShape into my custom engine - which is actually capable of doing a heck of a lot more than MilkShape can actually handle. I ended up having some special tags for materials to specify particular behaviors in the engine.

I'm sure Blender is at least ten times as complicated as MilkShape's format. Ditto for Lightwave, which is the prefered package for my modeling crew. I'll have to take a look and see if there's anything I can do. I find that exporters tend to have the functionality needed for a single game - things get added very much on a 'by need' basis.

[Aldacron]

Not having done much with Torque yet - could you tell me: Is this a limitation of the engine, or a limitation of the exporter? Or both?

It's the exporter. They are working a new version of it, so it will hopefully get better. Alex Swanson put together a matrix of the various .dts exporters and their capabilities here (http://www.alexswanson.com/torque/dts/). It was posted not very long ago, so is up-to-date (I believe there has been one Blender exporter update since the matrix was posted).

[Tom Cain]

I've heard that the book "3D Game Programming All In One" is a good primer for beginners. It uses the Torque engine and related tools to teach the concepts, so it is supposedly a good way to learn how to use the engine. I have never read it so I can't personally comment on its usefulness.

3D Game Programming All In One (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/159200136X/qid=1091505492/)

[Reactor]

Learning 3D (or art in general) comes in two flavours-

I don't have much time to learn about it = sub-par to average results.

I have a lot of time (a year+) to learn about it = fairly good results.

These days it isn't a battle to create a 3D engine (or use one already created) but don't be fooled into thinking the 3D art that goes into them is a 'play around with a couple of packages (free or otherwise) and make something good' type of affair. I never see the end of people getting into 3D, without a good understanding about what it is they're doing. Now, don't get me wrong- by all means, learn about it. But, I just wanted to throw in a word of warning that for someone like yourself with "zero knowledge in that area", you're in for a very long learning curve, that goes far beyond grabbing the odd 3D package and reading its tutorials.

[svero]

If you just want to learn 3d start by making a little 3d game in blitz3d. It's got a really nice intuitive interface that will introduce you to all the basic concepts.

[Carrot]

I'd agree with the Blitz3D idea.
Besides allowing you to try out 3D concepts extremely quickly, there are a host of other advatanges to using Blitz such the extended community and source examples, free/cheap animation modeling packages, selection of IDEs, the possibilty of interfacing with C++ via DLL calls etc. etc.

[ckob]

I own both blitz3d and torque and I can say that Blitz3d is the easiest to use and im happier with the results I get in blitz then i am in torque, and also torque is geard towards fps style games anything diffrent is going to require some c++ coding.

[Evak]

one problem with torque is that there are 2 formats. one for actors that has a 3dsmax exporter and the other for mostly indoor environments. when exporting from max you can export collision meshes, but only a handfull.

your restricted to one UV channel and don't really have any blend modes appart from the basics liek full bright and alpha.

all collsion geometry has to be convex hulls making them ineficcient for buliding levels in max.

No support for a 2nd UV channel, only support for one texture layer, so you cant create your own lightmaps.

No LOD in 3dsmax 6, the exporter hasn't realy changed much since tribes 2 so it doesn't really support many more modern features you would expect in a modern game engine.

Torque doesn't do very good lightmaps, only those that hammer etc create. was talk of trying to support Giles.

My partner has been thinking of rewriting the torque engine to support a custom 3d format, perhaps even a modified version of .B3D. But at the moment were going to see what blitzmax is like as it will take an awfull lot of time to make those changes, and we'd rather be making games with established tools.

I think TGE's strongest point, is that it is tried and tested as far as cross platform goes, GG do a good job of promoting games written in their engine. And TGE has excellent network code with support for up to 64 players.

If it had a good artpath it would be great.

[Sean Doherty]

I own both blitz3d and torque and I can say that Blitz3d is the easiest to use and im happier with the results I get in blitz then i am in torque, and also torque is geard towards fps style games anything diffrent is going to require some c++ coding.


I downloaded Blitz3D and Dark Basic. I really didn't get anywhere with DArk Basic because they didn't have a lot of samples and my basic is pretty rusty. However, I Blitz3D was very easy to use; I added my model ".x format" to an existing program and it worked just fine.

I didn't see a FPS counter in the screen; is the engine fast enough to make a Real Time Strategy? Also, are there any problems with things like particle effects and beam weapons; I didn't see any in the demos? And I assume that it has no network support?

Lastly, when you say Torque is geared towards FPS. Does it have problems with 3rd person perspective space games?

[wazoo]

I don't buy into the idea that Torque is only usefull for FPS style games. It's just an engine after all.

You the developer script it to however you want your game to look.

Just move the camera projection into orthogonal, and bam, you've got a 2d screen, etc.

So I would say that it could handle a 3rd person persp. title no problem, just as it could also probably handle an RTS and RPG...

[Aldacron]

Lastly, when you say Torque is geared towards FPS. Does it have problems with 3rd person perspective space games?

A Torque-based RTS (http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=807)

Torque Retro (2D) (http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=788)

3rd person perspective Torque Racer (http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=787)

I know I've seen screenies from a couple of Torque space games, also. They must have been posted in .plans, as I didn't see any in the gallery back to October of last year. They do exist somewhere on the GG site, though.

Just wanted to show that you can do more than FPS games with Torque. You can browse the gallery here (http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/gallery.php?page=1) .

[Sean Doherty]

Another great one to start out with just for sheer ease of getting a 3D game up-and-running is Irrlicht (irrlicht.sourceforge.net).

I got the basic "Hello, world" application with a (pre-built) 3D model rendering in windowed mode in about 10 lines of code.

After about a month and a half dozen downloads here is my list:



- Torque – Demo does not give a lot of information about the engine; but lots of professional games use the engine and they are releasing a new shader engine shortly.

- Blitz3D – Very easy to use; has everything except DirectX 9 features such as shaders, etc. There are also releasing a new product that will bring the engine up to DirectX 9 standards.

- Dark Basic – Can’t believe I would even consider using it; but it has all the DirectX 9 functionality and it is fairly easy to use. Although, I don’t like the scripting language.

- Irrlicht – easy to use compared to DirectX and Ogre; but a lot more work than Blitz3D. Not sure, I already now C++, DirectX, I think I just want to pound out games rather than reinvent the wheel; or figuring out how to integrate physics, sound, ect…

- Stick with DirectX (not likely at this point).


The smart move would be to go with Blitz3D; but I don't think I ready for that kind of change. So as it stands, I am now leaning toward Torque. The big problem is the demo basically gives away nothing about what it is like to actually use. The Blitz3D Demo is excellent; so how difficult is Torque to use compared to Dark Basic. Also, it is odd that Garage Games doesn't seem to have a refund policy for Torque considering all the Indie Games are usually 30 days?

[world_creator]

well, i for one and a blitz3d user and its the second programming language i learned (my first was darkbasic). darkbasic was cool but blitz has way more functionality for me, but ive been out of darkbasic for a long time now so im not in a position to compare. the game im working on was made in blitz3d (http://betablocker.budfish.com/) and i must say that im very content with what its done for me thus far. i know some c++ but thats basically the extent to which i wander into the directx realm. i plan to eventually learn it but with something as easy as blitz right here next to me i have a tendency to not move on right now.

and for things like particle engines, thats basically something you program yourself in the language and it achieves them perfectly fine. it also has network support, udp and tcp functions, i havent used them yet though.

[Sean Doherty]

well, i for one and a blitz3d user and its the second programming language i learned (my first was darkbasic). darkbasic was cool but blitz has way more functionality for me, but ive been out of darkbasic for a long time now so im not in a position to compare. the game im working on was made in blitz3d (http://betablocker.budfish.com/) and i must say that im very content with what its done for me thus far. i know some c++ but thats basically the extent to which i wander into the directx realm. i plan to eventually learn it but with something as easy as blitz right here next to me i have a tendency to not move on right now.

and for things like particle engines, thats basically something you program yourself in the language and it achieves them perfectly fine. it also has network support, udp and tcp functions, i havent used them yet though.

I tried you game and the only thing I noticed was there seem to be a bit of a problem with the sound? Maybe it is on my end? How long did it take you to write you game is Blitz3D?

Anyone have an estimate for how long it would take to make a simular game in Torque?

[world_creator]

no, the engine sound i have in there is basically a proxy and the frequency changes on it causes it to crackle every now and then for some reason. although i technically started this a year ago, its mainly been an over the summer thing. i would estimate the time ive spent on this to be 3 to 6 months maybe.

[ckob]

well I dont remember or see that I actually said that Torque was for fps games only I said it was more geared towards them. If you want to make any game other then an FPS your gonna need to edit the c++ source code heavily.

[Sean Doherty]

well I dont remember or see that I actually said that Torque was for fps games only I said it was more geared towards them. If you want to make any game other then an FPS your gonna need to edit the c++ source code heavily.

Can someone confirm that this is the case? You can't make a 3rd person perspective game or a real time stategy without changing the C++ code?

[nquijano]

Can someone confirm that this is the case? You can't make a 3rd person perspective game or a real time stategy without changing the C++ code?

This is definitely NOT the case for third person games : can be done just with scripting.
And it will depend on what your requirements are for other games.
I would recommend getting down and dirty with the C++ code anyway, to write your own game specific classes.
But this is true of any general purpose engine.

[Sean Doherty]

This is definitely NOT the case for third person games : can be done just with scripting.
And it will depend on what your requirements are for other games.
I would recommend getting down and dirty with the C++ code anyway, to write your own game specific classes.
But this is true of any general purpose engine.


Not sure that is entirely correct? From what I can tell you can have a third person camera without modifying the code. However, if you don't want the camera to point in the direction of your character or object is facing you have to modify the code?

Here is a link:

http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=4720

If you can change the camera to an arbitrary point through scripting, this would be good to know?

[Jim Buck]

Or you could just have an object that is invisible placed at the point you want to look at and point the camera to that object. (Not that I'm familiar with Torque, but it seems like the worst-case solution to such a problem.)

[Sean Doherty]

Or you could just have an object that is invisible placed at the point you want to look at and point the camera to that object. (Not that I'm familiar with Torque, but it seems like the worst-case solution to such a problem.)


I am pretty new to the engine; but I don't think it is that simple.