Plan for Josh Williams
by Josh Williams · 12/20/2004 (2:59 pm) · 25 comments
If you've already bought presents for your game dev teammates, return 'em. The Torque ShowTool Pro is shipping for the holidays, and anything you got for your comrades is just gonna seem cheesy next to it. ;)
Dave Wyand and some of us here at the office have been pushing hard to get the Torque ShowTool Pro (the program formerly known as Looking Glass) out before the holidays. Looks like it'll happen... which means it should be a very merry Christmas for all of us Torque devs! If you've seen anything about the new ShowTool, you know exactly what I mean.
Dave's done a truly incredible job with TST Pro... it's going to be a huge boon to any Torque team who is wise enough to pick it up.
Well, pictures speak louder than words. Witness the badass-ness:
View a shape's material detail, and mesh:
Inspect a shape's nodes and joint structure:
View shape solid-shaded, to verify lighting and shading:
View mesh sorting for objects with transparencies:
(Lighter shades of grey are drawn last)
Analyze a shape's performance set-up by visualizing triangle faces and strips:
(Triangles on the same tristrip are the same color)
Examine a shape's bone structure in detail:
(Viewed with orthographic projection)
Inspect collision meshes:
Investigate the shape hierarchy:
View shapes with the Lighting Pack:
Dynamically examine Level-of-Detail:
Dynamically examine mip-mapping:
Simple to use Mounts interface:
(Loading a weapon to a shape's mount point)
Animation control:
Detailed animation thread information:
And all I can say is.... wow. And that's not even half of what this thing can do. You can see why I'm so excited about it. In fact, we've all been excited about it for monthsevery Release Candidate we received was more solid than most retail software I've seen. Dave kept on polishing and polishing away though, and I think we can all learn something from his outstanding commitment to quality. For example, look at the TST Pro manual... that's 80 pages of detailed tutorial and reference information, all very nicely laid out and easy-to-read.
It's obvious that Dave has put a mountain of thought and care into this project. That's partly why it's been so great working with him... it's pretty inspiring and enjoyable working with such a talented, dedicated guy. I hope Dave is proud of his workwe certainly are here at GG. We're also proud that this entire tool is written in Torque. I hope to see many more Torque-based applications and tools in Torque next year!
Dave has done a pretty wide beta test with this, and everyone I've talked to absolutely gushes about how much more efficient they are using the new ShowTool. Seriously, check out some of the quotes:
"The Torque ShowTool Pro is the best thing to happen to the Torque art pipeline...ever. Every tools programmer in the industry should study TST Pro...this is how it's done. If ShowTool Pro were any simpler or more intuitive you'd think an artist wrote it!" --Weston Tracy, FFDigital
"Everyone who uses Torque should own this tool, whether an SDK owner or not. If you are an artist, this will let you see what the coder sees. If you're a coder, this will let you inspect those problem shapes and instantly see why they are crashing in your game. Why does that vertex go crazy when your model animates? Open up Dave's fantastic tool and you'll quickly see exactly what's wrong." --Clark Fagot, BraveTree Productions
"I have been fortunate enough to work with the Torque ShowTool Pro for a number of months now and it's surpassed my every expectation. As such, I don't think of TST Pro just as an enhanced version of the existing show tool but as the full realization of 'Torque for Artists'" --Logan Foster, MaxGaming
"Torque ShowTool Pro is simply the *best* tool for any Torque artist. Besides all the incredible features, Mac support is a huge plus. With TST Pro, I can just keep the icon in my Dock and launch it whenever I need to view shapes and animations-- just launch and go. Best of all, I can keep all of my art production completely on my Mac." --Danny Ngan
"Dave approached us during alpha to give feedback, and we requested a lot of features, some that we thought were a little outlandish. He implemented EVERY ONE of our feature requests, and some that we did not think of. A great deal of thought and work went into making this tool, and there are tons of hidden goodies that make this a must have for anyone using the Torque Game Engine. For artists, it is a full featured art preview tool that has everything you will ever need to get your shapes ready for a TGE-based game. For programmers, there are tons of extras in there that help with shape debugging.
For the asking price, this purchase is a no-brainer. You will instantly save 10 times the cost of purchase in increased productivity." --Joe Maruschak, BraveTree Productions
Dave listened to beta feedback intently throughout TST Pro's development. Guys like Joe Maruschak, Logan Foster, Danny Ngan, Weston Tracy, Clark Fagotsome of the most respected members of the indie game dev communityalong with others offered expert opinions and advice during the process. From what they all say, Dave pretty much granted every wish and feature request they came up with.
Launching TST Pro is part of a continuing effort to improve Torque's art pipeline here at GG. A little while ago, Dave started talking about his new ShowTool. As always, we were very interested in improving the art pipeline for Torque, so it was natural to team up. It's worked out wonderfully, and in the coming months, we'll be pushing very hard to improve every aspect of the art pipeline.
Dave's work represents the first major step in that direction, and we are very excited to continue working with Dave and other developers to make the Torque art pipeline as simple to use and powerful as possible. We've set some lofty goals, and with all the talent of so many people in this community, we can work together to accomplish them.
Well, with all this talk of art pipelines, it probably sounds like TST Pro is just for artists. Heck no. Jay has always been very excited about Dave's ShowTool, but a few weeks ago he got more excited than ever about it (which if you know Jay... he's pretty full of energy, so seeing him get really excited about something can actually be a little scary. ;) This was the result of a conversation Jay had with Clark Fagot, BraveTree's lead programmer. Clark was saying how he used TST Pro every day and really couldn't get by without it now that he'd gotten used to it. Once Jay realized how invaluable TST Pro's shape inspection features are to the development and debugging process, pretty much all I heard for two weeks was "Let's ship this puppy!! Let's ship this puppy!!" :) Of course, that echoed the feelings of the entire team here.
I really don't need to hype this thing up any more though. When TST Pro is released, you won't have to take my word for how good it is. Like Clark, and every other programmer or artist I've talked to about it, once you start using TST Pro, you'll never want to give it up.
That's why Dave and I have been using some code Pat wrote (thanks Pat!) to get a free 30 day demo of TST Pro up and running. The free trial demo includes the full functionality of TST Pro, so you can try it out for 30 separate days... this should be more than enough time to get you completely, utterly hooked and unable to even comprehend how you previously operated without the tool. It's a pretty diabolical marketing scheme, and I only hope that the site can withstand the pressure 30 days after the Torque ShowTool Pro launches. ;)
So, watch for the launch (very soon!) and give the free trial demo a shot! (Bwahahaha)
Customizable interface:
Preset rendering modes:
Display options:
Easy to manipulate lighting controls:
Dave Wyand and some of us here at the office have been pushing hard to get the Torque ShowTool Pro (the program formerly known as Looking Glass) out before the holidays. Looks like it'll happen... which means it should be a very merry Christmas for all of us Torque devs! If you've seen anything about the new ShowTool, you know exactly what I mean.
Dave's done a truly incredible job with TST Pro... it's going to be a huge boon to any Torque team who is wise enough to pick it up.
Well, pictures speak louder than words. Witness the badass-ness:
View a shape's material detail, and mesh:
Inspect a shape's nodes and joint structure:
View shape solid-shaded, to verify lighting and shading:
View mesh sorting for objects with transparencies:
(Lighter shades of grey are drawn last)Analyze a shape's performance set-up by visualizing triangle faces and strips:
(Triangles on the same tristrip are the same color)Examine a shape's bone structure in detail:
(Viewed with orthographic projection)Inspect collision meshes:
Investigate the shape hierarchy:
View shapes with the Lighting Pack:
Dynamically examine Level-of-Detail:
Dynamically examine mip-mapping:
Simple to use Mounts interface:
(Loading a weapon to a shape's mount point)Animation control:
Detailed animation thread information:
And all I can say is.... wow. And that's not even half of what this thing can do. You can see why I'm so excited about it. In fact, we've all been excited about it for monthsevery Release Candidate we received was more solid than most retail software I've seen. Dave kept on polishing and polishing away though, and I think we can all learn something from his outstanding commitment to quality. For example, look at the TST Pro manual... that's 80 pages of detailed tutorial and reference information, all very nicely laid out and easy-to-read.
It's obvious that Dave has put a mountain of thought and care into this project. That's partly why it's been so great working with him... it's pretty inspiring and enjoyable working with such a talented, dedicated guy. I hope Dave is proud of his workwe certainly are here at GG. We're also proud that this entire tool is written in Torque. I hope to see many more Torque-based applications and tools in Torque next year!
Dave has done a pretty wide beta test with this, and everyone I've talked to absolutely gushes about how much more efficient they are using the new ShowTool. Seriously, check out some of the quotes:
"The Torque ShowTool Pro is the best thing to happen to the Torque art pipeline...ever. Every tools programmer in the industry should study TST Pro...this is how it's done. If ShowTool Pro were any simpler or more intuitive you'd think an artist wrote it!" --Weston Tracy, FFDigital
"Everyone who uses Torque should own this tool, whether an SDK owner or not. If you are an artist, this will let you see what the coder sees. If you're a coder, this will let you inspect those problem shapes and instantly see why they are crashing in your game. Why does that vertex go crazy when your model animates? Open up Dave's fantastic tool and you'll quickly see exactly what's wrong." --Clark Fagot, BraveTree Productions
"I have been fortunate enough to work with the Torque ShowTool Pro for a number of months now and it's surpassed my every expectation. As such, I don't think of TST Pro just as an enhanced version of the existing show tool but as the full realization of 'Torque for Artists'" --Logan Foster, MaxGaming
"Torque ShowTool Pro is simply the *best* tool for any Torque artist. Besides all the incredible features, Mac support is a huge plus. With TST Pro, I can just keep the icon in my Dock and launch it whenever I need to view shapes and animations-- just launch and go. Best of all, I can keep all of my art production completely on my Mac." --Danny Ngan
"Dave approached us during alpha to give feedback, and we requested a lot of features, some that we thought were a little outlandish. He implemented EVERY ONE of our feature requests, and some that we did not think of. A great deal of thought and work went into making this tool, and there are tons of hidden goodies that make this a must have for anyone using the Torque Game Engine. For artists, it is a full featured art preview tool that has everything you will ever need to get your shapes ready for a TGE-based game. For programmers, there are tons of extras in there that help with shape debugging.
For the asking price, this purchase is a no-brainer. You will instantly save 10 times the cost of purchase in increased productivity." --Joe Maruschak, BraveTree Productions
Dave listened to beta feedback intently throughout TST Pro's development. Guys like Joe Maruschak, Logan Foster, Danny Ngan, Weston Tracy, Clark Fagotsome of the most respected members of the indie game dev communityalong with others offered expert opinions and advice during the process. From what they all say, Dave pretty much granted every wish and feature request they came up with.
Launching TST Pro is part of a continuing effort to improve Torque's art pipeline here at GG. A little while ago, Dave started talking about his new ShowTool. As always, we were very interested in improving the art pipeline for Torque, so it was natural to team up. It's worked out wonderfully, and in the coming months, we'll be pushing very hard to improve every aspect of the art pipeline.
Dave's work represents the first major step in that direction, and we are very excited to continue working with Dave and other developers to make the Torque art pipeline as simple to use and powerful as possible. We've set some lofty goals, and with all the talent of so many people in this community, we can work together to accomplish them.
Well, with all this talk of art pipelines, it probably sounds like TST Pro is just for artists. Heck no. Jay has always been very excited about Dave's ShowTool, but a few weeks ago he got more excited than ever about it (which if you know Jay... he's pretty full of energy, so seeing him get really excited about something can actually be a little scary. ;) This was the result of a conversation Jay had with Clark Fagot, BraveTree's lead programmer. Clark was saying how he used TST Pro every day and really couldn't get by without it now that he'd gotten used to it. Once Jay realized how invaluable TST Pro's shape inspection features are to the development and debugging process, pretty much all I heard for two weeks was "Let's ship this puppy!! Let's ship this puppy!!" :) Of course, that echoed the feelings of the entire team here.
I really don't need to hype this thing up any more though. When TST Pro is released, you won't have to take my word for how good it is. Like Clark, and every other programmer or artist I've talked to about it, once you start using TST Pro, you'll never want to give it up.
That's why Dave and I have been using some code Pat wrote (thanks Pat!) to get a free 30 day demo of TST Pro up and running. The free trial demo includes the full functionality of TST Pro, so you can try it out for 30 separate days... this should be more than enough time to get you completely, utterly hooked and unable to even comprehend how you previously operated without the tool. It's a pretty diabolical marketing scheme, and I only hope that the site can withstand the pressure 30 days after the Torque ShowTool Pro launches. ;)
So, watch for the launch (very soon!) and give the free trial demo a shot! (Bwahahaha)
Customizable interface:
Preset rendering modes:
Display options:
Easy to manipulate lighting controls:
About the author
#22
12/21/2004 (11:00 am)
Visual Obj/Scn Project Libraries are one of the few beauty points of GameSpace...! Library snaps are updated as scene/obj is saved...I digress. 
#23
I can definately see the benefits of using this. When the demo is out, I'll be one of the first to try it, I imagine. :)
12/21/2004 (1:26 pm)
Ooh.. pretty.I can definately see the benefits of using this. When the demo is out, I'll be one of the first to try it, I imagine. :)
#24
12/21/2004 (2:29 pm)
Ship the durn thing, I need it to figure out why half my models are sinking halfway into the terrain in the RTS-SK!!!!!11!! 
#25
12/22/2004 (12:58 pm)
looks very nice from the screenshots, can't wait to try the demo...now please pay that man to make a particle system / emitter / explosion editor :)
Torque Owner Alex Swanson
The project directory definitions are particularly awesome for anyone that has to deal with a large number of varied projects. I wish that Maya and Quark had this feature as well, it saves a lot browsing time.