Torque 3D Development - GDC Live Edition
by Brett Seyler · 04/04/2009 (2:31 pm) · 333 comments
Wow...another GDC behind us. This was a big one. I dare say it was GG's biggest ever. Josh Williams and I gave a talk on Thursday titles "The Future of Web Games" which ended up being packed full with standing room only. There was a tremendous amount of interest in both InstantAction Technology and Torque 3D. That went off fabulously. We did some private demos for the big gun studios. The GG booth was jam packed for 3 days straight, and despite bringing a full staff of GG'ers to San Francisco to help, I think everyone was overloaded with excited questions and lots of "when can I get that!!??" The really exciting part for Torque 3D stuff (which was absurdely well recieved) is that we've still only shown probably 50% of what we're working on. Some of you saw Tom Spilman's uStream walkthough of the "South Pacific" demo. That's all been captured and posted for you relentless viewing and scrutinizing below =) Obviously a lot of people put hard work into Torque 3D, but we really owe a lot to Sickhead Games for helping us SHOW rather than tell all of what Torque 3D is capable of.
Tom's gone way above and beyond creating a new terrain implementation (as you'll see in the videos), physics, procedural object placement brushing tools (called "Forest Kit" after the original tech it's based on), and of course, the new Advanced Lighting. It's not just Tom though. Russell Fincher, a great artist, is responsible for making most of this look as good as it does. James did the River and Road tools and Ross worked a lot on bending the World Editor to make all this stuff easily accessible and easier to use. That's just the high points, but they really are a great crew. We're lucky to have their help.
So, in this blog, I'm just posting the Torque 3D relevant footage from GDC. You'll see two demos below, both pretty ground-breaking stuff. There's a lot more on the way. This shakey cam stuff is great, but the video is low resolution and I want to get some straight-from-the-machine captures out to really show how good this all looks and how easy it all is to use.
There truly is a lot more to come. There's a more in depth look at the World Editor, a focus on the Road and River tools, Gerhard's AI and GPU Cloth, Physics, new demos, genre kits, and more. We're also going to try to get a live demo embedded on the website so you can see this stuff for real. All that, and our first build for pre-order customers is just around the corner. Since we opened up the pre-order promotion last week, you guys almost broke our ecommerce system with the flood of purchases. Sorry to those of you who were turned away while we tried to patch things up last week. Hopefully everyone who wanted in got in. Shirts are on their way, and the Torque 3D private forums are alive with anticipation. I can't wait to see what you'll all do with this new technology. I have high hopes :)
I also know that there a lot of unanswered questions from the nearly 500 comments on the last blog. I'm going to re-read those thoroughly this week and try to answer them all. Thanks for you patience and thanks again to everyone whose kept the faith and stuck with us. It's great to know there's still such a huge community behind Torque.
More development blogs to come. This is post #16.
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.
#262
Yeah, i can get good resolution, but if maximum terrain size is 16km x 16km, then i have a problem since one of my maps alone is designed to be 45 km x 30 km (see the problem :P) and thats a small one.
The main map size has to be "unlimited" in the sence i can keep building onto it for future stuff.
So your terrain system is not enough as you see, so ill end up having to program some sort of paging terrain my self it seems :), its all good though i hope.
@Brett
Its cool man, almost worried we had to make banners and go chant infront of GG headquaters "Beta.. Beta.." :P
04/10/2009 (8:32 pm)
@MattYeah, i can get good resolution, but if maximum terrain size is 16km x 16km, then i have a problem since one of my maps alone is designed to be 45 km x 30 km (see the problem :P) and thats a small one.
The main map size has to be "unlimited" in the sence i can keep building onto it for future stuff.
So your terrain system is not enough as you see, so ill end up having to program some sort of paging terrain my self it seems :), its all good though i hope.
@Brett
Its cool man, almost worried we had to make banners and go chant infront of GG headquaters "Beta.. Beta.." :P
#263
04/10/2009 (9:55 pm)
Brett.. can we have some warning on the beta release pls. I still want to be an early adopter but still gathering the funds (even if it's like a week).
#264
04/10/2009 (10:21 pm)
Andrew when the beta comes out you will still be able to pre-order for like a month or so. pre-order don't end till the final version comes out. final version is still like a month or more away so you got lots of time to get your money still.
#265
04/11/2009 (8:17 am)
Thanks for the clarification Brandon 
#266
So does that in any way mean we may be able to expect the beta at/around Tuesday of next week as well? I mean if the post is waiting until then because you're finishing up beta...or maybe I'm just getting my hopes up :)
04/11/2009 (3:39 pm)
@BrettSo does that in any way mean we may be able to expect the beta at/around Tuesday of next week as well? I mean if the post is waiting until then because you're finishing up beta...or maybe I'm just getting my hopes up :)
#267
Thanks for the info on TorqueScript, it's nice to hear that even if the enhancements don't make it into T3D 2009, they are at least being considered.
I know I've said this before, but I'm really jazzed about the idea of yearly major releases and a few interim updates throughout the year.
Given this new approach, what would be really awesome is if GG published and maintained a high level product backlog or roadmap. If done appropriately, the benefits of the feedback on this should outweigh the disadvantages of making high level product plans visible to competitors.
Ryan
04/11/2009 (4:14 pm)
@MattFThanks for the info on TorqueScript, it's nice to hear that even if the enhancements don't make it into T3D 2009, they are at least being considered.
I know I've said this before, but I'm really jazzed about the idea of yearly major releases and a few interim updates throughout the year.
Given this new approach, what would be really awesome is if GG published and maintained a high level product backlog or roadmap. If done appropriately, the benefits of the feedback on this should outweigh the disadvantages of making high level product plans visible to competitors.
Ryan
#268
04/11/2009 (4:32 pm)
@Bryan: There are no plans for a beta this coming week. Sorry to disappoint...however, the next week...
#269
A "Huge Terrain Kit" would work well with those already mentioned. ;o)
04/11/2009 (5:19 pm)
Is there any chance that the default terrain system will be one of the features that can be easily "switched off" and replaced?A "Huge Terrain Kit" would work well with those already mentioned. ;o)
#270
Please don't titillate and change it later that would make me sad. I'm so ready for this beta I'm hyper than hyper.
Marking on my calendar.
"Week of the April 20th-24th Brett promises programmer candy for all... that paid..."
04/11/2009 (8:44 pm)
@Brett Please don't titillate and change it later that would make me sad. I'm so ready for this beta I'm hyper than hyper.
Marking on my calendar.
"Week of the April 20th-24th Brett promises programmer candy for all... that paid..."
#271
04/12/2009 (7:48 am)
its my birthday on the 22nd, so this is going to be the best birthday present. ever. 
#273
04/12/2009 (12:42 pm)
Less blogs? 
#276
04/12/2009 (2:21 pm)
Hahaha. Good things come to those who wait.... or so the saying goes. 
#277
I was refering to the alphaLOD resource by Martin Busse. You could really get some plush environments going at decent FPS; plus it looked good fading in/out. I would like to see that kind of dynamic LOD implemented for dif and dts. I realize the updated replicator will have a fade distance, but for the sake of individual objects that could be rendered closer to the camera to save just little FPS, this would be really, REALLY handy. Anything like this be available out of box?
Having considered that...what will porting be like? can we take engine enhancement from previous versions of TGE(A) and put them into T3D without much hassel?
Thank you.
04/12/2009 (2:52 pm)
Thanks for the answers Matt,Quote:
Are DTS objects/and DIF for that matter, going to have anything like alphaLOD?
Not sure what you mean by "alphaLOD"?
I was refering to the alphaLOD resource by Martin Busse. You could really get some plush environments going at decent FPS; plus it looked good fading in/out. I would like to see that kind of dynamic LOD implemented for dif and dts. I realize the updated replicator will have a fade distance, but for the sake of individual objects that could be rendered closer to the camera to save just little FPS, this would be really, REALLY handy. Anything like this be available out of box?
Having considered that...what will porting be like? can we take engine enhancement from previous versions of TGE(A) and put them into T3D without much hassel?
Thank you.
#278
What i mean was, less blogs, more Torque 3D (Aka stop blogging and release our beta already, then you dont need to blog much as we have all the code our self) :P, a win/win situation.
Ah well, if it worked, it worked, had to try (again) :).
04/12/2009 (3:27 pm)
@BrettWhat i mean was, less blogs, more Torque 3D (Aka stop blogging and release our beta already, then you dont need to blog much as we have all the code our self) :P, a win/win situation.
Ah well, if it worked, it worked, had to try (again) :).
#279
04/12/2009 (7:24 pm)
Beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#280
Edit, I found the main torque 3d page and answered my question cheers!
04/13/2009 (3:34 pm)
Forgive me for my ignorance, but maybe I missed it somewhere in one of the threads... Anyways, what is the scripting language being used to code here? Even better if I can drag and drop type of stuff. I understand bringing in the models using collada, but otherwise as an animator and an artist, what kind of programmer would I need for torque 3d? Thx :)Edit, I found the main torque 3d page and answered my question cheers!
Torque 3D Owner Brett Seyler
Default Studio Name
Have a great weekend!