TSE questions :)

#1 It is not its own game engine, it controls rendering(shaders), and will support additional, custom shaders much better than TGE.

#2 Actually, I think TSE is effectivly TGE + Shaders. So as a package it's as complete as TGE plus the graphics stuff. TGE isn't just the shader add-on. Although there is an upgrade path from TGE.

#3 The "upgrade path" from TGE is to purchase a "price reduced" licence of TSE. Its not clear to me how the "transfer" of a game from TGE to TSE will go and how easy that "upgrade path" will be.

#4 Dan

Ben Garney once said they got the starter.fps game ported fairly easily, but then again: that's Ben ;)

#5 But i am still wondering if, say you didnt have TGE you only had TSE.......would you need TGE still?

#6 Christopher,

No. If you had TSE you would not need TGE.

#7 You could think of TSE has a whole new seperate version of TGE. So it has new features ( thats phrase doesnt do it justice :p ), so you can move things you did from the old version (TGE), and merge them into the new one (TSE). While TSE contains most of the things from TGE, major parts have been modified which means some aspects that you try to merge may not be as simple to do as others,depending on the complexity of what you have previously done of course.

#8 SO basically, since i dont have TGE yet.......i should hold off with my saved up money for TSE instead.......right?

#9 There is an upgrade to TGE to TSE so you wouldn't be out and $$$ if you got TGE and later watned TSE.

#10 Sorry. My mistake :(

#11 If you buy TGE and TSE using the upgrade path, you save about $50. $100 for Torque and $150 for the EA upgrade.

#12 Ben,

If I "upgrade" to TSE will I be able to use both engine at the same time? I might want to continue to create my current game under the TGE while learning and working with TSE and seeing if its viable for me.

#13 @Ben, EA upgrade?

#14 Well assuming TGE, and TSE are seperate products, you can use each independently Dan.

#15 @Ben, EA upgrade?
Electronic Arts just purchased GarageGames.

#16 EA = Early Adopters ..

#17 TSE is an UPGRADE from TGE. You will be required to own TGE in order to get in on the Early Adopter program. TSE is a new engine. You "port" your current content to the new engine, but all of the development methodology, including the the scripting language is the same on TSE as TGE. It took Tim Gift about three says to port the Torque Demo from TGE 1.2 to the GDC build of TSE. It would have taken a LOT less time, but Tim had to help debug TSE.

We don't want to sugercoat how easy it will be to port your project over to TSE, but we don't want to undersell it either. Please do not hold off on buying TGE to wait for TSE. Leaning Torque is an experience that takes quite a while anyway, and all of the basics that you need to learn are the same for both engines.

-Jeff Tunnell GG

#18 Jeff, any chance that this new engine will eventually allow you to build levels with seperate collision geometry in a 3D app like max without resorting to a CSG style editor. With the new shaders that would convince me to use TSE. I've been kind of hoping these last 3 years of being a member of GG, that eventually GG would be doing well enough to put extra resources into expanding tools and making your engine more accessible to a broader range of devs with more diverse needs.

I've seen a lot of good things starting to appear these last 3 months maya exporter, blender, TSE, so I'm kind of hopefull that things might improve in other key art pipeline areas too.

#19 We are focusing more on tools these days, as they are hugely important. More, I'll leave to Jeff to say.

#20 Leaning Torque is an experience that takes quite a while anyway, and all of the basics that you need to learn are the same for both engines.

I second that. It's taken me quite a while to get my head around Torque. Of course, I'm not as big an engine designer/programmer as many of the people on GG, but it takes a healthy investment of time to understand how things work together. I've finally gotten to a point where I feel somewhat comfortable with the engine and now I've decided to port my base app for Onslaught to Mac and Linux before I continue on with the major focus of content creation and minor engine tweaks.

The worst thing about working on this in my "spare" time is that over the last two months I haven't had any.