Torque 3D Development - Pricing and Licensing ANNOUNCED!
by Brett Seyler · 03/20/2009 (7:53 pm) · 496 comments
Hey everyone! I know some of you saw the Gamasutra story that revealed some previously unreleased details about Torque 3D. I'm going to to try to clarify the whole picture, and fill in any gaps with this post here. Because it's GDC week, I'm already down here in SF doing some PR, talking about iTorque, and talking to some local studios about Torque and InstantAction. Needless to say, definitely keeping busy, so I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible and focus on the stuff I know you most want answered. We've got a big week ahead of us :) I'm guessing we'll get a lot more questions answered in the comments, so feel free to throw out anything I don't cover here.
When I first started blogging on our dev progress in December, I really didn't think we'd get as far as we have, as fast as we have. Torque 3D is really a huge step up from TGEA, particularly with respect to the toolset, usability, and content pipeline. I think users will react most to the effort we've put into the tools, and we'll be showing much more of that in the next few weeks. Of course, we've done some major subsystem updates as well (Web publishing, Terrain, Post processing, Particles, etc).
Licensing
I posted twice on pricing & licensing (one of which is still probably the most commented on post in GG history) and we definitely listened. These were the main takeaways from the roughly 400 comments (and numerous emails) I got since.
Quote:1. Support, especially ticketed support is in high demand. If GG can find a way to provide this, there are Torque developers willing to pay for it.
2. A low entry point to Torque is important, even if it means some restrictions in the EULA or deprecating some features.
3. Greater polish, usability, stability and overall quality are paramount attributes for a high-end Torque product.
4. A focus on tools, and particularly usability in the World Editor, is the most important area to address in Torque 3D.
So we took all that, and really put your opinions into action, both from a development standpoint, and with respect to pricing & licensing. Here is what we decided on:
1. Two versions available on the website, Basic and Professional, each with an Indie EULA.
2. Basic and Pro have a feature delta, with the Pro package being targeted at existing TGEA owners, or pro / prosumer developers and studios who might need to create custom code modifications for their game. The Basic package is targeted at new users, who want to learn the tools, and see what the engine is capable of. You will be able to us Basic to create a game, even though we expect it to ship as a binary only. When working on a larger team, artists and designers often don't need access to the source code, and in these cases, the Basic package will probably be a better fit, given that team members can share compiled binaries with one another.
3. For those looking for a custom EULA, perhaps for an entire studio or for a single project that doesn't qualify for our "Indie" license, we'll respond to inquiries to licensing@garagegames.com. I should note that we probably won't touch any requests to this address that aren't from developers serious about a more expansive license and with the means and ability to pay for it. For example, our typical Studio licenses start @ $6k for a small team, and go up from there.
Features
The Professional version of Torque 3D will include everything we've talked about thus far, and a lot of what still hasn't been revealed. For example, we're planning to include updates to Physics, new Terrain, a Decal Editor, a Datablock Editor, River / Road / Path tools, and a Material editor in the final release.
The Basic version will not include Web Publishing, Advanced Lighting, or the River & Road Tools, but everything else is in there. It will also be binary only. Again, this version is probably not a good fit for most of you who currently own TGEA. We're offering the big discount during the pre-order period only on Pro, and TGEA owners will not be able to apply any of their TGEA license fee to Torque 3D Basic. Only to Professional.
We've been talking about Genre Kits and Add-ons a bit as well. There's some really good stuff coming there, but we don't have any pricing to announce with that yet. There's the Luma Racing Kit (based on their game "Rev" published on InstantAction, and including some of those production assets). There's a much updated FPS Starter Kit with work from Max Gaming and Apparatus. There's Sickhead's Forest Kit (not sure if that name is final or not) which is *really* cool. It will let you paint down foliage, or just random objects to the terrain or into a scene. I've seen this in action. It's going to impress the hell out of people. There's also Gerhard's expansion (unnamed at present) which will probably include a lot of custom assets and functionality on top of what you've already seen.
The takeaway w/ Genre Kits and most of these Add-ons is that they will likely be Pro-only.
Pricing
So, let's break this down just a bit more clearly.
What will Torque 3D cost me?
If you own TGEA Indie (and I think this is most of you now), your cost to upgrade to Torque 3D Professional is $1000 - $200 (pre-order discount) - $295 (TGEA Indie contribution = $505If you own TGEA Commercial, you can apply your license to Torque 3D Professional the same way an Indie owner can with a final cost of $505. If you'd like something similar to a Commercial TGEA license for Torque 3D, you'll need to contact us directly.
If you own any other Torque products, you can still purchase TGEA and get the same discount described above for a limited time. The pre-order discount will expire when we release release the final Torque 3D build (expecting this to be in May at the moment). The first beta will be delivered to Torque 3D owners in April.
There is no pre-order available for Torque 3D Basic, and there is no discount on Basic for existing TGEA owners.
Why Pre-order?
Access to the Torque 3D Closed Beta -- First delivery in April An exclusive Torque 3D T-Shirt Torque 3D private forum access on GarageGames.com Up to $495 off the full version priceAs I mentioned before, I'm going to keep posting blogs all the way up to our release, and probably for a while thereafter. We've still got a lot to show.
More sidebars and development blogs to come. This is post #15.
Torque 3D development blogs:
- Post #1 - Kickoff
- Post #2 - Apparatus and Warrior Camp
- Post #3 - Luma's racing kit
- Post #4 - Josh Engebretson and Web Publishing
- Post #5 - Pricing and Licensing
- Post #6 - Pricing and Licensing CONTINUED
- Post #7 - Wetness & Precipitation
- Post #8 - Screeen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
- Post #9 - Matt Langley and the Torque Launcher
- Post #10 - Chris Robertson and Collada
- Post #11 - Depth of Field
- Post #12 - Advanced Lighting
- Post #13 - Soft Particles
- Post #14 - World Editor
- Post #15 - Pricing and Licensing ANNOUNCED!
- Post #16 - GDC Live Edition
- Post #17 - River & Road Editors
- Post #18 - Beta is UP!
- Post #19 - Light Rays, Undercity, Material Editor
- Post #20 - Mass Market Hardware
- Post #21 - Beta: Part Deux
- Post #22 - Marching Towards Beta 3
- Post #23 - pureLIGHT
- Post #24 - Lighting, Terrain, and Cloth
- Post #25 - Beta 3!
- Post #26 - Coming Soon!
About the author
Since 2007, I've done my best to steer Torque's development and brand toward the best opportunities in games middleware.
#442
03/30/2009 (1:30 pm)
@Eric: Quote:I am wondering with the new terrain editor if we can now make cliffs and overhangs or are we still limited?The terrain is still heighfield based, so overhangs require additional geometry. We do have good solutions for higher detail than seen before, and especially higher detail on near vertical terrain geometry.
#443
03/30/2009 (1:32 pm)
We'll get some new stuff up this week for sure, and I'll be back on a weekly blogging schedule from here. Plenty of follow up to do re: GDC meetings and stuff. 
#444
03/30/2009 (1:42 pm)
@Eric: Also with the live asset updating it should be a lot easier to create geometry that matches your terrain. A lot of artists would rather create some of this geometry in their art tool of choice anyways, especially if it's something that surrounds and area that a player can pass through, having full control over collision becomes very important (with collision not just matching rendering). 
#445
03/30/2009 (2:56 pm)
Is there any reason T3D didnt go with the voxel terrain? It seams to be way ahead of the heightfield! 
#447
Sculpt in your 3d application, and see how it looks on 2nd monitor live, that sounds pretty nice (of course can be done with 1 monitor, but 2 i think, atleast for me atleast would be to prefer). :P
Cant wait. MORE info MORE info, no more weekly updates, DAILY!!! :)
PS: (From other post in world editor topic incase you didnt see it)
would like to see some ingame GUI info (skinning, animating, 3d, ect) what can be done, eg moving GUI windows around smoothly, overlapping, alpha windows and so on, html rendering window (if possible), multicolored textbox with support for italic and bold and such on seperate words (like word or RTF) and attaching sounds....
Also a request from my artists, in the editor we would love to see some UI you can turn on/off to show total render calls, used VMEM And such (like unity3d has, good for finding places that might cause issues with FPS).
03/30/2009 (5:13 pm)
With live asset updating and 2 monitors, i for one dont see a issue with using voxel terrain or not.Sculpt in your 3d application, and see how it looks on 2nd monitor live, that sounds pretty nice (of course can be done with 1 monitor, but 2 i think, atleast for me atleast would be to prefer). :P
Cant wait. MORE info MORE info, no more weekly updates, DAILY!!! :)
PS: (From other post in world editor topic incase you didnt see it)
would like to see some ingame GUI info (skinning, animating, 3d, ect) what can be done, eg moving GUI windows around smoothly, overlapping, alpha windows and so on, html rendering window (if possible), multicolored textbox with support for italic and bold and such on seperate words (like word or RTF) and attaching sounds....
Also a request from my artists, in the editor we would love to see some UI you can turn on/off to show total render calls, used VMEM And such (like unity3d has, good for finding places that might cause issues with FPS).
#448
03/30/2009 (6:00 pm)
So it will have something similiar to Unity's updating art to engine pipeline. I saw their engine do this with maya, pretty impressive. I'm glad T3D will have this. :) 
#449
03/30/2009 (6:19 pm)
I was wondering whether or not T3D may support OpenCL in the future. I am not sure if it will be windows compatible, but I think it could really speed up the Mac side of things.
#450
03/30/2009 (7:11 pm)
K thanks The more I look at it for the extra $355 Its probably worth going with T3D Just cause of the many features out of the box And I'm already familure with TGEA so why learn a whole new engine! 
#451
03/30/2009 (7:47 pm)
"Voxel" - weren't games using that 10 years ago? (Delta Force) Terrain looked great from afar, and not so hot up close. 
#453
The Voxel terrain looks pretty good to me up close. Also 3DCoat looks pretty good with its voxel sculpting as well.
03/30/2009 (11:24 pm)
@SteveThe Voxel terrain looks pretty good to me up close. Also 3DCoat looks pretty good with its voxel sculpting as well.
#454
My guess is the main reason Voxel has been brought up several times here is because a competitor engine, C4, recently integrated them with some success, and because Crytek is now using it. Personally, I'm happy they stuck with a heightmap. There are so many commercial third party terrain editors that will export a heightmap that can be imported into T3D. I'm not sure if there will be a conversion utility for TGEA terrains or if old terrains will still work, but it should be easier for existing projects to port over to T3D. Not to mention that heightmaps are a proven and tested technology which is being used by just about every outdoor game on the market today. With TGEA we saw Atlas, which was cool technology at the time, but it never really took off due to a number of issues. Difficulty in getting the terrains in game and difficulty in obtaining a good appearance up close being two of the larger ones. Atlas was mesh which supported overhangs and such also, but noone ever did anything with it. Experiments using multiple atlas files to create caves were cool demonstrations, but noone ever used them. Sometimes evolutionary is a better approach that revolutionary.
That's not saying that Voxel terrains aren't intriguing and cool in their own right. They are, but they come with their own shares of advantages and disadvantages.
03/31/2009 (12:07 am)
Voxel was both the terrain used a long time ago, and also terrain which has modern uses. It has its strengths and weaknesses, the big strengths are that it can be used to represent geometry that isn't possible with a heightmap, overhangs etc, and that it also has been used in some mass generation schemes by some games to create some cool procedurally generated geometry. They can be a bit tougher to work with and fine tune, though. LOD is also more efficient with traditional methods. It's an interesting approach that we're seeing some games move to, but heightmaps are still the most common approach to terrain.My guess is the main reason Voxel has been brought up several times here is because a competitor engine, C4, recently integrated them with some success, and because Crytek is now using it. Personally, I'm happy they stuck with a heightmap. There are so many commercial third party terrain editors that will export a heightmap that can be imported into T3D. I'm not sure if there will be a conversion utility for TGEA terrains or if old terrains will still work, but it should be easier for existing projects to port over to T3D. Not to mention that heightmaps are a proven and tested technology which is being used by just about every outdoor game on the market today. With TGEA we saw Atlas, which was cool technology at the time, but it never really took off due to a number of issues. Difficulty in getting the terrains in game and difficulty in obtaining a good appearance up close being two of the larger ones. Atlas was mesh which supported overhangs and such also, but noone ever did anything with it. Experiments using multiple atlas files to create caves were cool demonstrations, but noone ever used them. Sometimes evolutionary is a better approach that revolutionary.
That's not saying that Voxel terrains aren't intriguing and cool in their own right. They are, but they come with their own shares of advantages and disadvantages.
#455
03/31/2009 (3:52 am)
I always love how talk of voxel terrain is coincided with talk of Delta Force games. Good games they were :) 
#456
03/31/2009 (11:26 am)
Carmack said something in an interview last year about using voxel octrees (voxtrees?) to render all geometry, not just terrains. I think it was one of his lines of research for Id Tech 6.
#457
Has T3D been tested with Windows 7?
Once someone can answer that, I'll post some of my findings after having talked to licensing.
03/31/2009 (4:05 pm)
Well, now that I've spoken to licensing, hopefully someone from GG that's involved with T3D can answer one more question so I can make up my mind.Has T3D been tested with Windows 7?
Once someone can answer that, I'll post some of my findings after having talked to licensing.
#458
03/31/2009 (8:14 pm)
Delta Force series was great, not to mention NovaLogic's tank, jet fighter and helicopter games.
#459
1) Model format? Will there be an *easy* format for models to both import and export from 3ds max? (Currently using 2009 at this time)
One of the things I found very frustrating was the limited or old style formats that are no long er supported or updated (such as b3d) that other engines used. So, I am hoping that T3d will have its own or use a common model format.
1.5) Are there any limits to bones, polys or other such things to models that would hinder design? (One engine actually limits character model bones to a max of 50)
2) Terrain.. Will we be able to create or at least simulate a seamless style environment? I know true seamless is almost impossible, but im thinking something that simulates this similar to morrowind, oblivion or even vanguard.
Thank you! I am excited to try this out.. well, get my partner to start trying this out and me just designing and finishing up textures and such.
It looks great! ...Okay, time for more coffee!
04/01/2009 (2:27 am)
Morning.. a Few questions that either were not answered or I did not fully understand the answers given...1) Model format? Will there be an *easy* format for models to both import and export from 3ds max? (Currently using 2009 at this time)
One of the things I found very frustrating was the limited or old style formats that are no long er supported or updated (such as b3d) that other engines used. So, I am hoping that T3d will have its own or use a common model format.
1.5) Are there any limits to bones, polys or other such things to models that would hinder design? (One engine actually limits character model bones to a max of 50)
2) Terrain.. Will we be able to create or at least simulate a seamless style environment? I know true seamless is almost impossible, but im thinking something that simulates this similar to morrowind, oblivion or even vanguard.
Thank you! I am excited to try this out.. well, get my partner to start trying this out and me just designing and finishing up textures and such.
It looks great! ...Okay, time for more coffee!
#460
1.5) Limit-less only to how many polys you can stuff into a screen before the users PC goes and kill itself.
2) The mega Terrain block will still be in T3D unless I missed something in all these blogs. Giant maps are defiantly supported.
Video example
04/01/2009 (5:06 am)
1) There's a DTS exporter for 3DS Max 2009, also there's a new Collada support for Torque 3D1.5) Limit-less only to how many polys you can stuff into a screen before the users PC goes and kill itself.
2) The mega Terrain block will still be in T3D unless I missed something in all these blogs. Giant maps are defiantly supported.
Video example
Torque Owner Eric Schuld