Is this the engine for me?

#1 1. Are you a programmer? Because you will need to be to gain the same functionality. This goes for engines like C4 as well. Programming languages such as Blitz3D and DarkBASIC will require (as they are languages) programming proficiency as well.

2. The SOURCE physics are a heavily modified version of Havok, the most expensive physics library currently available (AFAIK). You will have to put some major programming muscle behind Tokamak, ODE, PhysX, or Newton to achieve the same level of polish. It would be refreshing to have another game that uses physics on the market, though. Ragdolls are a "ooh" factor that I have rarely ever seen used in gameplay (Resident Evil 4 being a good example of ragdoll influence when knocking down villagers).

3. You can have large levels and seemless transfer between interiors/exteriors. However, there is not built-in paging for terrain or interiors. ATLUS terrain can be huge, but TSE is currently a work in progress.

4. Power is a strange term for an engine and often leads to extremely arbitrary discussions. TGE's renderer is older that SOURCE to be scalable to older hardware. There are resources for the lighting kit which allow a number of nice effects, but it is not made as a bleeding edge tech rendered. TSE is closer on that order, but as stated before, it is a work in progress.

#2 Speaking in those terms, no it's not as powerful. The interior format would probably choke on any really complex outdoor city levels. Someone is working on a powerful modified interior setup for TSE though, that probably could handle that stuff better. Source has Havok integrated for it's physics, Torque has some basic rigid shape physics. You can, and it is possible to integrate physics libraries like Havok, PhysX, ODE, Newton, etc. into Torque, but those higher end ones have high costs or other requirements. The shader engine can do all the normal mapping, HDR, and blah blah, even the non shader version has support for some faked or lesser versions of that.

If you are looking to make a game you want to sell though... you can't really compare Torque and Source. I'm pretty sure you can't afford a licencse to sell your game made with Source. And if you can... well Torque doesn't cost anything to you either way =P. If you're just looking to make a pretty mod to show off what you can do, Source isn't a bad idea. Personally I think Unreal, even the 2.x version, is still a superior engine for modding though, but meh.

#3 I am not a programmer, I am a 3D artist among other things. I would purchase this and get my current coder to work on it.

I would liked to of seen some form of physics in TSE, as all next gen games have it, I understand that this is an amazing product for its price there is no disputing that.

I am not clear on your comments on physics.... are you saying that TSE has physics intergrated? in some form or another?


Please can you link me to some hot looking projects I am intrested in seeing what people are doing with this.

Thanks for your input :)

#4 TGE/TSE has basic rigid body physics included. If you want more impressive physics (and your game actually uses them), then you will need to integrate a third-party solution.

#5 @MrChan
Here's a collection of my favorite blogs/images, you might be interested in reading:

Here's "Kuiper", a TSE project.
www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=941
www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=1073

They started adding a Precipitation system, a while back:
www.garagegames.com/blogs/11919/9924

Some awesome terrain Screenshots:
www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=9523

There is not much for physics, except what is needed, (Collision detection, gravity, etc) Only the bare minimum. That is (As far as I know) because networking and physics don't get along well, You need to have one or the other, and Torque chose a great network platform (TNL) in exchange for state of the art physics. There have been addons for Physx and TGE, which would probably be easy to port to TSE. (www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=10258)

#6 Seriously. Most next gen games _have_ physics (almost always a third party library), but they all have minimal to no practical usage in the game. Do you have the resources to compete with those companies anyways? They also have 100 man teams with multi-million dollar budgets doing their art and code. If you actually need the physics and you're making a single player game, just get someone to implement a third party library like all the big companies do. Two games have been published using Torque and the Open Dynamics Engine (Rocket Bowl and Tube Twist).

One of Torque's strongest points is it netcode, and super fancy physics and networking don't mix, so if you're making a multiplayer game, I wouldn't worry about it anyways. Even all the next gen games have strict limits on the physics in their multiplayer components (with good reason). This is probably the coolest TSE screenshot I recall.

www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=1059

#7 @MrChan

Torque can do a lot, but it takes *A LOT*, primarily personal commitment. But I guess that goes with anything of value, right? I think you could accomplish your goals with TGE, but it will not be easy. It will take a lot of thought and planning to get large city like levels working, but it can be done. =P In regards to physics, take Paul's advice to heart. Does it advance the play factor of the game? Is it a necessary part to make the game "work" for the player or is another lens flare? Honestly, for what TGE costs, even if you never accomplish anything with it, the small investment would be worth the learning experience. I know it has been for me.

Oh, and a shameless link to a blog with some shots from our game...

www.garagegames.com/blogs/45734/10393

- Alan
Really Really Good Things Studios

#8 Shame on you for the plug hahaha, your game looks rather intresting. good work.

I think I will continue on with source for this project since so much work has already been done. However for my next project I will be doing it with TGE / TSE.

Please keep the links coming I want to see more of your projects!

Take care.