Few Questions and the babblings of a Newb!
by Chris · in Torque Game Engine · 04/08/2004 (12:54 pm) · 3 replies
Hey guys,
Had the SDK for about a week now and considering I have no programming, modelling, etc skills prior to it, I'm starting to feel somewhat comfortable with the basics. The codesampler tutorials helped a ton.
I'd like to start working on the first piece of my game this weekend to demo to a few friends. Really I'm not going to do anything more than lay out some terrain, plop down a few structures and be able to walk around. Got a few questions.
1) I know I can use one of the demo pieces and work from that, but is there some way to "zero" things out in it? Flatten all the terrain, remove all objects/bots, etc? I'd like to start with a piece of land an contour it myself.
2) How simple is it to expand beyond the borders of the original piece of terrain to add more?
3) How do folks handle "version control" of their games? I'm not even 100% positive what I need to copy into a new directory to start working. But do folks just work continuously in a single directory (possibly horking up previous code if you foo something up)? Do you copy the directory and make a new one once in a while (I can imagine this can get _huge_)?
4) For an "underground" area or a cave in the terrain I'm assuming you just create a normal interior, one that angles down a bit at least and raise the terrain around the entrance to mask the "building"?
5) There's a lot of talk about old files in the Head version. What can I safely strip out?
That's about it, thanks in advance. And for those of you who have read through the whole thing, here's a few of my "newbie experiences" that should make you chuckle.
- First time I figured out how to get into the editor I picked up my player object and then accidentally dropped him below the contour of the land....aieieiee!
- C++ for dummies doesn't help.
- After playing with Milkshape and starting the CS girl tutorial I spent about 45 minutes trying to figure out how to model one thigh I was like, "30 minutes to model a thigh." Needless to say I've learned enough about modeling to know I don't want to ever do that again.
- {}{}{}{}{}}{}{}{}{}{} - Error compiling...aw crap where the hell is it.
- Apparently my wife doesn't share the same excitement I have about the engine. "OH MY GOD, HONEY LOOK!" *RunRunRun* "I just put that box there!" *Kerslap!*
Anyway, great engine, having a blast so far.
- Chris
Had the SDK for about a week now and considering I have no programming, modelling, etc skills prior to it, I'm starting to feel somewhat comfortable with the basics. The codesampler tutorials helped a ton.
I'd like to start working on the first piece of my game this weekend to demo to a few friends. Really I'm not going to do anything more than lay out some terrain, plop down a few structures and be able to walk around. Got a few questions.
1) I know I can use one of the demo pieces and work from that, but is there some way to "zero" things out in it? Flatten all the terrain, remove all objects/bots, etc? I'd like to start with a piece of land an contour it myself.
2) How simple is it to expand beyond the borders of the original piece of terrain to add more?
3) How do folks handle "version control" of their games? I'm not even 100% positive what I need to copy into a new directory to start working. But do folks just work continuously in a single directory (possibly horking up previous code if you foo something up)? Do you copy the directory and make a new one once in a while (I can imagine this can get _huge_)?
4) For an "underground" area or a cave in the terrain I'm assuming you just create a normal interior, one that angles down a bit at least and raise the terrain around the entrance to mask the "building"?
5) There's a lot of talk about old files in the Head version. What can I safely strip out?
That's about it, thanks in advance. And for those of you who have read through the whole thing, here's a few of my "newbie experiences" that should make you chuckle.
- First time I figured out how to get into the editor I picked up my player object and then accidentally dropped him below the contour of the land....aieieiee!
- C++ for dummies doesn't help.
- After playing with Milkshape and starting the CS girl tutorial I spent about 45 minutes trying to figure out how to model one thigh I was like, "30 minutes to model a thigh." Needless to say I've learned enough about modeling to know I don't want to ever do that again.
- {}{}{}{}{}}{}{}{}{}{} - Error compiling...aw crap where the hell is it.
- Apparently my wife doesn't share the same excitement I have about the engine. "OH MY GOD, HONEY LOOK!" *RunRunRun* "I just put that box there!" *Kerslap!*
Anyway, great engine, having a blast so far.
- Chris
About the author
#2
1) I've created a depression that I'd like to fill in with water to make a lake. I've also created a water block but can't seem to get it to scale to fill the entire depression without adding multiple water blocks. That won't work either because the edges of the blocks don't match.
2) I've been digging around the web in search of "free" models and textures to use in my game. Most of them tell me I'll need to contact the author before I use any of it in a commercial product. Is there any websites out there offering truly free models/textures that I won't need to worry about getting sued somewhere down the road?
3) As I add objects to my small test village I'm beginning to see how how huge the mission can become. I'm looking to create an online RPG type game with a pretty large landmass. I'm wondering if it's going to get unwieldy to have everything in one "mission". Am I doing something wrong or is that just the way it is? How large or a map is realistically feasible with a lot of objects? Is there a way to autoload other "areas" or missions to zone folks into new areas?
4) After lowering all the landscape to start from a nicely flat map I spawn into the world only to drop a few hundred feet. I can't for the life of me figure out how to change the spawn point to a place on the ground somewhere.
If any of these are answered in other posts or tutorials I'd love to see them.
Thanks!
04/09/2004 (4:35 am)
Thanks so much for the info! Helping a ton as I dig through things. As I'm going a few more things have popped up...1) I've created a depression that I'd like to fill in with water to make a lake. I've also created a water block but can't seem to get it to scale to fill the entire depression without adding multiple water blocks. That won't work either because the edges of the blocks don't match.
2) I've been digging around the web in search of "free" models and textures to use in my game. Most of them tell me I'll need to contact the author before I use any of it in a commercial product. Is there any websites out there offering truly free models/textures that I won't need to worry about getting sued somewhere down the road?
3) As I add objects to my small test village I'm beginning to see how how huge the mission can become. I'm looking to create an online RPG type game with a pretty large landmass. I'm wondering if it's going to get unwieldy to have everything in one "mission". Am I doing something wrong or is that just the way it is? How large or a map is realistically feasible with a lot of objects? Is there a way to autoload other "areas" or missions to zone folks into new areas?
4) After lowering all the landscape to start from a nicely flat map I spawn into the world only to drop a few hundred feet. I can't for the life of me figure out how to change the spawn point to a place on the ground somewhere.
If any of these are answered in other posts or tutorials I'd love to see them.
Thanks!
Torque Owner Badguy
First off lets start at the beginning with the important stuff.
A) when you have successfully pulled down the cvs release you desire.. the first thing you do Before you compile it.
is zip it up. (so you dont have to pound the cvs if you mess up)
1.) you can do this manually with the text file or you can use the editor to get you started.
(use the editor (F11) and select the scene objects (F4 for treeview on right) and delete them as you see fit (delete key))
then open the *.mis file and clean it up (SimGroups cannot be deleted in the editor)
once you have that done when in editor find the terrain editor and find the flatten feature
2.) the Terrain is hardcoded to "Repeat"
3.) I use CVS,tho project management from new releases can be a pain. so I usually have two copies. one on cvs and the other is the newest tied to the GG cvs.
4.) that will work and you will find also terrain clear block functionality somewhere in the editor. (select terrain face in question while editing terrain)
5.) dont be silly. no need, anything you do will not really effect the size of the sucker.. unless you go crazy which you dont wanna do.
I would stay away from this area for sometime yet. leave her be she will be fine.
ctrl-c to change from player to cam.. reposition cam above terrain then ctrl-w to drop player from cam.
heh..
I think only dummies are supposta read those?
and when they do I hear they work.
so dont worry about that :)