Plan for Eric Preisz
by Eric Preisz · 11/29/2005 (2:30 pm) · 11 comments
Torque Ripe for the M&S industry
I have only been in the M&S industry for 6 years, but over that time, I have seen the emergence of trends. The commoditization of graphics engines has occurred at a rapid pace. Standardization is rampant, and considered a required feature, for those program managers and agencies forced to rebuild multi-million dollar proprietary solutions when contracts, extended by monopolizing closed solutions, finally became too expensive to maintain. Lastly, fidelity and visual acuity are no longer considered a luxury. Visual systems require visuals better than a Nintendo 64 if you want to immerse your audience. This is especially true when your training 18 and 19 year olds like many within the M&S community. Garage Games, through the Torque Engine, is providing a solution that satisfies the needs of most of the desires that are driving this trend.
Years ago, engineers built their graphics system when building their M&S systems. Programmers made their work more efficient by sharing software rasterizers. The machines that ran these programs used brute force methods to achieve polygon throughput. The computer systems running these programs cost its owners millions of dollars to purchase and maintain. Not millions for a computer farm, millions for one or two machines. Spending a couple hundred grand developing the software paled in comparison to the cost of maintaining a refrigerator of CPUs.
Then the PC arrived. Software became the expensive part of programs and graphics api's like OpenGL and DirectX matured providing means for even more efficient programming. Ask anyone who had to write custom drivers. Graphics solutions dropped in price by double digits every year. And contrary to what you may think, the drop in price was also accompanied by an increase in visual fidelity. In many circumstances, these jumps were fueled by the game industry converts. It was a grave time for those who believed they had developed a $50,000 a license goldmine. I had many people look at me in the eye and reply, "oh, another IG, too bad for you" (IG stands for image generator).
Torque is one of the first engines I know that provides a commercial level product at a consumer level price. I can honestly say that I didn't think it could happen. The most common quote from those in the M&S industry that I heard was, "How do those guys make any money?" The license structure for Torque will support a whole new set of customers that require visualization and don't have billion dollar budgets. I can't imagine trying to compete with their engine on price. It can't be done. I believe that there are many within the M&S community who believe that the Torque Engine provides sub-standard utility to justify the price. I hope to be part of that solution.
Let me jump back in time again to the old way of creating simulations. A group of very smart men and women would write a program for a specific type of M&S application. That worked well (excluding cost), but several problems occurred. Many times, the contractor, who was now sitting comfortable in their monopolized, proprietary position, stopped providing the service they one did. It's the proverbial, "you don't bring me flowers" dilemma. The other problem, solved with a similar solution, occurred when the owners of these projects tried to use two applications together. After all, why shouldn't you use a helicopter simulator and urban operations simulator together?
The answer was a series of standard communication protocols. The first widely adopted was DIS. The replacement for DIS was HLA. The open source version is CIGI. These interfaces provided the ability to connect one simulator with another. It is very common for someone to ask me if I am DIS or HLA compliant. When you ask someone in the M&S community this question, the answer is ALWAYS, "YES" or "YES, we've implemented most of it." The truth? I'd say the most honest answer is, "Yes, we've implemented 10% of the standard so that I can say we are compliant. I would implement the remaining 90% but chances are your simulator is very specific and uses a myriad of user defined packets so that fact that I speak DIS and/or HLA is somewhat irrelevant. If we start a contract I would love to charge you for the ability to connect your sim with mine." And this was still a better answer than rewriting everything from scratch.
I see the Torque engine as a continuation of the standardization process. By using a standard rending engine (Torque?), a buyer will see many advantages. First, if they retain the rights to the art they develop, they can reuse it in many other simulations that are also based on Torque. Also, if they need to, they can switch vendors to another Torque based graphics provider.
The community is another advantage of a full source solution. As a rendering standard, the buyer is no longer tied to the developer for advice. There are thousands who are trained in Torque, if they want to hire a consultant, they can. The possibility for a large number of Torque based graphics vendors exist because there is such a large number of available developers.
Lastly, but not least, the graphics play a role in the M&S industry. There is a push in the M&S community known as "Serious Games". Personally, I hate the name, but I like the concept. Since the game industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, a lot of R&D takes place. Graphics, along with game play, is the key to a successful game. Several years ago, generals and colonels compared their $40 ps2 game with their million dollar simulator. Why can't the simulator look like that? One reason is that the simulation industry doesn't share like the game industry does. Also, it's just not as important to the sim industry, and those who are really into high end graphics, tend to want to work in the game industry. I'll admit it, TGE doesn't have the best rending pipeline in the industry, but it still will add a lot to the average simulation rendering engine (note TSE addresses many of the highest end graphics solutions).
Do great graphics make great simulators? No, not alone they don't. There are many in the industry using game engines to make simulators look better without adding a better M&S solution for training and visualization. There are specific cases where enhanced graphics add an incredible amount. These cases include visual intensive situations like situational awareness, hazmat, forest fire, and sensors (IR,night vision, etc ). Another important case is when a desktop solution is a supplement to live training. If you expect people to "train" on their own, it needs to look good enough to keep people engaged. The Torque engine provides this ability with consumer game level quality.
So what is it going to take to make this happen? A change in mindset; the M&S industry doesn't move that fast. Exposure; many in the M&S industry still aren't aware of the functionality of the Torque engine. And lastly, time. In time, there will be hundreds of code modules that will enable Torque's ability to infuse this market. I can't wait to see them hit the market.
Here's where we start:
LADBM (large area database management) already available in TSE
Ocean dynamics
Sensor support (Night Vision, FLIR)
DIS/HLA support
Here's what we've got:
The most amazing license agreement
High end graphics
Support via large user community
Cross-platform support
Customization via scripting
Feel free to help me add to this list, I'm sure if forgot a lot.
I have only been in the M&S industry for 6 years, but over that time, I have seen the emergence of trends. The commoditization of graphics engines has occurred at a rapid pace. Standardization is rampant, and considered a required feature, for those program managers and agencies forced to rebuild multi-million dollar proprietary solutions when contracts, extended by monopolizing closed solutions, finally became too expensive to maintain. Lastly, fidelity and visual acuity are no longer considered a luxury. Visual systems require visuals better than a Nintendo 64 if you want to immerse your audience. This is especially true when your training 18 and 19 year olds like many within the M&S community. Garage Games, through the Torque Engine, is providing a solution that satisfies the needs of most of the desires that are driving this trend.
Years ago, engineers built their graphics system when building their M&S systems. Programmers made their work more efficient by sharing software rasterizers. The machines that ran these programs used brute force methods to achieve polygon throughput. The computer systems running these programs cost its owners millions of dollars to purchase and maintain. Not millions for a computer farm, millions for one or two machines. Spending a couple hundred grand developing the software paled in comparison to the cost of maintaining a refrigerator of CPUs.
Then the PC arrived. Software became the expensive part of programs and graphics api's like OpenGL and DirectX matured providing means for even more efficient programming. Ask anyone who had to write custom drivers. Graphics solutions dropped in price by double digits every year. And contrary to what you may think, the drop in price was also accompanied by an increase in visual fidelity. In many circumstances, these jumps were fueled by the game industry converts. It was a grave time for those who believed they had developed a $50,000 a license goldmine. I had many people look at me in the eye and reply, "oh, another IG, too bad for you" (IG stands for image generator).
Torque is one of the first engines I know that provides a commercial level product at a consumer level price. I can honestly say that I didn't think it could happen. The most common quote from those in the M&S industry that I heard was, "How do those guys make any money?" The license structure for Torque will support a whole new set of customers that require visualization and don't have billion dollar budgets. I can't imagine trying to compete with their engine on price. It can't be done. I believe that there are many within the M&S community who believe that the Torque Engine provides sub-standard utility to justify the price. I hope to be part of that solution.
Let me jump back in time again to the old way of creating simulations. A group of very smart men and women would write a program for a specific type of M&S application. That worked well (excluding cost), but several problems occurred. Many times, the contractor, who was now sitting comfortable in their monopolized, proprietary position, stopped providing the service they one did. It's the proverbial, "you don't bring me flowers" dilemma. The other problem, solved with a similar solution, occurred when the owners of these projects tried to use two applications together. After all, why shouldn't you use a helicopter simulator and urban operations simulator together?
The answer was a series of standard communication protocols. The first widely adopted was DIS. The replacement for DIS was HLA. The open source version is CIGI. These interfaces provided the ability to connect one simulator with another. It is very common for someone to ask me if I am DIS or HLA compliant. When you ask someone in the M&S community this question, the answer is ALWAYS, "YES" or "YES, we've implemented most of it." The truth? I'd say the most honest answer is, "Yes, we've implemented 10% of the standard so that I can say we are compliant. I would implement the remaining 90% but chances are your simulator is very specific and uses a myriad of user defined packets so that fact that I speak DIS and/or HLA is somewhat irrelevant. If we start a contract I would love to charge you for the ability to connect your sim with mine." And this was still a better answer than rewriting everything from scratch.
I see the Torque engine as a continuation of the standardization process. By using a standard rending engine (Torque?), a buyer will see many advantages. First, if they retain the rights to the art they develop, they can reuse it in many other simulations that are also based on Torque. Also, if they need to, they can switch vendors to another Torque based graphics provider.
The community is another advantage of a full source solution. As a rendering standard, the buyer is no longer tied to the developer for advice. There are thousands who are trained in Torque, if they want to hire a consultant, they can. The possibility for a large number of Torque based graphics vendors exist because there is such a large number of available developers.
Lastly, but not least, the graphics play a role in the M&S industry. There is a push in the M&S community known as "Serious Games". Personally, I hate the name, but I like the concept. Since the game industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, a lot of R&D takes place. Graphics, along with game play, is the key to a successful game. Several years ago, generals and colonels compared their $40 ps2 game with their million dollar simulator. Why can't the simulator look like that? One reason is that the simulation industry doesn't share like the game industry does. Also, it's just not as important to the sim industry, and those who are really into high end graphics, tend to want to work in the game industry. I'll admit it, TGE doesn't have the best rending pipeline in the industry, but it still will add a lot to the average simulation rendering engine (note TSE addresses many of the highest end graphics solutions).
Do great graphics make great simulators? No, not alone they don't. There are many in the industry using game engines to make simulators look better without adding a better M&S solution for training and visualization. There are specific cases where enhanced graphics add an incredible amount. These cases include visual intensive situations like situational awareness, hazmat, forest fire, and sensors (IR,night vision, etc ). Another important case is when a desktop solution is a supplement to live training. If you expect people to "train" on their own, it needs to look good enough to keep people engaged. The Torque engine provides this ability with consumer game level quality.
So what is it going to take to make this happen? A change in mindset; the M&S industry doesn't move that fast. Exposure; many in the M&S industry still aren't aware of the functionality of the Torque engine. And lastly, time. In time, there will be hundreds of code modules that will enable Torque's ability to infuse this market. I can't wait to see them hit the market.
Here's where we start:
LADBM (large area database management) already available in TSE
Ocean dynamics
Sensor support (Night Vision, FLIR)
DIS/HLA support
Here's what we've got:
The most amazing license agreement
High end graphics
Support via large user community
Cross-platform support
Customization via scripting
Feel free to help me add to this list, I'm sure if forgot a lot.
About the author
#3
I wish I could come along to the I/ITSEC and such as the "serious" market here in the UK hasnt got quite the same impetus as the US seems to be gathering. I think that might be because of the huge federal spending power of the US Govt for such titles.
I've been interested in using game technologies for other uses since probably about 10 years ago now, when I went to pitch a Tank game (we were making one at the time) to our ministry of defence. At the time, we were amazed at the prices they were being charged for relatively low-fidelity simulations. I recall the tank simulation we were proposing would easily output at greater fidelity than the 250,000 gbp simulation they were using at the time. Using regular voodoo1 cards.
I guess the biggest problem for me, is that creating contacts who actually have money to spend and want to spend it within a reasonbly short timeframe. Most of the institutions I've spoken to in terms of potential contracts have been probably 6 months off actually paying for anything. They simply have huge lead times, as government contracts tend to.
I'm hoping to come along to the GAMES Synergy summit next year, but thats down to the powers that be :)
But yeah, I definitely think that there are good times ahead for developers who can get in on the ground of this games space and get over the fact that they arent doing a market-driven-consumer product.
Nice read Eric!
11/29/2005 (4:13 pm)
I'm in total agreement that Torque is a great platform for "serious" games. I actually like the term serious, because it could be FAR worse :)I wish I could come along to the I/ITSEC and such as the "serious" market here in the UK hasnt got quite the same impetus as the US seems to be gathering. I think that might be because of the huge federal spending power of the US Govt for such titles.
I've been interested in using game technologies for other uses since probably about 10 years ago now, when I went to pitch a Tank game (we were making one at the time) to our ministry of defence. At the time, we were amazed at the prices they were being charged for relatively low-fidelity simulations. I recall the tank simulation we were proposing would easily output at greater fidelity than the 250,000 gbp simulation they were using at the time. Using regular voodoo1 cards.
I guess the biggest problem for me, is that creating contacts who actually have money to spend and want to spend it within a reasonbly short timeframe. Most of the institutions I've spoken to in terms of potential contracts have been probably 6 months off actually paying for anything. They simply have huge lead times, as government contracts tend to.
I'm hoping to come along to the GAMES Synergy summit next year, but thats down to the powers that be :)
But yeah, I definitely think that there are good times ahead for developers who can get in on the ground of this games space and get over the fact that they arent doing a market-driven-consumer product.
Nice read Eric!
#5
When I used to work for Air Force Material Command we did a lot of sim work. Mostly on SGI Irix boxes running Xwindows.
11/29/2005 (6:15 pm)
Remember you need a commercial license to do anything other than a entertainment game. But yea it's a great platform.When I used to work for Air Force Material Command we did a lot of sim work. Mostly on SGI Irix boxes running Xwindows.
#7
So you guys all know, Eric works with Valador, and they're at I/ITSEC showing off some pretty amazing stuff. Stephen has written it up in some of his .plans, but seeing this stuff in action is a real kick in the pants. Torque is making quite an impact here. We're in the Valador booth showing off their Mars rover simulation, which uses actual Mars terrain data within TSE's Atlas system! Pretty awesome to think about... and being a big geek myself, I wish I had a copy of this thing just to fly around in and explore Mars. :) Valador is also showing off a NASA telemetry-based decision support system tool, which NASA is using to help them plan out and simulate space stations, production facilities, and more. These sames sorts of scenarios are being shown off in the NASA booth as well, which is pretty cool. Valador's solution here is very technically impressive, and Eric is an absolutely top-notch coder (and you can tell he's got his head wrapped around the big picture well too :).
We're also in L3's Link Simulation and Training booth, where Torque is being used in the first ever demo of a fully integrated cross-simulation training system. At L3, they have a Blackhawk UH-60 full-on moving simulation trainer (the kind you sit in and pretend you're flying with) hooked up to a separate UAV (unmanned aircraft) training simulator, hooked up to a Torque-based ground force simulator. They're using DIS to make all the sims talk to each other, and they're running live demos showing a training scenario where each of these separate simulators participate in a shared, real-time training mission. So, the Torque dudes see the helicopter fying overhead, the UAV sees the Torque-based guys moving around in a city, the Blackhawk can pick up the Torque players, and the Torque players can all jump in and be extracted from the warzone. The cool part is, the Blackhawk and UAV sims are totally separate, existing systems... not one bit of code had to be changed in these sims in order to start working with the Torque-bases sims. And of course, Torque's simulation and networking architecture made it easy to accept updates from external sources, to integrate those in the Torque sim, and to propagate them to multiple Torque-based simulation clients.
Pretty interesting stuff!
11/29/2005 (6:51 pm)
Great write-up Eric. :) Thanks for the kind words.So you guys all know, Eric works with Valador, and they're at I/ITSEC showing off some pretty amazing stuff. Stephen has written it up in some of his .plans, but seeing this stuff in action is a real kick in the pants. Torque is making quite an impact here. We're in the Valador booth showing off their Mars rover simulation, which uses actual Mars terrain data within TSE's Atlas system! Pretty awesome to think about... and being a big geek myself, I wish I had a copy of this thing just to fly around in and explore Mars. :) Valador is also showing off a NASA telemetry-based decision support system tool, which NASA is using to help them plan out and simulate space stations, production facilities, and more. These sames sorts of scenarios are being shown off in the NASA booth as well, which is pretty cool. Valador's solution here is very technically impressive, and Eric is an absolutely top-notch coder (and you can tell he's got his head wrapped around the big picture well too :).
We're also in L3's Link Simulation and Training booth, where Torque is being used in the first ever demo of a fully integrated cross-simulation training system. At L3, they have a Blackhawk UH-60 full-on moving simulation trainer (the kind you sit in and pretend you're flying with) hooked up to a separate UAV (unmanned aircraft) training simulator, hooked up to a Torque-based ground force simulator. They're using DIS to make all the sims talk to each other, and they're running live demos showing a training scenario where each of these separate simulators participate in a shared, real-time training mission. So, the Torque dudes see the helicopter fying overhead, the UAV sees the Torque-based guys moving around in a city, the Blackhawk can pick up the Torque players, and the Torque players can all jump in and be extracted from the warzone. The cool part is, the Blackhawk and UAV sims are totally separate, existing systems... not one bit of code had to be changed in these sims in order to start working with the Torque-bases sims. And of course, Torque's simulation and networking architecture made it easy to accept updates from external sources, to integrate those in the Torque sim, and to propagate them to multiple Torque-based simulation clients.
Pretty interesting stuff!
#8
11/30/2005 (2:43 am)
@BigPapa(but you can read it too) -I'd suggest not trying to build a simulator to sell. The path for getting money from these guys is very expensive, time consuming, and difficult. Plus, it takes an expertise in a certain area to create a simulator. I might understand 3D graphics, but I don
#9
11/30/2005 (3:49 am)
@Eric - Lots of good info. I don't pretend to make money right now. I'm just curious about the serious games industry. I'm planning on stopping by the Peabody tomorrow night and meet as many people as possible.
#10
Let me restate what Eric said. Simulations do require extremely specialized knowledge in certain areas to be successful. The people I work for have been at this on their own for over 15 years and numerous years before that at other contractors. And there are definately people at my company who are smarter than me (and I'm grateful). There are times when we receive customer support calls and I'm extremely glad I'm not the go-to guy for HLA information :) But let me also tell you this, programming simulations beat the hell out of programming Oracle :) I highly recommend looking into the field. Those of you still in school, shoot for a double major with CS and math or some other hard science and it'll really give you an advantage.
11/30/2005 (5:01 am)
Not everyone can be a rockstar in video games, but I'll tell you, the simulation field can scratch that itch sometimes. I've been working for a company that develops constructive simulation software for the last couple of years. Sometimes I feel like the only difference between our software and games is the ability to keep score :)Let me restate what Eric said. Simulations do require extremely specialized knowledge in certain areas to be successful. The people I work for have been at this on their own for over 15 years and numerous years before that at other contractors. And there are definately people at my company who are smarter than me (and I'm grateful). There are times when we receive customer support calls and I'm extremely glad I'm not the go-to guy for HLA information :) But let me also tell you this, programming simulations beat the hell out of programming Oracle :) I highly recommend looking into the field. Those of you still in school, shoot for a double major with CS and math or some other hard science and it'll really give you an advantage.
#11
The comments about the government's lead time are relevant. I've heard stories about new companies being awarded contracts and then running out of money before the contract money is dispersed. We see a typical four month wait on any contract we win around here. Add that to the wait on the results of whether your proposal was accepted and you could be sitting on your hands for 6-8 months.
If that did not scare you, the Air Force has released a solitication for a "serious" game through the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program. Google SBIR and read up, then check out solicitaion number AF06-027 at http://www.acq.osd.mil/sadbu/sbir/solicitations/sbir061/af061.htm .
11/30/2005 (4:18 pm)
Interesting post. The company I work for helped define the DIS protocol and was the first to implement it. We were very heavily involved with simulation tech research and development several years ago, but have since moved on to newer research topics such as augmented reality. The comments about the government's lead time are relevant. I've heard stories about new companies being awarded contracts and then running out of money before the contract money is dispersed. We see a typical four month wait on any contract we win around here. Add that to the wait on the results of whether your proposal was accepted and you could be sitting on your hands for 6-8 months.
If that did not scare you, the Air Force has released a solitication for a "serious" game through the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program. Google SBIR and read up, then check out solicitaion number AF06-027 at http://www.acq.osd.mil/sadbu/sbir/solicitations/sbir061/af061.htm .
Torque Owner Karthik Krishnan