Getting Started

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Neill Silva   (Mar 20, 2008 at 01:08 GMT)

Er... You DO know this is an engine and not a point and click game maker? This is for real developing, not making some kiddie game. Yes, in the real world it actually takes work to make something.

Chip Lambert   (Mar 20, 2008 at 01:57 GMT)

Welcome to the community. Seems like you've realized whats in front of you and you're ready to embrace it now. Good luck!

Ted Southard   (Mar 20, 2008 at 02:16 GMT)

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I saw Minions of Mirth and was horrified. I hope I can create something alot more asthetically pleasing than MoM.

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As a matter of fact, if all a game has going for it is visuals, then it's just as bad as if it had bad visuals. The fact that MoM reached 40,000 registered subscribers without a single advertising campaign should tell you something about that. But if you're just starting to look into making an RPG, then you'll find out the truth of things soon enough.

Welcome to the GG community, and good luck on your project :)

deadm4n   (Mar 20, 2008 at 03:20 GMT)   Resource Rating: 1

One week in.... and you are already pissing off the locals....

Torque for Teens is a great starting point. You will have a finished product by the end of the book. Think small and slowly add functionality to your RPG. Everything takes time.

Koushik   (Mar 20, 2008 at 06:14 GMT)

Eh.. a frustrated newcomer? Thats not very uncommon actually... like Neill said, its not a point-and-click-make-your-game-in-no-time-and-beat-Oblivion thingy for sure...atleast thats what I'd make of it :)

Anyway, enjoy yourself while you can and get cracking... but remember patience is the key, if you just get pissed you won't get much done at all...

And yeah, nice config you got there... I've been programming with OpenGL for a a few years now, and all I have is this:

Athlon XP 1.5 GHz
512 MB RAM (saves some of the blushes)
40 GB HDD (yes, they still exist outside the museum)
GeForce 2 MX (truly vintage, even lacks support for multi-texturing)

So yeah, I've kept going, and I think with a rig like that, you could do a lot, just stick with it...

And BTW, please don't post stuff like that about MoM, it might not be WoW, but you have no idea about what went into its making... (HINT: it wasn't made by a multi-billion dollar company called...er... Blizzard, was it?), and its definitely going to take you more than "a few ideas in your head" to better it.

Jeramy79   (Mar 20, 2008 at 06:17 GMT)

I didn't mean anything by my MoM comment. I was just basing my initial expectations of it based off the screenshots of TGEA on GGs site. They make it look all nice and easy on their page, but in reality it's not so easy.

Kenneth Holst   (Mar 20, 2008 at 08:25 GMT)   Resource Rating: 1

Jeramy, here is my advice to you. Try to start slowly and try to avoid frustration. Go through every tutorial in your books and online. Accept that this is a learning experience and that if you stick with it, you will be rewarded in the end.

Also, in the interest of avoiding frustrated newcomers, how do you personally feel we could improve the way we represent our products and/or emphasize the level of knowledge required to get started with each of our engines?

If you feel like something in the product pages made it seem easier to learn to you than it was after you bought the product, please let me know.

Good luck and stick with it!

Jeramy79   (Mar 20, 2008 at 08:28 GMT)

Actually I'm glad you asked this. A very simple way of showing the how the level, be it intermediate, advanced or whatever is to put up a demo video of what it takes to put togther a very small game. 1 zone, one player model, etc...

This way when people are looking at the product, and deciding whether it's for them or not they can see the level of difficulty it might take to put together something.

James Laker (BurNinG)   (Mar 20, 2008 at 09:13 GMT)

Welcome to the community, I would suggest you get Torsion too, as debugging the scripts is as essential as debugging the Code.

In MoM's defence, It was made with TGE if I'm not mistaken. Not TGEA.

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They make it look all nice and easy on their page, but in reality it's not so easy

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To have great art takes great skill (or a little cash). It's not always about the engine. TGEA is powerfull. Not trying to pimp my game, but do a search for Solar Battles. The models I use was bought, and imo I think it looks pretty decent ingame.

Michael Perry   (Mar 20, 2008 at 12:19 GMT)

Hey Jeramy. Like some of the others, I want to welcome you to the community. It's true that quite a few newcomers to Torque Technology feel overwhelmed by the tech, and underwhelmed with what they feel they can accomplish in the beginning.

I am actually in the process of writing new documentation for the engines, particularly focused on TGEA right now. For tutorials, up until the TGEA 1.7 Beta, there was not a whole lot to go on at first. That's why it was labeled as Advanced. On top of documentation, I will be writing tutorials of all degrees. Beginner tutorials will help people become familiar with the tools and system, whereas advanced tutorials will expose the power of the engine and go crazy with it.

I don't think you were looking for a point-and-click engine, but I also don't think there is anything on the product pages that make the process sound simple. Developing a game of any kind is tough work and requires patience.

Like you, I started making MUD engines from scratch in the beginning, and even that was daunting. From the sounds of it, I bet you came from the same Simutronics community as me: Dragonrealms, Gemstone, etc =). As a Simutroncs fanboy from the old days, I got a special tour of the Hero Engine at GDC. It is just as complex, if not more, than Torque.

Don't feel so discouraged. Hang in there and it'll come to you.
Edited on Mar 20, 2008 12:21 GMT

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 20, 2008 at 16:36 GMT)

gotta admit that hero engine is pretty cool. wish the tools for TGE were that polished.

Tony Richards   (Mar 20, 2008 at 17:26 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

@Jeramy - I feel your pain.

I too feel that current technology is too disorganized and too time consuming for Indies to really have a chance at making great games in a relatively small amount of time.

The people that say "start with something simple, read all of the documentation, go through all of the tutorials," are still not thinking outside of the box.

Writing more documentation, providing more tutorials, etc simply isn't going to streamline game development for Indies. That's just going to train a whole bunch of people how to work around today's technological mess.

What if we started training people how to fix the mess so we can stop spinning our wheels and actually start being productive? Better yet, what if we actually banded together and fixed the mess ourselves?

Indie 2.0 - The Brewing Revolution
...are you ready?

Michael Perry   (Mar 20, 2008 at 17:52 GMT)

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That's just going to train a whole bunch of people how to work around today's technological mess.

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Conversely, more documentation and tutorials can result in what you suggested: fixing the "mess." I'm not sure what the "mess" is, but by participating in the massive Bug Report storm going on, posting in the feedback sections (engine and docs), and so on, can result in what your end goal might be.

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...making great games in a relatively small amount of time.

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Is there such a thing when it comes to game development, Indie or otherwise? I've heard of Indie games taking a month to create, or years. I don't believe there is a defined standard for anything when it comes to this industry, except "make it fun" and "hopefully make some money."

Thinking outside the box is a great idea, but sometimes you need to be in the box to see the guts to fix. Once you know what's on the inside, you can step out and try something new.

Jeramy79   (Mar 20, 2008 at 18:06 GMT)

Well here's another problem. I went to http://www.torqueschool.com and took a look at the classes available. The introduction to the torque engine class is $200. My sides are still hurting from all the laughing. This class is supposed to show you how to compile and setup the Torque engine so that you can get started. $200!

Michael Perry   (Mar 20, 2008 at 18:09 GMT)

Funny thing, Jeramy. That was going to be my class. I was originally asked to teach the Intro class, GUI 101, and maybe some AFX stuff. The Intro class was designed to go way beyond compiling the engine, believe me.

The guys there have a good concept, and probably will have some great information available.

I just decided to go another route, but none of this has to do with what you are posting about =)

Jake T   (Mar 20, 2008 at 18:48 GMT)

@Jeremy - welcome to the community. As a novice programmer and ok artist, and even if you were brilliant, you'd still need other people to help you create a game regardless of what engine you use. GG is a two way street I think - developers contribute a ton to the forums / resources / IRC, etc. So you're not helping yourself out by cutting people down and pissing people off. Instead, you could start by asking questions, getting your feet wet, contributing and even helping out on an existing dev team.

As for the MoM engine - if you had taken the time to really look at it, you'd be able to figure out why 40K people have registered and purchased the game (including myself), why it stacks up to other MMO engines even though most MMOs have a budget an order of magnitude higher than they did. They've also distributed it free(!) to anyone who has purchased TGE and ArcaneFX. And the art is solid - they've won a bunch of awards for the game and their artists are winning awards on other games they're doing as well. It was also done in TGE.

I'm also a bit confused about your comparison to the Hero engine. Do you know what hero is going to cost? anyone? I'm guessing upwards of $100K. We started a couple years back by doing a Half-Life 2 (Source engine) mod and all was peachy until we realized it would cost 250K to license and do what we needed it to do.

As for your progression/frustration, when you're done with Torque for Teens, get Ed Maurina's Game Programmer's Guide - it's a good intro to TGE. You should also probably start with TGE (not TGEA), as the art pipeline is shorter, it's easier to get acclimated to, etc. When you're first getting into Torque, wading through the engine can be a challenge. But once you've got basic knowledge of a few things (GUI editor, mission editor, the art pipeline for DIF and DTS objects, terrain editing, networking, passing objects back and forth in the console, etc), you can do a ton with this engine. There are people using this engine who have tens of thousands of users in their games - and the engines are only getting better.

You live in Hawaii man, anything is possible.
Edited on Mar 20, 2008 18:50 GMT

Tom Spilman   (Mar 20, 2008 at 19:37 GMT)   Resource Rating: 1

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Do you know what hero is going to cost? anyone? I'm guessing upwards of $100K.

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Your off by 10 x ... seriously.

Jake T   (Mar 20, 2008 at 19:42 GMT)

@Tom - too rich for my blood... ;)

Michael Perry   (Mar 20, 2008 at 19:53 GMT)

10x less? or 10x more? =)

Tom Spilman   (Mar 20, 2008 at 19:59 GMT)   Resource Rating: 1

More... yeh.

Michael Perry   (Mar 20, 2008 at 20:00 GMT)

>< Damn! I was gonna dip into the wedding fund! =)

Tony Richards   (Mar 20, 2008 at 20:04 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

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Conversely, more documentation and tutorials can result in what you suggested: fixing the "mess." I'm not sure what the "mess" is, but by participating in the massive Bug Report storm going on, posting in the feedback sections (engine and docs), and so on, can result in what your end goal might be.

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My end goal is a different, more flexible and arguably significantly better design than what they're currently implementing. Since GG is already beta testing and squashing bugs, obviously it's seriously too late for me to reach my goal.

Torque should be an extensible game engine API for creating games and game engines.

Instead, it's mostly a collection of sample games with source code so you can hack and slash at it until it suits your needs.

That's why it is so complicated and why games take so much time to create using it. You're likely to succeed if you are creating a game that's based on one of the existing examples, but if you're doing something radically different then using Torque won't give you any help other than as a useful reference guide.

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Thinking outside the box is a great idea, but sometimes you need to be in the box to see the guts to fix. Once you know what's on the inside, you can step out and try something new.

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That's an interesting statement. "Once you know what's on the inside...." I'm one of the few people that know enough of the insides of Torque to be able to do things like fix bugs in the Forest Pack, seamlessly integrate multi-threaded database connections, add new model formats, and implement C++ MMO middleware through a service oriented architecture.

"... you can step out and try something new," is exactly what I'm doing. My biggest question at the moment is "Do I help fix Torque's design, or do I scrap it and make my own?"

Torque 2 will definitely answer the question for me.

Indie 2.0 - The Brewing Revolution
...are you ready?

Michael Perry   (Mar 20, 2008 at 20:13 GMT)

Good thoughts Tony. Interesting as well. Predictably, my opinion on what can be created with current Torque Technology differs from your own...but that's why we are individuals, right? =)

My Indie team is creating a multi-player survival horror, which is different from any of the existing game samples in every aspect: rendering style, game play, physics, animation, save system, mission system, etc. We know what Torque can do, and where it can be extended. None of us feel limited, we just know what we are working with and what we are capable of.

There are exemptions to almost every statement, except that there is a better team than the Red Sox, but you know what I mean. Yeah, I've hacked stuff into Torque before...but I was always able to go back and put in a better implementation when I knew what I was doing a little better.

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 21, 2008 at 04:32 GMT)

hell yeah, if all of the tools were that nice and polished. and there was full blown Directx 10 good ness built in to it already hell yeah have you seen some of the new games under a good Directx 10 card? it is amazing. The per pixel lighting and occlusion mapping as well as the full 3D volumetrics cam make for some very amazing visual experiences. I would easily pay 10x more for that. But the tools are really the key. with out them it is all for nothing.

To be honest I'm really psyched abotu the whole Houdini joining the art picline thing. I was looking at their GDC reel where they are showing designing the particle systems for export toe the game engine and it is sweet.

Chris \"C2\" Byars   (Mar 21, 2008 at 13:28 GMT)

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I knew I was going to have to put alot of work into it, but I didn't know that the engine wasn't capable of doing what I wanted.

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Most idiotic statement of the year award. All engines are CAPABLE of doing what you want; it's YOU that is not, looking for a one click game solution without any thought or work, then rake in the money.

I think everyone else covered it.

Michael Perry   (Mar 21, 2008 at 13:35 GMT)

@Chris "C2" Byars - There's no need to be vitriolic. Whether statements are made due to lack of experience or difference of opinion, there is not a one of us who can claim a position of judgment.

You have a right to express your opinion, but remember we are all apart of a community. You can see a disagreement between myself and Tony Richards, but we maintain civility and understanding.

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 21, 2008 at 14:59 GMT)

in an effort to be more constructive. I will offer a response to some of you questions about some of the ting you have purchased and are using on you journy to become a torque developer.

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1) Beginner's C++ Through Game Programming
2) 3D Game Programming All-in-One
3) Torque for Teens
4) The Essential Blender

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I have the essential blender it is a good book. as for the other book I think you missined on lol
The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque: Under the Hood of the Torque Game Engine
found here:
www.amazon.com/Game-Programmers-Guide-Torque-GarageGames/dp/1568812841/ref=pd_bb...
I have read this book and it covers just about every thing I have both bad an good about the other books. out of the ones that you ahve a would say start with "Torque for teens" I think though that it is missing some files or something but It hink I read some where that they have been posted online.

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My Computer system:

Dell XPS 410
2.4 Dual Core Intel CPU
7900GS Nvidia GPU
2gb Ram
500gb HD in Raid configuration (2 x 250gb hds)
SB XFI exreme sound card
Dell WPF 20" Widescreen Monitor

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pretty nice system that should do quite well.

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Software:

Windows XP
TGEA 1.7.0B SDK
Blender 3D Program
Poser 7 3D Character Modeler
Bryce 6.1 3D Program
Daz Stuido 2.0 3D Character Modeler
Carrara 5 Pro
Adobe Photoshop 7.0
Codeweaver
Ultraedit 10.10
Visual Stuido EE 2005

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WEll you can put the poser, Daz and carrera on the shelf for the most part. However bryce is good for skyboxes and stuff. prettymuch everything else can be done in blender. though you may want to consider getting a better modeler the blender package is a little weak in this catagory. I would suggest wings3d "free" or perhaps Silo2 "excellent modeller but cost about $165 I think but re-guardless you are going to be taking it in to blender from there.

In a more recent development it looks like there is some sort of office partnership beteen GG and SideFX software makeres of Houdini.
www.garagegames.com/blogs/84255/14466

I'm on the beta team It hink they are still accepting applicants but I think this may be best rought in the long run for getting character animated and into the game. It seems to have a lot of corperate support in it. and It looks "at lest from their GDC video that it is going to be used for even more thant modeling and animating.

Personally my pipeline is currently

Maya >zbrush>Maya>TGEA

Alot of people in this thread have been both right and wrong. Just because something is capable of doing a lot doesn't mean it has to be un-user friendly I here a lot of people in these threads. saying thing like this is an advanced engine. and actiaing like you should know all of this stuff before you get started. Dont' get me wrong I love torque. But I ahv eused engines that are FAR more advanced and that are for more user friendly. the 2 are not mutualy exclusive. for instance Cry-Engine and Unreal Engine are both far more advnaced and yet they are far easier to use. Why is this? Because of excellent pipline tools and documentation. TGEA had made great strides in this are in the last year or so I'm just gonna hang in there and try to just grow along with the engine.

Jeramy79   (Mar 21, 2008 at 18:52 GMT)

@James

Thanks for the info on the books and Houdini. I downloaded Houdini apprentice last night, but I don't think I'll ever have enough money to buy the full version so it might not do me any good. I think alot of people took my complaints way out of context. Some other engines, like you pointed out in your post, are more user friendly and that's what I was looking for. I wasn't looking for something that was just going to make the game for me. When I first downloaed Torque I was expecting a nice user interface that would put everything together to make it easier for me to do what I wanted. I knew I would have to learn how to code to be able to implement the features I want in my game, but I expected more from the TGEA. One of my main complaints so far is the UI. Why are we creating our game from inside a DEMO? Why not have a full UI open up and create from there? I was expecting the program to look similar to a 3D editing program like Blender or 3D studio max. Its just how this thing is set up. Like why is Torque Constructor and Torsion a seperate program? Why isn't it incorporated into a UI for the Engine? It's like having a whole lot of peices to put a game together but they are located in seperate buildings. Give me a one stop package with everything connected together. I know the world editor and terrain editor are all packaged together (In a flippin demo), but it's just not done efficiently.

Tony Richards   (Mar 21, 2008 at 20:13 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

@Jeramy - What you want is IndieZen Game Studio, except it won't be done for another year for the "Lite" version and probably another couple of years for the full blown "Pro" version.

I waited for many years expecting a complete development suite and I was even discouraged from making my own tools by some people in this community, but since it never came I decided to write it myself.

Currently it's based on Eclipse, so it's a little bloated, but all of the core code is written in C++ and eventually I'll have a version embedded inside of Visual Studio as well. I may eventually write a standalone version but right now I don't want to re-invent the wheel for all of the language editors already created for both of these IDE's.

It's game engine agnostic, so it works with games created with Ogre, Torque, the MMO kits, etc.

It's funny that you mentioned HeroEngine because I'm partially using their brochure as my "task list", except I've thrown in a whole lot more innovative ideas specifically designed to meet the needs of Indie game developers.

I've been working on it for nearly a year now. I had a few false starts, but now I'm really cooking and even gave up my day job and I'm working on it full time now.

You're welcome to come help if you want... I'm in need of a good programmer that can take on some of the plugins and whatever you write you're welcome to sell. I'll help you with the integration with the rest of what I'm writing provided the contributions to the framework remain open source and you follow my Indie 2.0 standards (i.e. don't do something just because that's the way everyone else does it... do things specifically to meet the needs of Indie game developers).

Sorry for the rants, but you've really hit the nail on the head and I've been complaining about the same things you're complaining about for quite a while.

Thomas Oliver   (Mar 21, 2008 at 20:24 GMT)

Actually you clearly misunderstand that the World Editor / Terrain Editor / GUI Editor are not part of the demo. They are an extension to the demo and can quickly be pulled out and added to any framework game you put togeather. That is why they are located in the tools folder and it is extended onto the demo or game framework by adding the -tools edition to your command line or main.cs file. Its easlly added or removed by simple removeing that one line from the main.cs

So it is not part of the demo other then it being shown in the demo by having the folder there and extension turned on.

But what you are looking for is called a GameMaker not a game engine. GameMakers are the all in one package where everything you need is included in the package.

Purchasing the Hero Engine and thinking you will not need to do any coding or opening different programs to build a game is just a false impression you are getting. The Hero Engine is broken up into several different programs that you will have to startup to get different parts of the game done.

Ultimately it comes down to you get what you pay for. If you want a profesional engine then you have to pay a profesional price for that engine. Often times $500k and upwards Unreal Engine, Quake 3 Engine, Source engine, Hero engine. When you pay $200-$300 for a engine and expect to get the same quality from a engine that costs 100x more you are doing nothing but setting yourself up for failure and heartbreak.

Its like me going out and buying a Geo Metro for $5k and expect it to achieve top speeds of a Porsche or performance of a Porsche. It just does not happen. (Though I do wish I lived in the fantasy world where it did)

Tom Spilman   (Mar 21, 2008 at 22:29 GMT)   Resource Rating: 1

@Jeramy -

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Like why is Torque Constructor and Torsion a seperate program?

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Torsion is a separate program for several reasons. First to keep it usable across all Torque engines regardless of version, modifications, or platform (no keyboard on an XBox). Second to ensure that the process of debugging script doesn't itself modify the behavior of your game, making harder to debug. Third to keep the requirements low... who wants an IDE that takes 100% of your CPU and requires a 3D card with 32MB or ram? And fourth... thats the way i liked it, so thats how i wrote it.

IMO... Torque isn't what your looking for. Like Thomas said... look for a 'gamemaker' like application where you just click some checkboxes and add art to make your game.

Jeramy79   (Mar 22, 2008 at 00:39 GMT)

I never said I want to just hit a couple of buttons and pop goes a hit game. I know I have to program and do my own art. I know it takes work. What I'm saying is that I thought Torque's IDE would have been put together a little better to make the designing part easier.

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