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Plan for Tim Gift

Name:	Tim Gift
Date Posted:	Apr 18, 2003
Rating:	4.2 out of 5
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Blog post

I'm going to be out of town starting this afternoon, and I'll be back in the office on the 30th.. but since I haven't posted in a while I thought I would update the status of the tasks I listed on my last post (a little outdated). As always, I ended up working on a number of things not on the task list... but of the ones listed, these are finished:

- Fixed Marble Blast bugs
- Misc. updates (and fixes) to the Ignition system
- Finish up a number of misc. web site tasks

Tasks still on the list:

- Integrate Torque Marble Blast changes. I rolled in the MilkShape changes, but haven't merged in the changes to the Torque material properties.
- Misc. Torque updates.. I integrated the vehicle physics and collision changes I mentioned, but it sounds like there are some issues with the new code.
- Integrate Torque patches. This is a never ending task, but I've merged all the easy ones anyway :) I have a few more outstanding, but some of these have issues which need to be worked out with the authors. The terrain bump-mapping patch just needs a closer look to see how it's going to affect future work.

Pending Patches:
- Terrain bump-mapping
- Upgrade d3d wrapper to DX9
- Application window resizing / minimizing, etc. (Win32 only)
- Projectile water interaction
- Map2dif changes for QuArk

When I get back I'd like to discuss changing the patch submission process. I've talked to several developers before about it, but I'd like to broaden the discussion. Sometimes I sit on patches because I don't have the time to evaluate them and/or because there's no set way for me to get community feedback on them. I'd like find some solution. The approach I'm leaning towards now involves having the patches submitted as some sort of "patch" code resource so that they can be download, tested and commented on by the comminuty before they are merged in to cvs (this is actually a feature we have considered adding to the project manager). Small bug fixes would probably be exempt from this process. Some patches are already posted as resources first, but I'd like to formalize this process or come up with some other way we can improve patch handling.

Unless something changes while I'm gone... when I get back I'll be working with Rick to wrap up the Torque 1.2 release, which will include a new demo application.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	01/14/05 - Plan for Tim Gift 12/16/03 - Plan for Tim Gift 11/24/03 - Plan for Tim Gift 09/19/03 - Plan for Tim Gift 05/05/03 - Plan for Tim Gift 04/18/03 - Plan for Tim Gift 12/30/02 - Plan for Tim Gift 10/11/02 - Plan for Tim Gift

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Michael Cozzolino (Apr 18, 2003 at 19:40 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Wow sounds like you have been busy. I hope out of town means vacation.

Tim Gift (Apr 18, 2003 at 23:01 GMT)

I'm always busy, but it doesn't always seem like I'm getting any traction :( I'm off to visit family, sort of a vacation. I'm leaving shortly... I'll post when I get back.

Christopher Dapo (Apr 18, 2003 at 23:11 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

[quote]
Unless something changes while I

Ben Swanson (Apr 19, 2003 at 00:26 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Chris - I believe he's referring to the demo 'game' (if you can call it that) included with the SDK. A new branch put in CVS recently is indicating this. The demo for torque is Realm Wars ;)

Rick Overman (Apr 20, 2003 at 04:08 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

It will be more of a Torque feature demo than a game demo, although it will include updated fps and racing missions. The original intent was that Realm Wars was to be both, but that seems to confuse enough new customers that we decided we needed a dedicated Torque demo. There is not much in the CVS branch right now, just laying the foundation so save your bandwidth until later next week. When we are done, we will roll the demo branch back into the head and shortly thereafter label 1.2.

We had debated making some radical changes, like renaming .cc

Chris \"Hobbiticus\" Weiland (Apr 20, 2003 at 04:36 GMT)

This probably applies to NOTHING WHATSOEVER, but i like .cc over .cpp. cpp just looks stupid, 'cause it's C++ not C-Plus-Plus - or at least it shouldn't be. Plus, it's less keystrokes. And, I'm pretty sure .cpp is a windows thing, not a standard C++ thing.

Anyway, on another note, it's really nice to see what you GG peeps are up to. Keep up the good work, guys.

Rick Overman (Apr 20, 2003 at 17:42 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

I agree Chris we prefer .cc too, but our goal is to improve the "out of box experience". Unfortunately, VC6++ does not recognize .cc files without hacking the registry (and to complicate it different language versions of VC use a different registry key!). We have step-by-step instructions, but honestly who really reads the instructions? So with a majority of our customers using VC++ you can image we receive more expletive filled e-mails from new Torque users than we would like. Microsoft is not going to fix their compiler so we need to go the extra mile and make the Torque a good experience no matter what compiler you are using.

Are there any other "out of box" gotcha

Robert Blanchet Jr. (Apr 20, 2003 at 18:51 GMT)

Rick Overman,

I can't speak for others but I've formatted my computer a number of times and the *.cc extension has always worked just fine for me, without any changes to the registery or to Visual Studio.

Ben Swanson (Apr 20, 2003 at 20:56 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

*.cc worked fine for me with VC.NET, but for 6 I had to use the reg hack. I say keep cc.
Edited on Apr 20, 2003 20:58 GMT

James Margaris (Apr 20, 2003 at 22:25 GMT)

I think changing to .cpp is a good idea, you guys have the right approach. ANY barrier to entry is bad thing. When I would open a .cc file it would come up in notepad, very annoying. And I never got MinGW working at all, after struggling with that for a few hours.

As far as script organization goes, as Realm Wars is growing we are going to do a pretty massive script/content re-org soon. For example having all the content and scripts for the client ui in one folder isn't working too well anymore, I'm trying to break it down by screen. Similarly server/scripts is going to have a LOT of stuff in it by the time it is done, it should probably be broken in scripts/weapons, scripts/spells (in our case), scripts/inventory, etc etc. It depends a lot on the content, but in general having one scripts folder does not scale well.

The patches sound cool!

Josh Goldshlag (Apr 21, 2003 at 18:09 GMT)

I think it would also help if the x86 ASM was removed from Torque, at least for the deafult build. Later on, let people have the option of building with the inline ASM, but getting the ASM compiler up and working seems to have been troublesome for some people.

Marco Meier (Apr 22, 2003 at 07:32 GMT)

I had to edit the registry manualy (german version of visual c++ 6.0, b

Luc Jordan (Apr 24, 2003 at 13:49 GMT)

Nurse, I need 50 .cc's of love! Stat!

Ah, the glory of nerd puns.

Even though I have nary the the time and nary the skills to pursue game design seriously as yet (although, compared to some projects . . . heh), I love reading updates like this, and occasionally integrating a resource or two every now and then into my build of Torque.

I look at it like the wilderness or something. Lonely Planet-reading ecofreaks and yuppie backpackers aside, most of us aren't going to be able to take full advantage of the bountiful wilderness areas the world has. And most people don't have the stomach for it, anyways -- they'd rather go to a massively overpriced resort in Grand Cayman, which offers the same amenities and carefully designed experience of any other expensive resort in the world.

But the wilderness is there if you need it. My one-and-a-half weeks per year in the Bighorns give me an amazing amount of strength that I draw on all throughout the year . . . it's good to be still be able to be awed, to be able to have limitless opportunities and complete freedom.

Note: I am not comparing TGE devs to yuppie backpackers. Not really. ;)

Badguy (Apr 25, 2003 at 23:08 GMT)

[quote]This probably applies to NOTHING WHATSOEVER, but i like .cc over .cpp. cpp just looks stupid,

Xavier "eXoDuS" Amado (Apr 26, 2003 at 17:28 GMT)

Thing is that .cc is the unix standard for c++ files, and since most C and C++ hardcore developers run on unix, it's like the .cc is the standard for C++ files. Not sure if it's specified in any real standard, but .cc is more standard for me :)
.cpp is a Microsoft invention for their compiler, which doesn't really comply with the ANSI standards.

Tim Gift (Apr 30, 2003 at 16:26 GMT)

back in town... just need to recover from jet lag and I'll be back in business :)

Michael Heining (Nov 18, 2003 at 02:53 GMT)

I really loved the demo and the starter.fps. I would like to see a starter.raceing made or perhaps a starter.flightsim. any help i could provide, let me know...

MadWizard

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