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Plan for Ben Garney

Name:	Ben Garney
Date Posted:	Nov 04, 2005
Rating:	3.3 out of 5
Public:	YES
Comments:	YES
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Profile Page:	View profile page for Ben Garney

Blog post

Another day, another plan... 1.4 is imminent.

Torque Developer Network

Hopefully by now you've had a chance to check out TDN (tdn.garagegames.com - check it out!). It's been growing since the start of the SDK owner's preview - we're up to 51,104 page views and 2275 edits. Over 1200 of you have logged in and tried it out. Only a tiny fraction of the numbers we'll see once we leave beta, I'm sure. ;)

Quick note - if you tried it earlier and had login problems, give it another try - should be working much more reliably now.

So, a brief summary of where TDN is now and where we're going. Right now we're collecting content - there have been some very cool instances of people from the community stepping up and writing awesome content, and we also make sure to post our own notes up there. Stephen Zepp teaches portions of Torque Boot Camps from content he's contributed to TDN. We also have some people who will start seriously organizing and creating content soon. Our initial push on this unfortunately got crippled a bit due to time constraints around high priority projects like Marble Blast Ultra on the 360, and getting TGE 1.4 out the door, but we're working on making sure that TDN keeps getting a lot of love.

On the subject of love for TDN, there've been some changes to the login code so that it ought to work better for everyone. I've also done some feature enhancements, and have some more to come - tools to help organize and find content on the wiki. Also, Elixir, a database-powered DOxygen replacement that Tom Bampton has been working on, will become our new source code reference - that should be going into beta sometime after 1.4 launches.

You might be curious about the Marble Blast shot on the left. It's just there so I seem cooler. (And some improvements from MBU are making it back into TSE and TGE... So there! It should be there! :P)

Torque 1.4: It cometh!

Speaking of launching, 1.4 is imminent. We're basically in code freeze at this point, working on getting the marketing side ready, getting the demos and installers updated, built, and tested. Paul & Ron are hard at work getting their respective platforms ready to go, while I'm working with Benjamin Bradley and Chris Calef to get the feature demo updated, as well as fixing any last minute core issues that come up.

There are two big things I want to ask of the community to help with on the 1.4 launch. First, we need some fresh testimonials on GarageGames and DevMaster. The ones that are up there are positive but they're getting kinda old - I've been seeing some of them for two or three years now! Some fresh new ones would be super cool - I know that there are new people out there using Torque, and that some of them are having positive experiences. :)

Also, if you'd like some free love for your project, we're looking for good, recent Torque project screenshots - if it's of something that's new in 1.4, that would be especially good, but anything that's awesome looking and recent would be very handy. We'd be using these shots in ads, pamphlets, IOTD, in the feature demo, and anywhere else we need cool screenshots to show off Torque. Just send links to your screenshots to Benjamin Bradley. Shots with the Lighting Kit look particularly cool. ;)

We're really wanting to make a splash with 1.4 - it's grown from an incremental quarterly update to a pretty impressive set of all around upgrades to Torque. Unicode/international support, video playback, better editors, console refactoring, huge Mac improvements, a new version of map2dif, and over two hundred other feature enhancements. There've been contributions from people giving back to the community, as well as contracts and bounties that have given us a lot of cool new features.

So to everyone who's made 1.4 possible - thank you, and see you on the other side. :)

Recent Blog Posts

List:	12/19/08 - Blast From The Past: Blitz3D Models in Torque 12/04/08 - Blockland Physics 09/22/08 - Austin GDC Talks: Robust Efficient Networking and Flash MMOs 05/30/08 - Next Big Thing 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)

Submit your own resources!

Tom Bampton (Nov 04, 2005 at 22:40 GMT)

Sweet :)

Jay Barnson (Nov 04, 2005 at 23:01 GMT)

So is the lighting kit updated and all ready to go for 1.4? Anyone know?

Martin Askestad (Nov 04, 2005 at 23:19 GMT)

The latest version of Lighting Pack should work with 1.4, according to the documentation.

Since TGE 1.4 is close to compleation, does this mean that there will be a "bigger" update to TSE soon??

Jesse (Midhir) Liles (Nov 04, 2005 at 23:35 GMT)

The engine changes in the lighting pack work in 1.4, however the .sgo files being version 33 .dso files will not load in 1.4rc2, because it requires version 35 .dso files. I can't say for sure whether the scripts work but they probably only will when TLK 1.4 gets released.

Ben Garney (Nov 05, 2005 at 00:26 GMT)

The 3rd party developers are all updating to the latest 1.4 codebase... We definitely want to make sure this goes smoothly for everyone. Official 1.4 compatible releases of packs may lag a little bit, of course. (We can only launch one thing at a time. :)

Brian Wells (Nov 05, 2005 at 01:40 GMT)

If I had a womb, I would bare your first born Ben!
Ughhhhh I mean good work :)

Rubes (Nov 05, 2005 at 03:44 GMT)

Huge Mac improvements....mmmmmm.....

Vernon Finch (Nov 05, 2005 at 04:46 GMT)

Ah good to hear the login issues have been sorted. I was amped for TDN, but when I finally got some free time, I found it to frustrating to use as it would kick you out every 2-3 page loads.

Whats the second picture of? An irc log?

Josh "GimpMaster" Hintze (Nov 05, 2005 at 07:06 GMT)

i think its the feature list of 1.4

Ben Garney (Nov 05, 2005 at 07:16 GMT)

It's maybe 60% of all the enhancements we've put in. I brought it along from an older .plan cuz I'm fond of it. ;)

David Montgomery-Blake (Nov 05, 2005 at 07:39 GMT)

Fun. Now I'll have all kinds of things I should have done a while ago left to do. Shakes fist.

Quote:
I would bare your first born Ben!

Run. Now. With your disrobed child.

Dreamer (Nov 05, 2005 at 08:36 GMT)

As always, I need to ask, what is meant by imminent? Today, Tommorow, in a week, a month, more?
Also does this 1.4 compile under GCC4, because the CVS I downloaded last night doesn't even come close to compiling under GCC4.

Anyways, great work but please don't forget about us loyal linux users.

Ben Garney (Nov 05, 2005 at 09:03 GMT)

Imminent - "About to occur; impending."

We have a firm policy of not giving out dates or time estimates (beyond the loosesst of numbers). With so many projects going on, and the number of variables in a big project like a Torque release, a day can quickly turn into a month or vice versa. So you can ask all you want, but I won't give you any answer but the one I've already done. I'm sure you can understand - we don't want to mislead others (or ourselves) with over eager or too conservative times. So it's better to just give status updates and let things go as they will. :)

I believe Ron has some fixes to get things working better under Linux, and of course, we compile under XCode 2.1, which uses GCC4, so if there are issues, I doubt it's anything in the core code that's causing it.

Toby W. Allen (Nov 05, 2005 at 11:03 GMT)

Ben,
Can you make the default 1.4 splash have two images? Makes sense to use two as you will always need your companies and GG's.

Also could you make TND's cookies last longer, as signing in all the time is a pain.

Thanks and I can't wait for 1.4, I've been working with it already and I'm loving it!

Toby.

Ramen-sama (Nov 05, 2005 at 13:46 GMT)

ugh, now i can't login to TDN at all... when i click the login link it sends me strait to http://www.garagegames.com/

going to http://tdn.garagegames.com and logging in worked....but the second link up there didn't let me log in. weird
Edited on Nov 05, 2005 13:47 GMT

Matt Huston (Nov 07, 2005 at 00:05 GMT)

Sounds cool, I haven't been around much lately. Redownloading Torque onto my computer and was suprised that version 1.4 hasn't come out yet. Glad to know it is really really close :)

Jonathan Rose (Nov 07, 2005 at 20:26 GMT)

Sweet Jesus TDN is sweet.
On a side note, could we get a feature list that is actually... readable?

Sikosis (Nov 08, 2005 at 00:09 GMT) Resource Rating: 4

Excellent new Ben. This is a great resource.

Steven Peterson (Nov 10, 2005 at 04:06 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Hey, this is all great news! Can't wait to see 1.4!! :-)

TDN cookies are still annoyingly short, and even though I'm logged in on GG, if I hit a TDN link I have to hit the "login" button, even though it doesn't ask for validation.

Here's my link to some screenshots you can use:
I've never been one for following instructions, and it sounds like you have a lot of email anyways.. SO, there's two TGE shots in my gallery that i'm particularly fond of and I'm sure more will appear soon. If you like them, help yourself. If you need 1024x768's let me know, i have them offline.

Terms of Use are:
- If you use them, please show some lovin' to the "contact me" box on my page, just so I know.
- Thats it.

My ScreenShot Gallery

Britton LaRoche (Nov 21, 2005 at 03:40 GMT)

Hey Ben,

I've downloaded the 1.4 beta from CVS and I'm running into some build issues with the TBE resource. I'll post the torque make file for it when I'm finished. Thought you might like some feedback.

www.garagegames.com/blogs/16018/9223

Thanks,

Britton
Edited on Nov 21, 2005 03:40 GMT

Aaron Danks (Dec 14, 2005 at 05:09 GMT)

I tried to post a new testimonial, as I am one of the 'new users' you mentioned... but the page does not work :)

When you submit the form, it just reloads the same page again.

I guess thats why the testimoninals are so old hehe ;)

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