Graphical and Networking Questions
by The Mastermind · in Torque Game Engine · 02/20/2006 (5:21 pm) · 2 replies
Hello,
I have been interested in Torque Shader Engine and Torque Game Engine lately, and I have a few concerns to address before purchasing one or the other.
I know that you need TGE to buy TSE already. I would like to know if any of the coding is different for the two engines or if they are very similar. Also, I would like to know if TGE can interact with a MySQL database. I would also like to know if it supports bump mapping. I would really like to have bump mapping included in my engine of choice. If this means buying TSE, then I will. I would also like to know what are the limitations of Torque and what the networking is capable of.
I have been interested in Torque Shader Engine and Torque Game Engine lately, and I have a few concerns to address before purchasing one or the other.
I know that you need TGE to buy TSE already. I would like to know if any of the coding is different for the two engines or if they are very similar. Also, I would like to know if TGE can interact with a MySQL database. I would also like to know if it supports bump mapping. I would really like to have bump mapping included in my engine of choice. If this means buying TSE, then I will. I would also like to know what are the limitations of Torque and what the networking is capable of.
#2
02/21/2006 (7:44 am)
Thank you for you comments. I would like to know if you need to get the lighting kit to enable bump mapping. 
Associate David Montgomery-Blake
David MontgomeryBlake
There is a resource for database access. The Lighting Kit has bump mapping examples. I believe there is a resource for bumping stock TGE (if not already included in the current version). TSE provides normal mapping, though. Nice!
The main limitation that I can see is the learning curve. It is a huge engine and takes a lot of elbow grease to get familiar with. The networking is among the best in the industry. But you must be careful in what you're expecting from networking. Connecting a lot of clients and servers together to run around a large map is one thing, tracking massive amounts of data persistently is another.
You can actually check out the networking core for TGE.