TSE Milestone 4

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John Kanalakis   (Aug 17, 2006 at 19:58 GMT)

Great work, we're very excited to see this coming so soon...

Dreamer   (Aug 17, 2006 at 20:11 GMT)

Quote:

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- What's going on with OpenGL and fixed function support?
OpenGL will not be supported in the 1.0 release, but we will have OpenGL and fixed function support further down the road.

---

May I ask as to why this is being pushed yet again further down the road? It makes it impossible for Mac and/or Linux users to use the products they purchased. And the fact that it was on the milestones list prior to a 1.0 was the primary reason I purchased way back when I did.

I mean I'm glad that you guys are getting some products out the door and all, but game engines for Windows are a dime a dozen now. It seems like you guys are moving further and further away from supporting what I view as your primary strength, being crossplatform.

This is the second or third, product you guys have announced early on would be cross platform, but then decided to make windows only for instance, TGB.

Anyways congrats on the release, but honestly I'ld like to see GG focus on the Mac and Linux support for a little bit. Where has that gone?

Regards,
Dreamer
Edited on Aug 17, 2006 20:12 GMT

Kory James   (Aug 17, 2006 at 20:11 GMT)

I just purchase TSE and can't wait to try it out keep up the great work can't wait to see MS4 and to see what up with the amazing forest picture.

John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder)   (Aug 17, 2006 at 20:22 GMT)

Awesome writeup Brian. :)


Dreamer, we needed to complete the 1.0 feature set first to finalize the GFX system before starting the OpenGL version. The lighting system in particular makes heavy use of the GFX system and required changes to it.

As TSE is getting ready for 1.0 our options are; release 1.0 and then work on OpenGL support, or hold back 1.0 until OpenGL support is complete. I think most people prefer having 1.0 released, so they can start to use its features in their projects. ;)
Edited on Aug 17, 2006 20:22 GMT

Scott Burns   (Aug 17, 2006 at 20:24 GMT)

Quote:

---

- What's going on with that forest picture on the DSOTD?
We might have an exciting announcement regarding that in the near future ;)

---

That pic looked an awful lot like Ben Garney's Forest Pack to me.

Jeff Tunnell   (Aug 17, 2006 at 20:45 GMT)

@Dreamer: To clear things up a bit, TSE was never promised to be cross platform at launch. In fact, it was the opposite. When we started TSE, shader support on OpenGL was a very open issue, and we have been very honest about the fact that the OpenGL support would be hard to come by. That said, we are working out the issues, but there are no promises what-so-ever about release date. Our product page does not say we are providing cross paltform support, it just says that it is written with cross platform support in mind.

Here are the requirements from the product page:

Windows 2000/XP
Pentium 1 GHz
256 MB RAM
DirectX 9 Compatible 3D Graphics Accelerator - WITH LATEST GRAPHICS DRIVERS

Anywhere you see TSE mentioned and the little requirement icon is present, it says Windows. There is no little apple or penguin.

Also, do we have other products that are not OpenGL other than Marble Blast Ultra on the XB360 or TorqueX? TGB is NOT Windows only.

Cross platform in this day and age is a lot more about PC, consoles, hand helds and mobile than it is Win, OS-X, and Linux. We are working to make these platforms available to Indies, and we are making a lot of progress in that area. We have stated that we are backing away from internally dedicating resources to Linux and gave a lot of reasons why that is.

I am trying not to be unsupportive here, so please do not take this as a flaming response. Dreamer, if you truly feel you have been wronged, contact benjaminb at garagegames dot com and we can take this discussion off line.

@Kory: Just to be sure, that amazing forest solution is not native in the engine. Watch for upcoming announcements.

-Jeff Tunnell, GG

Jesse McKinney   (Aug 17, 2006 at 21:08 GMT)

Whats DSOTD and where is the pic.
Edited on Aug 17, 2006 21:08 GMT

Jonathon Stevens   (Aug 17, 2006 at 21:11 GMT)

@Dreamer - Not that it's needed, but just to add my .02 about both John and Jeff's response, I'd also say that DirectX is a TON easier to code in than OpenGL. It makes way more sense to finish a graphics engine in either DirectX or OpenGL and then port to the other platform. OpenGL is known to be a lot more tedious of a platform to work in, so it makes sense to do a DirectX version, finish everything up, then port to OpenGL. I'm also sure that over half the people who've purchased the engine, if not a lot more, are Windows developers, so they shouldn't hold everyone up just for a Mac/*nix specific version.

On the other hand, I DO agree with you that GG should still focus on having cross platform mean OS's and not just physical platform. It just goes along with the theme of Indies to cover all bases when the indie might not be able to afford a 2nd computer just to get a Windows OS.

Keith Frampton   (Aug 17, 2006 at 21:15 GMT)

@Jeff:

You guys need to remove/fix this link from the TSE FAQ. It's what I (& probably many other Mac/Linux folk) have been assuming about OpenGL support for TSE.

It states:

Will TSE run on Mac and Linux?

OpenGL support (and thus Mac and Linux support) will be implemented before the final version of TSE ships.

Now... I'm not trying to argue otherwise of course, but it does lead to the confusion. I'm happy to see mention of it in the post above that you will have it further down the road. I'll probably purchase it before it goes out of EA based on this, so I don't end up paying a lot more when it's done.

Jeff "Reno" Raab   (Aug 17, 2006 at 21:19 GMT)

Having done some work with OGL in TSE(i dont have anything to show yet, it's complicated stuff :p) I can attest to why GG probably doesnt have it done yet. First and foremost is the differences in OGL and D3D, namely the way it handles stuff with rendering. OGL uses vars, defines, and functions, while D3D keeps everything stacked in enums, which makes for a problem getting stuff all lined up in GFX, because you have to pull D3D's stuff out of the enums, or get OGL to agree with D3D's stuff, neither of which is pleasant. It's designed to be abstracted, but the major differences(as well as alot of stuff in OGL and D3D dont have direct conversions, like texture coordinate stuff) makes it a lot harder to make it work without lots of effort. This is likely why GG's focusing more on getting everything feature complete and bug free, before taking the time to sit down and line up OGL and D3D.
Ultimately, if it's so critical that you need OGL support for TSE, it is possible to add it in yourself, but it's going to be complicated. This is where the tradeoff of letting GG do it for you comes it. You wait for it, but save yourself the hassle.

Now then, as for TSE MS4 itself, i have to say looks mighty fine, kudos to John and everyone at GG :p
Fluffy is now my desktop picture. :)

Pat Wilson   (Aug 17, 2006 at 21:21 GMT)

Just wanted to mention that it's not that we haven't done any OpenGL work on TSE. It's that, for 1.0, we are only shooting for DX9.

Steve M   (Aug 17, 2006 at 21:48 GMT)

I love the Orc with that sword. Can't wait to play with MS 4. Good job guys!! Now where's Constructor? ;)

Steve
Edited on Aug 17, 2006 22:03 GMT

Brian Ramage   (Aug 17, 2006 at 22:08 GMT)

We have not forgotten you Mac/Linux users! We like OpenGL, it's just a real pain in the ass supporting both. Now that we're far enough along, we've got a clear idea of what TSE needs, and so we can (as Pat said) continue our OpenGL efforts.
Edited on Aug 17, 2006 22:08 GMT

Billy L   (Aug 17, 2006 at 22:16 GMT)

Really lovely blog, answered alot of my questions, thanks alot !
And the lights on that orc is the best i have seen so far,nice work all .

Michael Cozzolino   (Aug 17, 2006 at 22:20 GMT)

? Concerning TLK in TSE. You say TSE has TLK integrated. Does this mean that TLK owners will have a seperate TLK product for TSE or the original TLK is for TGE and TSE comes with full TLK support? I'm not complaing either way. Just curious.

Ooh shooting for a release a whole month before I predicted. Yay.

@ Jesse DSOTD is Development Snapshot of the Day. It's the TSE milestone 4 announcement. IIRC it is the lower right pic.

Timothy Aste   (Aug 17, 2006 at 22:23 GMT)

We are also hoping to get the GameFest materials (high-res) up online for you guys tomorrow, thanks Brian for putting these up. We wanted to do it today, but too much stuff overflowed so it's gonna have to happen tomorrow [hopefully].

John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder)   (Aug 17, 2006 at 22:32 GMT)

TSE uses the Synapse Gaming Lighting System (the same one used by TLK for TGE), it comes with TSE and is available to all TSE licensees.

If you would like the same lighting system in TGE you'll need a TLK for TGE license. I think you're already a TLK licensee - check out this thread for TLK specific info and questions/answers. Feel free to post any additional questions you have in the thread and I'll be happy to answer them.
Edited on Aug 17, 2006 22:32 GMT

Jonathon Stevens   (Aug 17, 2006 at 22:50 GMT)

@M-theory - People prefer OpenGL generally because it's #1 free and #2 cross-platform. I think you'll find that people who prefer OpenGL will also agree that it's not as easy to work with as DirectX. That and the fact that DirectX is a Microsoft product =P

@everyone - I think maybe wording the TLK issue differently will help clear up some confusion as I'm seeing the same questions over and over. There is no TLK for TSE. TSE's lighting system has been built by John based on TLK for TGE. There is no TLK product for TSE or anything, it's just that the lighting that TSE now uses is comparable (actually better) to TLK.

If you are going to build games in TSE, don't even worry about TLK, just buy TSE. If you are going to build games in TGE, then buy TLK as TLK is a TGE related product. Make more sense now?

Mincetro   (Aug 17, 2006 at 23:58 GMT)

What about those who bought TLK for use with TSE before this announcement? (not me, but there are some)

Jacopo De Luca   (Aug 18, 2006 at 00:21 GMT)

@Mincetro
There was no TLK for TSE. How could anyone buy something that not exists?
TLK is for TGE only.

Jeremiah Fulbright   (Aug 18, 2006 at 00:33 GMT)

Originally 1.0 was said to have a longer period of bug fixing and optimizing before officially becoming 1.0 (compared to other Milestones, such as MS3->MS4 which hasn't been THAT long)

I am curious why the push to go ahead with a September release which would put at a month or a bit more, of time to optimize or bugfix (which isn't that long in most cases

Brian Ramage   (Aug 18, 2006 at 00:57 GMT)

I don't believe we mentioned a timeframe before on how long to bugfix after MS4. We'll see how it goes. We took care of most of the nasty problems with MS3. There aren't any major problems on the radar right now, so we hope to have most of the smaller issues taken care of in the next month or so.

Kory James   (Aug 18, 2006 at 01:58 GMT)

I'm lost on the torque X and TSE, for me it doesn't matter the coding language i just want to be able to play my games on the 360. SO my question is do i still need to purchase torque x to play my games on the 360 or are they going to have a plug in for tse that lets you play your games on the 360.


And i just purchase TSE and i was wondering if the coding is alot different from torque engine because i have The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque and i was wondering if alot of the coding in that book would work for the Shader?

thanks for your time

Chris \"C2\" Byars   (Aug 18, 2006 at 03:19 GMT)

Quote:

---

- What's the deal with TSE/Torque X?
They are completely separate products with different feature sets. We'll be announcing more information about Torque X when it's closer to release. Torque X is completely C# managed code however, so if you are looking for a C++ solution with shaders, TSE is the only way to go. And of course, you can still go to the 360 with the TSE path with TSE 360.

---

Jonathon Stevens   (Aug 18, 2006 at 04:55 GMT)

@Kory - If you want to build XBox 360 games, you have two choices:

TXE (TorqueX) - This is a C# engine for building 2D and 3D games for the PC AND XBox which uses the Microsoft XNA platform. C# is much easier and much faster to work with. You can't sell games on XBox Live Arcade with this option.

TSE 360 (NOT TSE) - This is a C++ engine for building 3D games for the XBox using C++ and DirectX. This is what you'll use if you want to sell your games on XBox Live Arcade. If you want a TSE 360 license, you have to contact GG as it's not just sold to anyone.

Juha Eerola   (Aug 18, 2006 at 05:27 GMT)

SpeedTree...

Vashner   (Aug 18, 2006 at 05:39 GMT)

TSE 4 teh win..

hum. 4 ? :)

Harvey Greensall   (Aug 18, 2006 at 08:23 GMT)

Hi Brian, thanks for shedding some light on the TSE stuff.

I know this isn't a place for specific questions about TSE, but could you or anyone just clarify how the water now works in TSE. Does it now work like the water in TGE, ie. If you fire a bolt into it does it have a splash particle, or if your player/vehicle runs/drives through it, do you trail 'foam particles' as you would in TGE?

I only ask as it would be the only thing stopping us from switching to TSE for our current project ( and we really want to go TSE with it ), but also it really helps to sell the water for our future titles too.

We can't wait to get our hands on it though, massive congratulations to all involved, it looks a million dollars.....literally. 8)

Martin Schultz   (Aug 18, 2006 at 08:26 GMT)

Thanks Brian for clearing the points. It's good to know that I don't need to check this week day by day if MS 4 is out.

Regarding the issues left:
Have you checked if Atlas now works in dedicated mode? I reported this a while ago as it stopped working since MS 3.5.

Kory James   (Aug 18, 2006 at 08:28 GMT)

Thank you for the responses about torque X and TSE, but can you use the same coding in The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque for TSE 1.0 or is the coding alot different?

thanks again

Nick Zafiris   (Aug 18, 2006 at 10:05 GMT)

Quote:

---

There was no TLK for TSE. How could anyone buy something that not exists?
TLK is for TGE only.

---

It was planned, so there are people that bought TLK for TGE with the intention to have free access to TLK for TSE when it came out. Don't matter anymore. What matters is we'll be getting TSE and lighting sooner than expected!

Awesome work guys! We'll be porting our game over to TSE this fall!

Nick

John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder)   (Aug 18, 2006 at 10:43 GMT)

Jon, many people use more than one engine and will likely continue to develop on TGE and TSE.

Nick, it was promised that you would not have to pay for an upgrade to get Synapse Gaming's TSE based lighting system (what was then called TLK for TSE), and we've remained true to our word.

Stefan Lundmark   (Aug 18, 2006 at 11:03 GMT)   Resource Rating: 2

I got two questions.

I get the impression that OpenGL support has been delayed, but not canceled. Can we count on that it will make it into TSE at some point after 1.0?

Crossplatform and terrain editing abilities. These are, according to you, going to make it in after 1.0. Now, will that update be included in the price we payed for TSE or do we need to pay an additional fee?

Juha Eerola   (Aug 18, 2006 at 11:50 GMT)

@Stefan
I think they said that you get the upgrades for free :)

Martin Schultz   (Aug 18, 2006 at 12:09 GMT)

No, they said that updates and bugfixes for 1.0 will be free. Nothing more, nothing less.
Edited on Aug 18, 2006 12:12 GMT

Ian \"Xest\" Winter   (Aug 18, 2006 at 12:10 GMT)

I have to agree with others that honestly whilst I'm glad to hear TSE is nearing release I feel somewhat gutted that some changes have been made to what was expected. I was under the impression that we'd see the following features in at release judging from the TSE FAQ and forum posts by GG staff:

- OpenGL support
- Atlas editors
- Legions demo as a starter.fps replacement

Whilst I don't mind too much if these features are delayed, what really bothers me is that the lack of these features in the 1.0 release combined with GG's previous announcement that updates to TGE and such would no longer be free begs the question, will these features that we were previously led to beleive we'd get under the early adopter price now end up being in a later release of TSE, i.e. 1.1 that we will have to pay extra for?

I'd be greatful if someone from GG can clear this up as if it is the case that we're going to have to pay extra for these features then I feel severely cheated by GG. I sincerely hope these features (and potentially others I can't remember right now) are going to be made available free of charge even if not for the 1.0 release.

Jacopo De Luca   (Aug 18, 2006 at 12:16 GMT)

Quote:

---

It was planned, so there are people that bought TLK for TGE with the intention to have free access to TLK for TSE when it came out.

---

My fault. Didn't knew that. Sorry, Mincetro!

@John Kabus
When MS4 will be released, will we have some docs about the lighting system? Information about, for example, how many dynamic lights the system will support for a given scene?

John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder)   (Aug 18, 2006 at 12:55 GMT)

I think a lot of people are misreading previous comments - based on the threads I've seen and the comments made by GG only TGE will require an upgrade. And that is after 6+ years of free updates and at least 5 versions (that I've been around for). TSE is only just making it out of EA, why would you need to pay for an upgrade?


I'll be porting the TLK documentation to TDN shortly after the MS4 release, so for the first week you might have to wing it, but the lighting system is very easy to use (it's all gui-based). Also I'll try to port the documentation in order, so the basics are posted to TDN first. If you have any questions in the meantime though just ask in the TSE forums and I'll be happy to help out.

Jacopo De Luca   (Aug 18, 2006 at 13:05 GMT)

Quote:

---

I'll be porting the TLK documentation to TDN shortly after the MS4 release, so for the first week you might have to wing it, but the lighting system is very easy to use (it's all gui-based). Also I'll try to port the documentation in order, so the basics are posted to TDN first. If you have any questions in the meantime though just ask in the TSE forums and I'll be happy to help out.

---

Nice! Thank you, John.

Martin Schultz   (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:15 GMT)

@John: A gui based lightning system? Wooah! Could you post a screenshot? How does that look?

Tim Heldna   (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:34 GMT)

Quote:

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A gui based lightning system? Wooah! Could you post a screenshot? How does that look?

---

It's not that exciting =)

It's just a GUI that lets you add and adjust lights within the mission editor.

Here's what it looks like in TGE TLK

Stefan Lundmark   (Aug 18, 2006 at 15:59 GMT)   Resource Rating: 2

Quote:

---

I think a lot of people are misreading previous comments - based on the threads I've seen and the comments made by GG only TGE will require an upgrade. And that is after 6+ years of free updates and at least 5 versions (that I've been around for). TSE is only just making it out of EA, why would you need to pay for an upgrade?

---

Thanks for clearing it up, John.

Martin Schultz   (Aug 18, 2006 at 16:03 GMT)

@Tim: Thanks for posting the image. I think this TLK editor is awesome! Better than modifying all by hand. Your project looks interesting by the way. Did you post an IOTD?

Tim Heldna   (Aug 18, 2006 at 16:16 GMT)

That screenshot is not from a game as such.

It's a demo level that we will be releasing to promote a weapon pack that we're working on. The purpose of this is so that people can try before they buy, within a Torque environment.

I'm not the most exciting Torque user however feel free to browse my profile if you require any information about my adventures with Torque.

- Tim

Geoff \'Got Haggis?\' Rowland   (Aug 18, 2006 at 17:19 GMT)

hmm, no legions demo with tse 1.0 and not anytime soon?? crap what a letdown

Brian Ramage   (Aug 18, 2006 at 18:11 GMT)

@Kory - yes, the core game code of TSE is pretty much exactly the same as TGE, so the networking, scripting, simulation, object structures, etc. is all the same. It's mostly the rendering that has been changed around, so ya most of that book will be relevant.

@Stefan - I'm 90% sure we're going to have OpenGL in TSE. That's the way it's looking right now, but every time I say something like this, things shift internally, so I can't go 100%. It is a pretty high priority though.

@Geoff - It's a matter of getting the time to clean it up and get it running properly. If we can't get the time, then maybe it will be released as a resource or a standalone project or something. Talk to Tim Aste, he's the man with Legions.

@Martin - Not sure what the status of Atlas is in dedicated server mode, I'll talk to Ben and we can run some tests.
Edited on Aug 18, 2006 18:14 GMT

Kory James   (Aug 18, 2006 at 19:23 GMT)

Thank you Brian
Edited on Aug 18, 2006 21:40 GMT

Martin Schultz   (Aug 18, 2006 at 19:28 GMT)

Nice typo Kory :-)
Brain = Brian. Anyway, both is right. Brian = Mr. Brain ;-)

Kory James   (Aug 18, 2006 at 19:30 GMT)

Lol sorry Brian

David Menefee   (Aug 18, 2006 at 23:14 GMT)

Quick question: is it still true that TGE licensees will be able to purchase a TSE license for $195 after the 1.0 release?

Thanks and kudos for the great work!

Timothy Aste   (Aug 18, 2006 at 23:25 GMT)

Geoff, Legions in whatever form it's in, is still seperate from TSE, we have some developments we are working on, but won't be making any announcements this Summer on anything.

Jonathon Stevens   (Aug 19, 2006 at 01:18 GMT)

There's no way to say this without soundin a bit like a prick, but 99.9% of me feels it should be said. Can you read? I see answers to questions posted over and over again yet people keep asking the questions. It's been said many, MANY times that TSE WILL go UP in price when it's released. It doesn't matter what license you already have, it WILL cost more, just like TGB now costs more that it's released.

David Menefee   (Aug 19, 2006 at 02:53 GMT)

I can read.

There is lack of clarity in the GG statements concerning the final price of TSE. We have always known that the product would go up in price for v1.0: by $45. The website states that the early adopter's price, $150 for TGE owners, would go up so that TGE licensees would pay $195, and it further states that the v1.0 product will be available standalone for $295. What I would like to know is whether the final price is going to go up more than that. That's all I need to know.

If so, I will be more inclined to go ahead and pay for the EA release, even though I do not own a Windows PC and would have to wait til a version of TSE is released that will run on Macs.

If not, then I will wait.

David Menefee   (Aug 19, 2006 at 02:55 GMT)

Besides, I wasn't asking you. If GG wants to avoid committing themselves with a definitive statement for now, that's fine by me. I would just like clarification, if possible.

David Dougher   (Aug 19, 2006 at 12:53 GMT)

"Full editor support will not be in for Atlas however in the 1.0 release"
As I read this, editing for Atlas 2 terrain will not be feature complete, but at least some editing will be possible. Is this correct? I know that there are many editing features in the TGE version of the editor that are not currently present in the TSE version, but placement of objects, for example, is. To be very specific, since we are working with very large terrains will the editor have at least the minimal ability to adjust the height of specific portions of the terrain?

I say this becuase the alternative is not practical for development. It would require that you preserve your previous L3DT rendering of the terrain and convert from L3DT to a greyscale heightmap, manually locate a single point on a potentially extremely large terrain, edit the hieght of that point and surrounding points manually using something like photoshop, reimport the terrain into L3DT, regenerate the entire terrain again with lighting, watermaps, and terrain textures for the whole terrain, re-export the lightmap, heightmap, and texture file from L3DT, import and convert all three into a new Atlas terrain file and go see if your change was correct.

I can live without built in fractal terrain generators in the terrain editor and many of the other niceties like multiple texture layers painted on the terrain, but I need to be able to raise and lower the height of specific pieces of the real estate and save my changes in a clean fashion. Will this be possible?

Brian Ramage   (Aug 21, 2006 at 18:09 GMT)

@David M - I'm not sure what upgrade pricing will be available for TSE after 1.0. I imagine there will be some kind of discount, but I don't know what it is.

@David D - we are aware that not having editing controls for Atlas is a pain in the ass. We're going to have it in there ASAP, but unfortunately it's not going to make it in time for the 1.0 release. Full editing support (same as TGE) is available for legacy terrain.

David Menefee   (Aug 21, 2006 at 18:46 GMT)

Thanks Brian! I'll probably just wait and see. I'm sure whatever the price is, it'll be well worth it.

Todd "zaz" Koeckeritz   (Aug 21, 2006 at 19:07 GMT)

@Brian Ramage: Thanks for being honest about the 90% possibility of supporting OpenGL as I had a feeling it wasn't 100% certain.

@GG: Gratz on the milestone and upcoming release.

I'll be purchasing when TSE supports OpenGL.

Martin Schultz   (Aug 21, 2006 at 19:19 GMT)

@Brian: Does MS 4 support shaderized particles?

Sumner Mccarty   (Aug 21, 2006 at 21:11 GMT)

I only wish to beg and plead for OpenGL in TSE

I need a cross platform solution, but love TSE.

I can use TGE +this+that, etc... but TSE on Mac and Linux...
who wouldn't want that?

Please, please, please, please, please...

I need it within one year... no pressure... just DON'T drop it from the plan


Cheers!
:)
Sumner

Guimo   (Aug 24, 2006 at 00:33 GMT)

Looks great... waiting for MS4 in order to buy my license. I only wish I hadn't bought TLK as it comes with TSE. TLK owners should get an additional discount or maybe a discount for other product like constructor...

Now... I see TSE handles shadows but not sure if it supports self shadowing... I mean... after looking the picture I see the shadow of one finger over the sword blade but I can't see self shadowing in the greaves considering the light direction.

Will TSE support volume shadows or shadowmaps? Volume shadows are better in many situations but can't handle slpha maps (tree leaves) that well and in case of shadow maps will it support perspective shadow maps?

Luck!
Guimo
Edited on Aug 24, 2006 00:41 GMT

Stefan Lundmark   (Aug 24, 2006 at 14:28 GMT)   Resource Rating: 2

Talk about being shortsighted, Guimo. What if no one had bought the TLK for TGE. We wouldnt be having a TSE TLK then, would we? Everyone now gets TLK for TSE for free, and you're complaining.

Just wow. Guess you cant please everyone.

Jonathon Stevens   (Aug 24, 2006 at 18:05 GMT)

Yea, wtf Guimo? Before you were going to have to PAY to get TLK on TSE, now you are getting it for free and you think you should get a further discount because FREE costs too much? I share Stefan's emotion on this one... Just wow.

Morrie   (Aug 26, 2006 at 17:12 GMT)

Guimo if you have a problem with free maybe you should buy the Unreal Engine that should be more in your price range. As for everyone else seems fine with free. Oh yeh Unreal is $700,000 per game title.

Mincetro   (Aug 27, 2006 at 02:45 GMT)

Nice job answering his questions and not insulting him because of the assumptions made from the GG blogs.

John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder)   (Aug 27, 2006 at 04:14 GMT)

Hi Guimo,

The Synapse Gaming lighting system is included in TSE, however your TLK license provides you the same tools and lighting models for TGE - giving you a distinct advantage over other developers, and thats well worth the money (imo).

David Wilmot   (Aug 28, 2006 at 12:59 GMT)

hey, i'd love to know that,

@Brian: Does MS 4 support shaderized particles? -well?

Guimo   (Aug 29, 2006 at 03:26 GMT)

I sent a comment about the lights and shadows on the TSE and the TLK but it got deleted... strange...

My interest in the subject is because I decided to switch to TSE in order to stop thinking about programming my engine and program my game. I decided to use something powerful as the TGE. I supposed that the TSE was a way to solve my shadowing and network problems.

If anyone cares, in my game engine (www.warscale.com) I use shadowmaps. I discarded shadow volumes as they just couldn't handle tree leaves they way we wanted (by the algorith nature we ot horrible polygons). But shadowmaps in order to work fine require to be programmed as perspective shadow maps. I used simple shadowmaps and the shadows got 'pixelated' as you can see in some of the shots.

So, I really don't know if the TSE will handle this issues. I hope so. I would like to get a full shading engine not just a TLK hack. I would like to be able to switch from shadow volumes to shadowmaps and/or to handle self shadowing. I hope GG can get this working.

Luck!
Guimo

P.S. Sorry if this comments hurt anybody but I really feel this subject its important. If you consider this should be treated somewhere then please tell me where.

John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder)   (Aug 29, 2006 at 03:41 GMT)

TLK is far from a hack - I'm sorry to hear that it didn't meet your needs, though it's clear you were expecting to get TSE style tools (self-shadowing and such) for TGE, which was never TLK's purpose. TLK provides the type of tools and lighting quality seen in many modeling applications, and in capable hands it's extremely powerful (judging from the list of shipped and in-development titles using TLK).

Bobby Leighton   (Aug 29, 2006 at 16:17 GMT)

Wow to me this all sounds great!!Thank you a million times over GG and John Kabus and everyone that had supported TSE over the last year or so.Without the help of everyone here I dont think the college Im attending this next week would have taken me...soooo...thank you everone here for helping with my education and setting my life on the right track!!!

Bobby Leighton

Brian Ramage   (Aug 29, 2006 at 18:56 GMT)

Shaderized particles are not something that has been worked on, but it should be very simple to set up for yourselves. Pass in a Material in the datablock, and just set it up before you render.

Yes the orc is self-shadowed.
Edited on Aug 29, 2006 18:57 GMT

Martin Schultz   (Aug 29, 2006 at 19:05 GMT)

Thanks Brian for the info. I'm going to try it with MS 4. :-)

Trenton Shaffer   (Aug 30, 2006 at 07:37 GMT)

Bottom line, GG and John Kabus pwn. It's pretty plain and simple. If you just sit around waiting for the next best addon, patch, hack or kick a$$ add-on like TLK to be created so you can plug it in, compile and then complain about some limitation you find down the road ... good luck on that venture. That's not what game programming is all about. Wow, I'll get off my soap box here before I ruin a good announcement and turn it in to a big rant instead of what should be ... a BIG THANKS.

Again I want to say THANKS again GG and John. THANKS to the GG community for making things what they are now. THANKS to all the noobs out there for making GG the place to start in the game programming world, take it slow, its a big world. THANKS to all that have contributed resources to GG over the years and help make the GG products what they are today. THANKS to all that have contributed in any other way or otherwise shared their ideas and thoughts. You all have helped me improve and refine my game coding skills to a level I never thought possible.

-Trent

Marcus   (Aug 31, 2006 at 22:56 GMT)

That definately looks like SpeedTree to me... :)

I actually hope that it isn't though. I hope that it is a solution done by GG. I don't want to pay the $9,000 price tag to SpeedTree.
Edited on Aug 31, 2006 22:57 GMT

Mincetro   (Sep 01, 2006 at 00:58 GMT)

I isn't Speedtree, it's the Forest Pack from Ben Garney.

Morrie   (Sep 01, 2006 at 01:19 GMT)

Where can I get the forest pack from Ben Garney. It looks awsome.

Marcus   (Sep 01, 2006 at 03:55 GMT)

That would explain why we haven't heard anything about the ForestPack for well...ever. I have been wondering about this pack for some time now. I would be extatic to see this rolled into TGE 1.5 and TSE.

Affectworks   (Sep 01, 2006 at 12:51 GMT)

@ Marcus - I was thinking the same thing about the AI Pack. I thought there have been way to many really really talented ppl working on it and it was way to cool to all of a sudden stop hearing about it. I was wondering if the AIPack was the hella cool thing that can't be talked about in 1.5. Then again it would always be nice to have moving platforms in the engine without the hack workaround :)

Nick Zafiris   (Sep 01, 2006 at 12:57 GMT)

The AI Pack is the last piece of the puzzle needed for our game...

Martin Schultz   (Sep 01, 2006 at 14:00 GMT)

@Nick: I recommand "Programming Game AI by Example" from Mat Buckland if you don't want to wait. :-)

Nick Zafiris   (Sep 01, 2006 at 14:36 GMT)

Thanks for the link Martin. Although I would probably hire someone to do the AI for the game if the AI Pack does not get released. I have no prior AI programming experience and that would take away way too much of my time. Sorry, won't derail this thread any longer.

Phil Carlisle   (Sep 02, 2006 at 14:09 GMT)

Just a quickie update. AI pack had some issues in terms of our dev time. But the guys are all back together and working now.

There are some issues we're working out with regard to functionality that came up when we started doing some more useful real world tests, so its taking a bit longer than expected.

As with everything developed "in our spare time", its unpredictable in nature. But I can say that once I'm free of my current contract job, I'm going to have a bunch more time to work on things like the AI pack. Luckily, the other guys are working on it while I'm tied up a bit.

Albert Steckenborn   (Sep 06, 2006 at 13:47 GMT)

When MS4 will be released ? Now it's September.

Matt Vitelli   (Sep 06, 2006 at 13:54 GMT)

Seriously, calm down. The render batch code was "A few days from now" but that ended up taking about 3 weeks.

Kevin Johnson   (Sep 06, 2006 at 21:17 GMT)

awesome guys wtg!

@ David Wilmot - do a resource search for "shader enhanced particles" ;)

David Wilmot   (Sep 18, 2006 at 06:44 GMT)

Thanks john, will do

David Wilmot   (Sep 18, 2006 at 06:45 GMT)

john lol sorry Kevin (i need more sleep).

Picasso   (Jan 02, 2007 at 17:33 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

ok pals , when TSE ver1 FINAL will be released ?
I don't wonna buy EA now , i don't want updates , i want the final version.

When ?
Price ?

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