"Happy Halloween! (and Celtic New Year)"

Samhain

What Went Down In October

On the surface, iTGB or TGEA were the engines that received the most amount of new content. iTGB got its first set of documentation. TGB's docs acted as a base, then iTorque specific sections were added. We were able to post a few simple tutorials on how to setup your work environment (iPhone SDK, xCode, iTGB, etc) and simple games that allow you to touch and drag sprites. I definitely had fun writing these.

TGEA will be entering 1.8 beta very soon. To complement that, I am going to place TGEA 1.8 docs in beta as well. What this means is TGEA users can preview the docs as I write them to get a heads up on the new systems and updates the engine will receive.

Of course, the above work is just on the surface. Behind the scenes, I'm currently working on TGEA 1.8, TorqueX 2D and 3D, and iTGB documentation. I'm still trying to launch and organize new TGEA and iTorque sections on TDN. I'm behind on my community management, but there are users I'm going to be checking in with very soon.

All in all, last week I was one more assignment away from going fetal. It's very easy to get overwhelmed when multiple engines are up for release or in need of content updates. However, it's safe to say the community has provided some good feedback that helped me get back on track. Thanks everyone =)

IRC Hour Getting Hot

Though we are only having one IRC Hour a month, the content and announcements are getting hot. Those that do attend are really happy with what was discussed. Those who knew about the talk, but missed it, regret it.

I'm holding in some very cool announcements for the next IRC Hour, so if you want to hear something awesome, talk to GG employees, and discuss pressing issues, you know where we'll be =)

Community MVPs

As I've said in previous blogs, I like to shine a light on community members who have been a great help to documentation. Some have been recent, others have been working for years without much public credit. I feel like some long overdue thanks and patting on the back are deserved for these guys:

Infinitum3D (aka Tony)
- You've probably seen Tony asking questions around the forums and providing feedback. What you may not know is that he turns around and gives that information back to the community via his Torque 101: Intro to Torque thread. Spanning 2 years and 141 posts, this is a great resource for any newcomer to Torque. Awesome!

Mike Lilligreen
- I've probably given him credit before, and if not this is long overdue. TGB users should be familiar with Mike Lilligreen's work. If you go to the Section of TDN, you will discover it is the most well organized section with up to date material. I'm actually going to be modeling the rest of TDN's updates and organization after Mike's work. When it comes to polish and initiative, we can all learn from his example and owe him much thanks.

Adam deGrandis
- Adam is one of those silent contributors. If you do a search for his name in available docs, you might not immediately find them. That's because his work has already been rolled into the Official Documentation. When you see artist docs, there's a good chance you are looking at Adam's work. When TGEA 1.8 ships, we will have a brand new deGrandis doc that will be a must read for all artists.

Next month...

Expect a flood of new content. Online and offline documentation will be updated, as well as new TDN sections. The Doc System will be receiving an update as well, which means you might see some new functionality added to your docs.

IRC Hour will go down Nov. 20th, at 5:00pm PST. I'll post another documentation related blog and remind everyone. All in all, October was very hectic and quiet. November will show the results.

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!

- Mich, Documentation Samurai

(...taken this morning at GarageGames)