More pre-purchase questions...
by Ryan Landry · in Torque Game Builder · 06/08/2006 (11:34 am) · 7 replies
I've read through a lot of the "before i buy..." posts on here, and there are some pretty comprehensive answers to most of the questions, and i'm basically convinced that i NEED to buy. Few more questions though, and they may all be stupid and pre-answered, but i can't spend ALL day searching forums, so here goes...
1. A lot of the images i've seen from games look like they have anti-aliased sprites, or some other type of smoothing applied to them. Is this just in the art style, or is there some type of processing going on there, because personally, i rather enjoy pixel art and would rather see chunky pixel graphics circa SNES. Just wondering 'cause i've heard bad things about darkbasic in that regard, with automatic anti-aliasing, and i'm hoping that torque 2d doesn't suffer the same affliction.
2. I use MACs and PCs. If i purchase the product, am i limited to 1 platform with 1 license? or can i install the PC and MAC versions? Technically, if i'm using a mactel and dual booting into XP with bootcamp, it would still be 1 developer and 1 seat, though i realize that's semantics.
3. I'm not a programmer at all. I'm a network admin, very computer literate from about DOS 5 up to current OSes, with a lot of non-development experience, but essentially NO programming experience, unless you count BASIC in highschool, and a simple scripting language built in to a program called AGS (adventure game studio, by Chris Jones...very good free app for making sierra/lucasarts style adventure games, btw...). So the question, as has been asked before, i know: What is the learning curve for non developers who are average or better computer users?
Anyway, thanks a mill in advance, i will hopefully be buying tgb soon...
-RSL
1. A lot of the images i've seen from games look like they have anti-aliased sprites, or some other type of smoothing applied to them. Is this just in the art style, or is there some type of processing going on there, because personally, i rather enjoy pixel art and would rather see chunky pixel graphics circa SNES. Just wondering 'cause i've heard bad things about darkbasic in that regard, with automatic anti-aliasing, and i'm hoping that torque 2d doesn't suffer the same affliction.
2. I use MACs and PCs. If i purchase the product, am i limited to 1 platform with 1 license? or can i install the PC and MAC versions? Technically, if i'm using a mactel and dual booting into XP with bootcamp, it would still be 1 developer and 1 seat, though i realize that's semantics.
3. I'm not a programmer at all. I'm a network admin, very computer literate from about DOS 5 up to current OSes, with a lot of non-development experience, but essentially NO programming experience, unless you count BASIC in highschool, and a simple scripting language built in to a program called AGS (adventure game studio, by Chris Jones...very good free app for making sierra/lucasarts style adventure games, btw...). So the question, as has been asked before, i know: What is the learning curve for non developers who are average or better computer users?
Anyway, thanks a mill in advance, i will hopefully be buying tgb soon...
-RSL
#2
Honestly, you'll just have to try and see how it works out for you.
Some had experience before coming here, but gave up.
Some didn't have experience, but are now making games.
Etc. But I would say the learning curve is pretty steep for a non-programmer - generally.
06/08/2006 (3:05 pm)
As with everything which concerns a indivudual, it depends.Honestly, you'll just have to try and see how it works out for you.
Some had experience before coming here, but gave up.
Some didn't have experience, but are now making games.
Etc. But I would say the learning curve is pretty steep for a non-programmer - generally.
#3
06/08/2006 (5:45 pm)
1. also note that TGB defaults to smoothing/antialiasing, but you can easily turn that off in the LevelBuilder for your sprites if you like pixel art.
#4
2. Your license is limited to 1 per programmer per seat, you can download it for any platform as long as its the same programmer. You can download 100,000 copies of the engine and install it on as many computers - just as long as you only have one programmer using it.
3. If you have a desire to learn, the TGB team has put a lot of effort into writing documentation that the average user can understand very well. Especially with the Break Into Games contest coming up, GG wants TGB to appeal to as broad of a base as possible. Though if you have no head for programming, the engine will be hard to affect...but by and large the learning curve isnt atrocious.
06/08/2006 (6:16 pm)
1. Like Alex mentioned, by default TGB applies a smooth filter to all imported images. However, when you import an image into the Level Builder you can turn the filter off, leaving it exactly how you saved it. 2. Your license is limited to 1 per programmer per seat, you can download it for any platform as long as its the same programmer. You can download 100,000 copies of the engine and install it on as many computers - just as long as you only have one programmer using it.
3. If you have a desire to learn, the TGB team has put a lot of effort into writing documentation that the average user can understand very well. Especially with the Break Into Games contest coming up, GG wants TGB to appeal to as broad of a base as possible. Though if you have no head for programming, the engine will be hard to affect...but by and large the learning curve isnt atrocious.
#5
Thought that was important to point out.
- Melv.
06/08/2006 (11:53 pm)
Just to be clear on point number one; TGB never applies any kind of filtering to images during an "import" stage. What actually happens is that TGB allows you to control a feature of the graphics card which can render your images using a "smooth" (bilinear) filter. As this is during the rendering phase, you can turn it on/off dynamically as it doesn't affect the "imported" imagery.Thought that was important to point out.
- Melv.
#6
So, thanks a lot for all the info. it's good to know that i can use it on multiple platforms with 1 license, it just makes it easier for me since i own both PCs and MACs and my brother who will be doing the art for any projects i do in it will be using MAC exclusively, and i would rather not have to send the wide open game to someone i don't know running the opposite platform just to compile it within EULA spec.
Also, Melv, that was the assumption i made from Alex and Anthony's posts, but thanks for the extra clarification. The wording in Anthony's first line was a little ambiguous, but the 2nd line cleared it up anyway.
And Joe, you can't be serious about finding AGS difficult? If you are, i think that's good news for me as far as TGB goes, since after a very short time with AGS i could write the script in my sleep, and was doing some really neat things in 20 - 30 lines that some people posted solutions to on the forums that were more like 80 - 100 lines.
Anyway, already from the public forum i can see that this is going to be a good experience, people seem eager to help, and i've only seen the smallest amount of flaming in other threads, haha. I'll hopefully see you all in the private forums soon.
-RSL
06/09/2006 (6:04 am)
Well guys, i was under the impression that i posted a reply to this last night, but apparently i was tired and didn't click submit post before shutting off my monitor.........it's probably still sitting there waiting to be submitted (i'm at work now).So, thanks a lot for all the info. it's good to know that i can use it on multiple platforms with 1 license, it just makes it easier for me since i own both PCs and MACs and my brother who will be doing the art for any projects i do in it will be using MAC exclusively, and i would rather not have to send the wide open game to someone i don't know running the opposite platform just to compile it within EULA spec.
Also, Melv, that was the assumption i made from Alex and Anthony's posts, but thanks for the extra clarification. The wording in Anthony's first line was a little ambiguous, but the 2nd line cleared it up anyway.
And Joe, you can't be serious about finding AGS difficult? If you are, i think that's good news for me as far as TGB goes, since after a very short time with AGS i could write the script in my sleep, and was doing some really neat things in 20 - 30 lines that some people posted solutions to on the forums that were more like 80 - 100 lines.
Anyway, already from the public forum i can see that this is going to be a good experience, people seem eager to help, and i've only seen the smallest amount of flaming in other threads, haha. I'll hopefully see you all in the private forums soon.
-RSL
#7
See ya ;)
06/09/2006 (2:24 pm)
Yep I would say AGS is harder than other game creators.. and could very well be harder that TGB. Then again I only messed with it for a few weeks and gave up, and this was a long time ago.. so I maybe I didn't give it a fair shake.See ya ;)
Torque Owner Joe Rossi
Indri Games
2) You can make games for all 3 platforms, though I hear Linux has a bit more issues than the other two.
3) It depends what you want to do.. but there are plenty of tutorials and documentation from GarageGames and from users. You can always ask questions here in the forums. Of course if you really can't get something done you can possibly hire someone to do the dirty work for you.
Having programming experience myself I can't quite say how the learning curve is for a non-programmer.. but with the tools and documentation I think it should be easier than 99% of the other options. Even AGS seems more difficult to me ;) I know several people here are in the same boat as you and have been doing well. If you get TGB I really doubt you will regret it.