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TGEForest Free Release

Name:	Ben Garney
Date Posted:	Oct 27, 2007
Rating:	5.0 out of 5
Public:	YES
Comments:	YES
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Profile Page:	View profile page for Ben Garney

Blog post

Hey guys,

I mentioned this to one or two people at IGC and I found myself with a spare weekend, so here it goes...

I'm releasing the Forest Kit, now renamed TGEForest, for free, to all TGE licensees. Do with it what you will. It comes with no warranty and few restrictions - use it how you like, but please give credit and do not resell it as your own. If you want/need support or features, let me know (but be aware my time is limited).

You can read some previous .plans about my forest work here and here. Things have come a long way in the past few years - it's sort of fun to take a glance back into the mists of time... :)

Links:
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TGEForest/Installation
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TGEForest/Manual

Note that this code is entirely distinct from what Tom Spilman demoed at last year's GDC - his work is for Torque Advanced and integrates SpeedTree. This is just for TGE, although the code is accessible to Torque Advanced owners as well. Please don't get them confused. :)

Everything you need to know should be on the wiki article, including the download link.

Please post code questions in this forum thread. General questions can go here in the blog.

This code is basically release-ready. It's been tested but it never quite (due to deals with SpeedTree and such) made it out the door. The docs on the wiki should be enough to get you going. The install process is fairly well documented, although I had to make a few last-minute changes to play nice against 1.5.2 (since it includes many Lighting Kit related changes).

Enjoy! Go make something cool from this. :)

Recent Blog Posts

List:	02/12/08 - Come See Me At GDC 2008! 10/27/07 - TGEForest Free Release 10/13/07 - Polysoup Free (And IGC) 01/26/07 - Speaking and Running Into Walls (Collision Fix) 12/25/06 - Merry Christmas, Community - Poly Soup 10/05/06 - Community Weekend (Not-IGC) 06/13/06 - Status Update on Atlas! (also, Ben On Vacation) 02/16/06 - GDC & Forest Pack Tech Preview

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Ian Roach (Oct 27, 2007 at 08:59 GMT)

wow very generous, thanks ben

Mike Rowley (Oct 27, 2007 at 09:15 GMT)

That's awesome. Thanks Ben.

Stephan (viKKing) Bondier (Oct 27, 2007 at 09:30 GMT)

hurrah! thanks a lot Ben.

Alienforce (Oct 27, 2007 at 09:46 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Thanks Ben!

Martin Schultz (Oct 27, 2007 at 10:02 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Woaaaah!!! What a perfect timing. Thanks a lot Ben, that's really awesome.

Ben Garney (Oct 27, 2007 at 10:39 GMT)

You're welcome! Make something cool with it please! :)

PS - the wiki might be slightly out of date. I'll check on it tomorrow sometime, and of course, I'll be monitoring this .plan and the forum thread, too.

Christian S (Oct 27, 2007 at 11:17 GMT)

As they say... Whoot ^^

Nice move Ben :)

And for nice usage, we sure hope so.

Dave Young (Oct 27, 2007 at 12:11 GMT)

*blinks* to make sure he put his contacts in correctly. woot~!

bank (Oct 27, 2007 at 12:26 GMT)

This is great! Thanks Ben!
Now I need to find some time to play with it :)

Matt Huston (Oct 27, 2007 at 13:25 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Great Ben, thanks for releasing it with no extra costs involved.

Hans Cremers (Oct 27, 2007 at 14:12 GMT)

Useful!

Thanks a lot.

David Blake (Oct 27, 2007 at 15:19 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Very, very sweet!

Thak (Oct 27, 2007 at 15:20 GMT)

Thanks Ben, great stuff!

James (Oct 27, 2007 at 16:25 GMT)

You Sir, are a Saint.
Okay, a REALLY nice guy :)

Thanks Ben, really appreciate this.

Dave Young (Oct 27, 2007 at 16:41 GMT)

Wanted to say that this goes right in, following the changes in the installation guide.

Derry Bryson (Oct 27, 2007 at 20:15 GMT)

Wow! Thanks!

Bobby Leighton (Oct 27, 2007 at 21:52 GMT)

This is awesome:) Thank you, I'm going to try to get this working in TEGA as well, there is no problem with that right I own both:)

Ben Garney (Oct 27, 2007 at 22:02 GMT)

Feel free to give it a try. Do be aware that Tom Spilman has a great version (with optional SpeedTree integration) in the works, so it would be polite to check with him before going super far in that direction.

Johnny Hill (Oct 28, 2007 at 01:14 GMT)

Thank You :)

Chris Calef (Oct 28, 2007 at 01:47 GMT)

Nice one, Ben!

Bobby Leighton (Oct 28, 2007 at 02:58 GMT)

I'll just wait for his, he does a great job, thanks for the quick answer though:) And again, great job i tried this in TGE, ill have to show this to a couple of professors @ Devry U, they always like to see stuff from this community;)

Ben Garney (Oct 28, 2007 at 06:40 GMT)

@Bobby: Well, technically... "community" usually refers to stuff that the very able GG community members do, while I'm actually a long-time GG employee. :) But I'm glad you like it - and I'd be excited to hear what the Devry profs think of it!

(PS - I was totally a community member before I was an employee. GG community rocks! ;)
Edited on Oct 28, 2007 06:41 GMT

Stephen Beck (Oct 28, 2007 at 15:34 GMT)

Yeah! Christmas came early this year! Can't wait to try this out!

Claude-Alain Fournier (Oct 28, 2007 at 21:03 GMT)

I need to check this and see if I can merge some code with my own forest ressource (TGEA) and see what I can salvage in both.

Chris \"C2\" Byars (Oct 28, 2007 at 23:55 GMT)

Damn, I thought this was supposed to focus on TGEA, then it would be supported in TGE.
Edited on Oct 28, 2007 23:58 GMT

Ben Garney (Oct 29, 2007 at 00:24 GMT)

@Chris - you're probably thinking of Tom Spilman's forest pack. He took this code and rewrote it for TGEA. You should mail him and suggest he release his stuff. :)

Chris \"C2\" Byars (Oct 29, 2007 at 02:48 GMT)

Ahhhh...

Chris \"C2\" Byars (Oct 29, 2007 at 13:20 GMT)

For those of us with TGEA

Tom Spilman:

Quote:
The ForestKit will be shipping, but I don't have a firm date other than as
soon as I get time to finish some remaining bugs and issues. I'm glad Ben
posted the old stuff as it gives TGE people a good solution that i do not
have time to provide.

I hope to be posting something firm about all this in the next few days.

Edited on Oct 29, 2007 13:28 GMT

Britt Scott (Oct 29, 2007 at 14:15 GMT)

Thanks for all the hard work!!!

Corey Punches (Oct 29, 2007 at 16:11 GMT)

Thanks so much for this Ben!

Ben Acord (Nov 02, 2007 at 02:05 GMT)

I can't see the forest for all these dang trees! Thanks Ben!

Jay Moore (Nov 02, 2007 at 18:31 GMT)

I'll have to take back all the things I said about "never shipping" and buy Ben a beer (probably rootbeer) to celebrate!

Ben Garney (Nov 05, 2007 at 02:05 GMT)

Hey guys,

There were some bugs in lighting and tree placement in the code drop. I have posted some fixes in the thread, so if you are encountering issues, head over there and help test my fixes! :)

Once I've fully fixed these issues I'll be releasing an updated code drop.

Ben

Jean-Pierre Cuerrier (Nov 08, 2007 at 06:52 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

How did I miss this post. WOW! Thank you soooooooooo much!

RT

Flybynight Studios (Dec 05, 2007 at 21:59 GMT)

Amazing resource Ben. Thank you for sharing this with us poor folks. I'm going to try and roll this in this weekend. Look super.

Much +karma to you :)

Mark

Josh Moore (Dec 12, 2007 at 01:10 GMT)

Man that's kickass of you to release all of your hard work on the Tree Pack to the whole community. Great work there Ben, I hope to get a go at this stuff sooner rather than late.

Big Thanks Again, Josh

Shon Gale (Feb 09, 2008 at 21:29 GMT)

Hello out there. I have implemented all of the code and tried to load the default declaration in the mission file, but keep getting this error: Missing file: newForest..cs! note the 2 periods, I even named the script file newForest..cs. As a result I am getting nothing. Anybody got any ideas what I am doing wrong. Greatly appreciate any help.

J (Feb 21, 2008 at 14:22 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

@Shon
I get that newForest..cs too. But everything works.
The only thing I messed up on was making sure my tree files and terrain texture file is pointing to actual trees and textures I have in my game, in newForest.cs file. Then make sure you have your terrain painted with the appropriate texture to give you your trees. Might have to paint it then restart your mission.
Also, Ben says in the manual that he set the default number of trees to 0, might have to change that in the mission file. Hope that helped.

Very sweet resource, exactly what I needed for my RPG...Thank you very much for your hard work Ben! Greatly Greatly appreciated!

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