Torque X Builder 3D Update

Torque X Builder 3D is making great strides as its coming near the end of development. The awesome Ken Holst has already ramped up the QA team to begin seeking out those pesky bugs. We're all moving as fast as possible to bring this out to the public quickly. That means trimming back some of those features that would be nice to have.

In order to make the game truly WYSIWYG, the 3D Builder essentially runs an instance of the stock Torque X 2.0 game engine. That means getting creative about how some things are implemented, such as a new Designer camera, Axis Gizmo (as described in the last post), and scene Serializer (to compliment the existing scene De-Serializer).

Here are a few of the features that did make it into the first release. In this picture, the well known desertLevel.txscene from the FPSDemo project is loaded. The Object Type editor shows the object types that are defined within the project that can be assigned to various objects. The 3D Builder is also set to the default panel layout with the color scheme is set to silver.


In this picture, I've changed the panel layout to my personal favorite - the Asset Browser on the left, scene graph on the top-right, and the Properties window on the bottom right. I've also changed the color scheme to blue. You can also see the representation of a "Spawner" object (the green box). Invisible entity objects, such as Spawner, Lights, Sound Emitters, Cameras, and Triggers appear as box markers.


Sometimes I find it faster to tweak values straight in XML (though I dread creating levels by hand in XML). Here's a monstrous view with the XML editor side-by-side with the 3D viewport. The viewport also reveals the latest form of the Axis Gizmo which looks a lot like the TGE(A) Mission Editor gizmo. Although they look and work similarly, they are completely different in code. You can also see the automatic sizing of the 3D Viewport to maintain a 4:3 aspect ratio. Adding a 16:9 HDTV aspect ratio will probably be saved for the next release.


Assigning and editing components is pretty easy, but I can try to make it look complicated. In this picture, the selected component Properties are listed. You can change the selected component from the drop-down-list. As you set the component properties, they are applied in realtime to keep-up the WYSIWYG goal. To add or remove components, click the green Add button to the right of the drop-down-list. This opens a new dialog box that lets you add or remove components.


Even integration with Visual Studio (2005) is completed. Torque X Builder 3D works just like its 2D counterpart. You can import assets, such as 3D shapes and textures into the 3D Builder. The 3D Builder will automatically update your XNA Game Studio (C#) project. But it's up to you to rebuild that project. After the project has been rebuilt (and the art assets have been compiled into .xnb files), you can add them into your 3D scene and position them. Also, like the 2D Builder, the 3D Builder also scans the generated myschema.txschema file to find out what components you created, so you can attach them to your project.


That's about it for now. We have been working pretty hard on this project to bring out to the public as soon as possible. Though I don't have any official release date to share, we're now talking in terms of weeks instead of months. And with our level of excitement, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of fireworks with the product launch.

John K.