Space Game Feasible?
by Kai · in Torque Game Engine · 03/14/2005 (11:59 am) · 6 replies
Hi all.
I'm thinking about trying to put together a space shooter. My question is, can the torque engine handle something like this out of the box or does it need [extensive] modification?
Of particular concern is
1. Skybox (it looks like Torque already renders a 6-sided skybox, so im guessing this is okay)
2. Large scale zones ("The problem with space games, is the space"). Can torque handle zones on the order of several thousand kilometers? Can this be somehow spoofed with model scaling? Am I thinking about this all wrong?
3. Ship physics. I'm guessing most of the torque physics work around ground games. Would the FlyingVehicle class in Torque work for space vehicles - in space?
4. Are there any examples of Torque space shooters out there?
Thanks in advance!
-Kai
I'm thinking about trying to put together a space shooter. My question is, can the torque engine handle something like this out of the box or does it need [extensive] modification?
Of particular concern is
1. Skybox (it looks like Torque already renders a 6-sided skybox, so im guessing this is okay)
2. Large scale zones ("The problem with space games, is the space"). Can torque handle zones on the order of several thousand kilometers? Can this be somehow spoofed with model scaling? Am I thinking about this all wrong?
3. Ship physics. I'm guessing most of the torque physics work around ground games. Would the FlyingVehicle class in Torque work for space vehicles - in space?
4. Are there any examples of Torque space shooters out there?
Thanks in advance!
-Kai
About the author
#2
1. there's also a resource somewhere to convert the "box" into a space sphere or something. You might wanna check it out
2. Even though torque does have pretty big zones as Harold pointed out, I would prob stick with scaling anyways. After all, IMO it won't do much harm...
3. er...can you explain what you mean?
4. Martin "Muerte" Schultz was working on a flying shooter, and I started working on one recently as well....although it's not really classified as "space", IMO you can still pull some stuff out
hope this helps
03/14/2005 (12:28 pm)
@Kai:1. there's also a resource somewhere to convert the "box" into a space sphere or something. You might wanna check it out
2. Even though torque does have pretty big zones as Harold pointed out, I would prob stick with scaling anyways. After all, IMO it won't do much harm...
3. er...can you explain what you mean?
4. Martin "Muerte" Schultz was working on a flying shooter, and I started working on one recently as well....although it's not really classified as "space", IMO you can still pull some stuff out
hope this helps
#3
03/14/2005 (12:43 pm)
Would it make more sense to use a sky-sphere instead of a sky-box for space games? 
#5
03/14/2005 (1:42 pm)
Void War didn't use TGE. He wrote the engine from scratch for it.
#6
Here's a thread where I posted 8 tips on how to make a TGE-based space game.
Modifying FlyingVehicle will give you a controlledable 3D-space style ship, but I highly recommend you replace all of its movement code with something new -- It still behaves more like an airplane. Just one that's in space... So, control is not very intuitative.
03/14/2005 (1:50 pm)
There's a lot of good resources, just do a search for "space" or "space sim" on the forums.Here's a thread where I posted 8 tips on how to make a TGE-based space game.
Modifying FlyingVehicle will give you a controlledable 3D-space style ship, but I highly recommend you replace all of its movement code with something new -- It still behaves more like an airplane. Just one that's in space... So, control is not very intuitative.
Torque Owner Harold "LabRat" Brown
2. Torque has pretty much infinite sized zones, even with terrain (terrain is mirrored in square sections to infinity
3. You'll probably have to write it yourself.
4. There have been a few space based games worked on, nothing released yet