Considering Purchase. Need to know if torque can detect...
by Brendan LaMarche · in General Discussion · 01/25/2006 (8:28 am) · 9 replies
I need to know if the torque engine would be suitable for my purposes. Sadly the demo doesnt give me enough info to know this. Can the torque engine detect how "lit" or shadowed a player is? I plan on making a stealth based game and this is very important.
Also, is there a way to toggle a light source on/off and will that affect the above detection (if there is such a thing).
I only develop freeware games as a hobby so I really want to know if the torque engine will suit my purposes because I won't be making any money off my software, which makes the $100 or $150 (if i need the lighting pack) a considerable amount of money for someone with student loans to pay off (doh!).
My previous 3d engine experience is with Irrlicht, but i've run into its limitations pretty quick, and it isnt a game engine so it lacks many features of Torque.
Also, is there a way to toggle a light source on/off and will that affect the above detection (if there is such a thing).
I only develop freeware games as a hobby so I really want to know if the torque engine will suit my purposes because I won't be making any money off my software, which makes the $100 or $150 (if i need the lighting pack) a considerable amount of money for someone with student loans to pay off (doh!).
My previous 3d engine experience is with Irrlicht, but i've run into its limitations pretty quick, and it isnt a game engine so it lacks many features of Torque.
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#2
01/25/2006 (9:13 am)
Does anyone know much about the lighting (or rendering) part of the engine code? Anyone know if it'd be a relatively simple task to get this kind of functionality? 
#3
edit:
oops,
that's in the private forums which you won't be able to see unless you buy TGE.
basically there's a couple ideas suggested-
one is to check the color of the lightmap on the floor/ground,
one is to set up explicit shadow regions as triggers,
and one is to actually cast rays from the player to the various lights.
... i'm not sure i would go for that last one, personally.
01/25/2006 (9:47 am)
Check out this thread.edit:
oops,
that's in the private forums which you won't be able to see unless you buy TGE.
basically there's a couple ideas suggested-
one is to check the color of the lightmap on the floor/ground,
one is to set up explicit shadow regions as triggers,
and one is to actually cast rays from the player to the various lights.
... i'm not sure i would go for that last one, personally.
#4
01/25/2006 (9:54 am)
Relatively easy. 
#5
If your light-sources are are statically located, you could use invisible objects that cover the volume of the shadow and use TGE's collision detection to determine when someone is in the shadows or not. This works even if you want to turn lights on and off (just have the collision code be aware of whether the light is on or not). This particular form of cheating may be harder to use for moving light sources, but if you're creative you can probably find a decent hack for moving light sources too.
-JF
01/25/2006 (10:02 am)
When in doubt, cheat.If your light-sources are are statically located, you could use invisible objects that cover the volume of the shadow and use TGE's collision detection to determine when someone is in the shadows or not. This works even if you want to turn lights on and off (just have the collision code be aware of whether the light is on or not). This particular form of cheating may be harder to use for moving light sources, but if you're creative you can probably find a decent hack for moving light sources too.
-JF
#6
01/25/2006 (10:04 am)
I figure the easiest would be to set up trigger areas where the stealth could be used... then it would be a simple matter of setting up the mission with the stealth zones. Given that torque's mission editor is ingame, you could easily set up these areas while looking at the shadowed areas.
#7
01/25/2006 (10:22 am)
Thats the conclusion I had come to. I notice that triggers are only cube however, is there a way to use spherical triggers?
#8
but i've never seen any docs on how to use it.
the default value is "0 0 0 1 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 1"
01/25/2006 (10:33 am)
Triggers have a 'polyhedron' field,but i've never seen any docs on how to use it.
the default value is "0 0 0 1 0 0 0 -1 0 0 0 1"
#9
01/25/2006 (10:56 am)
Thats the conclusion I had come to. I notice that triggers are only cube however, is there a way to use spherical triggers? 
Torque Owner Aaron E
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As far as I know, Torque does not have a built-in Thief style shadow detection system. You would probably need to write specialized code for that. On a related note, some of the AI code resources might give you some insight into general detection issues. Anyway, I'm sure there are a number of creative ways you could approach this with Torque. While the engine doesn't have every potential feature that all budding developers might want, it is a great platform to build onto.
Aaron E.