Game Development Community

Torque 3D Development - Beta 3!

by Brett Seyler · 06/24/2009 (8:45 pm) · 130 comments

www.ggbetas.com/brett/header_blog_t3d_dev-1.png

Thanks for your patience everyone. I know this was a longer stretch than expected between Beta 2 and 3, but wow, we've been busy!

Download Torque 3D Beta 3 from your Account


Again, we have an enormous list of new stuff (see below), improvements (~200), (fixes (100+) and known issues you'll find posting in the Torque 3D forums.


New Stuff in Beta 3!


Shape Editor - This new feature allows you to apply various changes to a mesh after it is loaded. You can merge animations, define nodes, rename meshes, and more. Tutorial video and extensive docs on this are forthcoming, but it's pretty intuitive to play with, so have fun!


                      


Decal Editor - This allows you to quickly paint and edit decals in the scene. On the engine side, we've done a major rework of Decal-related source code, so it's now much more efficient and significantly easier to understand. As with the Shape Editor, we'll have a tutorial video and extensive docs available soon.


                      


Mesh Road Editor - This allows you to quickly prototype a 3D mesh road. We're stressing the word "prototype" here because there's a lot this tool is not yet wired to do. For example, applying an arbitrary mesh profile (for different shaped roads with curbs for example) is not yet possible. This would be an excellent community project if someone want to give it a go, but we're going to leave this as a prototyping tool in this release.


                      


Beta 3 also includes...

  • Major reworking of the Material Editor to improve flow and usability
  • Material Selector and tagging system for Materials


    •                       



  • Full pureLIGHT support including improved Tonemapping and the new Vertex Color Lighting (allows you to bake lighting into the vertex colors...more efficient for small/dense meshes) as well as support for mixing with Advanced Lighting


    • purelight_t3d_demo17



  • A new pureLIGHT Demo with several new example scenes


    •                       


  • Portal and Zone objects and exposed them to the World Editor
  • SFX now supports streaming sound
  • Switched Glow to be a new PostFX
  • Improved TerrainBlock rendering
  • Normal mapping and Parallax mapping for TerrainMaterials


    •            


  • Added Parallax mapping to mesh Materials

    • Mac / OSX Support for:
    • Basic Lighting
    • TerrainBlock
    • Water
    • ScatterSky
    • CloudLayer
    • Toolbox
    • pureLIGHT
  • Interiors can now be exported to Collada via the World Editor


    • farm4.static.flickr.com/3308/3638056486_ecf7fc6eae.jpg



  • A Toggle Visibility tool to World Editor which allows for toggling on and off various debug rendering modes as well as toggling the visibility of various game classes


    •                       


  • Vastly improved Reflection handling
  • New 'soft snap' capability to the World Editor (hold down CTRL while moving selected objects to activate it)
  • New PhysX Cloth object and exposed it to the World Editor (video from last week if you missed it)




    • PhysX 2009-06-17 Cloth 3           PhysX 2009-06-17 Cloth           PhysX 2009-06-17 Cloth 2



    For the full monster list of improvements, fixes, and remaining known issues, see the Torque 3D forums for details.

    If you're ready to move to Torque 3D, you can still get your $100 OFF pre-order discount right now. This discount will be reduced to $50 OFF at the end of June. If you're already a Torque 3D owner, congrats! Don't forget to post your Beta 3 feedback in Torque 3D Private Forums. We need your help to get to the finish line!

    We've still got a ways to go to fully catch up on the Mac / OSX side, but we're moving quickly. Full feature and stability parity with Windows is our goal for Beta 4.

    More development blogs to come. This is post #25.

    Torque 3D development blogs:

    Brett Seyler's profile picture
    Employee Brett Seyler

    About the author

    Since 2007, I've done my best to steer Torque's development and brand toward the best opportunities in games middleware.

    Recent Blogs

    • Torque 3D Development - 1.1 Alpha!
    • The New Magic Word
    • Q3+ in Review
    • iPhone updates (and meet the new team!)
    • Torque 3D Development - The only good bug...
    NextNext blog
    PrevPrevious blog
    More blogs
    Page«First 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

    Torque 3D Owner Szzg007
    #81
    06/28/2009 (7:44 pm)
    where make Parallax mapping for TerrainMaterials ?
    why I can't look for that?
    how body can help?

    Associate Matt Motsinger
    #82
    06/28/2009 (9:11 pm)
    Material Editor:
    Add a normal map scroll down the Parallax Slider
    www.bitSlap.me/s2.jpg

    Terrain Painter:
    Add a normal map notice Parallax Amount
    www.bitSlap.me/s1.jpg

    Torque 3D Owner TacoX
    #83
    06/28/2009 (9:49 pm)
    @Jordan thanks for the reply regarding beta 3 source, with that confirmed I just purchased a copy.

    Torque 3D Owner Hans
    #84
    06/28/2009 (9:50 pm)
    how many texture layers can you have in torque3d ?

    Associate Matt Motsinger
    #85
    06/28/2009 (10:13 pm)
    Materials have 4 layers.

    One Example of Layers: 0.DiffuseMap + 1.SpecMask + 2.IlluminationMask + 3.GlowMask
    One Example of Layers: 0.NormalMap
    One Example of Layers: 0.DetailMap
    One Example of Layers: 0.ToneMap
    7 Textures One Material

    www.bitslap.me/s3.jpg

    Terrain has "Virtually Unlimited Material Layer Painting" but the Material is limited to 3 Textures Diffuse+Detail+Normal

    Torque 3D Owner Hans
    #86
    06/28/2009 (11:10 pm)
    @Omegadog
    Thanks alot for the reply so it is the Material that is limited.sound Awesome.


    I am purchasing Torque3d Tomorrow :)
    wooohoooo i just have enough money

    Torque 3D Owner Jordan Parsons
    #87
    06/28/2009 (11:18 pm)
    @TacoX - You're welcome :) Have fun with the beta!

    @Hans - congrats on your soon-to-be purchase...welcome to the T3D sensation! :D

    Torque 3D Owner Hans
    #88
    06/29/2009 (12:03 am)
    @Jordan - Thanks for that :) i am looking foward to using it and what i can get out of torque3d


    Question - does Autodesk fbx converter convert dae files ok and do they work ok in Torque3D?

    thks

    Hans

    Associate Matt Motsinger
    #89
    06/29/2009 (12:18 am)
    Newest Collada Plugins:
    usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=10775855

    If your mesh is greater than 12k polys detach polys to separate meshes they will export in a single .dae file and load properly in Torque3D.

    HowTo:
    www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/17567

    Torque 3D Owner Hans
    #90
    06/29/2009 (12:44 am)
    @OmegaDog
    Awesome - i am using modo and will convert the FBX file that modo makes through the autodesk FBX converter to Dae format - hoping it will work..

    Associate Rene Damm
    #91
    06/29/2009 (12:51 am)
    @Hans
    I sense another user who's still on 302... Me too.

    BTW, there are scripts out there that export directly to Collada from within modo. Think there were two implementations. One guy did it for Unreal and his exporters I remember to work quite okay in general.

    Torque 3D Owner Hans
    #92
    06/29/2009 (1:11 am)
    @Rene
    Yes i have 302 :) have not taken the plunge yet to 401
    YA i am having probs trying to import the plugin for the .lua sorry it plugin in alright but when i go to save as or export and select the dae format and then save it it crashs modo even if the model is just a cube.

    so i am trying another way :)

    Associate Rene Damm
    #93
    06/29/2009 (1:17 am)

    @Hans
    Hmm, that's bad. Have you tried both plugins? There's exportCollada which I think hasn't been updated since 202. And then there's the Collada_Exporter available here. First one didn't work for me either but the other one worked quite well.

    Torque 3D Owner Hans
    #94
    06/29/2009 (1:22 am)
    @Rene
    ok will give it a go, at work at the mo, will post tonight.
    Thanks Again for ya help

    Torque Owner Cameron Jensen
    #95
    06/29/2009 (2:25 am)
    @Michael

    All of those atmosphere changes/upgrades sound great!! Do you think you could upload some screenshots of them in action? I'm quite curious. Haven't seen much on the new atmosphere/sky/sun system on the blog, if any.

    Torque Owner Cameron Jensen
    #96
    06/29/2009 (3:07 am)
    Also, for an example of what i was talking about with the cloud shadows:

    http://www.neutrone.net/blog/

    Torque 3D Owner Hans
    #97
    06/29/2009 (8:44 am)
    @Rene
    That failed, i might reinstall modo and see how that goes.

    Torque 3D Owner Szzg007
    #98
    06/29/2009 (9:22 am)
    @ OmegaDog 师傅好。
    To thank the instructors to teach! I go to Malaysia a few days. Just came back last night. On-line today to see the master on the back. Too thanked.

    Torque 3D Owner Szzg007
    #99
    06/29/2009 (9:37 am)
    I tried a bit, and that material can not be applied to material on the terrain. Material can only be applied to the polygon.

    Torque Owner Thomas Bang
    #100
    06/29/2009 (10:17 am)
    @Brett Seyler:

    Quote:
    Again, we have an enormous list of new stuff (see below), improvements (~200), (fixes (100+) and known issues you'll find posting in the Torque 3D forums.

    Can you post the list (~200 improvements, 100+ fixes ) also for us "Currently-Non-T3D-User"?
    Page«First 1 2 3 4 5 6 7