February Documentation Wrapup + Community
by Michael Perry · 02/27/2009 (11:25 am) · 14 comments
I now have my own small office, complete with 4 whiteboards and a couch. Also have some new toys on my desk =)
IRC Hour
A little over a year ago the GarageGames IRC Channel was pretty quiet. The MG guys were always available, but I rarely joined and found an exciting conversation going.Since we started hosting monthly IRC Hours, I've seen the channel become more and more active. A lot of GG employees are hanging out there now, more users are providing help, and there have been some high quality (sometimes heated) discussions running the full gambit of current events.
February's IRC Hour was insane. According to MG and some long time lurkers, it was the most active the channel's been in years.
Topics Covered:
InstantAction - Special guest Ian Tornay, aka Crash, joined us to talk about the exciting IA news, such as partnering with Epic records and one of their groups Lamb of God, cross-blogging between GarageGames.com and IA, and the exciting new IA licensed tech + community.
TGEA 1.8.1 - Daily lurker Alex Scarborough was on hand to talk to users about the recent release of TGEA 1.8.1. Major kudos were handed out =)
Torque 3D - Matt Langley and Matt Fairfax joined us to talk about Torque Launcher, which is more than likely going to be renamed to Torque Toolbox thanks to your (the community) contributions/suggestions. We also covered a lot of unlisted features the tool will offer, and took suggestion on how it can be more useful.
To read more, check out the 2009 IRC Hour Discussion Thread.
The Intern
For the past few months, I've been aided greatly by an intern from the University of Oregon. Matt Sloan joined the GarageGames intern program to help out with Torque 3D documentation. Let me tell you, the guy has been a major help. A lot more content is going into Torque 3D docs thanks to him. Oh, if you have any suggestions on how I can torture him, please post =)Object Creation Tutorial Series Completed
Lara has knocked another one out of the park by completing her latest video tutorial series. The series walks you through the creation of a new 3D model, which is invaluable to artist and developers alike. Awesome job Lara! Be sure to thank her (repeatedly) in her blog. Also, make sure you provide some solid feedback and suggestions for video tutorials you would like to see.iTGB Updates
While not official documentation, I spent last weekend working with Ecliptic on adding camera/photo library support to iTG. While we are still working on it, the progress resulted in me creating a "tutorial like" thread on adding iPhone OS keyboard support to iTGB: Display iPhone OS Keyboard - Solved. I'm still a developer at heart, so this is a nice change of pace for me.Torque 3D Documentation
Man...are you in for a treat! February yielded some major milestones. I'll be performing some controlled leaks of the docs in the coming months.Next month...
Due to the wild success of Feb's IRC Hour, we are going to host TWO IRC Hours in March. As usual, the talks will be very free form. I will not enforce much structure, but here are some teaser topics:What Will Be Shown At GDC?
Community Interaction At GDC
Collaborative Community Projects
Torque 3D Announcements and Feedback
iTGB and iTGE releases
Gaming with GG
Remember, IRC Hour is for YOU. If you have suggestions for topics or think the format/time should be changed, post in the thread.
Goodbye fantastic February. Hello MajorlyAwesome March!
Gamer Info Part 1
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About the author
Associate Producer / Project Manager for GarageGames
#3
I got a good one for you. open up his outlook and go under the spell check settings, and change it so that anytime he types the word and or the making it say I LOVE GARAGE GAMES. i did this to a guy at my office once but instead of saying something nice it said stuff like "Rob is gay" or "Rob loves balls in his mouth". needless to say the big boss didnt like it when quotes were going to customers with the randomness of rob is gay in the text lol.
02/27/2009 (2:26 pm)
Hey Mike,I got a good one for you. open up his outlook and go under the spell check settings, and change it so that anytime he types the word and or the making it say I LOVE GARAGE GAMES. i did this to a guy at my office once but instead of saying something nice it said stuff like "Rob is gay" or "Rob loves balls in his mouth". needless to say the big boss didnt like it when quotes were going to customers with the randomness of rob is gay in the text lol.
#5
@Stephen - Torque 2D (TGB) will be getting the same heavy duty documentation overhaul.
02/27/2009 (5:57 pm)
Thanks for the comments all@Stephen - Torque 2D (TGB) will be getting the same heavy duty documentation overhaul.
#6
02/27/2009 (7:11 pm)
Very cool avatar! 
#7
02/27/2009 (7:38 pm)
Great news there Michael, but that desk isn't complete. I couldn't work without my r2d2 staring at me. 
#9
03/01/2009 (8:52 am)
Do you have dates for the March IRC's yet?
#10
Now some of our European community members have expressed a dislike of the time, as it reaches to the early AM in their time.
I'm willing to have it earlier, but I need a little more feedback from US users.
03/01/2009 (1:11 pm)
@Jeff - March 12th and March 19th, at 5:00pm PST. Now some of our European community members have expressed a dislike of the time, as it reaches to the early AM in their time.
I'm willing to have it earlier, but I need a little more feedback from US users.
#11
03/02/2009 (11:06 am)
What would be useful indeed Mich, is to start using UTC/GMT for passing the meeting time... I know you are at Oregon, but thats not really the case for the major part of the community.
#12
03/03/2009 (5:12 pm)
Michael - You just got my curiosity now about the documentation update for TGB. Anything that you can share with us?
#13
03/03/2009 (5:35 pm)
When I release the Torque 3D docs, you'll have a preview of what Torque 2D's docs will be like.
Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark