Big Update to TGEA on the way!

Submit your own resources!

David Blake   (Jan 18, 2008 at 22:45 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

VERY, VERY Good news!

Jeff Johnston   (Jan 18, 2008 at 22:52 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Spectacular! Sounds awesome!

Thanks for all the hard work.

Cappaucino   (Jan 18, 2008 at 22:55 GMT)

AMAZ-ING! Nuff Said!

Stefan *Shaderman* Greven   (Jan 18, 2008 at 22:58 GMT)

We love you!

Ben Acord   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:04 GMT)

I confess this post has gotten me to seriously consider upgrading to TGEA.

Andrew Brady   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:05 GMT)

nice work guys

Thomas Oliver   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:06 GMT)

Multiple legacy Terrain tiles with editor support.. very nice addition.
Amazing list of features there and can not wait to see it all in action.

Matt Kronyak   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:30 GMT)

Great work. Definitely looking forward to this.

Stefan Lundmark   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:34 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

I never thought I would see this happen.

The new documentation and the clipmapper for legacy looks really really sweet!

Edward Smith   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:41 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Ah this is great news, I'm very happy to hear these improvements are coming to TGEA :-).

The new SFX system I hope will be fantastic, Sound has been a bit disappointing for Torque in the past.

Very exciting!
Edited on Jan 18, 2008 23:41 GMT

Mark   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:43 GMT)

Love it

Rubes   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:51 GMT)

Does that mean that OpenGL and Mac support are planned?

Matt Fairfax   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:55 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

They are not currently planned for TGEA.

Novack   (Jan 18, 2008 at 23:57 GMT)

Congratulations on the work done.

Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314)   (Jan 19, 2008 at 00:33 GMT)

Holy monkeys!
That pretty much seals the deal on what engine to use for my next school projects.

Rubes   (Jan 19, 2008 at 01:05 GMT)

@Matt: Or Juggernaut?

Mike Rowley   (Jan 19, 2008 at 01:07 GMT)

Words cannot discribe the excitement. :) Great job guys. :-)

Matt Fairfax   (Jan 19, 2008 at 01:11 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Rubes,
Sorry...no plans for Juggernaut. OpenGL and Mac support is still tentatively planned for our fully componetized version of Torque (what we called Torque 2 at IGC...that name may change).

Rubes   (Jan 19, 2008 at 01:37 GMT)

Sigh...oh well, good luck with everything. Suppose I'll be looking at Unity after this project...

Adam Beer   (Jan 19, 2008 at 01:42 GMT)

Sweet!! Can you give any hints as to whether motion blur will be added in this update? It is a very very hot topic for TGEA users and it would be nice if you guys released it to the community.

Sparkling   (Jan 19, 2008 at 02:10 GMT)

Ohhhh I'm LOVING this!

Especially this part!
10. Support for multiple legacy terrain tiles (including full editor support) - this should make building a paging terrain manager for massive environments a lot easier and will support realtime editing

And this part!
How much will this cost? This is a free update for TGEA owners. It doesn't get much better than that!

HOORRAYYY!!! Bring it on!

-Sparkling
http://www.visionsgame.com

Chris \"C2\" Byars   (Jan 19, 2008 at 02:10 GMT)

Holy shit! :)

Mark Dynna   (Jan 19, 2008 at 02:11 GMT)

Looks like I owe Stephen a muffin basket.

David J Weaver   (Jan 19, 2008 at 02:32 GMT)

Oh my god, this makes me want to cry... for JOY!! I'm insanely happy to see this news. WOW! Thank you guys so fricken much.

Morrie   (Jan 19, 2008 at 03:07 GMT)

Just a suggestion, how about putting the Immersive AI engine in it. That would just really top the cake.
Everything looks really nice though and this make me glad I bought TGEA. GG you guys do excellent work.

Eric Forhan   (Jan 19, 2008 at 03:08 GMT)

Very nice Matt. Thanks for the update. I hope it didn't take away from too much dev time. ;)

Andy Hawkins   (Jan 19, 2008 at 03:10 GMT)

Nice - glad to see you guys are listening to our concerns.

J.C. Smith   (Jan 19, 2008 at 03:40 GMT)

Very happy to see this.

T Squared   (Jan 19, 2008 at 05:13 GMT)

wow. amazing. i cant wait for this to come out :). haha i love how you guys decided to use mutiple terrain blocks to increase your the terrain size. hehe i think GG saw a few ppl doing that already :P. actually got it working, but very very buggy. :S

Just curious though. Im not too familiar with TGEA. but can you use higher res terrain textures then 256x256? I plan to still use the legacy terrain. but can you apply shaders such as normal maps with the legacy terrain? and how well does it perform is you set the block size down to 2~4 with this new update?
Edited on Jan 19, 2008 05:17 GMT

Kory James   (Jan 19, 2008 at 05:45 GMT)

This is great news, I was wondering if you have plans on implementing splitscreens like in Torque X3D?
so it would be easier to make some Co op games.

Thanks for your time and the great news.
Edited on Jan 19, 2008 05:58 GMT

Arcanor   (Jan 19, 2008 at 06:03 GMT)

Sounds great, if we can believe the hype. We're still waiting for OpenGL which was promised at least 4 years ago.

In the original post, Matt Fairfax says "Will this include OpenGL? Sadly, no, this update will not include OpenGL. All of the work we have done on OpenGL is still not ready for release." This seems to imply that it's still on the list and being worked on for TGEA.

Later on, Matt responds to a question about OpenGL and Mac support and says "They are not currently planned for TGEA."

So which is it? "Almost ready for release" to satisfy TGEA promises from long ago, or "never gonna happen"?

Tim Heldna   (Jan 19, 2008 at 06:18 GMT)

I haven't been around these parts for a while and I'm a little confused:

- What's the difference, if any, between Juggernaut and Torque 2?

- So rather than working on TGEA and TGE as separate products, GG will be rolling them into one? This will result in Juggernaut, an engine based off yet another engine(s) (primarily TGEA with parts of TGE rolled in) minus the bugs and with much needed improvements; which from a certain point of view is what TGEA was supposed to be in the first place?

- The ultimate goal of GG is to unify 3 engines (TGB, TGE and TGEA) into the one product?

Quote:

---

What you'll see:

All the features of TGEA 1.0.3 PLUS 99% of TGE 1.5.2 PLUS:

* 1. A brand new completely abstracted sound system (SFX) with a DirectSound and OpenAL implementation (credit to Tom Spilman).
* 2. Major reworks of GFX layers and the addition of a D3D8 layer
* 3. All of the rendering objects should now support fixed function fallbacks for non-shadered video cards
* 4. Introduction of the Project Generator - a system that automates generating up-to-date Visual Studio projects files based on which "modules" of code you want to include
* 5. Significant directory reorganizations with an eye towards making it easier to work with for both experienced and new users
* 6. A ton of bugfixes done by the internal development team as they worked towards a fully componentized version of Torque
* 7. Lots of refactoring and general code cleanup
* 8. Port of some of the missing TGE classes including Lightning, fxShapeReplicator, and RigidShape
* 9. The famous Ben Garney's OPCODE polysoup collision implementation
* 10. Support for multiple legacy terrain tiles (including full editor support) - this should make building a paging terrain manager for massive environments a lot easier and will support realtime editing

---

With all due respect, this is what TGEA should have been in the first place. Considering its (TGEA's) development commenced some time in 2004, and it's now 2008, and this plan details yet another attempt to finally get it right, what has changed with GG that would convince me to loose my skepticism? InstantAction/IAC?

James Dunlap   (Jan 19, 2008 at 06:27 GMT)

You probably all already know strongly how I feel about OpenGL support. But I've caused enough trouble and I intend to give credit where credit is due. Regardless how many of us feel regarding OpenGL etc., this is a step in the right direction, this is GREAT news, and most of all this is not the place to kvetch about things GG hasn't gotten done. So lets be glad that this is getting done ;)

I have a great deal of respect for Matt as he has worked very hard to help those of us using Constructor.

My many thanks to Matt Fairfax, David Blake, and everyone who has worked hard to make this come about.
Edited on Jan 19, 2008 06:32 GMT

Jeremy Alessi   (Jan 19, 2008 at 06:53 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Totally awesome! I'm already in love with TGEA (and I can't wait to finally show what I've been working on) but by adding in a lot of the missing functionality from TGE 1.5.2 and fixing a few bugs it's going to be amazing. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is reworking all my code into the new build ... eeek!

Christian S   (Jan 19, 2008 at 08:48 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

Thanks for the heads up Matt, it's nice to see that there is in fact still work going on regarding TGEA!

Btw, you did mention fxShapeReplicator, RigidShape, and used the phrase performance tweaks.
Does this, combined with the utter silence fromthe forest project Tom Spilman once showed, by any chance mean that forests are/could be included ?

Thak   (Jan 19, 2008 at 09:17 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Schweet Schtuff Guys :D

Gareth Fouche   (Jan 19, 2008 at 09:24 GMT)

Wow! You just made it a lot harder for me to justify not porting my project over to TGEA.

And I'm loving that tantalizing hint of the gui editor upgrades I see on that terrain shot.
Edited on Jan 19, 2008 09:25 GMT

asmaloney (Andy)   (Jan 19, 2008 at 09:45 GMT)

@Tim:

Quote:

---

what has changed with GG that would convince me to loose my skepticism?

---

The only thing I can offer you is that the core engine development is actually being managed now. Clark Fagot heads up the core team of Brian Richardson, Alex Scarborough, and me - sprinkle in a little Pat Wilson and others as required. We've been working on it full time for many months now and this TGEA update is derived from some of the work we've been doing.
Edited on Jan 19, 2008 10:35 GMT

metalliandy   (Jan 19, 2008 at 09:54 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

I just chocked on my coffee!

nice job :)

Tim Heldna   (Jan 19, 2008 at 11:49 GMT)

@ asmaloney (Andy)

I truly hope that this is the step in the right direction I've been waiting for...

Gary Preston   (Jan 19, 2008 at 12:35 GMT)

Great work :)

JungHyuck Yang   (Jan 19, 2008 at 12:41 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Unreleased demos mentioned above are what I looking forward to see. Great!

James Laker (BurNinG)   (Jan 19, 2008 at 13:24 GMT)

Frack me... I'm speechless!

eb   (Jan 19, 2008 at 14:10 GMT)

Nice to see all of this information Matt.
- I hope that it holds more water than "hype for GDC". (meaning that we get it before Xmas) :D

Steve Nolet   (Jan 19, 2008 at 14:40 GMT)

Great work guys :D !

Michael Swanson   (Jan 19, 2008 at 15:05 GMT)

Good news, hopefully it will be out soon.

Quote:

---

10. Support for multiple legacy terrain tiles (including full editor support) - this should make building a paging terrain manager for massive environments a lot easier and will support realtime editing

---

Does this mean that Atlas will no longer be supported/updated?
Edited on Jan 19, 2008 15:07 GMT

Edward   (Jan 19, 2008 at 15:13 GMT)

How compatible are the 2 engine.. And its does seen that essentially that GG is rolling up the 3 products to A) reduce the ammount of support needed to give attention to its other products and B) give us something that was indeed promised . As everything i have read indicated that They have been trying to fix TGEA for a while. Somewhere i think Jeffs Fausts merging his AFX work with TGEA has had something to do with alot of this(read the AFX blogs for those that arent sure about the fixes he had to make the get AFX to work on TGEA, remarkably similar). Which leads to the next question. If This is Torque JuggerNaught. What is T2 going to consist of? This Juggernaut is apparently geared for IAC... will it work standard with Single/multiplayer codes? I mean how drastic is the c++ code changes. Will it render the current packs and work that folks have upgraded to TGEA 1.03 and TGE 1.5.2 no longer valid?
Edited on Jan 19, 2008 15:14 GMT

Joe Maruschak   (Jan 19, 2008 at 16:28 GMT)

for clarification purposes.

Juggernaut was an internal initiative that was start some time ago to merge the core functionality of our 3 main engines (TGE, TGB, and TGEA)..

with the growth of our QA department and our expansion of initiatives into improving the documentation, we were finding that we were spending a lot of time planning and tracking redundant issues.. issues that existed in all 3 engines.. and we are talking about just the overhead of merging changes and testing back and forth between the engines.

Juggernaut, and the TGEA version that is being worked on now is the result of this work. It is mostly compatible with previous versions of TGE and TGEA, using the ShapeBase based game object classes. This is the version of the Engine that we used internally for the games we are working on internally for release on the Instant Action website.

T2 is the ongoing development of this Engine. The ongoing development is mostly based upon the move to the fully componentized game classes (prototyped in dRacer, design refined in Torque X). We are moving this direction because it will allow us to develop games much quicker, and for end users, it will make for a much more flexible engine (which is easier for us to support and update).

Changes made in T2 that are applicable to Juggernaut will be moved back, and these changes will be used to update existing engines if the updates are determined to be beneficial (meaning bug fixes and performance enhancements).

What you see here is the upgrade of TGEA to Juggernaut. The work put into this represents many months of effort by many people, and represents the latest changes that we ourselves have been working with to get a bunch of games ready to ship.

We have not been as transparent about it as most would prefer, but this is primarily because those working on this have been head down actually making it happen and not spending time talking about what we planned.. we were just executing on the plan. alot of which consisted of very non-sexy things like:

5. Significant directory reorganizations with an eye towards making it easier to work with for both experienced and new users

6. A ton of bugfixes done by the internal development team

7. Lots of refactoring and general code cleanup

which does not make for really good blog posts.

At the IGC this year, Clark Fagot and Justin Dujardin gave a presentation on where we were going, and if the slides for that presentation are available, it would be good to have those up here (if they are not already posted in someones previous blog).

I want to reiterate, that what you are seeing here is the result of many people over the last several months.

the merger with IAC has not decreased our focus on the tech, it has actually allowed us to expand the initiative to move much more quickly, and we actually have two teams working on this.. one, the engine team, is part of the game studio, is focused on getting the tech done and solid for use is in production game products.. and the product team, which is solely focused on handling the issues of preparing what we have produced into a shipping product for use by you guys.. this includes documentation, community support, sheperding the product through testing, etc.

hopefully this helps to clarify and not add additional confusion to this thread.

Gary "ChunkyKs" Briggs   (Jan 19, 2008 at 16:52 GMT)

Quote:

---

Sorry...no plans for Juggernaut. OpenGL and Mac support is still tentatively planned for our fully componetized version of Torque (what we called Torque 2 at IGC...that name may change).

---

That's not even as positive as it was when TSE was in development. The fact that linux support [think "dedicated servers", let alone clients] isn't even considered anymore means I'm pretty glad I started using Ogre and a hotchpotch of other cross platform tools, instead :-/

Gary (-;

Michael Hense   (Jan 19, 2008 at 17:14 GMT)

good news indeed... and a verrrry pleasant and unexpected surprise i might add...

any chance that some animated water (ala tge) might find its way into the new code?

--Mike
Edited on Jan 19, 2008 17:26 GMT

Freeze   (Jan 19, 2008 at 19:02 GMT)

Very Good News!! ;) Looking forward to the update.

Peter Kojesta   (Jan 19, 2008 at 20:02 GMT)

Will there be an Exis credit screen in Tim's Forge demo, for the weapon model ?

Timothy Aste   (Jan 19, 2008 at 20:31 GMT)

I should clarify, the weapon model in those pictures was placeholder from the Legions 2006 TSE tech demo. A separate weapon model will be included with these demos.

Picasso   (Jan 19, 2008 at 20:53 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Awesome

Casey Weidner   (Jan 19, 2008 at 21:12 GMT)

Bout time! i've been wanting to update the sound code but i knew that it was being worked on! Very excelent update indead!

Cant wait to get my hands on this code

Charlie L   (Jan 19, 2008 at 21:19 GMT)

All sounds great!
A question: is there any chance for something like polysoup collision for vehicles? IMHO the out-of-the-box vehicle collision is so crude it would need tons of rewriting for a commercial product. A shame when most other TGEA features are so impressive. A better vehicle collision algorithm would be the missing piece of the puzzle :) Either way, Juggernaut seems like a great iteration!
Edited on Jan 20, 2008 03:17 GMT

Mikael Pettersson   (Jan 20, 2008 at 03:29 GMT)

well .. I'm stunned.. keep up the great work.

Oh ...and give everyone on the team a cookie, they deserve it.

Alexander "taualex" Gaevoy   (Jan 20, 2008 at 05:38 GMT)

No OpenGL/Mac support ---> real show-stoper :(

C'mon guys, it does not take 4 years to fix 100 bugs... and add few functions

Pat Wilson   (Jan 20, 2008 at 06:22 GMT)

This .plan makes me nostalgic.

Blake Drolson   (Jan 20, 2008 at 07:32 GMT)

Wow thats looks like a huge improvement in the engine, and super work. I look forward to checking it out when released :). Its too bad about the lack of mac/opengl support though, as it rules out the engine for some projects, no matter how much great work you do.

Andrea   (Jan 20, 2008 at 16:07 GMT)

YEAHHHH

GREAT NEWS !!!

I want it !!!!

:-P

Luigi Rosso   (Jan 20, 2008 at 18:12 GMT)

Sounds like a lot of the core of the engine structure will change with this release. How greatly will this affect projects that are in development with TGEA 1.0.3? Any sense of the amount of effort that will be needed to port existing projects? I understand this greatly depends on the amount of modification/changes in each specific project but any kind of information you could provide would help!

Also, what's the difference in resolution between legacy tge terrain and the new clipmap enhanced legacy terrain? Any chance of seeing a screenshot specifically evidencing the gain?

This is all great news, hoping to see something soon so we can get our projects up to speed with this new release.

Bobby Leighton   (Jan 21, 2008 at 00:03 GMT)

I have to ask, because I don't use MAC's so i have to know why anyone would want to program or develop games on a MAC? Is there some sort of advantage...dosnt seem to be any but like i said i don't know..any MAC users out there that can give me a good answer or two would be great, i dont plan on buying a MAC or even porting anygame im working on to the MAC platform, but mayby if i can see that MAC's are more than just a headache I might consider it..they seem ok if you are and end user Ive heard.., not sure why that is though:)hmmm....

H.W. Kim   (Jan 21, 2008 at 01:10 GMT)

Quote:

---

All the features of TGEA 1.0.3 PLUS 99% of TGE 1.5.2 PLUS:

---

It sounds like that the Ben Garney's forest pack can be avaiable in new version of TGEA. I hope so. :-)
Edited on Jan 21, 2008 01:12 GMT

Guimo   (Jan 21, 2008 at 04:54 GMT)

Har Har!! Excellent timing!!! I was planning to start a project using TGE because I considered TGEA lacking in some fine details (like interaction with water) but now I have no objections. I really hope that this version includes fixes on buoyancy, splashes and the like that were missing in TGEA.

Now I can ask my wife for AFX as my birthday present :)

Luck!
Guimo

Guimo   (Jan 21, 2008 at 04:57 GMT)

And please please please... if you have some time left... try to create a solution for waves at shorelines ;)

Nicolas Buquet   (Jan 21, 2008 at 08:52 GMT)

"# 3. All of the rendering objects should now support fixed function fallbacks for non-shadered video cards."

Does it means that TGEA projects will run on GMA950/965 integrated chipsets ?

And, Mac (and so OpenGL) support is mandatory for me to start using this product.

Why is the Mac version so late ?

Nicolas Buquet
www.buquet-net.com/cv/
Edited on Jan 21, 2008 08:53 GMT

Syllus   (Jan 21, 2008 at 16:14 GMT)

Matt - On behalf of Black Skull Studios... WE LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

This is awesome news indeed! I cannot wait to work with this new version and I know that our artists are absolutely going to love the multi terrain tile support! Hopefully the port to this version will not be too painful, but it sounds like it will be well worth it even if it is. Thanks again for all the hard work and commitment you guys put into the independent community!

James Brad Barnette   (Jan 21, 2008 at 17:13 GMT)

@Nicolas:

In order for something to be late it must be planned and thus scheduled. MAC and OpenGL support have had Neither.

Gary "ChunkyKs" Briggs   (Jan 21, 2008 at 18:48 GMT)

Quote:

---

I have to ask, because I don't use MAC's so i have to know why anyone would want to program or develop games on a MAC?

---

Because mac users exist.
If you want to get a piece of that market, then you have to support mac development. A lot of developers here obviously want a piece of that market, and so TGEA is useless to them.

I could go on a half hour diatribe explaining in more detail, but that's what it comes down to.

Gary (-;
Edited on Jan 21, 2008 18:49 GMT

Gary "ChunkyKs" Briggs   (Jan 21, 2008 at 18:53 GMT)

Quote:

---

2. Major reworks of GFX layers and the addition of a D3D8 layer

---

I'm also curious about this. D3D8 is *old*. DirectX 10 [.1+] is where it's officially at, and TGEA is intended to be a shiny new next-gen engine.

What would be the reason for GG to invest time developing for D3D8 [a dwindling market of people unlikely to be playing next-gen games], when they could have invested that same time in an OpenGL layer that would run on linux, osx, and windows-machines-with-busted-d3d-drivers? Instead of opening up new markets, GG spends time on markets that are dying by design. :confused:

Gary (-;

Bobby Leighton   (Jan 21, 2008 at 21:44 GMT)

OpenGL and DirectX is merely a preference, or should be, i haven't seen a major reason why one is better than the other, ....i asked above perhaps you can answer what the big advantage of MAC or openGl is, because my neighbor has more problems with his MAC than I do with my PC or ever has...i really want to know a few opinions on this but facts would be great too:) i know I want an engine that supports old and new tech, and then Non-Mainstream computers and such later...

T Squared   (Jan 21, 2008 at 22:45 GMT)

OpenGL support will leave more opputunities for developing for Linux, or Mac. and more Importantly, development for the PS3. Unfortuantly. PS3 doesnt use normal OpenGL. they use OpenGL ES 2.0. so I think the reason they havnt spent much time developing an OpenGL or Mac version of TGEA is because 90% of the current market on Computer Games are on PC. Hence no reason to focus on that other 10%. And I think the reason why TGE is still popular, is because of the fact that it supports OpenGL/Mac Support, which i think Torque Wii is based on.
Edited on Jan 21, 2008 22:47 GMT

Guimo   (Jan 21, 2008 at 23:16 GMT)

I guess the D3D8 layer is meant for older videocard (preshader) support or mobo integrated video which cannot handle shaders that well. Remember that current GG objective is to target 'gap' games that will deliver using an internet browser and target the average player, not only core gamers.
I still think that the same idea could be managed by using D3D9 but maybe GG engineers didnt want to change or break the current D3D9 layer architecture just to add some features that might not be used in a shader based engine.
Besides, having a new layer is interesting, it shows that the GFX architecture in fact can be extended for new API support. Also I guess that in the process many features have been included and bugs have been fixed so now GFX is a more standarized interface which may eventually lead to a OGL solution. Who knows someone may start playing and create a SW renderer.

Luck!
Guimo

Kerry Lyon   (Jan 22, 2008 at 00:32 GMT)

I was wondering if 'tsstatic' shapes will be able to self shadow and cast shadows on other tsstatic shapes with this upgrade. I've been using polysoup collision in TGEA 1.0.3 and I definitely miss the lightmaps but it is great being able to model everything in max. Maybe I'll have to become more familiar with Max's render to texture function...

Frank Carney   (Jan 22, 2008 at 03:42 GMT)

No OpenGL and no Mac = no Linux
It makes me sad to see Torque moving away from OpenGL in particular because it IS the cross platform standard. Standards are what ensure future opportunities versus tying oneself down to one technology. The very fact that TGE has always been able to run on Mac and Linux is what has kept me here.

Some things to consider when it comes to technology:
1. Nearly every mobile phone will be running Linux is the next 5 years. I read this in a popular trade magazine for electronic design.
2. Microsoft has finally realized Linux is NOT going away. They are now profiting from Linux. This is a good thing for everyone.
3. Low end computers (regardless of having 3d accelerators) in foreign countries are and will be running Linux. This is a huge global market opportunity especially for 2d games and eventually 3d games. Just think if a game could be sold to 1 billion Asians at 1 dollar a piece. This will happen and soon.
4. Cost of entry in rapidly getting smaller and smaller. How many flash games are there? I am guessing hundreds of thousands at least. Maybe more.

Prediction:
In the next five years games for *nix based platforms (Linux, BSD, Mac) will be a hot market.

It just may not be on your PC, it may be a MMORPG played from your cell phone. The chips are coming, the operating system is ready, the door is about to open...

Bobby Leighton   (Jan 22, 2008 at 13:54 GMT)

"so I think the reason they haven't spent much time developing an OpenGL or Mac version of TGEA is because 90% of the current market on Computer Games are on PC."

I could not agree more, but Im sure that when GG is taking in more profits and get to a point where they can afford to throw in what the other 10% need they will, they seem good like that:)

David Blake   (Jan 22, 2008 at 17:51 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@James Dunlap
I wish I could take credit for this, but I had nothing to do with it other than moral support. And my morals are rather lacking, so I'm not sure how much support I gave!

@Bobby Leighton

Quote:

---

I have to ask, because I don't use MAC's so i have to know why anyone would want to program or develop games on a MAC? Is there some sort of advantage...dosnt seem to be any but like i said i don't know..any MAC users out there that can give me a good answer or two would be great, i dont plan on buying a MAC or even porting anygame im working on to the MAC platform, but mayby if i can see that MAC's are more than just a headache I might consider it..they seem ok if you are and end user Ive heard.., not sure why that is though:)hmmm....

---

Because the Mac market is very hungry for games, which makes it an excellent target market for indies. It can be a negligible market for shelf targeting publishers since there is relatively no shelf-space to Mac versions (though Blizzard has done extremely well with their Mac/PC hybrids). But it is an excellent target market for Indies. If you're making a game as a pitch-title for EA, then you're probably not going to benefit much from it, but if you are relying on portals and individual web sales, it can be huge. I believe Josh has stated a number of times that Minions of Mirth has around 50% of his sales on the Mac, and I think it's doing okay for an indie game... ;)

Matt Fairfax   (Jan 22, 2008 at 18:45 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Since there still seem to be a number of open questions and confusion around OpenGL, let me see if I can make it clear:

We currently have people actively working on OpenGL and Mac support for our next generation engine (what we've been calling Torque 2).

This is driven both by our desire to deliver OpenGL to Torque users AND so that we can deliver our games to Mac users. Will it get done at some point? It'd better! However, there is still a lot of tricky work involved in adding OpenGL AND getting it running on the Mac and that means there is a very high probability that the OpenGL implemenation will be forced to slip more than a few times off any estimate we could give. We don't have a solid deadline on when anything will be ready for release and we don't want to set any false expectations otherwise.

GG Studios (the game teams) are burning the midnight oil trying to get several new games out the door. Getting these games running on Macs should provide a base level of work that can be applied directly to Torque products, but even still, we're talking about a non-trivial amount of work. Next gen versions of Torque will almost certainly have Mac support and as the engine teams makes strides in that direction, we'll look at every opportunity to implement increased functionality in TGEA. This update brings TGEA very closely in line with the bleeding edge of our new engine, but if OpenGL support doesn't arrive until later in the new engine's dev cycle, it honestly might not make sense to implement OpenGL support at all in TGEA. Instead we'd let our next generation engine be our answer for those who need OpenGL and Mac support and we could better focus on delivering other beneficial features and improvements (better documentation and tools for example).

There will not be OpenGL in the next update to TGEA. At this point I am hesitant to say that it will ever be included in a future update, so we are taking the stance that TGEA owners should plan for the near-term to work without it. I *fully* understand this is a disappointment for some people. As much as GarageGames tries to do, we're only human and there's only so much we can deliver. If you truly feel like you were misled with "promises of OpenGL" and you want to revoke your license to use TGEA, I will stand by Joe's previous offer of a full refund.
Edited on Jan 22, 2008 19:11 GMT

Matt Fairfax   (Jan 22, 2008 at 18:56 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Quote:

---

With all due respect, this is what TGEA should have been in the first place.

---

TGEA has yet to reach its full potential. That is precisely why we have been doing this work. We have more resources at our disposal, but they're still far from unlimited. We are doing our best to listen to our users and community and to address their concerns.

Quote:

---

what has changed with GG that would convince me to loose my skepticism?

---

Honestly, at this point we aren't asking for you to lose your skepticism. We saw the announcement of Fallen Empire: Legions as a great opportunity to start telling you guys about the tech it was built on and how we plan to deliver that to you! We also knew that there was a growing concecrn that TGEA was no longer going to get any work and wanted to lay that rumor to rest. I do hope that when you get your hands on this update it will help to alleviate your concerns.

Quote:

---

What would be the reason for GG to invest time developing for D3D8, when they could have invested that same time in an OpenGL layer

---

Guimo hit the nail pretty precisely on the head!

According to the latest Valve Hardware Survey, there are still some 125,000+ of their users (which are decidedly slanted towards top-end FPS gaming) who are still using their DirectX 8 pipeline. Also consider that Juggernaut (not the TGEA update) includes TGB and the VAST majority of the users in the casual and 2D game space are using DirectX 8 or hardware that is only capable of running DirectX 8. That is not an inconsiderable number salesbase for an indie game and it would be foolish to give that up! Since we already have a DirectX 9 layer it was pretty trivial to bring a DirectX 8 layer up to speed and it helped us immensely to better flesh out a multiple GFX layer interface. DX8 vs OpenGL is a false choice. It wasn't one or the other and DX8 did not delay the OpenGL work in any way.
Edited on Jan 22, 2008 19:17 GMT

Matt Fairfax   (Jan 22, 2008 at 18:59 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

I do want to thank everyone who has chimed in with encouraging words! It is a big motivation for me personally to hear that people understand and appreciate what I am trying to do!

There are an awful lot of questions that I wish I could take the time to answer but I think you'd all prefer that I get you this update, no? =) I may take a few minutes here and there to address some of them but I'll be lucky to get to them all. Hang tight and look out! Lots more shiny new Torque coming down the pipe.

Thank You!
Matt

James Brad Barnette   (Jan 22, 2008 at 19:53 GMT)

looking forward to it

JoZ   (Jan 22, 2008 at 20:13 GMT)

Hey Matt, add me to the list of entusiastic people... :)

Really cannot wait to "dirt my hands with it" (LOL) :D

It's a pleasure every time we hear news from you, it's not very often but nowaday we know it's because your always working hard on it ;)

You got my preference as "man of the year" (LOL) :D

Good work !

Gareth Fouche   (Jan 22, 2008 at 20:16 GMT)

Heh, thanks for taking the time to tell us about this Matt, even though GG inevitably draws flak when it announces...anything. ;)

Personally, this announcement (combined with the AFX for TGEA release) has me excited enough that I've begun attempting to port my code over to TGEA. Previously I'd seen the potential there but decided to wait until some of the rough edges had been worn off a bit (TGE had plenty of rough edges when it was first released too, I hear ;) ). But this is just too much temptation for me to resist.

James Laker (BurNinG)   (Jan 22, 2008 at 20:27 GMT)

Quote:

---

We also knew that there was a growing concecrn that TGEA was no longer going to get any work and wanted to lay that rumor to rest.

---

That statement makes me go to sleep with a smile.

Kevin Rogers   (Jan 22, 2008 at 20:52 GMT)

Looking good, Matt! Keep it up! =)

Rubes   (Jan 22, 2008 at 21:03 GMT)

Thanks for the clarification, Matt. It's good to hear that Mac support is planned for T2, I'll be looking forward to it.

Luigi Rosso   (Jan 22, 2008 at 21:48 GMT)

Yes, most glad to wait on answers to my questions in return for a quicker release :-)

Go, go, go!

metalliandy   (Jan 22, 2008 at 22:05 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Matt

Im really excited about the next TGEA upate.

Is it too early to give us a rough time-scale on a release?
Edited on Jan 23, 2008 01:30 GMT

Renato Mahmutagic   (Jan 23, 2008 at 11:53 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Great stuff, feels better buying eleven copies of it now!

Will Smith   (Jan 23, 2008 at 15:47 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

I hope this will allow higher resolution textures to be painted on the terrain. My biggest gripe with the current terrain is the poor tiling, and low res texture support. Also being able to adjust the texture opacity when painting it on the terrain would be very nice also.

But thank you so much for this, i was really starting to think GG was more focused on creating new engines for us to buy, and dismissing TGEA.

T Squared   (Jan 23, 2008 at 21:01 GMT)

@Will
If not higher res textures. i'm sure with the new mutiple terrain blocks. you can just reduce the block size for more details.

But im just curious, how much does the mutiple terrain block hit the frame rate? and is the terrain texture set still maxed at 8 without modifying code?
Edited on Jan 23, 2008 21:01 GMT

Ray Noolness Gebhardt   (Jan 24, 2008 at 02:21 GMT)

I must say you guys rock! :)

BigPapa   (Jan 24, 2008 at 18:11 GMT)

Great work!

How's collision detection for fast moving objects? If I want to make a racing game, will I be able to do it without major modification to the engine? I know some of us have tried to make racing games before but gave up because of the major modification that it needed.

Assassini   (Jan 26, 2008 at 15:12 GMT)

Awesome. I'll upgrade to TGEA when this comes out. :)

Devon Winter   (Jan 29, 2008 at 17:08 GMT)

Sounds like a great product. I've been holding off upgrading from TGE 1.5.2 to TGEA, and it sounds like this was absolutely the right thing to do. Can we pre-order? :)

Matt Fairfax   (Jan 30, 2008 at 04:08 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Devon,
Since it is a free upgrade you can "pre-order" by buying TGEA right now =)

James Brad Barnette   (Jan 31, 2008 at 23:23 GMT)

I know you can lay a date on us but are we talking less that two-three months here?

Ken Wiseman   (Feb 05, 2008 at 04:32 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

All of this sounds great, but a couple of things just haven't been answered in the responses to these posts.

Is the fast ground collision bug been looked at ...at all.....I've tried countless things to be able to put a flying game together, and that makes this imperative.

Also, as in the previous post.... are we looking at a week, a month, or 6 months... more?


AS has been admitted GG just doesn't let us know what's going on very often. SO lots of us would really like to know to plan accordingly.

ps: this looks likes it's gonna be a great addition for us all......

Hadoken   (Feb 05, 2008 at 14:57 GMT)

Good news, most of it, but.... a new DirectSound based audio system?!?
You are aware of the fact that DirectSound is no longer supported and will probably be removed from DirectX in the next SDK release, right?

Pat Wilson   (Feb 05, 2008 at 19:20 GMT)

Quote:

---

1. A brand new completely abstracted sound system (SFX) with a DirectSound and OpenAL implementation

---

Abstracted being the key word.

chris newman   (Feb 05, 2008 at 22:14 GMT)

Has anybody answered any of these?
Will the textures still blur ?



T Squared asks........

wow. amazing. i cant wait for this to come out :). haha i love how you guys decided to use mutiple terrain blocks to increase your the terrain size. hehe i think GG saw a few ppl doing that already :P. actually got it working, but very very buggy. :S

Just curious though. Im not too familiar with TGEA. but can you use higher res terrain textures then 256x256? I plan to still use the legacy terrain. but can you apply shaders such as normal maps with the legacy terrain? and how well does it perform is you set the block size down to 2~4 with this new update?
_________________________________________________________________________________
Luigi Rosso .................

Also, what's the difference in resolution between legacy tge terrain and the new clipmap enhanced legacy terrain? Any chance of seeing a screenshot specifically evidencing the gain?
____________________________________________________________________________________
WILL SMITH asks.............

I hope this will allow higher resolution textures to be painted on the terrain

JoZ   (Feb 05, 2008 at 22:51 GMT)

Hey guy, someone said "Asking is allowed, reply is courtesy"...

Ehehe I didn't want to be too brutal but as said a lot of times if Matt or someone else stay there to reply to every question probably GG would have nothing done...

So, a bit of patience...

Or probably next time we'll get a "long silence" again before giving us any news if all the times people start to put a lot of pressure just to see a reply to every single question of the mankind...

We need to let they "working on it instead speaking of it..."

;)

chris newman   (Feb 06, 2008 at 00:39 GMT)

Its not like i am mad or anything............
I just wanted to see if it has been answered and i just missed it.

Ariel Decena   (Feb 07, 2008 at 08:42 GMT)

hmmm these means I need to recode all the changes again...
please release it now....

JoZ   (Feb 11, 2008 at 12:49 GMT)

Uhm... Ehy I remember times ago Tom Spilman speaking about a technic named "stipple Alpha"
(see this thread, post of Jun 13, 2007 17:36) ...
Any chance we can see something like that implemented and finally having transparencies on interiors?
...I know the response will be "NO!" but I never give up... ;-)

JoZ
Edited on Feb 11, 2008 12:55 GMT

Frank Carney   (Feb 14, 2008 at 06:04 GMT)

Matt Fairfax,
Thanks for addressing the issues of portability for Torque 2. I absolutely love this engine and plan on upgrading when the next version comes out.

Chris Austin   (Feb 17, 2008 at 05:52 GMT)

Great Update Matt. I am excited and disappointed at the same time. I've loved testing with TGEA and the update sounds pretty solid. But, I was one of the users who purchased TGEA based on the stated future support for OpenGL. I really don't want to go the refund route. But, if there will not be any OpenGL support for this product in the future, just on principle I must. Who do I contact to get a refund?

Ron Kirkland   (Feb 24, 2008 at 21:11 GMT)

are we any closer at this point to an approximate time-line... any dates being tossed around?

Morrie   (Feb 28, 2008 at 01:42 GMT)

I don't plan my project around these kind of things anymore. I learned my lesson with Constructor. I waited and waited three years later it was finally released. Then there was supposed to be a forest pack that was turned over to ( I think) Sick Head Games last year, it still hasn't been released.

I don't ask for dates anymore, because I don't rely on it anymore. When it comes out I'm greatful and we all know GG does great work. I just seems like they announce alot of things, build up the hype then take a year or three to release it.

Adam Beer   (Feb 28, 2008 at 02:10 GMT)

I agree with you Morrie. I am still waiting somewhat patiently, for the tree kit. I know there was hold ups, but it has been almost a year since it was supposed to come out and there really hasnt been a peep. I dont have the money to fix/make stuff these kits and updates have so I get screwed over when it takes a long time for stuff to come out.

Sun Yu   (Feb 29, 2008 at 11:02 GMT)

Please Fix the Eastern Language Input and Display problem in the next release.

Thanks.

Steven Zhou   (Mar 06, 2008 at 09:47 GMT)

I look forward to TGEA+TGE+AFX+MMOONLY+NEWTOOLS+NEWTERRAIR

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 06, 2008 at 16:23 GMT)

Hey guys how about and update. When you say something is on the way. You should either deliver it in short order or Update the people that it is taking alittle longer than expected.

James Laker (BurNinG)   (Mar 06, 2008 at 18:28 GMT)

Dont bargain on anything soon. Everyone knows by now that we should be patient. I'm sure everyone involved is working hard and making sure the update is up to peoples expectations. But this shouldnt stop anyone from developing further on their games :) GG is probably still unpacking after GDC... hehe

Matt Fairfax   (Mar 06, 2008 at 18:46 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Hey Guys and Gals!

I am incredibly heads down and working hard on the next update to TGEA (whee! clipmapping code!) so I don't have time to say much.

I should be able to do a more in-depth update some time in the next couple of weeks =) Feel free to nag me with emails if you haven't seen anything by the end of March =P

James Laker (BurNinG)   (Mar 06, 2008 at 19:44 GMT)

Sweeeet

Guimo   (Mar 07, 2008 at 06:14 GMT)

I guess the new engine will be released along with the new Legions game. That way it will be tested and in a more stable condition.
Luck!
Guimo

Ariel Decena   (Mar 07, 2008 at 10:10 GMT)

End of March, okey at least you set a date..
If you still dont have it by then, then you'll surely receive nags left and right.. 8p

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 07, 2008 at 20:19 GMT)

Sahe said he would give us an update by the end of march not release. just wanted to clarify

Ariel Decena   (Mar 10, 2008 at 00:25 GMT)

"Feel free to nag me with emails if you haven't seen anything by the end of March =P"

I hope this is a release not screenshots or another news update
else the NAGS will hit.. 8P

Matt Fairfax   (Mar 19, 2008 at 02:01 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Is this enough of an update to let me avoid the nag emails? =D

jydog   (Mar 19, 2008 at 16:37 GMT)

> Is this enough of an update to let me avoid the nag emails? =D

It's a start. We'll see what else you can pull out. ; )

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 19, 2008 at 18:39 GMT)

hehe I would say you get a stay there Matt. lol.

Eric Hope   (Mar 20, 2008 at 02:47 GMT)

Just food for thought:

Quote:
"But realistically, I think that DirectX 10 is the last DirectX graphics API that is truly relevant to developers. In the future, developers will tend to write their own renderers that will use both the CPU and the GPU - using graphics processor programming language rather than DirectX. I think we're going to get there pretty quickly.

I expect that by the time of the release of the next generation of consoles, around 2012 when Microsoft comes out with the successor of the Xbox 360 and Sony comes out with the successor of the PlayStation 3, games will be running 100% on based software pipelines. Yes, some developers will still use DirectX, but at some point, DirectX just becomes a software library on top of ... you know."

- Epic Games, Tim Sweeney


But of course I'm biased.
Edited on Mar 20, 2008 02:51 GMT

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 20, 2008 at 10:40 GMT)

would be so sweet to have all of those nice DX10 features in TGEA. I would be willing to pay 5 to 6 times more if it did with out even blinking.

Jojimbo   (Mar 25, 2008 at 15:32 GMT)

time to dust off my shelved tgea project files :P
and go take a looksee

Affan   (Apr 11, 2008 at 18:00 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

I love U guys

You must be a member and be logged in to either append comments or rate this resource.

Home | Products | Solutions | Downloads | Support | Search | About Us
Copyright © GarageGames.com 2000 - 2008 All Rights Reserved