Torque 3D Development - World Editor

#41 OK This post goes to 11. Awesome work James.

#42 Pretty Neat James

#43 Interfaces are funny ... and i don't realy understand what the people, that are complaining about "reskin" was expecting.

now some few changes that i would like to see in the new editor has to do with how you brows the available models ... just having a tree list of object names is more of a programmer way of refering to stuff.

#44 @Mikael, the creator no longer uses a tree view. You can see this in the second screenshot. The "Library" tab is currently displaying Mission objects in that shot, but the setup for Shapes is the same (though it's not just a flat list as is Mission objects', but uses a folder structure).

#45 On the terrain, river and forest kit screenshtos from page 2, man those look juicy.

#46 hay how james get T3D hes not a Employee. :P

and wow they did release the prices in that news blog.

people who say $1000 is not indie price i still think it is and its more then worth the price as well. but as you can see theres a $250 price tag. how is that gong to be worked out for a upgrade form TGEA i have no clue what they pay $5 to get T3D who knows. ya it might not have all the good stuff you guys want but you have to pay $1000 for all that and its well worth the price.

#47 James is an employee at sickheadgames, working on Torque 3D. Also good for parties and as a drinking buddy.

#48 How much would we pay for the upgrade from TGEA ?

#49 o wow i missed a line.

Quote:GarageGames will continue to offer custom licenses for studios whose needs don't fit neatly into those two categories.

so those that don't have the money looks like you can get a custom license for the stuff you want or something. i think they could even automate this by having set prices for different futures of the engine so it would add so much still your done makeing the custom license then you pay what ever it = to. its just a though of automating it but to those that want to keep complain its to much i cant afford that well make your own license. :P everything is worth it in torque even if you don't think it is worth the price tag.

and ya what will the upgrade cost me if the basic license is $250 from what its saying in that new blog.

#50 Looking pretty slick.

#51 To bad I dont work with GG, I have some wicked GUI ideas :)

#52 Apologies if these have been mentioned already but I haven't had a chance to read every post...

Not to sound downbeat, but this isn't a strong posting for T3D. There are actually more images of who did the work then there is of the work itself... no real details included either. Really, you should have waited and done a proper update for GDC imo.

Did you ever ask the community directly over what should be in the editors? Or was it just decided upon and coded up?

I see some issues in the [edit for clarity: "second scene"] too, please someone tell me if I'm going mad :/ The shadow for the lamp post that is closest to the selected object isn't right (there's a gap running down the middle). Also, the shadow for the nearest fencing doesn't look right either - the shadow for the individual bars look way too thick.

My opinions are still so up in the air about T3D and this posting really didn't help to change that. Kinda weird about the gamasutra article when there is nothing here in regards to it... Here's hoping for a strong GDC showing, as GG technologies form a large part of my secondary income.

#53

Quote:Did you ever ask the community directly over what should be in the editors?

Yup. Years of threads, and most recently a "What would you like to see in Torque 3D". Plus multiple IRC Hours.

@Everyone - As MattL mentioned, it's difficult to show functionality through screen shots. Be sure to join us for IRC Hour tomorrow where we can talk about the new tools a bit more. Also tune in for the live video feeds from GDC to see some of it in action.

Speaking from first hand experience, the editors are so much easier to use now. The additional tools being added are pretty kick ass.

#54 That would be really cool if you could "customize" your licence and pay only for the feature's you need...

#55 @James

I like what I see in those pics...:) Do you have a pic of the Roads by chance..

#56 The pricing structure at least mentioned is very close to what Unity 3D is set at with the standard with no source access and the pro with source access and a few additional features.

Will be interesting to see how this pans out and of course more information that will be coming out next week :-).

#57 So... if there's a version with no source access... it means you finally exposed all the relevant gameplay code to script ala TGB?

#58 @Matthew: I'm glad to hear that you did research on this area and am looking forward to see those research beeing reflected before T3Ds release.
My previous post was likely not nearly as constructive as the idea behind it was, especially as different things are not known right now.


So I want to clarify my points and try to make it clear what I expect from a professional technologies editor.

Game development in the independent sector is a lot about productivity, as we can not fork out tens of tousands of USD to get a base editor that is project specific.

I expect that T3D beside the whole collection of really nice but totally production irrelevant eye candy features also has a well designed, flexible and modular based editor framework upon which the regular as well as our own editors can be built.

A nice clean editor API to communicate between different editor components, to link them in into the menu and all the other common tasks that editor aspects have to take care of.

A framework that allows all independent developers to finally expand the editor to cover project specific needs through self containing code (editor components for example) which can be plugged into any project painlessly.


The current editor is definitely the weakest point in the whole technology if we forget about the non-pipeline.
Its weakness is not only reflected in many missing standard features and common behaviors that professionals targeted game editors have, but especially and to a much higher degree through its code hack mess which builds upon different GUI components and other things instead of following one single global design.

As you see Matthew, I agree that the technology is the fundamental aspect of a game engine. But to me the editor framework also is part of the technology and thats where the editor end of TGEA is really lacking, so I wanted and still want to make that point clear.


@Joshua: The difference is that in Torque you so far were not able to get anything done at all without the source as the engine is pretty much focused on FPS. Its by god not general purpose game engine.
Doing an RPG, RTS or anything alike without deeper engine changes is impossible.
Thats the difference. Unity is a general game engine, you don't require sources to get even basic stuff done.
Saves you something between 2 and 5 months of learning the engine so generally you have the indie game done within the time you would require to learn TGEA well enough to even stand a chance to get it done.

Both sides naturally have their benefit. The more specific your requests and especially are, the more source work is require and the better Torque is suited.
But for the broad majority of hobbiest / designer oriented users, Torques current way of doing it is far from optimal, as you lose a lot of time fighting against the sources instead of developing your game.

But its right, we will see how everything shapes up with yesterdays release of Unity 2.5 and its editors entrance to the Windows World, now that all can give the Unity Trial a go on Windows as well

#59 Just a note re: pricing and licensing stuff...I'm going to post another blog later this week clarifying the Gamasutra announcement, and what it means for you guys (TGEA owners particularly). Stay tuned for that. We'll be opening up Torque 3D for pre-orders next Wednesday (details later) targeting an April Torque 3D beta and a May full release.

There's a LOT more to show in these blogs, so I'll keep doing this stuff, even post-release, but there's no substitute for actually getting your hands on the new Torque, so if you're itching to get first access, check back here on Wednesday. We've got a special package planned for pre-orders we know you guys will like.

#60 Thanks for the info Brett. Looking forward to getting my hands on it.