TGEA Batching Doc + randomness
08/18/2007 (11:05 pm) by Brian Richardson
So, a whole lot has changed for me in the past two years or so. I've moved to Portland, OR and bought a house. I've gotten engaged to my girlfriend of over 8 years. I've shipped a few pieces of software. The latest change is that I've joined the engine team here at GarageGames! It's definitely been a childhood dream of mine to work on games and game technology for a living. I'm getting chills when old songs (mostly old Front 242) are playing and I'm hacking on our next engine release. Reminds me of staying up too late as a kid trying to make .s3m music players in protected mode assembly. Also, reading Gamasutra and GG is work, not something I have to hide when I'm at work! ;) Everyone at GG has been really cool and it's a great place to be.
I've written a small article on TDN about the batching system used in TGEA. If you want to add a new object to TGEA, or add custom shaders you must know how this works and I think the article is a good overview to get you started.
Also, if you are doing any graphics programming with DirectX and are not using PIX you are going into a knife fight with a pointy stick. PIX has been a great tool for debugging silly graphic artifacts. It's told me twice that some textures were not getting set. It's also really good at showing you how your scene is being drawn. It's so good in fact, that for my required screenshot in a .plan, I'm going to post of screenshot of a scene in PIX!
As I keep on learning and creating new things, I'll try to write more articles explaining pieces of the engine and other fun stuff one can do.
I've written a small article on TDN about the batching system used in TGEA. If you want to add a new object to TGEA, or add custom shaders you must know how this works and I think the article is a good overview to get you started.
Also, if you are doing any graphics programming with DirectX and are not using PIX you are going into a knife fight with a pointy stick. PIX has been a great tool for debugging silly graphic artifacts. It's told me twice that some textures were not getting set. It's also really good at showing you how your scene is being drawn. It's so good in fact, that for my required screenshot in a .plan, I'm going to post of screenshot of a scene in PIX!
As I keep on learning and creating new things, I'll try to write more articles explaining pieces of the engine and other fun stuff one can do.
About the author
After a couple of years in and out of the GG community I have become an employee. I am wrenching away on the engine now and hope to create some great stuff for everyone to use! Check out [url=http://knowhere.net/portfolio.html]my portfolio[/url] for an overview on what I have done in the past. I have got a lot of random varied experience that I am building on at this point. I am good at navigating large codebases which has made Torque a fun playground. If there is something new I want to accomplish there is usually some code I can pull from somewhere else in Torque and mold it into what I want. If you are in the Portland, OR area. Check out [url=http://www.pagdig.org]Portland Area Game Developer Interest Group[/url]! view profile »
#2
08/19/2007 (1:13 am)
Front 242 kicks ass. Saw them live once, great show.
#3
08/19/2007 (1:37 am)
Brian Richardson kicks ass. Saw him live at the office a couple of times, great guy. 
#4
Great to finally see something documented on the RenderInstance system too. ;)
08/19/2007 (2:27 am)
Pix rules... i can't work without it anymore.Great to finally see something documented on the RenderInstance system too. ;)
#5
08/19/2007 (2:42 am)
Congrats on the job!
#6
08/19/2007 (3:53 am)
I want to go into a gun fight with a knife, like the Punisher did in his movie.
#7
Well anyways that's really kick ass. I always get excited when I hear about someone working on stuff that involves TGEA. I am sort of a shader nut to say the least. At the moment I am saving up for a new notebook so I can play around with DirectX 10. That is one hot API, and I know I will sound like a fan boy right now, but if TGEA supported DirectX 10 it would drop some jaws.
08/19/2007 (4:02 am)
And great news on the job with GG. I assume you are working with TGEA which is awesome. As you know its an awesome engine, but it needs a bit of loving. While you are in there can you make sure that the multi-pass custom shaders work 100%? I know there was some weird issue with the shaders messing up after 2 or so passes (I found the issue while porting a hair shader to TGEA).Well anyways that's really kick ass. I always get excited when I hear about someone working on stuff that involves TGEA. I am sort of a shader nut to say the least. At the moment I am saving up for a new notebook so I can play around with DirectX 10. That is one hot API, and I know I will sound like a fan boy right now, but if TGEA supported DirectX 10 it would drop some jaws.
#8
08/19/2007 (5:05 am)
Awesome to have you aboard Brian, been a huge help! And Front 242 does in fact kick ass.
#9
and congrats to the job!
08/19/2007 (8:50 am)
Front 242 is one of the best choices for background music when developing.and congrats to the job!
#11
08/20/2007 (3:00 pm)
Congrats on the job Brian, here's hoping you continue to post more informative TDN articles. I'm also glad to here that TGEA is getting more help.
#12
I've told you in person a couple times already Brian, but congrats on the new job, I hope you enjoy working at GG as much as I have.
08/21/2007 (12:41 am)
Brian Richardson kicks ass like Front 242 on TGEA! I've told you in person a couple times already Brian, but congrats on the new job, I hope you enjoy working at GG as much as I have.
Torque Owner Christian S
Gratz man!
Nice to hear that part of GG is further manned. Good luck with the dream, and keep 'em posts coming