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Torque's 2D and 3D Future
Torque's 2D and 3D Future
| Name: | Brett Seyler |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Mar 26, 2008 | |
| Rating: |  4.8 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for Brett Seyler |
Blog post
There have been a lot of hints and rumors about what GarageGames has planned for Torque in recent months and with this post I am ready to reveal much if not all, so prepare for a window into GG like you guys haven't seen in quite a while. This post will focus on our development process for Torque products at GG and our plan for some future releases in 2008 and beyond.
The Process
We've done a pretty poor job communicating this stuff in the past. We use a lot of internal references publicly that get misunderstood and Torque users start asking questions like: "When will Juggernaut get released?" or "Will Torque 2 support DX10?" etc. These are totally fair questions because, again, we've been less than clear. I'm approaching this post with the goal of making all such terms, especially "Juggernaut" and "Torque 2" plain and clear. I'll silently cross my fingers and hope for a temporary blessing of better writing skills than I generally have :)
OK...first up, let's clarify some terms. Juggernaut. What is Juggernaut? Joe Maruschak and a few others from GG have explained this in forum posts and comments, but I don't know if it's ever really been put in the big picture context. Juggernaut started out of necessity and has since become an instrumental part of our Torque development process.
Juggernaut began because we had 3 separate game engine codebases that all shared roughly the same fundamental pieces, but didn't share a core code repository. This was a big pain in the butt. Soon it became clear that merging these code bases was a necessary part of continuing to support the Torque line of products. Merging all these things, taking all the fixes from every game we'd ever worked on and every engine repository we had, and coming out the other side with a better, tighter, more stable engine would be no small task, as you can imagine. Nevertheless, developer magic prevailed and today Juggernaut is quite a machine.
Juggernaut's features at present still lag behind some of our current products. The performance is better but TGB 1.7.2 is overall a better product than the version of TGB in Juggernaut. There are more current features in TGB 1.7.2, but moving TGB 1.7.2 to a version on the Juggernaut code base with the same features would be a great improvement.
In the case of TGEA, version 1.7 actually takes the best of what's in Juggernaut and adds functionality to that (like multiple terrain tiles). The end-run goal here is keep all our products up to date on the same code base. We're moving very quickly toward that goal. TGEA 1.7 is the first step. It would be reasonable to expect similar updates to TGE and TGB to move those products (still on the older, incompatible code bases) to the new unified code base.
A unified code base has obvious benefits to both GG staff and to Torque users. For us, it's much easier to maintain and update Torque products. For you guys, there are more frequent and cross-product updates in addition to project portability. This means we can also do really cool stuff like share TGEA features with TGB. Want Torque X style shaders in your 2D game? Yes. We will be able to do this. Networking? Shouldn't be too much of an issue. There are a number of feature combinations that we can present in TGE, TGEA, or TGB, all of which add value across the board.
So this is all great right...Juggernaut is where all the the features of Torque live and play happily together. But there's more. Juggernaut is what our internal game teams use to create cutting edge games like Legions, and what external teams use to create games like Penny Arcade Adventures, Cyclomite, Metal Drift, etc. This means that code is constantly battle-tested in the most demanding conditions possible. It's basically used only by professionals *very* familiar with Torque who can operate with largely undocumented code, command line or very user-unfriendly tools, and the occasional quirk or instability.
We watch the use of features in Juggernaut very closely and gather feedback from the pros using it to improve performance and stability. Only when features have been through this process of shipping games do we gather together the fixes and features necessary for an update to TGE, TGEA, or TGB.
What about "Torque 2" ?
Speaking of poor communication...what does "Torque 2" mean? Is it a new engine? A collection of features being developed in Juggernaut to eventually be released in Torque? We have not done a good job talking about what this meant for Torque owners and I want to really help clear this up from both a process standpoint and a product standpoint. Here goes...
"Torque 2" does not mean Torque 2.0, TGEA 2.0, or any other version number of a Torque product. It's another case of an internal reference (like Juggernaut) being used publicly in a way that's been confusing. We talk about "Torque 2" internally to refer to our R&D repo. This is where new features are created and large refactors are done. When a change is too big or too low level to go straight into Juggernaut, it's handled in a separate R&D repo. One of things we do when brainstorming what sort of work should be done in R&D is say to ourselves, "OK, what do *we* need to make the kinds of games we want to make on the PC, OSX, Xbox, Wii, PS3 and InstantAction?" We take a broad look at the pieces of the engine we're least happy with and decide what can we do to improve it both for us and for Torque users. There are no sacred cows in this repo... things get shredded in the name of greater efficiency and feature sets.
A great example of a shortcoming that can only be addressed in the R&D repo is Torque's long-chain class hierarchy. It can be a big pain to work with and the consensus pretty much industry wide is that components are better. Moving from a fat class hierarchy to components is *not* a move that could happen in small steps and keep the engine stable and useful for us or for 3rd party developers who want to use our tech (i.e. Juggernaut). It's a long process, but big steps have been taken in R&D to swap our hierarchy for components. When this feature is stable enough to be useful for professional development, it will be put to use by our internal teams and 3rd party developers.
Another great example of a massive R&D change that happened in the "Torque 2" repo was Juggernaught itself... when we were first getting that started, it was a massive, fairly destructive R&D project and it's been built back up to stability over time. After the technology in "Torque 2" stabilizes, we move it to "Juggernaught", which is our pre-release repository and proving ground. From there, it gets used by us and other teams who aren't afraid of the lack of tools, documentation, and rough features in games, in order to smooth out the rough edges, fix bugs, tune performance, and all that good stuff. After putting a Juggernaught version though the rigors of shipping commercial titles, we go through the arduous process of creating tools, improving usability, and writing documentation for it. These are the final pieces necessary for a Torque product release.
So the process is this...
You'll note that there are lots of pieces from R&D that have gone to full production and there's much more in the works. This is a process that really works and ensures that you're working with the same technology that builds all Torque's best games. There's a lot to be excited about for future updates to Torque products. Speaking of which, let's pull the covers off our plans for 2008!
Opening up Development
From now on, with every opportunity we can, we're going to do beta releases on products so that we can get your feedback during development. This is just the first step toward a transparent development process that we talked about months ago. The TGEA 1.7 beta is the first time we've done this in a while, but not only do we want to do this every time we have a big release, we also want to find ways to get more of you involved. Right now, the open beta for TGEA is open, but before that, we also did releases closed to GG Associates. Associates are basically GG community superstars, but there are many of you out there who can help just as much and we want your input too. We're in the midst of building a web interface to support this kind of community development and feedback. If it goes well, you all will be able to use this system to host, track, and communicate about your own projects as well.
The impetus to open up development has been driven by another key component to Torque's success. You. There are tens of thousands of Torque licensees in the GarageGames community. A large percentage of you have been *incredibly* generous in helping us improve the technology. Whether it's guys like Jeff Faust, John Kabus, Melv May, John Kanalakis and Tom Spilman who create incredible products that extend Torque's capabilities or make it easier to use, or superstars like Josh Engebretson (of Minions of Mirth fame) who selflessly contribute improvements and bug fixes, all because they want the community to benefit from a better Torque. They aren't employees, but they're part of what keeps Torque such a strong technology and they deserve *massive* credit for helping GG deliver a game development better experience to you. So, to all those mentioned and all the rest of you that have contributed to our codebase over the years, thank you!
Torque Products
The TGEA 1.7 open beta here is going really well and we're looking at squashing 90% of the bugs that have been reported by full release. This is the best Torque engine that's been released to date and it's all FREE for current TGEA owners.
TGEA 1.7 is bound to ship in April and it's our best Torque engine to date. Just as TGEA has moved to Juggernaut codebase, so will TGE and TGB. That move will ensure greater stability and vastly improved performance. As new R&D is merged into Juggernaut daily, we'll be looking at new features to bring to TGE and TGB as well. There are some really exciting possibilities! On top of that, documentation and learning resources on all Torque products should improve dramatically. This means more updates to all the current Torque products before the year is over.
We've been listening and we know what you're looking for. There are exciting projects in the works here including porting Torque to new consoles, supporting new platforms, enabling new publishing options, and of course, lots more great games to inspire and motivate development. We're all going to keep working overtime to make Torque as great as the community that uses it. Again, *huge* thanks to all who've been exceptional, selfless contributors to the community over the years. You're the ones who make Torque great.
Finally, A Pre-emptive Q&A (with myself)
Q. Can I Buy Juggernaut?
A. You wouldn't want to. Working with Juggernaut as is can be very difficult and as of this moment, TGEA 1.7 is everything Juggernaut is. If you really want SVN access and to sign a crazy tightass EULA and NDA (because there's lots of stuff in there that can't be public...e.g. the Torque 360 code is in there and that contains proprietary MS info), then yes, maybe. It's a PITA for us and it would be expensive for you so nine times out of ten the answer will be no. If you become a GG Associate, you will have SVN access to our current Torque projects in development though and can participate in closed betas.
Q. Which of the releases for current products will GG charge for?
A. Not TGEA 1.7. Beyond that, we can't say. I would prefer if we established a more set time line for paid updates. TGE went years without GG charging for updates. TGB has been over 3 years. It really depends on what goes into the releases. Obviously development requires that we pay our guys, so at some point we'll have to charge, but as always, if we do, you'll get more than your money's worth.
Q. When will we see OpenGL support in TGEA?
A. Ahh...should have added that to the R&D bubble in the last graphic. There is work being done on it right now, but talking about a delivery date is still premature.
Q. How do I become an Associate?
A. There is no hard and fast rule of what qualifies a good candidate for Associate status. It is usually rewarded to long-time GarageGames members who show continued contributions of quality work to the community. Candidates should above all be helpful and willing to share their knowledge with the community through the forums or blogs. A professional attitude is expected when interacting with others in the community. Associates are looked up to by other community members, so it is important to present a good example of how a professional developers should interact with their peers. It is possible that some members who should be associates have been overlooked, if you know of such people, you can nominate them by e-mailing us.
The Process
We've done a pretty poor job communicating this stuff in the past. We use a lot of internal references publicly that get misunderstood and Torque users start asking questions like: "When will Juggernaut get released?" or "Will Torque 2 support DX10?" etc. These are totally fair questions because, again, we've been less than clear. I'm approaching this post with the goal of making all such terms, especially "Juggernaut" and "Torque 2" plain and clear. I'll silently cross my fingers and hope for a temporary blessing of better writing skills than I generally have :)
OK...first up, let's clarify some terms. Juggernaut. What is Juggernaut? Joe Maruschak and a few others from GG have explained this in forum posts and comments, but I don't know if it's ever really been put in the big picture context. Juggernaut started out of necessity and has since become an instrumental part of our Torque development process.
Juggernaut began because we had 3 separate game engine codebases that all shared roughly the same fundamental pieces, but didn't share a core code repository. This was a big pain in the butt. Soon it became clear that merging these code bases was a necessary part of continuing to support the Torque line of products. Merging all these things, taking all the fixes from every game we'd ever worked on and every engine repository we had, and coming out the other side with a better, tighter, more stable engine would be no small task, as you can imagine. Nevertheless, developer magic prevailed and today Juggernaut is quite a machine.
Juggernaut's features at present still lag behind some of our current products. The performance is better but TGB 1.7.2 is overall a better product than the version of TGB in Juggernaut. There are more current features in TGB 1.7.2, but moving TGB 1.7.2 to a version on the Juggernaut code base with the same features would be a great improvement.
In the case of TGEA, version 1.7 actually takes the best of what's in Juggernaut and adds functionality to that (like multiple terrain tiles). The end-run goal here is keep all our products up to date on the same code base. We're moving very quickly toward that goal. TGEA 1.7 is the first step. It would be reasonable to expect similar updates to TGE and TGB to move those products (still on the older, incompatible code bases) to the new unified code base.
A unified code base has obvious benefits to both GG staff and to Torque users. For us, it's much easier to maintain and update Torque products. For you guys, there are more frequent and cross-product updates in addition to project portability. This means we can also do really cool stuff like share TGEA features with TGB. Want Torque X style shaders in your 2D game? Yes. We will be able to do this. Networking? Shouldn't be too much of an issue. There are a number of feature combinations that we can present in TGE, TGEA, or TGB, all of which add value across the board.
So this is all great right...Juggernaut is where all the the features of Torque live and play happily together. But there's more. Juggernaut is what our internal game teams use to create cutting edge games like Legions, and what external teams use to create games like Penny Arcade Adventures, Cyclomite, Metal Drift, etc. This means that code is constantly battle-tested in the most demanding conditions possible. It's basically used only by professionals *very* familiar with Torque who can operate with largely undocumented code, command line or very user-unfriendly tools, and the occasional quirk or instability.
We watch the use of features in Juggernaut very closely and gather feedback from the pros using it to improve performance and stability. Only when features have been through this process of shipping games do we gather together the fixes and features necessary for an update to TGE, TGEA, or TGB.
What about "Torque 2" ?
Speaking of poor communication...what does "Torque 2" mean? Is it a new engine? A collection of features being developed in Juggernaut to eventually be released in Torque? We have not done a good job talking about what this meant for Torque owners and I want to really help clear this up from both a process standpoint and a product standpoint. Here goes...
"Torque 2" does not mean Torque 2.0, TGEA 2.0, or any other version number of a Torque product. It's another case of an internal reference (like Juggernaut) being used publicly in a way that's been confusing. We talk about "Torque 2" internally to refer to our R&D repo. This is where new features are created and large refactors are done. When a change is too big or too low level to go straight into Juggernaut, it's handled in a separate R&D repo. One of things we do when brainstorming what sort of work should be done in R&D is say to ourselves, "OK, what do *we* need to make the kinds of games we want to make on the PC, OSX, Xbox, Wii, PS3 and InstantAction?" We take a broad look at the pieces of the engine we're least happy with and decide what can we do to improve it both for us and for Torque users. There are no sacred cows in this repo... things get shredded in the name of greater efficiency and feature sets.
A great example of a shortcoming that can only be addressed in the R&D repo is Torque's long-chain class hierarchy. It can be a big pain to work with and the consensus pretty much industry wide is that components are better. Moving from a fat class hierarchy to components is *not* a move that could happen in small steps and keep the engine stable and useful for us or for 3rd party developers who want to use our tech (i.e. Juggernaut). It's a long process, but big steps have been taken in R&D to swap our hierarchy for components. When this feature is stable enough to be useful for professional development, it will be put to use by our internal teams and 3rd party developers.
Another great example of a massive R&D change that happened in the "Torque 2" repo was Juggernaught itself... when we were first getting that started, it was a massive, fairly destructive R&D project and it's been built back up to stability over time. After the technology in "Torque 2" stabilizes, we move it to "Juggernaught", which is our pre-release repository and proving ground. From there, it gets used by us and other teams who aren't afraid of the lack of tools, documentation, and rough features in games, in order to smooth out the rough edges, fix bugs, tune performance, and all that good stuff. After putting a Juggernaught version though the rigors of shipping commercial titles, we go through the arduous process of creating tools, improving usability, and writing documentation for it. These are the final pieces necessary for a Torque product release.
So the process is this...
You'll note that there are lots of pieces from R&D that have gone to full production and there's much more in the works. This is a process that really works and ensures that you're working with the same technology that builds all Torque's best games. There's a lot to be excited about for future updates to Torque products. Speaking of which, let's pull the covers off our plans for 2008!
Opening up Development
From now on, with every opportunity we can, we're going to do beta releases on products so that we can get your feedback during development. This is just the first step toward a transparent development process that we talked about months ago. The TGEA 1.7 beta is the first time we've done this in a while, but not only do we want to do this every time we have a big release, we also want to find ways to get more of you involved. Right now, the open beta for TGEA is open, but before that, we also did releases closed to GG Associates. Associates are basically GG community superstars, but there are many of you out there who can help just as much and we want your input too. We're in the midst of building a web interface to support this kind of community development and feedback. If it goes well, you all will be able to use this system to host, track, and communicate about your own projects as well.
The impetus to open up development has been driven by another key component to Torque's success. You. There are tens of thousands of Torque licensees in the GarageGames community. A large percentage of you have been *incredibly* generous in helping us improve the technology. Whether it's guys like Jeff Faust, John Kabus, Melv May, John Kanalakis and Tom Spilman who create incredible products that extend Torque's capabilities or make it easier to use, or superstars like Josh Engebretson (of Minions of Mirth fame) who selflessly contribute improvements and bug fixes, all because they want the community to benefit from a better Torque. They aren't employees, but they're part of what keeps Torque such a strong technology and they deserve *massive* credit for helping GG deliver a game development better experience to you. So, to all those mentioned and all the rest of you that have contributed to our codebase over the years, thank you!
Torque Products
The TGEA 1.7 open beta here is going really well and we're looking at squashing 90% of the bugs that have been reported by full release. This is the best Torque engine that's been released to date and it's all FREE for current TGEA owners.
TGEA 1.7 is bound to ship in April and it's our best Torque engine to date. Just as TGEA has moved to Juggernaut codebase, so will TGE and TGB. That move will ensure greater stability and vastly improved performance. As new R&D is merged into Juggernaut daily, we'll be looking at new features to bring to TGE and TGB as well. There are some really exciting possibilities! On top of that, documentation and learning resources on all Torque products should improve dramatically. This means more updates to all the current Torque products before the year is over.
We've been listening and we know what you're looking for. There are exciting projects in the works here including porting Torque to new consoles, supporting new platforms, enabling new publishing options, and of course, lots more great games to inspire and motivate development. We're all going to keep working overtime to make Torque as great as the community that uses it. Again, *huge* thanks to all who've been exceptional, selfless contributors to the community over the years. You're the ones who make Torque great.
Finally, A Pre-emptive Q&A (with myself)
Q. Can I Buy Juggernaut?
A. You wouldn't want to. Working with Juggernaut as is can be very difficult and as of this moment, TGEA 1.7 is everything Juggernaut is. If you really want SVN access and to sign a crazy tightass EULA and NDA (because there's lots of stuff in there that can't be public...e.g. the Torque 360 code is in there and that contains proprietary MS info), then yes, maybe. It's a PITA for us and it would be expensive for you so nine times out of ten the answer will be no. If you become a GG Associate, you will have SVN access to our current Torque projects in development though and can participate in closed betas.
Q. Which of the releases for current products will GG charge for?
A. Not TGEA 1.7. Beyond that, we can't say. I would prefer if we established a more set time line for paid updates. TGE went years without GG charging for updates. TGB has been over 3 years. It really depends on what goes into the releases. Obviously development requires that we pay our guys, so at some point we'll have to charge, but as always, if we do, you'll get more than your money's worth.
Q. When will we see OpenGL support in TGEA?
A. Ahh...should have added that to the R&D bubble in the last graphic. There is work being done on it right now, but talking about a delivery date is still premature.
Q. How do I become an Associate?
A. There is no hard and fast rule of what qualifies a good candidate for Associate status. It is usually rewarded to long-time GarageGames members who show continued contributions of quality work to the community. Candidates should above all be helpful and willing to share their knowledge with the community through the forums or blogs. A professional attitude is expected when interacting with others in the community. Associates are looked up to by other community members, so it is important to present a good example of how a professional developers should interact with their peers. It is possible that some members who should be associates have been overlooked, if you know of such people, you can nominate them by e-mailing us.
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 03/26/08 - Torque's 2D and 3D Future 03/13/08 - Torque X! 12/22/07 - What a year... Here comes 2008! 04/30/07 - Still looking for Senior Engineers 04/11/07 - GarageGames Now Hiring for several positions |
|---|
Submit your own resources!| jydog (Mar 26, 2008 at 22:26 GMT) |
| Josh Engebretson (Mar 26, 2008 at 22:37 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
It has been great working with you and Matt Fairfax on the TGEA 1.7 release... kudos to everyone's hard work that made such a significant upgrade happen!!!
As you know, I'm totally stoked about the next project with GG! Rawr!!!
| James Spellman (Mar 26, 2008 at 22:51 GMT) |
...or...
"I have an understanding of Digital watches. And soon I shall have understanding of video cassette recorders and car telephones. And when I have understanding of them, I shall have understanding of computers. And when I have understanding of computers, I shad have understanding of Juggernaut. And when I have understanding of Juggernaut, I shall be the Supreme Being!"
'nuff said!
| Ben Acord (Mar 26, 2008 at 23:26 GMT) |
| Tom Spilman (Mar 26, 2008 at 23:28 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
This thing should be required reading for all Torque owners.
Freaking great post!
| Dave Young (Mar 26, 2008 at 23:43 GMT) |
The flurry of feedback from the 1.7 beta, which can only be helpful to the dev team.. is just a small peek at what the community has in store for GG in 2008. Oh, and games finally :)
| Peter Simard (Mar 27, 2008 at 00:01 GMT) |
| Eikon Games (Mar 27, 2008 at 00:10 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Chip Lambert (Mar 27, 2008 at 00:14 GMT) |
| Mike Rowley (Mar 27, 2008 at 00:33 GMT) |
Quote:
This thing should be required reading for all Torque owners.
Yup. I agree.
| Joseph Greenawalt (Mar 27, 2008 at 00:38 GMT) |
Quote:
Reading this has convinced me to buy TGEA.
The new TGEA 1.7 Beta has convinced me to actually use TGEA, after having owned it for a while now ;-) It's really starting to feel like a hobbyist such as myself could actually make a game with this thing. I've been very happy with the changes that are going on at GG lately.
| Novack (Mar 27, 2008 at 01:04 GMT) |
The guys have done a good job with the announcements on TGEA, Juggernaut and Transparent Dev, among others, but I always felt like reading JRR Tolkien: Always there was a story before, which I still didnt know of.
I think you just writen the GG Silmarillon :D
Great job.
(now you can finally get rid of S. Zepp, M. Fairfax, D. Marshall, and maybe D. Blake too) ... (and with the salary saves, you can actually give all those updates for free)
Edited on Mar 27, 2008 01:05 GMT
| Todd Pickens (Mar 27, 2008 at 02:22 GMT) |
I work there and this is the first time I feel like I understand where the product is going.
Edited on Mar 27, 2008 02:37 GMT
| Andrew Brady (Mar 27, 2008 at 02:51 GMT) |
| David Blake (Mar 27, 2008 at 02:55 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Seriously, though. This is, of course, a huge and very welcome announcement. Since before the IGC (say the GDC poster with the words "Torque 2" back in the day) announcement of Torque 2 (and at IGC, the slides showing Juggernaut's name) this has been a topic which has come up in one way or another. And I, oh my eyes, see those topics. My keyboard shouldn't allow me to type parentheticals.
It is great to have clarification and insight into the future direction of GG. It will be extremely helpful to everyone!
@Novak
I'm gone. :(
Corporate turnover sux0rz hard. I think I'm going to go to a strip club and down my sorrows in a $12 beer unemployment is paying for. Here's to Juggy...
| Jeff Johnston (Mar 27, 2008 at 03:28 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Back to the lab...
| Don Hogan (Mar 27, 2008 at 03:46 GMT) |
Edited on Mar 27, 2008 03:47 GMT
| Brett Seyler (Mar 27, 2008 at 03:49 GMT) |
| eb (Mar 27, 2008 at 12:16 GMT) |
Let her know!
//
...I would remove the "Marvel juggernaut comic image" as associating that visual-likeness to a Garagegames product is a bit 'hairy'. .. . . or am I being crazy here ?
Anyways...
are there any plans to make your own "GG-Juggernaut character/image for the engine logo use" ? ..I think that would be excellent and `not infringe Marvel copyrights. :P
Cheers once again
| Ben Acord (Mar 27, 2008 at 12:44 GMT) |
Maybe there should be a contest or something. *hint *hint
Oh, and my vote is to keep the team...David included.
| jydog (Mar 27, 2008 at 13:08 GMT) |
Keep up the good work.
| Matt Huston (Mar 27, 2008 at 13:22 GMT) |
| Benjamin L. Grauer (Mar 27, 2008 at 14:00 GMT) |
It could work out well, but my feeling is that it's not the best way to make something rock solid.
Edited on Mar 27, 2008 14:01 GMT
| James Brad Barnette (Mar 27, 2008 at 14:53 GMT) |
Though I have to say it is prolly the oddest way of doing things. sound terribly inefficient IMHO.
In my opinion TGE needs to be dropped. I don't care if you have a completely unified code base between them it is still using people that could better be utilized working on TGEA. TGE should be cut down to skeleton support staff and then considered end of life and a end of support date should be announced.
there is no reason that people couldn't use TGEA and just not use shaders
| Joseph Greenawalt (Mar 27, 2008 at 15:03 GMT) |
Edited on Mar 27, 2008 15:03 GMT
| Matt Huston (Mar 27, 2008 at 15:48 GMT) |
I'd rather small but useful updates every 6 months than seeing GGs next engine in 3 years.
@James
Glad I reread your post cause I thought you said they needed to drop TGEA, LOL.
| Deborah Marshall (Mar 27, 2008 at 16:34 GMT) |
| Vashner (Mar 27, 2008 at 17:05 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| James Brad Barnette (Mar 27, 2008 at 19:45 GMT) |
Hehe no TGEA is where it's at! But, continuing to support TGE is like Epic continuing to sell the unreal engine 1.x along side of 3.x It is just a complete waste of resources.
Plus marketing TGEA as some kinda thing that is for advanced users only is just rediculas. there are not that different other than atlas and shaders. Those hardly make it a advanced users only product. It is the Crappy set of tools that make having a Ph.D. a requirement. there are many engines that are for more advanced that have such a great tool set that a monkey could make a game. But you pay a premium for it I guess. Still If it were my company I would re-allocate the TGE team to TGEA pipeline toolset duty.
when you look at the progress that companies like crytech have made in the short time they have been in business vs the 8+ years that GG has been in business you have to wonder what it is exactly that they have been doing? From where I'm standing it looks like they have been maintaining the status quo. Continuing to beat a dead horse at the expense of the future. If you look at the tools for even the first Far Cry "Sandbox1" it is still so years ahead of anything we have here.
I know some of you are going to say we yeah but what do you expect for the price? well I expect someone that is working a job and getting paid to keep up. I assume the employees are getting paid no? and last time I check the staff at GG is roughly the same size if not bigger than that of Epic. "And most of the staff at epic is artist and content producers."
So this is my question? Why is TGEA where it is right now? Given that GG has the staff. They have had the time. So what is it? why is the TGEA engine and toolset in the condition it is in now? "DON'T GET ME WRONG! I'm very happy with the progress that has been made in the last year but on the inside I feel like it is just a big game of trying to catch up to what everyone else was doing a couple years back while still completely ignoring the toolset. there comes a time when you have to break compatibility and do something new. I believe that it is time for GG to let go of all of this legacy crap and make a leap in to being ahead of the curve and become a company of innovation instead of lagging years and year behind the industry.
Until the GG engines are made "Artist friendly" there will never be a AAA title made with it.
Programmers make tools and Tech. It takes artist and designers to make games and right now the GG products are for the most part programmer only engines with no concern for pipeline. In the average title like COD4 for instance you are going to have anywhere from a 3-5 to 1 ratio of artist and designers to programmers or higher.
So that being said can someone explain to me why GG has completely ignored this for 8 years?
"no, wait hold on.... let me get my flame resistant suit on... ok now go let me have it."
Edited on Mar 27, 2008 20:12 GMT
| Joseph Greenawalt (Mar 27, 2008 at 19:48 GMT) |
Edited on Mar 27, 2008 19:49 GMT
| Stephan Goebels (Mar 27, 2008 at 21:21 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
@James Brad Barnette
Far Cry, well Wouter van Oortmerssen worked for Crytek, he is the main author of the Sauerbraten (a.k.a. Cube 2) Game Engine and Lecturer at the Guildhall.
Edited on Mar 27, 2008 21:24 GMT
| Brett Seyler (Mar 27, 2008 at 21:55 GMT) |
This is a little difficult to respond to. I've seen you bring up similar arguments before (here where you compare Torque to Hero unfavorably and here where you beat up the early work Josh Engebretson posted on Megaterrains) and not responded out of, well...restraint.
It's hard not take some of what you say very personally because we all care very much about the work we're doing and we have pride in Torque. Comments like:
Quote:
Those hardly make it a advanced users only product. It is the Crappy set of tools that make having a Ph.D. a requirement. there are many engines that are for more advanced that have such a great tool set that a monkey could make a game.
and
Quote:
when you look at the progress that companies like crytech have made in the short time they have been in business vs the 8+ years that GG has been in business you have to wonder what it is exactly that they have been doing? From where I'm standing it looks like they have been maintaining the status quo. Continuing to beat a dead horse at the expense of the future. If you look at the tools for even the first Far Cry "Sandbox1" it is still so years ahead of anything we have here.
and
Quote:
well I expect someone that is working a job and getting paid to keep up. I assume the employees are getting paid no? and last time I check the staff at GG is roughly the same size if not bigger than that of Epic. "And most of the staff at epic is artist and content producers."
all show that you want Torque to be better than it is, but you really are coming from a lack of knowledge about these competitive products and companies.
Let's talk about price for a minute. On that earlier post by a guy who was struggling as a new user with little programming experience trying out TGEA, you drew a comparison between Torque and Hero (a popular MMO engine). It being my business to know exactly what these other technologies like Hero, Unreal 3, Crytek, Gamebryo and others cost, I was pretty amazed that you guessed $100k for Hero.
First, let's think about that. TGEA can be licensed for $300 per person and you can make any kind of game you want with it. There are no royalties or strings attached. TGEA has been used to make more, commercial games than any other engine on that list except possibly UE which has been around longer than TGEA. Those Torque games have grossed millions of dollars in less than 3 years. If Hero engine did cost $100k (it doesn't), what would that mean Indie users expected of Torque? Would developers just drool over the DX10 graphics, polished tools and say "TGEA should have that?" 99% of the time this is not really a fair comparison.
We believe in our technology, but there are compromises that can't be avoided in delivering pro tools for a hobbyist price. If Torque sold for $20k rather than $300, only about 5% of the GG community would be in a position to purchase it, but GG would make a lot more money from game engines and would be in a position to throw a lot more money at improving the engine. So why don't we do it? Because five, six, and seven figure license fees were the reason GG couldn't make games without building our engine in the first place and that sucked.
Ready for the bad news? Hero is not $100k. It's actually not even $1M. It's more than that for just a license fee and that doesn't even include royalties on the back end. Crytek and Unreal are the same story. Guys like Tom Spilman (who correctly pointed out that $100k was a full order of magnitude off) know because they've been to GDC and done the wine and dine and NDA schmooze necessary just to find out those engines cost.
Huge license fees are bad for game development and bad for games. The most common question we get when licensing Torque to commercial customers is "what's up with the price?" This is a hurdle that is often very tough to overcome and costs us a lot of license sales. Torque Technology right now is easily on a par with game engines that sell for mid-to-high five figures. Unreal 2, Quake 3/4, Vicious, Virtools etc
| Brett Seyler (Mar 27, 2008 at 22:01 GMT) |
| Chris Schletter (Mar 27, 2008 at 22:03 GMT) |
| Chris Schletter (Mar 27, 2008 at 22:12 GMT) |
Um, no they do not. Thats like saying graphic layout artists develop web applications (no not web pages). They are an important part of the "team", but not the only people who "make games".
The license for Unreal Tournament back in the day was a measley $250K.
| Brett Seyler (Mar 27, 2008 at 22:18 GMT) |
Unreal 2, Quake 3/4, Vicious, Virtools etc are all Torque's peer competitors from a technology standpoint, but they're often not seen in the same light because you can't buy any of those for less than 5 figures (often + royalties).
I think part of your perception that many of the industries top engines are better than Torque is because you're looking at the games created with those engines. In almost all cases, the engine devs also produced a very very nice looking game. If you talk with developers who have used the industries top engines (anyone heard of Silicon Knights?) you'll find that any of them--all of them--can be very difficult to work with and messy in places. Torque is no different. Better in some ways. Worse in others, but basically, all engines have theirs warts and show their legacy as they age. This is why the process described above is in fact not inefficient, but essential to large refactors. If big changes have to happen, this lets them happen and yet still allows us to frequently update Torque products with new features and changes.
So let's look at the games. Torque has a bunch, but admittedly none that looks as nice as Crysis yet. Why? Well for a game studio to start a $30M project with an engine technology, they basically never want to go first. If you notice, the games that put all the current industry leading engines on the map were games developed by the same studio. Crytek has Crysis. UE has Gears of War and UT3. Gamebryo has Oblivion. GG has never done a game in that scope. We don't want to. Lots of time, with budgets that large, developers just get super conservative and the product, though often visually impressive, turns out to be a big steaming pile of crap to play. That's not our style and we're not aiming to serve studios working on $30M titles with Torque. Could it be done. The short answer is yes. We could do it. We could make a game that looked like Gears of War or Oblivion. Crysis would be tougher because that's really bleeding edge stuff, but it's still possible.
Now I'm not saying Torque = CryEngine, UE3, or Hero. Those technologies have some very nice, polished tools. Some are better than Torque. Some are worse, but on the whole we'd like to have tools like that and we're working towards that goal.GG has many fewer devs working on Torque (though still more than it ever has in the past) than Epic, Crytek, or Hero and we've only recently (since the acquisition) been in a position where we didn't have to shuffle resources to games or other projects now and then to make sure we were on solid financial footing. We're in a position now to support all three pillars of the GG business (technology, games, and publishing) and we're not going anywhere.
Finally, I didn't want this to come off like some stinging rebuke, James. I hope you don't take it that way and I hope readers don't see it that way. GG wants Torque to improve. Clearly, you want Torque to improve. It may help to get some perspective about Torque place next to the competitors and just what a special thing it is to have a technology like Torque backed by this company and this community for 8+ years and at a price that shuts no one out. That's been a vital part of our mission from the beginning and we won't waver.
That's all I've got for now.
I think Matt will follow up separately on the reasons to keep (or not keep) TGE around. As always, thanks for reading.
Edited on Mar 27, 2008 22:20 GMT
| Chris Schletter (Mar 27, 2008 at 22:27 GMT) |
| Brett Seyler (Mar 27, 2008 at 22:41 GMT) |
| Brett Seyler (Mar 27, 2008 at 22:42 GMT) |
| Matt Fairfax (Mar 27, 2008 at 22:43 GMT) |
We've spent a lot of time talking about the benefits to merging TGE and TGEA. Having a single product to develop, market, and sell is definitely an attractive option but there is still one very compelling reason to continue with the two product lines: price point.
We want to be able to continue to sell Torque at a price that is affordable to everyone and we don't feel like it is fair to to us or to you to drop TGEA's price down to TGE's $150. So what do we sell at $150 if our engines are becoming more and more alike every day? Is the automatic shaders (ShaderGen), paged terrains (Atlas), and the new content in TGEA 1.7 worth the $145 price difference? Maybe...depends on how valuable those things are to you and they can definitely be valuable. What else could we do to differentiate them and preserve our two price points?
One idea that we have been talking about a lot is to differentiate on how you use Torque. We are already making distinctions on whether or not you use the engine for a game or if you use it at a large studio or if you use it on a console. What if we were to charge a $150 price point for a "Personal" license which would limit you to uses of Torque that are non-profit (to be clear here I am talking about selling your game *and* using a "free" game to make money in any way...like advertising) while the $295 price point is for indies who are interested in selling their games or using them to make a living?
This is just one of the many ideas that we have been discussing at GarageGames over the past year. We would love to open our discussions up to you guys and see what wacky things you can think up =) Any takers?
Btw, I know that Mac support is still a big separator of the two engines for now. We are working on this and, no, we can't give you a timeline yet.
| Chris Schletter (Mar 27, 2008 at 23:06 GMT) |
As far as TorqueX, I hated to bring it up in a TGE/TGEA posting, but I would really like to see more concerning TorqueX outlined like you have so-well outlined with what Juggernaut is. For "hobby" developers like myself (i.e. anyone that might do game programming on the side whether they be a prof. software developer of another sort during the day) a .NET (or heck even Java engine, although jMonkey is pretty decent) is a much easier proposition sometimes than the much larger Torque engine. But where both the .NET and Java gaming "world" fail is in the networking arena. Plenty of C/C++ libs out there for "hard-core" (I guess you could call it) libraries, but none for "alternative game development platforms" and as I noted Torque always had a solid network core. Not to mention that TorqueX is one of the few "game engines" available in the .NET space.
Matt, to me $150 vs. $300 is a non-factor. Unlike some opinions, I don't think you can touch the abilities of Torque for that price range. Sure, you can grab Ogre, pull-in RakNet, Pegaus, etc. (or heck even OpenTNL), and get some up and working. But you've had to spend a certain investment in time to do that... is that "time investment" worth more than 300 bucks? To me no, you just wouldn't get very far along on all that in the hours or two (or three if you are lucky) that industry (at least business software industry) would allow for that price point.
| Matt Fairfax (Mar 27, 2008 at 23:25 GMT) |
Now that TGEA is on par with TGE's features and ahead of it in a lot of ways (shaders, docs, MegaTerrain, and content) we are starting to get some hard figures on how important that $150 vs $300 price difference is for our customers and that will definitely factor into how we move forward. Early indicators is that it does still matter so we are looking at our options along those lines.
| Chad Kilgore (Mar 28, 2008 at 00:51 GMT) |
With the 5+ months difference, how accurate is that previous entry?
Edited on Mar 28, 2008 00:53 GMT
| Stephen Zepp (Mar 28, 2008 at 00:55 GMT) |
You bolded the word "new", but I'm not sure what you are asking/implying.
Those three primary areas are what the current bleeding edge R&D technology has been working on, yes. They will most likely appear in Torque releases as the benefits of those development strategies mature, and become appropriate for use by the general public (for example, some of the very low level architecture and abstraction is in place, such as GFX and SFX, and more use of signalling).
| Chad Kilgore (Mar 28, 2008 at 01:05 GMT) |
| James Brad Barnette (Mar 28, 2008 at 01:05 GMT) |
As for the hero engine I simply stated that I would be willing to pay 10x what I paid for torque if it had DX10 and the tools were as polished.
I don't see a problem with that. perhaps you should take a look at that thread becasue there were a few that agreed with me. Maybe since GG likes having so many products you should consider adding another one that is more expensive but has nicer tools... just kidding....well kinda.
I never said that Unreal Engine was easier to work with I said that the tools were more polished. I don't understand why this side of things get such little respect from you guys. The art pipeline is a huge aspect of modern games.
And yes I say that you should get rid of TGE and if your TGEA devs are your TGE devs well now they only have to concentrate on one engine. so take a few of them and pay a few industry veteran Artists as consultants and have them do nothing but work on the pipeline. Why is that so difficult to understand?
I made the comparison to Epic because you staffs are about the same size. So in theory why would GG not be capable of creating equivilant level product. "on an engine and tool level I mean"
I mean same number of people same number of hours in a day. It is not like the GG staff is comsumed with shipping huge games like Gears and Unreal.
As for the price well one of the reasons that unreal is so damn expensive is :
A: brand name
B: Huge amount of other middleware. all of the physics and alot of the other subsystems are from other vendors.
the reasons that TGEAs tools are not on par is quite frankly:
a: there is not enough artist input in their design.
b: they are just not a priority.
and finally I would like to say that you say that a "fair chunk" of your customers the price is an issue. Well ok the rest of out side of that chunk that are willing pay more but expect more are your customers too.
Look I'm not saying you guys have not made huge strides in the last year. as a matter of fact in the last year and half there has been more progress then all of the years before them combined.
What I'm saying is that it seams that all of the development at GG caters to a few demographics. one being the young crowd that needs a place to start but has almost no money. this is noble and there should be something for them. and then there is the largest group. the "I need huge worlds for my MMORPG which almost no one can complete and 99.999999% of these will never be made. and then there is the casual games crowd "reality TV of the gaming world" IMHO
I think that there are a large group of us that are in to siingle player RPG and having a story in our games we don't need mega terrains or 2D patformer stuff. but we do need things like mutliple render targets and post process FX, easy to use intuitive tools to create both mentally and visually rich experiences for our audiences.
I think that these needs are being looked over because they have existed for a long time and it doesn't appear that there is anything being done about them.Who knows maybe it is our own fault maybe we dont yell loud enough about our needs. Maybe this is because we don't make ourselves as heard as the people that whine about needing bigger terrain.
I would like to apologize if I have offended anyone here that is not my intention. Yes I love torque. Yes I believe that it can be better.
| Dan - (Mar 28, 2008 at 01:18 GMT) |
Edited - Stephan felt post came off not the way I inteneded. Should have just asked a question and get out. My applogizes to Stephan.
So do I understand the graphic
Torque 2 R&D -Feeds-> Juggernaut-Feeds-> Commercial engines that a poor man like me can buy?
Edited on Mar 28, 2008 02:04 GMT
| Stephen Zepp (Mar 28, 2008 at 01:27 GMT) |
I can't even remember myself how many times in that .plan I qualified statements, made disclaimers, and otherwise indicated that things were subject to change, so I'm a bit flabbergasted that people are now pointing back and saying "but, you said this and this!".
(self-edit since the question was re-phrased).
Things change and adapt, and we are a flexible company. Productization of R&D work changes as well. This will continue into the future, as we see opportunities to leverage R&D work into existing product lines, and where obstacles exist you may see new products as well--it's all flexible!
For the record, at the time that .plan was stated, most informed opinions (developers who were looking very closely at the impact of what was going on, and what was planned), didn't see any smooth way to integrate things with existing product lines. Since that time, quite a few very smart people have spent endless hours doing everything we can to smooth the transitions, and right now, as Brett's plan discusses, we plan on continuing those efforts.
And just like I stated in my original "Transparent Development" .plan,, things may evolve differently as well, but we're letting you know what we see coming.
Edited on Mar 28, 2008 16:59 GMT
| Trenton Shaffer (Mar 28, 2008 at 01:34 GMT) |
When Bruce Banner gets mad, he turns in to the Incredible Hulk. When the Incredible Hulk gets mad, he turns in to Deborah Marshall. :D
| Dan - (Mar 28, 2008 at 01:56 GMT) |
Thanks and Yes I did know you had many disclaimers. Felt I should justify my perspective and as a result it came off as "pointing fingers" (If I read your post right)
Not what I intended. Updated post above.
Edited on Mar 28, 2008 02:13 GMT
| Brett Seyler (Mar 28, 2008 at 04:33 GMT) |
There are a lot of soft factors at GG that we don't want to break that make this a great place to work too. We don't force ridiculous hours. We don't tell devs what features they have to implement (actually more the opposite), and two years ago we were only 20 people. Closer to ten a year before that. Those employees shifted back and forth on games, tech, and a number of other things to keep the company afloat and to allow people to do what they found most interesting. The point is GG resources are not equal to Epic's. They might have been by now if we had focused on competing with them directly and not offering Indie prices, but that was never what we were about and it's not what we're about now.
Finally, don't worry about offending. I'm generally thick skinned and as I've said a half dozen times on this page now, I LOVE working at GG and I love this community. We'll keep improving the tools and I can't say we'll ever catch up to the super-bleeding edge tools available at the time, but we're sure going to try. We know that's a big part of making a successful game quickly and keeping game dev fun.
| Deborah Marshall (Mar 28, 2008 at 06:52 GMT) |
Seriously, though, I'm glad everybody is weighing in on this conversation, with both praise and criticism. For all you old timers, you know that one of the reasons why GG closed the "development process" door in the first place was because threads like these often turned into flame wars, originating from BOTH sides of the conversation. We really are working hard to re-open that door, and I'm glad to see you working with us.
| Brett Seyler (Mar 28, 2008 at 07:22 GMT) |
Quote:
@Deborah Marshall
When Bruce Banner gets mad, he turns in to the Incredible Hulk. When the Incredible Hulk gets mad, he turns in to Deborah Marshall. :D
That was f'ing awesome btw :)
| Ben Acord (Mar 28, 2008 at 12:38 GMT) |
| James Brad Barnette (Mar 28, 2008 at 12:57 GMT) |
Quote:
Brett:
Finally, don't worry about offending. I'm generally thick skinned and as I've said a half dozen times on this page now, I LOVE working at GG and I love this community. We'll keep improving the tools and I can't say we'll ever catch up to the super-bleeding edge tools available at the time, but we're sure going to try. We know that's a big part of making a successful game quickly and keeping game dev fun.
Thank you I'm glad you were able take what I said and try to understand where I'm coming from. GG employee "in the past" have not always been willing to listen to us without getting all bent out of shape. as DM stated this calm and understanding side is something relatively new.
Just try to gleen the information from this so when you guys have you next meeting to decide what you customers need you can chime in.
Again Thanks GG for the hard work thus far and for all that is coming in the future.
| jydog (Mar 28, 2008 at 13:38 GMT) |
Still, keep up the good work.
| Chad Kilgore (Mar 28, 2008 at 13:47 GMT) |
| Jeramy79 (Mar 30, 2008 at 08:32 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
I was the new guy with little programming experience you are talking about (Although I do have some programming experience, if anyone remembers about 10 years ago there was a MUD named Mystical Gates. That was my baby. 1000s of players in this MUD).
I understand completely what James is talking about. We are not expecting a HERO engine, or an engine that is point, click, publish, but the tools are seriously lacking in my opinion. Take a look at the Unity engine.
Link - http://unity3d.com/unity/features/
This baby is beautiful. Look at the integrated editors, drag and drop capabilities and all the other extras. Click through all their pages. Look at the support they offer (They actually email you back within hours of submitting a question, while here at GG I haven't gotten a response back to 3 emails sent days ago from your support webpage). Look at the documentation, the turtorials and all that stuff. I know it's my own fault for not doing more research, but this is what I was expecting out of the Torque engine. The price tag of Unity is only $199. Thier license is Royalty free, they don't require their company Logo in splash screens or links to their pages in your games, and they provide free updates for a specified length of time (18 months), no matter what they add feature wise or what number they decide to upgrade too. They also have free assets you can use (Royalty free also) like some really, really nice trees and shaders. The only downfall they have is that right now you can only create games on a MAC (but they are playable on all platforms).
Now I've seen some examples of what Torque can do game wise, so I'm not saying Torque isn't nice and that I don't want to use it. I'm just saying that there needs to be more emphasis on your customers being able to get right into the game creation. Right now it looks like the INDIE community here isn't really putting anything out (No offense to those that have). The community here is spending all it's time trying to figure out HOW to even get into the engine. We have to download all these other programs just to build levels, terrain, characters and so forth.
GG take a look at the reviews you've gotten on gamedev.net
http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=3
Listen to what the people are saying. Almost every post wants better features and complain about ease of use.
GG keeps pointing at the price and saying that you get what you pay for so that's why the features lack compared to other engines. BTW I contacted HEROengine and they cut deals for companies that need to hack out a prototype of a game to get funding. Their price for that is $10,000 for the engine (license) and $15,000 for all training needed for as many devs/artists as you have (it's a class setting). That's alot of money considering it's only for enough time to put out a prototype. BUT, if you look at that, and who all can afford it GG isn't doing too much worse. Above Brett said that there "are tens of thousands of Torque licensees in the GarageGames community". You're prices might be way cheaper, but you get more customers that way. Tens of Thousands of licenses @ $100-$300 a pop is pretty nice, and you're overhead is in Salaries and not material content.
I guess the point I'm trying to get at is that even though your engine is far less than alot of higher dollar engines your customers deserver better tools than what are currently packaged in TGEA. I already paid for the license so I'm going to use this engine, but really I expected more.
Edited on Mar 30, 2008 08:39 GMT
| Chris Schletter (Mar 30, 2008 at 13:58 GMT) |
Nonetheless, its sounds a lot like DarkBasic and other "game engines" in that you use their editors to create your game. TGB, for 2D, is a lot like that too. It is also dependent on what you are after... do you get the source, do you need the source? And what wins does Unity (or other fairly in-expensive game engines)? Can rattle off quite a few for Torque.
There are lots of things that must be considered when choosing a platform, more than just a pretty website. But most of all its simply what do you need to get the job done. Torque may not be right for all developers, Unity may not be right, Unreal or HERO, etc. may not be right.
> The only downfall they have is that right now you can only create games on a MAC (but they are playable on all platforms).
Gotta take everything with a grain of salt. Gamedev tends to be a lot of ranting without lots of real substance. After all, with most online communities (including GG), the ones that post are usually the tip of the iceberg and the most vocal and usually opinionated.
> GG take a look at the reviews you've gotten on gamedev.net
| James Brad Barnette (Mar 30, 2008 at 14:47 GMT) |
I evaluated Unity and quite frankly I found the windows performance of their demos severly lacking. the demo wich just had a few things that come toward you that you shoot at ran a pretty poor frame rate. "sub 30fps"
this was on a system that runs Crysis DX9 on pretty high setting at around 40fps "8800GTX".
I did think that the tool setup was kinda nice.
personally I'm of the option that TGEA had a level editor that was one par with Crysis's Sandbox2 editor you would have game companies beating down you door to use it.
performance wise TGEA is a really good engine. on moderate hardware you can maintain really good framerates with fairly complex scenes. Performace wise I would go as far as to say TGEA smokes anything out there indie wise.
The only REAL thing holding TGEA back is the tools and art pipeline.
| Brett Seyler (Mar 30, 2008 at 17:27 GMT) |
Putting that aside though, what TGEA (and Torque more broadly) offer is a track record of shipping and publishing quality games. Jeramy, you say it looks like the Indie community here isn't really producing much quality.
Quote:
Now I've seen some examples of what Torque can do game wise, so I'm not saying Torque isn't nice and that I don't want to use it. I'm just saying that there needs to be more emphasis on your customers being able to get right into the game creation. Right now it looks like the INDIE community here isn't really putting anything out (No offense to those that have). The community here is spending all it's time trying to figure out HOW to even get into the engine. We have to download all these other programs just to build levels, terrain, characters and so forth.
Saying "no offense" might pull the punch some, but you couldn't be more wrong. Look at Large Animal with Snapshot Adventures (a TGB game). They won Game Tunnel awards and were an IGF finalist. Look at Venture Arctic (a game pretty much made by one guy) which was preceded by Venture Africa. Both were big award winners and very successful games. I could go on an on right?
TGEA is also cross platform in the most important publishing avenues. What do you do with your Unity game if you get offered a publishing contract on XBLA? Technically you might be pretty stuck. PS3? Also pretty stuck. Wii? Torque games can (and have) gone to the Xbox (in record numbers actually), the Wii, the PS3 (though a fully supported SDK is not yet finished). We've even Torque ported on bizarre Linux OS's, the iPhone (yes!), and lots of other places you wouldn't have guessed.
Torque will never be point and click easy. Part of the price for performance, flexiblity, and cross-platform capability is a compromise on ease of use. With options come complexity. It's sort of like a Mac / Windows philosophy parallel I suppose. I *love* Unity's real-time updates from art tools, but being tied to Max is not cool. Being tied to their source control (Asset Server is not free : / ) is a show-stopper. I want to be able to choose what art tools I work with, what source control SDK I use (and not have to purchase project management services from Unity), etc. I could gripe about it, but some people are going to choose the tighter, more seamless dev experience in Unity...you just have to do it their way. I'd also really like to have the source code. You don't get this at $199 with Unity. It's about $1500-2000 I believe.
Anyway, I'm not begrudging your preference for Unity's website or tools. I've mentioned many times in the past that we're working hard on both ourselves because even though we're committed to giving Torque users options, the learning curve for new users can definitely be improved. Finally, if you'd like, we can certainly refund your purchase of TGEA. Send an email to me directly.
Edited on Mar 30, 2008 17:28 GMT
| Jason Gossiaux (Mar 31, 2008 at 05:32 GMT) |
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/03/27/analyst-current-students-to-drive-mac-sales-in-future
..I get concerned about sticking with windows as an Indie. Truth be told I'll probably be forced into the new engine someday - there are just too many cool features that I'd like to take advantage of :P In the meantime I'll be anxiously waiting news on opengl support and praying Vista gets its act together.
But once again - thank you for the update! I think you guys are doing a great job and I've thoroughly enjoyed working with TGE 1.5.2 so far. After reading these plans for some time now I just felt the need to throw my support into a future opengl release. :tosses it on the pile: :P
| Gerard Prudhomme (Mar 31, 2008 at 18:06 GMT) |
I, for one, was a bit worried about Torque 2 in particular, as I thought, well, I have spend all this money investing in GG products since 03...and here they are going to release another update which will probably take more of my hard earned money out of my hands...not to mention how much they would want me to pay for this "Juggernaut" thing...
Imagine how happy I am to hear that these are just internal names and not new product lines that will be released, thereby causing us to purchase another add-on!
| Melv May (Apr 01, 2008 at 00:13 GMT) |
We have a guy in our office who was really annoyed because Nokia has the audacity to bring out a better phone than the one he purchased a year ago. He actually said, "I can't believe they're going to force me to pay for a new phone" at the top of his voice! Nobody was going to force him to pay for the new phone. Does he need the new phone? No. Does it have features he needs? I don't think he checked. He just didn't like the idea of not having the latest gadget and knew he'd pay for it just so he wasn't using "old" technology. It had nothing to do with what he was/wasn't doing with the phone, not really.
It's easy for me to post this I guess but I also got caught up in the "better and better graphics card" addiction a while back. nVidia had the nerve to bring out a better one and I felt like I'd been short changed. In fact the one I had was perfectly adequate (more than I appreciated) for what I wanted to do. In-fact I'd go as far to admit that I didn't really do anything that cool with it. I've wised-up quite a bit since then.
Take what you've got and squeeze every last ounce from it . The new stuff will be the old stuff before you know it.
I'm not sure if they're words of wisdom or not but I certainly don't mean to offend as I've kinda been there.
... oh and Brett, awesome post. :)
BTW: Justin had to be drinking heavily the night before in that image.
Melv.
Edited on Apr 01, 2008 13:15 GMT
| Dekker Ying (Apr 01, 2008 at 05:30 GMT) |
Modularize the engine, more module. (Like TNL was done good!)
PS:one more little thing about STL, not by "stl_fix.h",more friendly whit STL please.
| Joe Bird (Apr 07, 2008 at 23:08 GMT) |
The difference between you and your competitors is that the other guys making Unity3D, Quest3D, Virtools, Unreal, Offset, Crysis, Hero, etc. These people understand how a game engine is like any other DCC toolset. The purpose of this middleware should be to allow rapid prototyping and development by designers with support from artists and programmers. Game designers are creating an entertainment product just like any director producing a television show or movie. The other engine developers have learned from DCC toolsets like Max, Maya, XSI, and Houdini and are moving their development platforms towards that model.
I saw the light with Virtools. As a developer using the Simutronics Hero Engine I have become a believer. With the mention of Torque 2 in the past I thought GarageGames had finally "got it" and as an investor in your products I had gained hope that Torque 2 would be the DCC toolset I have been waiting for, but this Blog entry has eradicated that thought.
Without a doubt I will be leaving Torque and TGB behind for Unity3D, even if I have to buy a Mac. You see, it is not their "presentation" that is better, it is their execution.
| Chris Schletter (Apr 07, 2008 at 23:50 GMT) |
There is also a huge difference between those who want to put together a game (or really any software, witness the idiocy thats called ASP.NET and its 'drag-n-drop' mentality) without "sweet equity". Games (and other high end software) are no more easily created than any other large engineeering project. Even quality movie and televison show media are not easily undertaken endeavours.
Creating a game from scratch with the Unreal Engine is no easy tasks (go ask Silicon Knights) even with the updated tools they have available. It's definetly not a 'design a level and I have a game'.
Not to mention the bottom line of the price which has already been discussed.
| Dee (Apr 08, 2008 at 01:02 GMT) Resource Rating: 3 |
| Joe Bird (Apr 08, 2008 at 02:53 GMT) |
AAA graphics performance should not be an indie's priority. Innovative gameplay should. It is the only way we are going to stand out. Besides, AAA graphics require large teams of artists and programmers to create AAA content and that is the biggest hit on the budget, not the price of the engine.
A great example of what many indies are looking to do are titles like Audio Surf, the #1 bestseller on Steam in February. It was created in Quest3D. Part of the developer's process towards making this game was to develop one prototype a week for six months. Developers need a robust and mature toolset to experiment with gameplay at that pace.
I seriously think the future for game engines will be a DCC application with a robust SDK. Something like Maya. GarageGames thinks not. I am just glad that this blog entry clarified that for me so that I can move on to something like Quest3D, Unity3D, or Virtools.
| Matt Fairfax (Apr 08, 2008 at 03:19 GMT) |
Quote:
GarageGames thinks not.
What makes you think that?
It takes time to properly build a tool like you are describing and you can be sure that we aren't going to talk about anything like that until it is solid.
| Chris Schletter (Apr 08, 2008 at 04:04 GMT) |
Then expect to pay a premium for it.
DCC applications wave of the future? Maybe for some "developers", but not certainly for all. Indie developers run the gamut from the "I just want to build it now" to "I want to tinker with it" so there isn't going to be one type of tool for them all.
Let me give a concrete example. In the enterprise application space there is JEE of which there are at least 20 credible model-view-control frameworks that one can pick from. Each has its own twists, but they are all predicated on making the developers life a bit easier by doing common things in a repeatable fashion. Typically developers in this space are the "I want to tinker with it" type, but they are also usually constrained by budgets and timeline. Very rarely would you see a "I want just to built it now" types.
Then you also have ASP.NET (and no, I'm not one of the foaming at the mouth anti-MS people... I enjoy fully working in many different environments) which is really targeted at the "I just want to build it now" types, and lots of developers who lean towards the "I want to tinker with it" to any degree can't stand it. The thought of dragging datasource controls onto your interface is insane to many developers (not to mention all the ASP.NET controls posting back and not being usable solely on the client-side). Several non-ASP.NET model-view-controller frameworks sprung up because of it (most were ports) but now MS is putting out their own MVC framework because of the demand for it.
These are kinda the left and right "extremes", but they are solid examples nonetheless of not every tool fits every developer. But in general all developer do benefit in quality tools.
Lastly, you mention rapid prototyping and indie developing... Depending on your needs, its completely plausible to do your prototyping as mod in an FPS (or other) game; you have your pick of platforms of varying degrees. You can even do it with Torque. Certainly cheaper to use cheap tools for prototyping.
| Benjamin L. Grauer (Apr 08, 2008 at 09:15 GMT) |
No. I am not, and a lot of people using TGE(A) do not (and I'm not counting the MMO kids).
Haven't you ever heard of good motivated teams of modders who pulled out great quality 3d games? I believe TGEA is for the same type of developpers.
If you want to make casual games, I'm wondering why you're using TGEA in the first place.
I'm with you on the need of more accessible interfaces for designers, but wanting everything to turn casual is one of the worse disease the gaming industry ever had.
Edited on Apr 08, 2008 09:22 GMT
| James Brad Barnette (Apr 08, 2008 at 16:19 GMT) |
Why do people always throw up Silicon Knights when they say how hard it is to build a game from scratch.
fist of all that is not why Silicon Knights sued Epic. The reasons for the court case "and yes I have read the case" was for breach of contract. Epic did not deliver a working version of the engine when the were contract orly obligated to do so. instead the concentrated their efforts on releasing their product Gears of War. and Didn't pass any of the code over to the main code base until after Gears of War was released. Their were almost a year late in getting a working version of the engine to Silicon Knights. The unreal Engine pipeline and tools were not of issue it was working version for the XBOX 360 and the PS3 that were not delivered when they were supposed to be. they were forced to show at E3 on a early version of the XBOX 360 Engine that was hobbled together while a few booths over Epic is showing Gears of War in a nearly complete state. This makes Silicon Knights look very bad and damages their reputation and the reputation of their product.
Second I would like to point out that I have tried numerous demonstration of Unity3D in the last couple years and let me just say the tools are cool if you want to develop on a mac and you games are going to be limited to the mac or it is just gonna be casual stuff. But the Windows performance of the compiled games outright blows! Got get one of their windows demos and run it is it crap. I have a very up to date machine with a Geforce 8800 GTX 768MB that I use for testing and it still ran like crap. and this is on a machine that runs Crysis like nobody's' business.
I don't know what to tell ya about the TGEA tools I have ranted till I'm blue in the face for a number of years now with minimal success.
Perhaps We could start a project and come up with a agreed upon feature set for the tools and offer bountys to people that will implement them. I would be willing to host a site and donate some funds to this end.
If anyone else would be interested email me james@pixollusion.com
Edited on Apr 08, 2008 16:21 GMT
| Chris Schletter (Apr 08, 2008 at 17:11 GMT) |
Ranting typically gets people to "tune out". Constructive critism (which isn't always as easy to hear) is much more effective. Give people some props, and then bring up some issues you faced or are facing. The props help smooth over the issues and make people a bit more receptive.
And as always, gotta choose the right tool. As Ben queries, why try and produce a casual game with a game engine whose guts was used to turn out a AAA FPS game? And I agree about the "modders", who are just as much indie developers, who turned out high-quality mods and in some cases were rewarded. One example close to my heart was the Tactical Ops mod for UT. It went from mod to retail game with some moderate success, but more telling was that after graduation the lead developer ended up as an Epic employee. I believe GG could (if they are allowed of course :) have some of the same stories to share.
>I'm with you on the need of more accessible interfaces for designers, but wanting everything to turn casual is one of the worse disease the gaming industry ever had.
Absolutely. RAD tools were supposed to be the "next big thing" many years ago and completely replace how pepole programmed. Guess what? They didn't.
| David Blake (Apr 08, 2008 at 17:32 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
@Joe Bird
Quote:
I am just glad that this blog entry clarified that for me so that I can move on to something like Quest3D, Unity3D, or Virtools.
And good luck with your project. One of the key assessments that any developer can make is whether the technology that they are using is right for them and their project. In your case, Torque is probably not the right engine for your project. Move to one that is. I would love to hear you experience as well with the new engine, because it is through those stories that we can make Torque better for users it is out of sync with. Again, good luck with the project. I would love to hear more about it in the future.
On Unity:
I've been a rather avid fan of Unity for a couple of years now. I have a dual-G5 that I have it installed on and really enjoy the workflow. I do not have the Pro license so I cannot evaluate its Windows export (which, glossed over in the above evaluations, is a Pro-only feature, as is the removal of the Unity watermark for games published to their webplayer). But I like it. It still requires you to create your art in another package like Maya, Max, C4D, etc, unlike DX Studio, but then I hate DX Studio's modeling interface so I wouldn't use it anyway (though it is better than MED with A6/7). According to some of the statements above, this feature seemed to be included in Unity when it is not really. Unity's interface is more akin to an advanced World Editor (in Torque speak) with a lot more properties.
Unity was built from the ground-up with an artist workflow in mind, as were Quest 3D and other engines mentioned. This is definitely a good thing from the perspective of artists and designers. However, it impedes programmer backend and optimization on a number of fronts as well. It would be nice to have it both ways, and as many of these products mature, we will get closer to that "both-ways" ideal. We're not there yet.
Torque was originally built on a very different mentality; the same one that the vast majority of game engines from its time of origin were developed. It doesn't make it "archaic" any more than id's engines have been in their execution and documentation (or C4 or PowerRender or TrueVision3D). It is a different mentality that Unity and Quest3D, though. The toolset for TGB and the new editor that John Kanalakis is working on for TX 3D are a great step in that usability direction, but it is hard to retrofit cool new mentalities over the top of a codebase that came from a different one. Luckily the refactoring of Jugg and the newest version of TGEA have made that a much more intuitive process for the dev team. Of course, it depends on whether or not the dev mentalities of engines like Unity and Quest3D or DX Studio match those of Torque, too. Some might. Others may not.
On DarkBasic Pro:
I noticed that there was a comment here about using editors supplied with DBP. DBP actually doesn't come with any editors other than the source editor since it is a BASIC-derived language that is oriented towards DirectX graphical application development. There are a number of third-party editors for providing scene management and such, and a number of their add-ons add basic functionality according to the add on (say their lightmapping add-on). But there is not an official world editor for DPB. Part of the mentality, as I understand it, is that they provide a language which the team will then create an editing environment specific to their game (if it even requires one).
@Jeramy
Quote:
They actually email you back within hours of submitting a question, while here at GG I haven't gotten a response back to 3 emails sent days ago from your support webpage
I both responded to you minutes after getting your e-mail and issued you a refund for Overlord because it was incompatible with your hosting solution. That is the only e-mail I've received from you. Unity has pretty good support time, though I've rarely had to use it. It has usually been either the same day or up to two days later.
Also, I would look strongly at the licensing for publication of any engine that provides low-cost prototyping alternatives. If it falls within the traditional publishing scheme, your team may be lucky if any of the IP ends up belonging to you in the future. Especially if you have to go through a mainstream publisher to purchase the final license at a huge cost (assuming they bite).
| James Brad Barnette (Apr 08, 2008 at 20:09 GMT) |
Silicon Knights law suite had nothing to do with tools. It had to do with not recieveing what they had purchased in the time frame that they had a contract to recieve it. It was not that it didn't exist it was that Epic was focused on other things namely getting their own title out the door.
| Jeramy79 (Apr 08, 2008 at 22:41 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
I posted that way before I contacted you about overlord. The other three emails were sent using GGs website support page, and I never heard anything back. I then sent another email using the buisness developers email on your contact page. Still didn't receive a response.
| David Blake (Apr 09, 2008 at 03:44 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Joe Bird (Apr 11, 2008 at 02:47 GMT) |
Just to clarify, I was not implying that anyone could model in Unity3D. When I compared Unity3D and others to DCC apps it was mostly a comparison to Maya and how it is utilized by the movie industry, which has a robust SDK that allows developers to create tools and plug-ins for it and attach renderers. I guess you could describe Maya as a "World Editor" for pre-rendered environments instead of real-time environments. Maybe now you can see what I mean about future engines working like todays DCC apps, except instead of hitting the "render" button you hit the "play" button.
| James Brad Barnette (Apr 11, 2008 at 12:33 GMT) |
| David Blake (Apr 11, 2008 at 13:48 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
@Joe Bird
I didn't mean you specifically when it came to the content creation in Unity idea. I've seen it several places, and when reading through the responses to the topic, it seemed on the verge of coming out once again, that "Unity is a one-stop-shop" argument that breaks down when people actually use it. It's a great engine with a wonderful artpath, but it doesn't have an integrated art package which seems to be something that people *really* desire (and I'm sure why Conitec has included MED and WED for years as well as why DX Studio included it directly in the engine). I knew where you were coming from, though. It does have ease-of-use with a number of art packages, though, which is very, very sweet.
| Joe Bird (Apr 11, 2008 at 15:16 GMT) |
The technique you describe is great for getting a visual layout of your level down prior to importing and testing it in the engine. This process is extremely time consuming, especially when it comes to testing and fixing bugs after pathfinding, physics, and scripts have been added. Also, once you get to texturing and adding shaders, what you see in your DCC app is not always what you see in the game.
Inefficiency kills indie games because time is money and we do not have much of either to start with. In 2006 I did a prototype on a decentralized five person team using the technique you described. If you are not all working in the same office the turnaround for a level can be horrendous. Passing that thing around between artist, designer, tester, and graphics programmer, while waiting for needed tools from the tools programmer. It gets costly.
Newer workflows are much more efficient. For example, imagine laying your level out visually then immediately walking through it for instant feedback. Bake in a path finding grid, drop in some NPCs and test. Add some physics objects then kick them around. Assign some scripts to your NPCs and run them while fixing any bugs in real-time, continually iterating through the development of your level through an interface much like any DCC app out there. All that while the other team members are logged into your level helping you, testing, and providing feedback from all over the world using voice-chat. Watch your productivity skyrocket.
Sure, an engine like that costs a premium, but it exists and I suspect other developers will continue to move towards this type of toolset.
| James Brad Barnette (Apr 11, 2008 at 18:31 GMT) |
Honestly the best editor that I have found recently is the Sandbox2 for Crysis. The road and path tools are just the slickest thing I have ever seen.
| Jeramy79 (Apr 12, 2008 at 02:46 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| James Brad Barnette (Apr 12, 2008 at 14:07 GMT) |
| David Blake (Apr 14, 2008 at 16:29 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Chad Kilgore (Apr 14, 2008 at 17:52 GMT) |
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