Question about Torque Engine.

#1 Yes and no... I know, that wasn't very helpful. There are some people who are working on getting OSX tools for map making. As for 3D modelling, there's Blender (that I know is crossplatform). And for 2D, you could use The Gimp.

- Brett

#2 Ah, we were planning to make a first person shooter style game for os x.

The thing is, I don't have access to a PC to develop the maps on if this is the case, I don't need the gimp because I already have photoshop so that isn't a problem.

Is Torque still for me?

#3 What 3D app do you use? There may be a map exporter for it, though using them is often like fitting a square peg into a round hole.

#4 I personally don't have one at the moment, but doesn't that remove a great deal of the ease of use?

#5 Not having a 3D application would greatly remove the ease of use for utilizing a 3D engine effectively.

#6 I was refering to www.garagegames.com/docs/torque/general/pt02.html.

#7 The built-in editors are pretty easy to use (GUI's are a bit strange to get your head around when maintaining formatting with a variety of resolutions). But your modeling and CSG creation are done in 3rd party applications.

#8 Keep in mind that the art asset pipeline has components that are external to TGE, as well as an "export to TGE" layer, a debugging/visual inspection layer (Torque Show Tool Pro, available here at GG) and then finally the in game editors.

The in-game editors are cross-platform (work on OS X), and include:

--Gui editor (note, this is placement and functionality, -not- image editing)
--World Editor (used to place and manipulate .dif and .dts interiors/shapes built with external tools, as well as setting parameters for clouds, sky, and other mission items)
--Terrain Terraformer and Painter (used to modify the terrain altitudes within your mission, as well as blending in terrain textures that are produced with an external tool)
--Particle Editor: used to construct particle effects from externally produced images

The external applications you'll need that aren't provided are:

--an "interior" editor, also known as a map editor, that produces .map files that can then be exported to .dif and brought into TGE. From what I understand, this is a "weak area" in the Mac only world.
--a "shape" editor, along with a working exporter, that provides .dts shapes and animations that will be used in the engine.
--a texture/image editor, to work with 2-d images used in various ways (gui buttons, shape/interior textures, terrain textures, etc.).

The link you refer to is documentation on the internally provided editors, and area part of TGE, and therefore cross-platform.

#9 Thank you for responding,

Regarding the "interior" editor, are you referring to the "radiant" editor (www.qeradiant.com/)?

Which modelling program would have the best support for this engine?

Thanks,
-- Dan

#10 Radiant costs $5000 to license, which is a problem.

For OS X, Lightwave, Maya, and Blender.

#11 I'm confused, I've used GtkRadiant for many other games and since it it is open source could we not adapt it to our uses? Or are the .map files it generates incompatible with Torque?

Not to mention GtkRadiant has been semi ported already (X11 only).

I'll look into the other pieces of software however they don't really seem suitable to the goal (buildings).

#12 There's no technical reason you can't build maps for Torque in it.

But you will have to spend that $5,000 for a license.

It's open source, but doesn't mean they can't charge for a license to actually use it.

#13 Ah I see... I suppose we will have to go the way BF1942 and MOHPA do it and simply use models for the buildings eh?

It is better in the long run anyway, models tend to have more detail.

#14 Radiant License

You'll have to rewrite the collision system if you want to have quality collision for DTS interiors. You'll also want to make sure that you work with LOD on your models.