Porting a game to Torque
by Alexandre Rangel · in Torque Game Engine · 07/29/2005 (3:21 pm) · 10 replies
Hi guys. I've been looking at the Torque engine development for a while now, and I've always been impressed at it's speed and quality.
We (me and one associate) have developed a game in Blender called "Brasilia 3D", a helicopter ride in the city of Brasilia (capital of Brazil). Tha game has primarily a touristic and educational focus. The game runs great, but only on very high end computers (3GHz, 1 GB RAM and strong graphic cards), mostly because of the lack of LOD and the high number of objects seen at once.
Now we want to produce a (more compatible) racing game in our already developed scenery. We chose Torque for the development, because of the engine's features (LOD, performance). Then come the questions... (we are intermediate level programmers...).
How hard it would be to program opponent cars with some AI and pre-defined routes? Is there any ready made script for this?
Can the engine build a "pro-level" racing game, with nowdays' features (lap count, timers, many cars...)? Should we have to get our hand on the source code or would scripting be enougth?
Thank you very much.
Alexandre Rangel
Brasília 3D site: www.Brasilia3D.com.br
Blender training site: www.3Dzine.com.br
We (me and one associate) have developed a game in Blender called "Brasilia 3D", a helicopter ride in the city of Brasilia (capital of Brazil). Tha game has primarily a touristic and educational focus. The game runs great, but only on very high end computers (3GHz, 1 GB RAM and strong graphic cards), mostly because of the lack of LOD and the high number of objects seen at once.
Now we want to produce a (more compatible) racing game in our already developed scenery. We chose Torque for the development, because of the engine's features (LOD, performance). Then come the questions... (we are intermediate level programmers...).
How hard it would be to program opponent cars with some AI and pre-defined routes? Is there any ready made script for this?
Can the engine build a "pro-level" racing game, with nowdays' features (lap count, timers, many cars...)? Should we have to get our hand on the source code or would scripting be enougth?
Thank you very much.
Alexandre Rangel
Brasília 3D site: www.Brasilia3D.com.br
Blender training site: www.3Dzine.com.br
#2
Good LucK!
07/30/2005 (12:39 am)
CERDIP's book 3D programming all in one covers the racing features you need (lap count, timers, many cars...) in great depth.. I don't think his book goes into creating AI for the cars.. but it does cover the previous topics I mentioned, and much more... I am still reading it as of now, but I know you guys would find it very useful since you are porting your game into TGE.Good LucK!
#3
Another doubt: in our Blender game we did the terrain of the city using a satellite photo. We had one huge photo that we divided in many smaller jpegs (about 500 "512x512" pixels files making up a grid). Could a similar approach be used in Torque?
What if we want to model the detail right into the ground geometry and import to Torque? Would then the terrain come as one (or several) DTS files?
07/30/2005 (6:28 pm)
Thanks a lot, guys!Another doubt: in our Blender game we did the terrain of the city using a satellite photo. We had one huge photo that we divided in many smaller jpegs (about 500 "512x512" pixels files making up a grid). Could a similar approach be used in Torque?
What if we want to model the detail right into the ground geometry and import to Torque? Would then the terrain come as one (or several) DTS files?
#4
07/30/2005 (8:43 pm)
Hmm, those terrain issues sound like a job for Atlas, which is in TSE.
#5
07/31/2005 (7:29 am)
Is there a URL describing Atlas features?
#6
More info in one of Ben Garney's blogs.
07/31/2005 (8:23 am)
Ripped from Torque Shader Engine Reaches Milestone #2 news postQuote:
All New Atlas Terrain Engine:
-Completely new terrain engine allows for huge viewable distances (greater than 4 miles / 7 km).
-Supports massive outdoor game worlds-- because Atlas rapidly pages in terrain data as it is needed, designers are free to create huge worlds.
-Use multiple terrainblocks at once.
-Terrainblocks can be created at any angle.
-Customizable terrain texture density.
-Robust, fast collision implementation.
-All this power is available with very little performance impact-- terrain rendering typically uses less than 5% of CPU time.
-TSE support for the original Torque terrain technology has been retained.
More info in one of Ben Garney's blogs.
#7
How is the TGE / TSE integration? Is one game made in TGE easy to port to TSE?
08/03/2005 (1:20 pm)
Amazing! It seems that Atlas is just the right tool for this terrain job.How is the TGE / TSE integration? Is one game made in TGE easy to port to TSE?
#8
10/18/2005 (7:20 pm)
Can one program a car game (with huge ATlas world) in TSE with the current development stage?
#9
If you port the starter.racing pack from TGE to TSE, making a car game would be pretty easy.
10/18/2005 (8:08 pm)
Alexandre, it's pretty east to port from TGE to TSE... If you port the starter.racing pack from TGE to TSE, making a car game would be pretty easy.
#10
I believe then that I would have an easier time programming in TGE (and managing the huge world in there).
10/19/2005 (4:35 am)
So that would be a pretty hard task, right (porting from TGE to TSE)?I believe then that I would have an easier time programming in TGE (and managing the huge world in there).
Torque Owner Berserk
Performance depends, as far as I know, by your artist overall, because having too much polygons would slow the game. (but here is what LOD comes for ;-)
About predefined paths, you can indeed draw a path in the mission editor and make one or more AI driven characters/vehicles follow it.
Scripting is enough for the core game, what I listed until here. Now the "bad" part:
You'll have to implement some obstacle avoidance for your ai vehicles (avoid car crashes, surpass other vehicles, etc) and I think you'll have to hard-code in engine source (but I'm quite sure this can be done with a good usage of script too).
Good luck with your racing game.
Bye, Thc.