T3D Beta - Initial Impressions, Level Editing
by Gareth Fouche · 05/04/2009 (12:12 am) · 70 comments
Well, the T3D beta is upon us, as I'm sure everyone knows. Like all the other pre-order Torquers, I opened up the Warrior Camp and Physics demos and "oohed" and "ahhed" at the shiny. But last night was the first real opportunity I had to sit down and play with T3D so I decided to start at the beginning and create a level from scratch. Shiny is nice, but how does the new engine "feel"?
Luckily, the answer is "slick". :) I'll post up my initial impressions here.
First off, the Toolbox doodad is actually quite helpful. When I initially heard about it I wasn't amazingly interested, I can navigate around my folder structure, this app would be nice when I eventually wanted to publish but I didn't think I'd have much call to use it, day-to-day. I was wrong, having a central launchpad for anything you could want to do just makes things quicker. Having it sit in your toolbar while deving, ready to launch any app you need, is handy.
The first thing that you notice with T3D is how much quicker it loads. MUCH quicker. No more browsing the net while I wait for stage entry. :)
On to world editing. I created a new project, deleted the basic level objects (ground plane, skybox etc) and began to add stuff in one-by-one.
The most obvious thing to comment on is how pretty it all is. T3D is visually on par with any other engine now, no more snide comments from developers using other engines about how outdated Torques graphics are! :D The new shadows and lighting are fantastic, crisp and detailed without being too crisp, completely dynamic, updating instantly in real time. The real time updates make playing with the lighting of your level SO much easier and more time-efficient.
Speaking of real time updates, object properties update as you change them, no more needing to hit "apply". Yay!
World editing is a more subtle change. A few people have said something along the lines of "well, that doesn't look much different to the old way!". But it's all about "flow". There are lots of subtle changes which add up to a much better work flow, and pretty much eliminate that feeling that the editor is trying it's hardest to fight you. Things like the new toolbars, the brush sliders and the snap toggles mean you spend much less time navigating multi-level menus and more time painting the level. Small changes like the splitting of the scene browser and the asset library out into 2 tabs allow you to quickly switch back and forth from creating to editing without losing your place in the navigation tree. The hints that show whenever you edit an object property, explaining function and indicating the variable type. Small changes that add up to a much nicer vibe. :)
It's clear a good deal of thought has been given to how to make the experience more friendly. The addition of waterplanes is a good example of this, simple but at the same time a godsend. Every coastal level I've made in TGEA I've had to plonk down a water block, fly around stretching it out, adjust until the player can't see the edge of the block, etc etc. Small addition but a nice time saver.
Anyway, it's very early beta still but I'm thoroughly impressed. In the end, I'm left facing one question : How can I go back to TGEA after playing with this beauty? Man, but I hope porting my code is relatively painless!
I'll end off with some shots of the level I made, a little island. Just playing around, all basic assets and textures from the warrior camp example level, nothing custom. All credit to Apparatus for the cool meshes, I'm SO poaching some of those for SoW. :)
Luckily, the answer is "slick". :) I'll post up my initial impressions here.
First off, the Toolbox doodad is actually quite helpful. When I initially heard about it I wasn't amazingly interested, I can navigate around my folder structure, this app would be nice when I eventually wanted to publish but I didn't think I'd have much call to use it, day-to-day. I was wrong, having a central launchpad for anything you could want to do just makes things quicker. Having it sit in your toolbar while deving, ready to launch any app you need, is handy.
The first thing that you notice with T3D is how much quicker it loads. MUCH quicker. No more browsing the net while I wait for stage entry. :)
On to world editing. I created a new project, deleted the basic level objects (ground plane, skybox etc) and began to add stuff in one-by-one.
The most obvious thing to comment on is how pretty it all is. T3D is visually on par with any other engine now, no more snide comments from developers using other engines about how outdated Torques graphics are! :D The new shadows and lighting are fantastic, crisp and detailed without being too crisp, completely dynamic, updating instantly in real time. The real time updates make playing with the lighting of your level SO much easier and more time-efficient.
Speaking of real time updates, object properties update as you change them, no more needing to hit "apply". Yay!
World editing is a more subtle change. A few people have said something along the lines of "well, that doesn't look much different to the old way!". But it's all about "flow". There are lots of subtle changes which add up to a much better work flow, and pretty much eliminate that feeling that the editor is trying it's hardest to fight you. Things like the new toolbars, the brush sliders and the snap toggles mean you spend much less time navigating multi-level menus and more time painting the level. Small changes like the splitting of the scene browser and the asset library out into 2 tabs allow you to quickly switch back and forth from creating to editing without losing your place in the navigation tree. The hints that show whenever you edit an object property, explaining function and indicating the variable type. Small changes that add up to a much nicer vibe. :)
It's clear a good deal of thought has been given to how to make the experience more friendly. The addition of waterplanes is a good example of this, simple but at the same time a godsend. Every coastal level I've made in TGEA I've had to plonk down a water block, fly around stretching it out, adjust until the player can't see the edge of the block, etc etc. Small addition but a nice time saver.
Anyway, it's very early beta still but I'm thoroughly impressed. In the end, I'm left facing one question : How can I go back to TGEA after playing with this beauty? Man, but I hope porting my code is relatively painless!
I'll end off with some shots of the level I made, a little island. Just playing around, all basic assets and textures from the warrior camp example level, nothing custom. All credit to Apparatus for the cool meshes, I'm SO poaching some of those for SoW. :)
About the author
Recent Blogs
• SoW Weekly Update 10• SoW Weekly Update 9
• SoW Weekly Update 8
• SoW Weekly Update 7
• SoW Weekly Update 6
#42
Corona image is from the FPSkit.
Notice minSize is larger than maxSize, that way it starts large at the horizons and gets smaller overhead, just like the real atmospheric illusion.
05/05/2009 (11:05 am)
Normal sun ambient is "0.2 0.2 0.3 1"Corona image is from the FPSkit.
Notice minSize is larger than maxSize, that way it starts large at the horizons and gets smaller overhead, just like the real atmospheric illusion.
new fxSunLight(newsun) {
canSaveDynamicFields = "1";
Position = "2426.87 2319.26 338.984";
rotation = "1 0 0 0";
scale = "1 1 1";
enable = "1";
LocalFlareBitmap = "art/environment/corona.png";
RemoteFlareBitmap = "art/environment/corona.png";
SunAzimuth = "0";
SunElevation = "30";
LockToRealSun = "1";
FlareTP = "1";
Colour = "1 1 1 1";
Brightness = "1";
FlareSize = "1";
LocalScale = "1";
FadeTime = "0.1";
BlendMode = "0";
AnimColour = "1";
AnimBrightness = "0";
AnimRotation = "0";
AnimSize = "1";
AnimAzimuth = "0";
AnimElevation = "1";
LerpColour = "1";
LerpBrightness = "1";
LerpRotation = "1";
LerpSize = "1";
LerpAzimuth = "1";
LerpElevation = "1";
LinkFlareSize = "1";
SingleColourKeys = "1";
MinColour = "1 0.796079 0.368627 1";
MaxColour = "1 1 1 1";
MinBrightness = "0";
MaxBrightness = "1";
MinRotation = "0";
MaxRotation = "359";
minSize = "0.6";
MaxSize = "0.2";
MinAzimuth = "0";
MaxAzimuth = "359";
minElevation = "-10";
maxElevation = "190";
RedKeys = "AZA";
GreenKeys = "AZA";
BlueKeys = "AZA";
BrightnessKeys = "AZA";
RotationKeys = "AZA";
SizeKeys = "AZA";
AzimuthKeys = "AZ";
ElevationKeys = "AZ";
ColourTime = "25";
BrightnessTime = "5";
RotationTime = "5";
SizeTime = "25";
AzimuthTime = "5";
ElevationTime = "25";
}; 
#43
05/05/2009 (12:28 pm)
Thanks for that bit of information. It is still casting shadows and light "under" the terrain though from the best I can tell from playing with it. Not sure if there will be a way around that. Another nice feature would be able to animate the ambience of the sun at the same time so it would be possible to have a higher ambience during the day than during the night. Would better illuminate objects during the day and make things rather dark during the night without a light. There are a few things right now that aren't taking that ambience though and that is the ground cover and the skybox. 
#44
05/05/2009 (12:56 pm)
Thanks, but I don't get the shadows. 
#45
that's great to hear, the only thing that's turned me off from TGEA is that everytime I run the demos they seem very slow on my machine. All the progress on T3D looks really amazing, if I can see a demo that runs fast enough on my machine and looks as good as what I'm seeing, I'll be sold!
05/05/2009 (2:26 pm)
"Quite frankly, T3D feels faster overall to me than TGEA. But maybe that's just the much decreased loading time! "that's great to hear, the only thing that's turned me off from TGEA is that everytime I run the demos they seem very slow on my machine. All the progress on T3D looks really amazing, if I can see a demo that runs fast enough on my machine and looks as good as what I'm seeing, I'll be sold!
#46
Of course TGEA itself gives much better performance than that, I put it down to no LODing in the demos and too many particle effects.
05/05/2009 (7:04 pm)
Quote:Yeah, I've always found that the demos from TGEA run with quite poor performance, apart from maybe the last one, Barricade. But Forge lagged like hell.
turned me off from TGEA is that everytime I run the demos they seem very slow
Of course TGEA itself gives much better performance than that, I put it down to no LODing in the demos and too many particle effects.
#47
I agree with what Gareth said about the Basic license. If you have a non-coder on the team who is doing map editing, the Basic license sounds more limited with no river/road tools. I think a standard art non-coder thing to do would be import 3d models, and edit the map.
I'm confused though how he says it doesn't come with scripting? I thought with Basic you can write a full game as long as it only uses TorqueScript and doesn't need C++ modifications?
...
@Tau: if you're talking about Unity over Torque 3D, due to the $250k limit and splash screen limit on Torque 3D... And you have enough money that you might be aiming for $250,000/year back or talking about Unreal-Engine and Crytek being even a consideration. Then have you considered Unigine?
Also, like Gareth said, I really don't see how one can complain about a $250,000/year limit on a $1,000 engine, or about a splash screen.
...
@John: I agree that a big selling point for torque I think might be its community with the garagegames.com blogs with add-ons and how to do particular code stuff, etc as a resource. And I worry if the $1000 price, and a Basic that might be too limited, would discourage a useful community.
Then again, maybe up from $295 to $1000 entry will filter it such that it becomes less people total, but more who are serious? And thus the community might become lower quantity higher quality?
Then again, difference between willingness to pay $1000 Torque3D instead of $295 TGEA, well I'm not sure if that's actually a min req for someone to do good community contributing stuff. After all, there is good community contributing stuff around free software, such as OGRE.
The difference between $295 and $800-or-$1000, I admit didn't really affect me. I mean just as someone who has a full-time day job, and is serious about doing a long-term project with a game engine. But maybe there are some hardcore college students (undergrad or grad) who we are losing useful community contributions from?
Or... Maybe $1000 will mean more money for Garage Games to spend on development? Assuming it doesn't dramatically reduce the total number of sales that is. Ie, $1000 / $295 = 3.39, so basically they need to sell at least 1/3 as many with the new higher price for the same revenue.
Just sharing some thoughts. Not pretending to know all of the answers.
05/05/2009 (8:42 pm)
@Gareth:I agree with what Gareth said about the Basic license. If you have a non-coder on the team who is doing map editing, the Basic license sounds more limited with no river/road tools. I think a standard art non-coder thing to do would be import 3d models, and edit the map.
I'm confused though how he says it doesn't come with scripting? I thought with Basic you can write a full game as long as it only uses TorqueScript and doesn't need C++ modifications?
...
@Tau: if you're talking about Unity over Torque 3D, due to the $250k limit and splash screen limit on Torque 3D... And you have enough money that you might be aiming for $250,000/year back or talking about Unreal-Engine and Crytek being even a consideration. Then have you considered Unigine?
Also, like Gareth said, I really don't see how one can complain about a $250,000/year limit on a $1,000 engine, or about a splash screen.
...
@John: I agree that a big selling point for torque I think might be its community with the garagegames.com blogs with add-ons and how to do particular code stuff, etc as a resource. And I worry if the $1000 price, and a Basic that might be too limited, would discourage a useful community.
Then again, maybe up from $295 to $1000 entry will filter it such that it becomes less people total, but more who are serious? And thus the community might become lower quantity higher quality?
Then again, difference between willingness to pay $1000 Torque3D instead of $295 TGEA, well I'm not sure if that's actually a min req for someone to do good community contributing stuff. After all, there is good community contributing stuff around free software, such as OGRE.
The difference between $295 and $800-or-$1000, I admit didn't really affect me. I mean just as someone who has a full-time day job, and is serious about doing a long-term project with a game engine. But maybe there are some hardcore college students (undergrad or grad) who we are losing useful community contributions from?
Or... Maybe $1000 will mean more money for Garage Games to spend on development? Assuming it doesn't dramatically reduce the total number of sales that is. Ie, $1000 / $295 = 3.39, so basically they need to sell at least 1/3 as many with the new higher price for the same revenue.
Just sharing some thoughts. Not pretending to know all of the answers.
#48
My first thought was Pro is for C++ source code development, and Basic is for (import 3d models, edit the maps / world / terrain, TorqueScript scripting). So yea I agree with your point about how it means a Basic license non-coder level-editor-person sounds limited with no river/road editor.
But I'm not sure what you mean about "share binaries with them"? At the very least, I think that sounds against the license terms, since it's per developer, not per project, not per group/studio etc? I really hope a (full working up-to-date version of Torque 3D) doesn't end up on random download sites. Since it sounds like Garage Games needs to sell lots of low-cost licenses to fund development of torque products ($1,000 btw I would definitely call low-cost, even if it's not super-low or free) (Unigine I call medium-cost) (Unreal, id tech 4, cryengine, etc I call high-cost). Definitely a different model than the high-cost engines that only need to sell a few. If id tech 4 sells to one client for $250,000, then torque needs 250 clients at $1,000 to match that revenue. If id tech 4 sells 10, then torque has to sell 2,500 to match it. (Yes I know that was probably a gross simplification of the actual numbers.). And hopefully the revenue is used to pay for more better development :-). Yay capitalism :-p
I also noticed that some amount of garagegames.com is private only for license holders...
Oh, another huge factor will be the 14-day or 30-day trial of Basic, and whether it's really the full Basic, or whether it's the most recent version of it, etc. Right now the only demo version is TGEA Basic 1.7.
Hmm, I wonder if they made the Basic license $100 with river/road editor and full private garagegames.com access, but still no code access, whether they'd sell 2.5x as many Basic licenses, without affecting the number of Pro licenses sold? I imagine these kind of details could be a difficult guessing game for GG.
05/05/2009 (9:18 pm)
@Garth: you said, (So "yes" for teams, "not so sure" for lone wolves, and I have to question why do it that way since it seems like it makes little difference for the team artists you're mainly aiming at anyways, since it's expected that their programmers will share binaries with them)My first thought was Pro is for C++ source code development, and Basic is for (import 3d models, edit the maps / world / terrain, TorqueScript scripting). So yea I agree with your point about how it means a Basic license non-coder level-editor-person sounds limited with no river/road editor.
But I'm not sure what you mean about "share binaries with them"? At the very least, I think that sounds against the license terms, since it's per developer, not per project, not per group/studio etc? I really hope a (full working up-to-date version of Torque 3D) doesn't end up on random download sites. Since it sounds like Garage Games needs to sell lots of low-cost licenses to fund development of torque products ($1,000 btw I would definitely call low-cost, even if it's not super-low or free) (Unigine I call medium-cost) (Unreal, id tech 4, cryengine, etc I call high-cost). Definitely a different model than the high-cost engines that only need to sell a few. If id tech 4 sells to one client for $250,000, then torque needs 250 clients at $1,000 to match that revenue. If id tech 4 sells 10, then torque has to sell 2,500 to match it. (Yes I know that was probably a gross simplification of the actual numbers.). And hopefully the revenue is used to pay for more better development :-). Yay capitalism :-p
I also noticed that some amount of garagegames.com is private only for license holders...
Oh, another huge factor will be the 14-day or 30-day trial of Basic, and whether it's really the full Basic, or whether it's the most recent version of it, etc. Right now the only demo version is TGEA Basic 1.7.
Hmm, I wonder if they made the Basic license $100 with river/road editor and full private garagegames.com access, but still no code access, whether they'd sell 2.5x as many Basic licenses, without affecting the number of Pro licenses sold? I imagine these kind of details could be a difficult guessing game for GG.
#49
In which case, yeah, Basic is worth it so long as you don't need code access. I still think they should offer a "pure artist's version" with no script and all the art tools, but Basic is still good.
@Peter
"But I'm not sure what you mean about "share binaries with them"?"
GG said that if you work on a team with someone who has a Pro license they can share a binary with you that uses Advanced Lighting.
05/06/2009 (1:34 am)
Oh crap, I made a mistake, Basic does get script access. Sorry for muddying the water guys.In which case, yeah, Basic is worth it so long as you don't need code access. I still think they should offer a "pure artist's version" with no script and all the art tools, but Basic is still good.
@Peter
"But I'm not sure what you mean about "share binaries with them"?"
GG said that if you work on a team with someone who has a Pro license they can share a binary with you that uses Advanced Lighting.
#50
@ Mich Perry: The T3D Basic license is weak, IMO. For an "artist's" license, not having the road/river editing makes no sense whatsoever; the programmer isn't going to be doing the level editing! (Well, he might be, but I think you get my point.)
The price-point seems a bit too high as well; Unity's similar license ("Indie") is $199. If I were looking at getting into game development for the first time with a limited budget, it's a no-brainer that I'd go with the cheaper engine.
05/06/2009 (2:30 pm)
@ Gareth: Thanks for posting your experience with T3D so far... I've pretty much decided against spending the money on T3D, but if I hear enough good things about it, I may change my mind. =)@ Mich Perry: The T3D Basic license is weak, IMO. For an "artist's" license, not having the road/river editing makes no sense whatsoever; the programmer isn't going to be doing the level editing! (Well, he might be, but I think you get my point.)
The price-point seems a bit too high as well; Unity's similar license ("Indie") is $199. If I were looking at getting into game development for the first time with a limited budget, it's a no-brainer that I'd go with the cheaper engine.
#51
I know there's generally some speculation about how useful the Basic license will be. I'd ask that you reserve final judgment until you've seen it. After all, we may still go a different direction with a lower-end offering. If we do though, it won't be lowering the price. Rather, it might be adding some features and / or raising the price.
05/06/2009 (4:21 pm)
@Kevin: If you were looking at making your technology choice only on the planned $51 separating 3D Basic from Unity Indie, we (GG & Torque) would probably not be a good fit for you in the long term. I know there's generally some speculation about how useful the Basic license will be. I'd ask that you reserve final judgment until you've seen it. After all, we may still go a different direction with a lower-end offering. If we do though, it won't be lowering the price. Rather, it might be adding some features and / or raising the price.
#52
What about for playing back the game, yet being able to fly around the world still using a separate interactive camera (that only exists during the playback) (this is done in an older game, Myth:TFL)?
05/06/2009 (6:52 pm)
Any idea how easy does Torque 3D make it to do gameplay recording/journaling with deterministic playback? (This stuff was mentioned in a Torque Net Lib, GDC presentation)What about for playing back the game, yet being able to fly around the world still using a separate interactive camera (that only exists during the playback) (this is done in an older game, Myth:TFL)?
#53
So the only line is that it's not okay to share the C++ text files? Is that actually enforceable, seeing as they are just text files, and you're saying it is legit to share everything else? I thought the licenses are intended to be per-developer not per-project?
For example, I had at first thought Unigine was a lot more expensive than Torque 3D. But apparently it's price is per-project not per-developer. Which is potentially lower cost if you have many developers and only 1 game/project.
05/06/2009 (8:42 pm)
@Gareth: So it's okay to share "binaries" with a team member, but does that just mean share your saved binary mission files? Or does it mean everything including the editors/tools? Which includes the ability to write TorqueScript code?So the only line is that it's not okay to share the C++ text files? Is that actually enforceable, seeing as they are just text files, and you're saying it is legit to share everything else? I thought the licenses are intended to be per-developer not per-project?
For example, I had at first thought Unigine was a lot more expensive than Torque 3D. But apparently it's price is per-project not per-developer. Which is potentially lower cost if you have many developers and only 1 game/project.
#54
http://thepiratebay.org/search/torque%20engine/0/99/0
We continue to license Torque because generally, people are pretty honest, and if you give them a fair deal, they'll usually do the right thing. There's no clean way to enforce this "shared binary" thing, at least not one that I'm willing to contemplate. It would either require a lot of overhead on our end, or gross DRM that wouldn't be effective anyway. Both of those options seem to punish honest licensees more than deter theft.
I mentioned in another thread that we're still not 100% sure that Basic shouldn't be rethought, but I'm withholding final judgment on what's the best overall offering until we're nearer release, and we can test it. I hope you will too. Our intent is to make it so that you don't have to purchase Pro licenses for everyone on a team if you're on a tight budget and qualify for the online EULA (<$250k revenue, self-funded, etc.) If people are going to abuse it, or complain because the lines aren't totally clear, it might make sense to just drop the Basic offering.
All our online licenses are per developer btw, not per project.
05/06/2009 (10:00 pm)
@Peter: Do you work for Unigine? =) Okay, back the question you raise...can you use compiled engine binaries from Pro, presumably with custom modification, if you own basic but are working on the same project? Yes. Is this enforceable? Of course not. Neither is licensing Torque to begin with. http://thepiratebay.org/search/torque%20engine/0/99/0
We continue to license Torque because generally, people are pretty honest, and if you give them a fair deal, they'll usually do the right thing. There's no clean way to enforce this "shared binary" thing, at least not one that I'm willing to contemplate. It would either require a lot of overhead on our end, or gross DRM that wouldn't be effective anyway. Both of those options seem to punish honest licensees more than deter theft.
I mentioned in another thread that we're still not 100% sure that Basic shouldn't be rethought, but I'm withholding final judgment on what's the best overall offering until we're nearer release, and we can test it. I hope you will too. Our intent is to make it so that you don't have to purchase Pro licenses for everyone on a team if you're on a tight budget and qualify for the online EULA (<$250k revenue, self-funded, etc.) If people are going to abuse it, or complain because the lines aren't totally clear, it might make sense to just drop the Basic offering.
All our online licenses are per developer btw, not per project.
#55
This is a misrepresentation of Kevin's statement. Kevin said the pricetag would make a difference if he were just getting into game development with a tight budget. Those are called qualifying factors and put his statement into context. And yea, I tend to agree about the pricepoint.
But you're right, GG & Torque would not be a good fit for someone in this situation since they will probably have to pay another $300 later on for GG's next engine update.
Why some random site? Any site which offers a download of ANY T3D product or demo would probably be ripe for harvesting.
05/07/2009 (12:53 am)
Quote:
If you were looking at making your technology choice only on the planned $51 separating 3D Basic from Unity Indie, we (GG & Torque) would probably not be a good fit for you in the long term.
This is a misrepresentation of Kevin's statement. Kevin said the pricetag would make a difference if he were just getting into game development with a tight budget. Those are called qualifying factors and put his statement into context. And yea, I tend to agree about the pricepoint.
But you're right, GG & Torque would not be a good fit for someone in this situation since they will probably have to pay another $300 later on for GG's next engine update.
Quote:
I really hope a (full working up-to-date version of Torque 3D) doesn't end up on random download sites.
Why some random site? Any site which offers a download of ANY T3D product or demo would probably be ripe for harvesting.
#56
...
I guess there's always plenty of options for how to package software licenses.
The thought was just that rivers/road editor sounds like something you'd want an artist or level designer to use, rather than a coder. But maybe that just means Basic has (some of the coder stuff, ie TorqueScript, not C++) and (some of the art tools, ie everything except the river/road editors).
Or, maybe there could be an "Artist and Level Designer" version (yes river/road, no C++ source code). Such as ($400 Basic/Designer, $1,000 Pro, $3,000 Studio). Just an idea.
...
Or, if we consider the option of Unity Indie... Well, currently, sounds like if you are a starving college student, you'd be more able to complete a game with Unity Indie than Torque 3D Basic. Just because I think it sounds like Unity exposes more to the scripting language (out of necessity since they have no source license). For example, it looked like in the TGEA demo you can't do custom cameras (such as an RTS camera) because you need access to the C++ code for that. Around the same price range there is also C4 engine.
Btw, I personally don't think that even for a starving college student that $200 vs. $250 is significant.
...
As far as Unity Pro vs. Torque 3D Pro... It sounds to me like Torque 3D probably wins that one.
05/07/2009 (12:56 am)
Unigine is basically my only competing choice left besides joining the Torque 3D beta. They seem to be doing good with a lot of graphics algorithm stuff, and rumors suggest potentially cleaner code/sdk (maybe)... But not really any Unigine networking support or developer community yet, and I feel like Torque 3D might be further along overall. Torque 3D vs. Unigine licensing is very different....
I guess there's always plenty of options for how to package software licenses.
The thought was just that rivers/road editor sounds like something you'd want an artist or level designer to use, rather than a coder. But maybe that just means Basic has (some of the coder stuff, ie TorqueScript, not C++) and (some of the art tools, ie everything except the river/road editors).
Or, maybe there could be an "Artist and Level Designer" version (yes river/road, no C++ source code). Such as ($400 Basic/Designer, $1,000 Pro, $3,000 Studio). Just an idea.
...
Or, if we consider the option of Unity Indie... Well, currently, sounds like if you are a starving college student, you'd be more able to complete a game with Unity Indie than Torque 3D Basic. Just because I think it sounds like Unity exposes more to the scripting language (out of necessity since they have no source license). For example, it looked like in the TGEA demo you can't do custom cameras (such as an RTS camera) because you need access to the C++ code for that. Around the same price range there is also C4 engine.
Btw, I personally don't think that even for a starving college student that $200 vs. $250 is significant.
...
As far as Unity Pro vs. Torque 3D Pro... It sounds to me like Torque 3D probably wins that one.
#57
05/07/2009 (1:15 am)
Unigine stuff seems pretty cool. Seems like they have very good artists for their demos :) It looks like they're using a similar lighting model to ours too, but from the look of it, we're might be getting better shadow quality and performance. I *definitely* think our terrain looks a lot better, and comes with a lot better tools. The only other thing I note about Unigine is that they don't support Mac and the min spec is higher (SM 3.0). Looking through all their stuff though, I don't see anything there that we won't have in Torque 3D from a tools point of view.
#58
05/07/2009 (4:18 am)
Quote:That's a bit more than a grand ...
Unigine:
Indie Pricing with Source: $9980 + $29900
#59
We need simple things: support for wide range of video cards (starting with Intel 950 chips), reliable and fast rendering pipeline (fallback from shaders, flexible material system), simple art pipeline, no need fancy shaders to tax latest video cards, nice networking support (simple object ghosting is enough), good physics support. The closest to this comes Unity Pro, then (probably) T3D for acceptable price tag.
My dream: if only T3D's rendering core had the Ogre features in it with art pipeline from Unity - it would be the best product ever. (hint for GG folks)
BTW, T3D web deployment turns out to be a dissapointment to us, unfortunately. The T3D deployment forces us to create a custom launcher specific to our products and we cannot reuse already installed one (from another similar product based on T3D), thus Unity Web player is still the winner.
05/07/2009 (7:39 am)
@Peter Mowry: I looked at Unigine, but the engine has a bit limiting list of supported video cards, they dont support low end cards like Intel ones, which does not suit us. [rant]What's up with engines that only want to be comfortable in mid- and high-range video cards?... that's the most frustrating part with all those overpriced and half-baked engines like Unigine. [/rant]We need simple things: support for wide range of video cards (starting with Intel 950 chips), reliable and fast rendering pipeline (fallback from shaders, flexible material system), simple art pipeline, no need fancy shaders to tax latest video cards, nice networking support (simple object ghosting is enough), good physics support. The closest to this comes Unity Pro, then (probably) T3D for acceptable price tag.
My dream: if only T3D's rendering core had the Ogre features in it with art pipeline from Unity - it would be the best product ever. (hint for GG folks)
BTW, T3D web deployment turns out to be a dissapointment to us, unfortunately. The T3D deployment forces us to create a custom launcher specific to our products and we cannot reuse already installed one (from another similar product based on T3D), thus Unity Web player is still the winner.
#60
This really is not meant as a Unigine ad. I still think Torque 3D looks overall like a better more complete package than Unigine (even ignoring the price). But maybe there are some checkbox/soundbyte ideas for additional Torque 3D graphics features (for improved rendering performance: optimization/speed for all systems, scalable rendering quality for higher end systems).
Just throwing out some ideas. I don't actually know how much or to what extent some of those might be missing from Torque 3D (beta, first release, future releases). I also don't know if they are actually things that should be high priority for Torque 3D development, seeing as Torque 3D is not "just a rendering engine".
For example, despite my post, I'd probably consider something to be higher priority that is less obvious, and more in the details, like improvements to: cleaner code modules, better doc, better stability/scaling, better/easier workflow for implementing game logic and game code features (also might just be a doc/community thing).
@Tau: thanks for pointing out the issue about scaling to lower end systems, yea that sounds important; maybe Unigine is really just for graphics tech demos on really high-end systems?
05/07/2009 (12:06 pm)
Unigine? Reflections (2d, cubemap), such as on water or metal/mirrors. Water caustics. The Unigine tropic demo tree leaves look good because of a simple "alpha testing" feature (not just the artists). Alpha blending. Indoor culling with portal/sectors. Outdoor partitioning algorithms (BSP trees, quadtrees, octrees, and kd-trees). Optimized terrain LoD system. C4 (and CryEngine?) has Voxel terrain, but maybe it's just slower and unnecessary; but what about holes for heightmap terrain? High Dynamic Range (HDR) (tone mapping). Volumetric light scattering. Stereo rendering (okay gimicky maybe). Support/modes for Direct3D 10 (geometry shaders). Translucence. PSSM (Parallel Split Shadow Map). Per-surface shadowing settings. Water with surf zone and caustics. Volume light, volume fog. (-- www.unigine.com/features/#render)This really is not meant as a Unigine ad. I still think Torque 3D looks overall like a better more complete package than Unigine (even ignoring the price). But maybe there are some checkbox/soundbyte ideas for additional Torque 3D graphics features (for improved rendering performance: optimization/speed for all systems, scalable rendering quality for higher end systems).
Just throwing out some ideas. I don't actually know how much or to what extent some of those might be missing from Torque 3D (beta, first release, future releases). I also don't know if they are actually things that should be high priority for Torque 3D development, seeing as Torque 3D is not "just a rendering engine".
For example, despite my post, I'd probably consider something to be higher priority that is less obvious, and more in the details, like improvements to: cleaner code modules, better doc, better stability/scaling, better/easier workflow for implementing game logic and game code features (also might just be a doc/community thing).
@Tau: thanks for pointing out the issue about scaling to lower end systems, yea that sounds important; maybe Unigine is really just for graphics tech demos on really high-end systems?
Torque Owner Stephen
GearedMind Studio