Looking for More Details of TSE
by Aaron Grenier · in Torque Game Engine · 03/09/2006 (7:26 pm) · 8 replies
For anyone here who's actually used the torque Shader engine could I pick your brain for a few. I'll try to make it quick :)
I'm creating art side content for...you guessed it, a game. The programmer on the project purchased the base Torque engine this past month. From an art prespective the torque engine is not all that pretty and I'm really hoping I can implement some HLSL shaders. Obviously this would require the TSE. I downloaded the demo, but still have most of my original questions.
1. I'm aware that this is not a final release. Does anyone have an idea of the optimization that's gone into this? I have a fairly nice machine and the demo was extremely laggy at a resolution of 1280X1024. We opted for the Garage Game route after learning of the ablity to port to the 360. Since the 360 requires 1280x720 I have concerns as to how well the TSE will hold up.
2. I'm assuming that the TSE will work with the 360 port tool? I know that the TSE is still in development and I'm assuming that Marble blast was created with the original torque engine?
3. Anyone heard of any updates regarding the status of the TSE? The official TSE FAQ seemed to mention a "Done when it's done" date, but that was posted 1 1/2 years ago. From what I've seen in the demo the enviroment still seems quite flat without dynamic shadows and lighting. Since it looks like the lighting and shadowing will be the last items implemented I was curious if anyone's heard about progress in this area.
4. Are there any GUI for developing the shaders? Something like the torque showTool Pro for TSE. As an artist I want a interface to generate the shaders with (Scripting if I had to). I guess what I'm wondering is, "Do you need source code access to write and view shaders?"
5. All these questions really boil down to:
A. If we're starting a product now and the base Torque engine doesn't seem to be what we desire, is TSE an option for 360 development? The interface tool for toque doesn't even have a widescreen format, which is required for the 360.
B. Can artists use this? I'm not particularly interesting in working with the source code, if I can delevope in something like rendermonkey and view it in TSE I'm good to go, but hope that there are tools for shader development.
I'm creating art side content for...you guessed it, a game. The programmer on the project purchased the base Torque engine this past month. From an art prespective the torque engine is not all that pretty and I'm really hoping I can implement some HLSL shaders. Obviously this would require the TSE. I downloaded the demo, but still have most of my original questions.
1. I'm aware that this is not a final release. Does anyone have an idea of the optimization that's gone into this? I have a fairly nice machine and the demo was extremely laggy at a resolution of 1280X1024. We opted for the Garage Game route after learning of the ablity to port to the 360. Since the 360 requires 1280x720 I have concerns as to how well the TSE will hold up.
2. I'm assuming that the TSE will work with the 360 port tool? I know that the TSE is still in development and I'm assuming that Marble blast was created with the original torque engine?
3. Anyone heard of any updates regarding the status of the TSE? The official TSE FAQ seemed to mention a "Done when it's done" date, but that was posted 1 1/2 years ago. From what I've seen in the demo the enviroment still seems quite flat without dynamic shadows and lighting. Since it looks like the lighting and shadowing will be the last items implemented I was curious if anyone's heard about progress in this area.
4. Are there any GUI for developing the shaders? Something like the torque showTool Pro for TSE. As an artist I want a interface to generate the shaders with (Scripting if I had to). I guess what I'm wondering is, "Do you need source code access to write and view shaders?"
5. All these questions really boil down to:
A. If we're starting a product now and the base Torque engine doesn't seem to be what we desire, is TSE an option for 360 development? The interface tool for toque doesn't even have a widescreen format, which is required for the 360.
B. Can artists use this? I'm not particularly interesting in working with the source code, if I can delevope in something like rendermonkey and view it in TSE I'm good to go, but hope that there are tools for shader development.
#2
03/09/2006 (11:17 pm)
Just to clarify something...TSE is the only option for any possible XBox360 ports. And yes, Marble Blast Ultra was written in TSE. 
#3
2) 360 port tool? Do you mean the 360 XDK? Standard TSE will not work seamlessly with the 360 XDK. You will have to purchase a new version of TSE that will work with the XDK and the debug kits. Your art assets and scripts and code should port over from standard TSE to TSE 360 very, very easily so it is certainly possible to develop most of your game on the PC and then port to TSE 360 once you have a mostly working game. The majority of work involved in porting to the 360 is going to be in doing Live integration (leaderboard, matchmaking, friends requests and related guis).
3) Aaron covers this pretty well =)
4) You don't need source code access to write and view shaders. Most of the shaders are in hlsl files right there with the demo (you can see them in the /shaders folders in any of the demos). This means you can use any hlsl capable shader editor to create shaders (like RenderMonkey). You then use a simple set of scripts to map these shaders to texture names on your models and interiors. You can also use scripts to make use of the automatic shaders.
5)
A. Stephen said it =) Porting from TGE to TSE isn't too bad but it is a bit of a step. From there you then have to deal with porting from TSE to TSE 360 (a much smaller step as mentioned).
B. Our artists use it happily (and effectively). As mentioned you can work in RenderMonkey. There is even a nice resource covering porting RenderMonkey hlsl files into forms that are suitable for TSE.
03/10/2006 (12:19 am)
1) Over the course of Marble Blast Ultra development we made optimizations that improved TSE's performance from 200% - 500% (depending on the scene/shaders/meshes). These optimizations are going to be rolled back into TSE in the next several months.2) 360 port tool? Do you mean the 360 XDK? Standard TSE will not work seamlessly with the 360 XDK. You will have to purchase a new version of TSE that will work with the XDK and the debug kits. Your art assets and scripts and code should port over from standard TSE to TSE 360 very, very easily so it is certainly possible to develop most of your game on the PC and then port to TSE 360 once you have a mostly working game. The majority of work involved in porting to the 360 is going to be in doing Live integration (leaderboard, matchmaking, friends requests and related guis).
3) Aaron covers this pretty well =)
4) You don't need source code access to write and view shaders. Most of the shaders are in hlsl files right there with the demo (you can see them in the /shaders folders in any of the demos). This means you can use any hlsl capable shader editor to create shaders (like RenderMonkey). You then use a simple set of scripts to map these shaders to texture names on your models and interiors. You can also use scripts to make use of the automatic shaders.
5)
A. Stephen said it =) Porting from TGE to TSE isn't too bad but it is a bit of a step. From there you then have to deal with porting from TSE to TSE 360 (a much smaller step as mentioned).
B. Our artists use it happily (and effectively). As mentioned you can work in RenderMonkey. There is even a nice resource covering porting RenderMonkey hlsl files into forms that are suitable for TSE.
#4
03/10/2006 (6:50 am)
Wow. Greg responses. That's for all the info! It definitely gets rid of some of those worries I have :)
#5
What tools from toque work with TSE? I'm assuming the gui editor, but less certain about the terrain editor. As I'm doing the modeling and shading on the project I'm more concerned with knowing that showTool works with TSE (Which it sounds like it does). Does it actually show shaders in it if defined in the material? I guess I want to purchase it eitherway, but since I don't have the account I have to wait until Monday. Too curious though :)
Also, they only noticed .net projects for Max 3 and 4 exporters. I have maya and exported some DTS files from that. Is the DTS format compatible between the two versions?
Thanks,
Aaron
03/11/2006 (6:33 pm)
It's my understanding that we went ahead and upgraded to TSE yesterdya after reading the answers from above. If I understand correctly it didn't sound like after they compiled they saw anything like the GUI editor or level editor that came with the base Torque pack. It was just a quick look though before the weekend and it might be elsewhere. I think they marked this up to the fact that it's not a real release so tools like that might not be available yet. Which leave me with this question. (Kinda in line with you answer to #4.)What tools from toque work with TSE? I'm assuming the gui editor, but less certain about the terrain editor. As I'm doing the modeling and shading on the project I'm more concerned with knowing that showTool works with TSE (Which it sounds like it does). Does it actually show shaders in it if defined in the material? I guess I want to purchase it eitherway, but since I don't have the account I have to wait until Monday. Too curious though :)
Also, they only noticed .net projects for Max 3 and 4 exporters. I have maya and exported some DTS files from that. Is the DTS format compatible between the two versions?
Thanks,
Aaron
#6
If I understand your question correctly, the standard GUI editor should be available from fresh installation. Just hit F10 to get into it. And F11 for the world editor. If your team has tried that already and niether Function key calls up the editors for you, then it sounds like you've got a very strange installation.
The terrain editor and painter are currently not implemented in TSE. That may change soon though. And if you're using legacy (old torque) terrain, then you can just do all of your terrain work in TGE and copy the files into your TSE directory. However, you might want to just use the new Atlas terrains since they are more full featured. That will take a bit of crafting in another program and a command line conversion in TSE. It's not hard to do, but it's just not as naturally easy to use as the TGE terrain tools. But again, realtime in-engine terrain crafting is planned for TSE. I'm not sure which milestone is slated for, though.
I don't think that the TST Pro is Shader-enabled yet. I could be wrong on that, though. Read through the product description closely to find out for sure. Or maybe one of the GG guys can give us a definitive answer here. The built-in show tool should work with shaders though. Let's see . . . Hmm. I just gave the built-in show tool a try and my shader-equipped models didn't look shadery (or shadered). I could be doing it wrong, though.
I don't use Max or Maya so I can't help with your DTS exporting questions. Hopefully someone else on the boards will be able to answer for those two apps.
Aaron
03/11/2006 (9:36 pm)
Aaron,If I understand your question correctly, the standard GUI editor should be available from fresh installation. Just hit F10 to get into it. And F11 for the world editor. If your team has tried that already and niether Function key calls up the editors for you, then it sounds like you've got a very strange installation.
The terrain editor and painter are currently not implemented in TSE. That may change soon though. And if you're using legacy (old torque) terrain, then you can just do all of your terrain work in TGE and copy the files into your TSE directory. However, you might want to just use the new Atlas terrains since they are more full featured. That will take a bit of crafting in another program and a command line conversion in TSE. It's not hard to do, but it's just not as naturally easy to use as the TGE terrain tools. But again, realtime in-engine terrain crafting is planned for TSE. I'm not sure which milestone is slated for, though.
I don't think that the TST Pro is Shader-enabled yet. I could be wrong on that, though. Read through the product description closely to find out for sure. Or maybe one of the GG guys can give us a definitive answer here. The built-in show tool should work with shaders though. Let's see . . . Hmm. I just gave the built-in show tool a try and my shader-equipped models didn't look shadery (or shadered). I could be doing it wrong, though.
I don't use Max or Maya so I can't help with your DTS exporting questions. Hopefully someone else on the boards will be able to answer for those two apps.
Aaron
#7
Ah, "team", that sounds good. It's more like a "we"; just a few of us spread across the U.S. while he develope other things. The F keys very well might work, like I said they (or really he) just purchased it Friday and did a quick compile and run before leaving for the evening. I think his comment was something a long the line that the interface didn't mention the hot keys, but I thought they tried the F keys too. Must not of. As we just got the first engine a few weeks earlier I think we're still wrapping our heads around certain things. For example I said terrain editor, but world editor was actually what I was meant :)
"I don't use Max or Maya so I can't help with your DTS exporting questions. Hopefully someone else on the boards will be able to answer for those two apps."
Thinking about it again, I guess since the shaderTool pro works with both torque and TSE that more than likely there isn't any format differences between the two. So my export tools for torue should probably work for TSE.
I think your right about the showTool Pro. I don't really see anything extra TSE support mentioned on the site.
Thanks for the info Aaron.
03/12/2006 (5:56 am)
"If your team has tried that already and niether Function key calls up the editors for you, then it sounds like you've got a very strange installation."Ah, "team", that sounds good. It's more like a "we"; just a few of us spread across the U.S. while he develope other things. The F keys very well might work, like I said they (or really he) just purchased it Friday and did a quick compile and run before leaving for the evening. I think his comment was something a long the line that the interface didn't mention the hot keys, but I thought they tried the F keys too. Must not of. As we just got the first engine a few weeks earlier I think we're still wrapping our heads around certain things. For example I said terrain editor, but world editor was actually what I was meant :)
"I don't use Max or Maya so I can't help with your DTS exporting questions. Hopefully someone else on the boards will be able to answer for those two apps."
Thinking about it again, I guess since the shaderTool pro works with both torque and TSE that more than likely there isn't any format differences between the two. So my export tools for torue should probably work for TSE.
I think your right about the showTool Pro. I don't really see anything extra TSE support mentioned on the site.
Thanks for the info Aaron.
#8
Good luck and have fun.
Aaron E.
03/12/2006 (7:59 am)
I have had some of my home-made character models do weird things in TSE, but everything else seems to work fine. And your interiors will need to be re-exported using the TSE version of MAP2DIF. Good luck and have fun.
Aaron E.
Torque Owner Aaron E
Default Studio Name
Welcome to the community.
I'm very new to TSE, but I'll try to answer as much as I can. Hopefully, others will step in and clarify or correct me. :)
1. One of the GG guys will probably need to address the optimization question, but there's a lot of subjectivity in any framerate queries. So much depends on your testing hardware, your desired draw distances, texture size and compression quality, model complexity, interior realism, FSAA and Ansiotropy settings, in addition to all the shader and materials stuff. If your target platform is an XBox 360, then you might want to build a test rig that approximates it as nearly as possible for your TSE evaluations. Then you might want to check out Joseph Helm's orc village TGE -> TSE demo port. You can find it at tsedemo.blogspot.com/ and it might give you a little better feel for what you're wanting to accomplish. I think it's still a work in progress, but what I saw there convinced me to get a TSE license. Also, check out www.syncrage.de for a cool looking example of a TSE powered game in development. You can find more images at home.arcor.de/danieltoepfer/downloads/. Here's an inline image from Daniel's page . . . hopefully, he won't mind me linking it here.
By the way, to get your screen resolutions to match the 360, look at some of the prefs.cs files to change the demo's screen resolution to 1280x720. The prefs.cs files you want are found in common/clients directory and also the starter.fps/clients directory.
Just from a personal standpoint, I've been very impressed with TSE framerates on my systems so far. One of those systems is a laptop, and TSE runs great for what I'm doing.
2. Marble Blast Ultra for the XBox 360 was built with an in-house version of TSE, not TGE. I believe that many of the modifications will be folded into the official TSE before too long. I'm not sure what was involved with the TSE -> 360 port, though.
3. Jeff T. of Garage Games wrote in his New Years-ish blog that TSE will be finished in 2006. I don't know if that timeframe is set in stone, but it's enough for me. Now that MBUltra has shipped, TSE improvements will probably be arriving soon. Also, with GDC almost here, I'm guessing that the GG guys are going to have some cool TSE stuff to show off. By the way, the next milestone should introduce dynamic shadows if I remember correctly.
4. I don't think there's anything like that for TSE yet. But I'll defer to someone more in-the-know.
5.a. TSE is definitely an option for 360 development, since Marble Blast Ultra for the 360 was built with it. Don't worry about setting your apps to widescreen resolutions, it's an easy fix . . . if you change your prefs.cs files. :)
5.b. I can't rember exactly, but I seem to recall that RenderMonkey shader effects could be worked into TSE. I'm not that far along in the learning process to say for sure though.
Sorry for the long answer, but I hope it helps, somehow.
Aaron E.
[Edit: typo]