Torque Demo'ed

#1 @Sam: I think the market for TGE is quite broad, including non-game environments like virtual walkthroughs, environmental simulations, etc. Just look at the Space Station and Real Estate walkthrough efforts done with the Unreal Engine a few years back. I don't see this to be a problem with Torque.

As for the Q&A:

1. To become comfortable with the engine would probably take an experienced C++ programmer a few weeks to go through and see what's in the code. 3D understanding is a bonus because you'll come across algorithms and matrix math and stuff like that. Having said that, comfortable is a relative term. It's very dependant on what you're trying to accomplish with the engine. If you require really heavy modifications (like replacing the terrain manager) then you probably need a couple of months to get going. Again this also depends on how much time you have to dedicate to it (a couple of months looking it at each night or a couple of weeks looking at it 8 hours a day?)

2. Typless script means that the script doesn't use any type conventions on variables or functions. You create variables on the fly just by using them and there is no distinction between a string, a float or an integer.

#2 Thanks for doing the presentation. Remember though, it is $495 per programmer seat for non game applications and companies over $250,000 per year in sales. A defense contractor or even a small company doing work for a major defense contract must use the Commercial License.

-Jeff Tunnell GG

#3 Let's see, $495.00= one claw hammer to the Gov...I think they'll recover the loss.:)

#4 I would estimate that to get really familiar with the engine you'll need about a year and a half's experience with it. Obviously you can do small tasks with it before then, but to really "get" it... Torque is wide and deep. It takes time to grasp its entirety.

But I'm really glad you're out there presenting it, and it's entirely the case that Torque is an aid to productivity. It solves so many ugly problems. :) And it probably meshes nicely with the general trend of governments to go towards open source solutions - Torque isn't a GPL-ed project, but you do get access to all the source behind it, meaning you get many of the benefits that have attracted governments to open source software.

#5 Hi Everyone:

A real nubie question.

I saw the question raised, "Can you run other apps inside TGE? If you mean run a task and return a result from an external app, yes."

I want to run some cutscenes (.avi or .mov) from inside of TGE. Is there a tutorial or forum comment about this somewhere?

Thanks,

Earle Lane

#6 Earle, That would be an excellent question to post as a new topic or to search for in one of the Torque forums. I believe that it has been discussed before.