Serious help, please
by Davis Burnside · in General Discussion · 08/27/2008 (6:43 pm) · 5 replies
Hey there, I just bought Torque Game Engine a week ago and I have to say, I'm impressed with most that I have seen. I have played around with the world editor alot and read some tutorials, but when I read that Torque only accepts .dts files, I didn't know what to do with all of the .3ds files I pre-made before buying the engine so I could just plug them in and get the game going.
My current situation; I am a teenager who really really wants to make some great games. I have a brand new iMac with a great graphics card. I can run Windows, but I haven't bought it. I own Wings 3d, (which can export to many file formats), Poser 7, Gimp, Blender, and have talent in 3d modeling and art (Im somewhat new to texturing, though). I have virtually no programming or coding experience, and I have a job and enough money to buy some necessary programs. (No $3500 3ds studio, though.) I am willing to learn new programs and even c++, but I really want to know my best path. At the moment, I just need a program to export 3d meshes, texture information, and hopefully things like specular, illumination, and bump maps. I will probably need programs to export animations (and whatever the heck nodes) are in the future. Any help is greatly appreciated.
My current situation; I am a teenager who really really wants to make some great games. I have a brand new iMac with a great graphics card. I can run Windows, but I haven't bought it. I own Wings 3d, (which can export to many file formats), Poser 7, Gimp, Blender, and have talent in 3d modeling and art (Im somewhat new to texturing, though). I have virtually no programming or coding experience, and I have a job and enough money to buy some necessary programs. (No $3500 3ds studio, though.) I am willing to learn new programs and even c++, but I really want to know my best path. At the moment, I just need a program to export 3d meshes, texture information, and hopefully things like specular, illumination, and bump maps. I will probably need programs to export animations (and whatever the heck nodes) are in the future. Any help is greatly appreciated.
About the author
#2
What you need to learn are imports and exports on different files...
Download blender and import your .3ds files, then rig them up and export them as .dts
As for a path? Well like what Ted said, only you can choose that. Pick something you like the most...
You could be a Coder, where you make tools for your game development and then teach others how to use them.
You could be a Scripter, where you use a scripting language to program what the game does.
You could be a Level Designer, where you design levels and make them.
You could be a 3d artist, where you make the meshes, animations, and textures for the objects in your game.
You could be a 2d artist, where you make 2d objects and animations for your game.
You could be a Tester, where you play games and write down every single glitch you find.
You could be anything that you think you like.
08/27/2008 (7:13 pm)
Ahh...What you need to learn are imports and exports on different files...
Download blender and import your .3ds files, then rig them up and export them as .dts
As for a path? Well like what Ted said, only you can choose that. Pick something you like the most...
You could be a Coder, where you make tools for your game development and then teach others how to use them.
You could be a Scripter, where you use a scripting language to program what the game does.
You could be a Level Designer, where you design levels and make them.
You could be a 3d artist, where you make the meshes, animations, and textures for the objects in your game.
You could be a 2d artist, where you make 2d objects and animations for your game.
You could be a Tester, where you play games and write down every single glitch you find.
You could be anything that you think you like.
#3
Click Here
You might also want to check into the Blender Orage Guy, a model based on the default Kork skeleton. It allows you to quickly get started with your own character using Blender and use the default Kork animations on your new character. Click Here
Hope that helped!!
08/27/2008 (8:17 pm)
Don't know if you needed it or not, but here's the latest Blender to .dts exporter: Click Here
You might also want to check into the Blender Orage Guy, a model based on the default Kork skeleton. It allows you to quickly get started with your own character using Blender and use the default Kork animations on your new character. Click Here
Hope that helped!!
#4
08/28/2008 (4:13 pm)
Thanks for the advice. I should have been more specific. What I mean by path is what to do to with the import problem. Lol, I didn't mean to go that deep. My main interest is 3d modeling, but I have been learning about games over the past few years and have familiarized myself with a lot of their aspects. 
#5
- Artist Documentation Landing Page
From there, you can find tutorials, docs, and links to other artist areas (such as forums, 3rd party sites, etc).
Good luck!
08/28/2008 (4:31 pm)
@Davis - Be sure to check out the main areas artists hang out at:- Artist Documentation Landing Page
From there, you can find tutorials, docs, and links to other artist areas (such as forums, 3rd party sites, etc).
Good luck!
Torque 3D Owner Ted Southard
As for the best path... I don't know? That's a question only you can answer. Do you want to be an artist? 2D or 3D? Both? Sound? Programming? Design? Very few are good at all of it. Some of us become jack-of-all-trade types, but it's both hard to learn, and makes you take on a lot of tasks that you don't necessarily have enough time to finish.
My advice is to play around with everything, see what you like best and how you see yourself doing that for a long period of time, and if it's a good feeling, pursue that path. You can always pick up bits of other stuff here and there, but it's very hard to follow every path.