Plan for David Chait
by David Chait · 04/30/2003 (9:07 am) · 5 comments
Orbz and ThinkTanks have both launched, and seem to be performing well. Some minor kinks to still work out, but nothing big, and not unexpected for the first of the third-party Torque engine games to be released.
Both 21-6 and BraveTree should be commended on their ingenuity, and their commitment to developing multiplatform products. They're showing the way for everyone else.
Tennis Critters is coming up -- it's actually fully functional, cross platform, EXCEPT that I need to build Mac joystick/gamepad controller support for Torque. That shouldn't take too long, now that the other stuff is out the door and I can re-focus on TC. (And it's yet another fun to play game.)
What's next on the list? I have feelers out to a few of the teams who have nicely-coming-together products and screenshots, to try and bring them up on the Mac and get them slated for cross-platform releases. Should be quite a summer for Torque. ;)
Oh, and I'm having tons of fun with DirectX shader development at the day job -- there's a LOT of gotchas, it's difficult to debug issues, but I just wrote a set of shaders for a bunch of differently-rendered 'material' types, so that all of them could get a 'universally' set of projected cloud shadows cast down on the world. REALLY cool.
I'm eagerly awaiting how shaders drop into the cross-platform equation. Macs are lacking support for fragment shaders until you hit like the 9700 (which, don't get me wrong, I LOVE my 9700s -- but they are still the high-end out there), and I'm not sure what vertex shader support is. Realistically, many effects require a vertex shader to set stuff up, but in theory you could then use the fixed pipe to finish the job -- just gets a bit hairy. I'd like to see Apple allow NV and ATI to open up their fragment shader extensions so that the Ge3/4 Ti boards and the Radeon 8500/9000 boards can at least have proper dual-platform implementations of pixel shading... ah well.
If you have a cool project, and understand that the Mac could easily be 30% of your market/sales, drop me a line and lets talk about how we can get you up and running on OSX.
-d
Both 21-6 and BraveTree should be commended on their ingenuity, and their commitment to developing multiplatform products. They're showing the way for everyone else.
Tennis Critters is coming up -- it's actually fully functional, cross platform, EXCEPT that I need to build Mac joystick/gamepad controller support for Torque. That shouldn't take too long, now that the other stuff is out the door and I can re-focus on TC. (And it's yet another fun to play game.)
What's next on the list? I have feelers out to a few of the teams who have nicely-coming-together products and screenshots, to try and bring them up on the Mac and get them slated for cross-platform releases. Should be quite a summer for Torque. ;)
Oh, and I'm having tons of fun with DirectX shader development at the day job -- there's a LOT of gotchas, it's difficult to debug issues, but I just wrote a set of shaders for a bunch of differently-rendered 'material' types, so that all of them could get a 'universally' set of projected cloud shadows cast down on the world. REALLY cool.
I'm eagerly awaiting how shaders drop into the cross-platform equation. Macs are lacking support for fragment shaders until you hit like the 9700 (which, don't get me wrong, I LOVE my 9700s -- but they are still the high-end out there), and I'm not sure what vertex shader support is. Realistically, many effects require a vertex shader to set stuff up, but in theory you could then use the fixed pipe to finish the job -- just gets a bit hairy. I'd like to see Apple allow NV and ATI to open up their fragment shader extensions so that the Ge3/4 Ti boards and the Radeon 8500/9000 boards can at least have proper dual-platform implementations of pixel shading... ah well.
If you have a cool project, and understand that the Mac could easily be 30% of your market/sales, drop me a line and lets talk about how we can get you up and running on OSX.
-d
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#2
04/30/2003 (1:02 pm)
I am thinking of picking up a mac, would be nice to have a doc as Phil suggested.
#3
04/30/2003 (4:01 pm)
hey cool, the Linux version of Tennis Critters is as well awaiting the joystick finalization then it will be done as well. 
#4
- Melv.
05/01/2003 (6:39 am)
Just gotta say that Tennis critters is superb! I'm totally addicted.- Melv.
Torque 3D Owner Phil Carlisle
How about writing a quick doc telling us where most of the issues you've hit so far come from?
Filenames too long?
Texture sizes an issue?
Too much platform dependancy?
Etc etc.. just a quick off-the-top-of-your-head post would rule, I'm DEFINTIELY planning on Mac support, hopefully I'll be able to do the brunt of the Mac porting myself, but I'll definitely need your help!
Phil.