Verve - Early Adopter & Pathing

In my last blog I said that I would continue to post more information about Verve. About a week after that my computer died and I lost a few weeks worth of work... lame! Anyway, I thought that I should really focus on getting Verve ready for release, which brings me here!

Verve has just dropped into GarageGames' online store for $130.00 USD!

Product Page
Product Forum

At this stage it is a pre-release early adopter version, so you may find a few bugs or two which will be ironed out before a full release. Given this, GarageGames and Violent Tulip are giving a $20 discount to those who are willing to work through the teething and help shape the final product.

Please note that there are a few minor issues with the Mac version which make Verve virtually unusable at this stage. This will be fixed shortly and I'll let everyone know when this is done. Sorry Mac dudes!

Here is one of the tutorial videos showing off some of the basics of the Verve Editor:

Shameless Plug

Verve is an add-on tool for GarageGames' flagship 3D engine, Torque 3D. Verve gives you the power to create and display event based sequences, including in-game Cinematics and Cutscenes, helping you connect with your audience and experience the worlds you create.

The tools provided with Verve are integrated into and extend the standard editors in Torque 3D and aim to promote a familiar development environment. The Verve Editor is where your world comes to life! Complex Machinima sequences and game Cinematics are all made easy with Verve's tool set.

Verve supports and extends a number of critical features by Torque 3D, including:

• A real-time, non-linear, fully featured and integrated Editor Tool
• Multiple playback options including play forwards, backwards, pause, reset, looping and slow-motion
• Full support for moving, animating and controlling objects within your scenes
• 2D and 3D audio effects
• Support for Lights Objects and Particle Emitters
• Multiple Scenes, Camera Views and Effects, including Post Processing Effect Shader support and camera shake
• GUI Effects
• Customize existing events or integrate your own into the editor with little effort
• Simple Server/Client functionality
• Optimized sequences for release builds
• XML based sequence files

Great care has also been taken to ensure that the integration process is as simple as possible. Even the most inexperienced C++ developers will be able to get Verve up and running with little effort.

All of this is available with documentation, tutorials and full support from Verve's developers, Violent Tulip. The creation of entertaining, high quality in-game Cinematics has never been easier!

Pathing

Note: Sorry for the choppy video, my recorder doesn't like my video card =(

When I started working on Verve I knew that the existing Path object wasn't going to suit my needs. I needed something similar to TGB's t2dPath object, so I implemented it! VPath provides some pretty nifty little features as you can see in the above demonstration. What you see there is a Bezier type path with 4 nodes and 3 types of objects attached to the path: Point Light, ParticleEmitterNode and StaticShape.

VPath is network ready and supports up to 256 nodes. This number is just a soft cap and can be increased (I have tested a path with 65,000+ nodes, quite a sight!). Properties of attached objects can be altered on the fly and you can also edit Nodes in the game!

Verve ships with a new Path Editor Tool to accompany this new object type and allows you to add, edit and delete nodes on existing paths.

Getting Started

If you decide to pick up Verve during this cycle (at a reduced price remember!), please note that the documentation is under heavy construction and you will need to feel your way around some sections of the tool. Though there are some docs and videos to help get you started:

Source Class List
Tutorial List

Please excuse the website, under construction as well!

This is Post #2.

Verve - Early Adopter & Pathing
Verve - A new tool for Torque 3D