Torque for relative n00bs?

#1 Hello,

I would recommend you download the demo of Torque. Its has a nice scripting language. The demo gives you all the scripts to play with and modify and you feel fit or to create your own project. If you combine that with the documentation on the scripting language then you will have a good idea of what you can do with torque without playing with the source.

You can do a lot with Torque without ever touching the source. Infact you can do almost anything without the source. The source is just the technology, your game is done is the scripts. The only time you would ever have to touch the source is if you need to modify the technology. If that is the case then chances are that someone has already done this and you will be able to find it in the resouce section. Then its just a matter of following the steps and then getting back to your game.

Later, Ben

#2 I see situations like this a lot, so let me give a bit more of an answer here.

The main thing to remember and realize is this: You don't make a game by yourself.

Now as with anything, there are some exceptions to this rule, but in the general case, it takes at least 2 people, usually more to make a game. Why? Because you generally do not find a single person who has top notch coding and artistic skills, as well as skill in sound effects and music.

If you are a skilled artist, great. Hook up with a skilled coder. Don't be ashamed that you can't do it all yoursef. Don't even try unless you have a very good reason.

#3 Great answer John!

#4 I haven't looked into the scripts yet, but I definately will. I checked the demo and am impressed with the features. I also read quite a few tutorials and stuff like that.

I'm well aware of the team thing. I've worked with teams and am working with teams on mods for Half-Life, BF1942, and even some Java3D and web-based games.

This is basically for my education/entertainment. I have no plans on doing a full game.

#5 Hey Chris,

Let me just say, I'm in the same boat as you. I bought the engine a few weeks ago, and if anything I'm worse off than you, since I don't even have any 3D artist type skills. While I won't lie and say the path in front of you is easy, it's certainly doable. You really don't need to dig into the C++ code unless you want to really play with the underlying mechanics of the game engine. For the most part, everything is done with scripts that run on top of the executable and are easily modified.

I would highly suggest picking up some sort of "grepping" tool like WinGrep to help your scripting. It helps you somewhat "reverse engineer" what you want to do with the game. Say you want to change the title that pops up when you load the game from "Loading Torque Demo" to something else just plug in the string you want to change, let the grep chew through your directories and tell you where the string is. You can then go in and modify stuff to your hearts content.

After the first day or two of confusion of how to use CVS and compile the engine I was quickly mucking around with the scripts. A day or two after that I had a self created demo of and little village I created and such. It wasn't much, but considering it only took me a few days I can't complain. I can't say enough how much just getting into the game and playing around with the editors and such helps you learn.

There's a few n00b things I can throw your way that helped me through my first few weeks so far.

1) Read through the "Getting started with the Torque SDK" docs for a good starting point.

2) Next try the following two sets of tutorials to get an understanding of what's at your disposal. First try the CodeSampler Series and then give the Tourniquet tutorial.

3) Next, if you have access to them (think you need to own the engine to get to them, but not sure), read the Official Torque Docs.

4) By now you have a headache and are overloaded, take a break and play some BF1942.

5) Start playing with the engine and see if you can make some sort of demo/game on your own. If you have any problems, a quick search of the forums or the resources usually yields some good info. If not, hop over to IRC or post your own message and you'll usually get an answer quick. I was shocked (happily I might add) to see Employees responding to my questions on the first Sunday I had the engine.

6) Read through the forums, particularly the Getting Started forum to see what other folks have bumped into getting up and running. I'd also suggest skimming the unread posts whenever you have a spare few minutes just to see what's going on.

7) While I haven't gotten my copy in my hand yet, Ken Finney's book on 3D Game Programming looks like it's going to help immensely. You may also want to start looking around at this point for some beginner C++ books.


That's about where I am now. Still learning and sure I have months ahead of me before I can really do anything productive, but I'm having fun the whole time. Sorry for the longish post, but I know the pain you're going through. It seems so overwhelming and I agree with John that you'll likely need help from at least one other person as there's just way too much to figure out on your own.

Good luck and welcome aboard! If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly or through the boards. I'm happy to help and would be even happier to work for a few free models :)

#6 I was a total "n00b" when I started messing around with Torque. I had only gone a 100 hour course in school, got a G (which is, the same as OKAY, or whatever it's called in english) and then forgot almost all that I learned afterwards. It was purely maths and some DOS applications that did some calculations.

After that, I coded a simple OpenGL application by following Nehe's tutorials, got bored and gave up. 1 year later I found Torque, thought it was interesting - tried it out.

Got overwhelmed by the code.. Gave up. 2 weeks later I gave it a try again, but now in scripts. Now, 4 months later - I'm very confident in scripting the engine and we got a fully functional persistent world we're playing with, much only with my scripting and some code snippits.

It's not easy, as Chris said; but it's doable. You might find it's hard sometimes, but just keep on pushing and when you finally go trough the problem, it's fun as d*mn! :) Good luck.

#7 Messed around with the scripts in the demo alittle bit. Seems pretty easy to use. Will probably take some practice to write, but I know what's goin on in most of the scripts and editing is pretty easy.

I'm probably going to pick up the SDK some time next week.

One last question though, how is the AI?

#8 I haven't really played with the AI that much. Though I did get to play with the pathing and such a bit and that seems good. I'm sure between the base AI and enhancements that are freely available floating around the GG site it's probably pretty good.

Also, don't forget, with the SDK you can make any modifications to the engine you want. I'm sure that's way down the road for us n00bs but you could just dig into the base C++ code and tweak the AI to your liking.

- C

#9 Hey Chris,
When I bought the SDK back in 2001, I didn't know much about game development or c++. Knew how to do web pages and java. What brought me to buy the SDK was seeing all the mods for Tribes and Tribes 2. Me and a friend of mine wanted to do our own mods. Well, we both bought the SDK...niether had a clue. My friend only had played games...never did any type of coding. Now today...he is a good modeler and I am doing the coding for our projects. We have learned alot.

Best advice to you is to follow the advice of John and Chris"Meatball". The most I learned was in the forums. Read the forums... go to the resources and try some of the tutorials. Put some of the code snippits in and play around with them. You can do that with the Torque Demo or Realm Wars. Read the forums...find something interesting do a search in the forums to find more about it. Ask questions. I repeated "read the forums" on purpose... that is a great resource. I spend at least an hour a night reading the forums.

We haven't created a game yet, but we will be completing several projects in the next year. This is a hobby for me and I have enjoyed it since I have bought the Torque SDK.

Quote:Torque has what I want, (large level areas, good network code, good level editor, long view distances, etc.) but I'm worried about my lack of programming experiance making things much too difficult.

However, I am a good learner.

That was me asking the same question in Sep of 2001...the next day I bought it.

#10 Awesome thread, great for getting started. Thanks to all for making such helpful posts.

#11 Hi Chris

If there is any help im alone and do everything.
I have been a SDK owner since 2001 and i didnt know anything
about doing games.
I hade skills making maps,mods been a sound enginer for long time and my c++ coding skills was none.
When i started i didnt know how to make models ,tiled textures and moore.

So where am i know
I can do all models,textures,understand and code some c++,
get most things to work and getting closer to release a beta version.
Now i have control of most things ,it took some time
and hard work but it was worth it.

My english sucks but thats another subject :)

-Billy

#12 That thead has really inspired me guys - thanks to you all. Downloading the mac demo now. ;>