What would you like to see addressed in Torque 3D?
by Matt Fairfax · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 01/09/2009 (7:10 pm) · 281 replies
Hi all,
We've asked before but I thought I would take the opportunity to build a fresh list of what you would like to see addressed in Torque.
This can be everything from a long-standing bug, to a resource that is so useful you find yourself integrating it over and over, to a complete wish for something. Whatever it is we want to hear it!
Please keep in mind that just because you ask for it doesn't mean that you will get it. I am making no promises but it is always helpful to us to hear what you are interested in or concerned about.
Our community is hugely diverse and something that is absolutely essential and of the highest priority to you and your game may actually be something that other games never use so don't take it personally if we don't address your specific concern.
I am going to make sure that everything specific that you mention gets logged into our task tacker so that it can be prioritized and reviewed even if we don't get to it for Torque 3D. I say "specific" because statements like "vehicles suck" aren't useful to us however if you can narrow it down to "FlyingVehicles crash when they run into the ground too fast" then it is something we can look into.
I am very serious about this...if you ever want a chance at having your concerns addressed then you need to speak up.
We've asked before but I thought I would take the opportunity to build a fresh list of what you would like to see addressed in Torque.
This can be everything from a long-standing bug, to a resource that is so useful you find yourself integrating it over and over, to a complete wish for something. Whatever it is we want to hear it!
Please keep in mind that just because you ask for it doesn't mean that you will get it. I am making no promises but it is always helpful to us to hear what you are interested in or concerned about.
Our community is hugely diverse and something that is absolutely essential and of the highest priority to you and your game may actually be something that other games never use so don't take it personally if we don't address your specific concern.
I am going to make sure that everything specific that you mention gets logged into our task tacker so that it can be prioritized and reviewed even if we don't get to it for Torque 3D. I say "specific" because statements like "vehicles suck" aren't useful to us however if you can narrow it down to "FlyingVehicles crash when they run into the ground too fast" then it is something we can look into.
I am very serious about this...if you ever want a chance at having your concerns addressed then you need to speak up.
About the author
By day, I am a senior programmer at The Playforge, makers of the popular iPhone game Zombie Farm. By night, I work on my own games as Night Heron Games. I am an ex-GarageGames employee who helped ship TGE, TGEA, Torque 3D, and Constructor.
#142
Hmmmm no reply about my AI path finding suggestion so perhaps I should read that as being too pie-in-the-sky to happen or just maybe.... just maybe....
YAY GG for giving us Path Finding.
*ahem* :)
01/13/2009 (9:01 am)
Quote:
Matt Fairfax said:
Ok...I think I've covered everything I can cover up to this point. I did skim past some items because I thought they were a bit *too* pie-in-the-sky for us to worry about at this point or because they were essentially repeats of previous stuff I had already addressed as well as the occasional *um* feature that I can't talk about yet (some of my silences are actually a bit telling if you paid attention ;)
Hmmmm no reply about my AI path finding suggestion so perhaps I should read that as being too pie-in-the-sky to happen or just maybe.... just maybe....
YAY GG for giving us Path Finding.
*ahem* :)
#143
PhysX does not 'require' any hardware, in fact now that Nvidia has purchased Aegia the dedicated physics card is effectively dead. Nvidia is instead optimizing physx for multithreading on video hardware.
01/13/2009 (9:19 am)
@Matt HustonPhysX does not 'require' any hardware, in fact now that Nvidia has purchased Aegia the dedicated physics card is effectively dead. Nvidia is instead optimizing physx for multithreading on video hardware.
#144
01/13/2009 (10:27 am)
@Surge: yeah, good point! :D 
#145
01/13/2009 (12:54 pm)
@JC: If you have 550 fps, 100% of that is 550. Going by that logic, a reduction of 300% would result in -1100 fps. Though, saying atlas is 300% faster than legacy terrain is perfectly valid.
#146
Phillip has the right of it... 170 / 550 = 0.31 = 31% of 170 fps which means that it is 69% slower.
01/13/2009 (1:00 pm)
If it makes anyone feel any better, in some of our early tests on the terrain rendering improvements we saw the T3D MegaTerrain mission go from 27 fps to 172 fps. Yes...that is over a 600% speed increase =) I think we'll be able to get back any performance benefits from Atlas plus some (and nicer looking terrains).Phillip has the right of it... 170 / 550 = 0.31 = 31% of 170 fps which means that it is 69% slower.
#148
01/13/2009 (7:31 pm)
Do you have any specific issues that make TGEA harder to use than TGE?
#149
When adding dts objects. Sometimes they turn out black. Even with a material file, and the texture set as "emits light". I had that problem when I made the racing starter kit for 1.8.0 and finally gave up making the objects into difs instead. I had to remove the lights I added to the model to export as dif, but that was ok as I already had a street light that worked.
01/13/2009 (8:12 pm)
I mentioned them somewhere around here, but dont recall where now. :-DWhen adding dts objects. Sometimes they turn out black. Even with a material file, and the texture set as "emits light". I had that problem when I made the racing starter kit for 1.8.0 and finally gave up making the objects into difs instead. I had to remove the lights I added to the model to export as dif, but that was ok as I already had a street light that worked.
#150
01/13/2009 (8:57 pm)
@Matt: Good to hear on the terrain speed. 
#151
-Single player framework -- the biggest reason that torque is difficult to use is that everything relies on the multiplayer framework. Most games are not multiplayer, why force everyone to jump through those hoops if only a small portion actually have any intention of using those hoops.
-Shadows! DTS shadows are nearly useless in my mind. Scaling a model breaks the shadow.
-Alpha values and simple animation for gui elements - the existing gui feels really old school since everything is so static. Have some simple tweening ability and alpha values on all visual controls would improve it tremendously.
01/14/2009 (3:59 pm)
-An updated ShowTool so that remote members of the art team can see models, textures, normals in a clean environment.-Single player framework -- the biggest reason that torque is difficult to use is that everything relies on the multiplayer framework. Most games are not multiplayer, why force everyone to jump through those hoops if only a small portion actually have any intention of using those hoops.
-Shadows! DTS shadows are nearly useless in my mind. Scaling a model breaks the shadow.
-Alpha values and simple animation for gui elements - the existing gui feels really old school since everything is so static. Have some simple tweening ability and alpha values on all visual controls would improve it tremendously.
#152
At some point Matt asked for a list of good, generalized resources that could be integrated; and here's what I've got. Note: I'm using TGE 1.5.2, so I'm not sure if these (or better) features are in a newer version.
Adding Move Up and Down to the Free Camera in the Mission Editor
Torque Mission Editor Snapping Tool Part 1
Torque Mission Editor Snapping Tool Part 2
Local client load speed enhancement
Alpha LOD for TGE (1.5 & 1.5.2)
Texture quality and distance to object
TGE 1.5.x - Bonus Resource Bundle
The Particle Editor
Particle Alignment
Improved AI Guard Unit
Ok, so that last one is a bit game specific; but I just had to throw in a shameless self promotion and it is a good resource.
I've also bookmarked around 50 bug fixes made by the community (some as resources, some on the forum), but I'm not exactly sure which fixes may still apply to TGEA 1.8.
01/16/2009 (1:08 am)
As Surge said, add a layers type of system to the mission editor. Be able to group multiple simgroups or objects together then hide/unhide them from view or maybe render that group in wireframe or partially transparent.At some point Matt asked for a list of good, generalized resources that could be integrated; and here's what I've got. Note: I'm using TGE 1.5.2, so I'm not sure if these (or better) features are in a newer version.
Adding Move Up and Down to the Free Camera in the Mission Editor
Torque Mission Editor Snapping Tool Part 1
Torque Mission Editor Snapping Tool Part 2
Local client load speed enhancement
Alpha LOD for TGE (1.5 & 1.5.2)
Texture quality and distance to object
TGE 1.5.x - Bonus Resource Bundle
The Particle Editor
Particle Alignment
Improved AI Guard Unit
Ok, so that last one is a bit game specific; but I just had to throw in a shameless self promotion and it is a good resource.
I've also bookmarked around 50 bug fixes made by the community (some as resources, some on the forum), but I'm not exactly sure which fixes may still apply to TGEA 1.8.
#153
01/16/2009 (7:45 am)
Thanks for this thread. 
#154
Right now when you load materials, you can't load a file that also uses these functions (ie for generating materials based on files in a directory), because in some cases the root search is reset by the second, embedded search, and the whole thing results in an endless loop. I'm guessing these operate on a global scope for some reason - or is it the scope of the TS function that is not acting as it should? I haven't checked in detail, I chose a different approach instead.
01/16/2009 (1:57 pm)
I'd like to see TorqueScript's findFirstFile and findNextFile become recursively embeddable - if that's the right way to say what I mean...Right now when you load materials, you can't load a file that also uses these functions (ie for generating materials based on files in a directory), because in some cases the root search is reset by the second, embedded search, and the whole thing results in an endless loop. I'm guessing these operate on a global scope for some reason - or is it the scope of the TS function that is not acting as it should? I haven't checked in detail, I chose a different approach instead.
#155
IIRC, rendering speeds have been mentioned here (the new paged display of threads makes scanning conversations rather tedious; I always liked that that GG didn't do this wheras everyone else did).
I did some profiling of 1.8 against 1.7.1 and rest assured that 1.8 isn't rendering slower in any significant way compared to 1.7.1. Rather, the drastic slowdowns in the T3D demo have been caused by a rather unfortunate circumstance that traces back to the resource system which caused the code in question (in legacy terrain) to crawl at half its former speed.
As Matt already mentioned, this code has been completely replaced in Torque 3D, so this is already resolved.
01/16/2009 (4:03 pm)
IIRC, rendering speeds have been mentioned here (the new paged display of threads makes scanning conversations rather tedious; I always liked that that GG didn't do this wheras everyone else did).
I did some profiling of 1.8 against 1.7.1 and rest assured that 1.8 isn't rendering slower in any significant way compared to 1.7.1. Rather, the drastic slowdowns in the T3D demo have been caused by a rather unfortunate circumstance that traces back to the resource system which caused the code in question (in legacy terrain) to crawl at half its former speed.
As Matt already mentioned, this code has been completely replaced in Torque 3D, so this is already resolved.
#156
EDIT: nevermind - I see you've already mentioned that somewhere else, thanks!
01/16/2009 (5:10 pm)
@Rene: thanks for that information! I assume (hopefully) we'll see that change for TGEa 1.8 sometime, maybe?EDIT: nevermind - I see you've already mentioned that somewhere else, thanks!
#157
First, I'll say that I have not purchased TGEA yet, but I may wait for T3D seeing as TGEA will no longer have more versions :(. However, I would like to suggest one tiny thing:
The ability for multiple level designers to work on the same level together by connecting to the world builder as clients. It would be really helpful if you could connect to each other on a LAN (I would not put any other connections through the internet for obvious reasons) and build the level together.
An example of this is Hero Engine, it is mentioned as the first feature on the home page: www.heroengine.com
I think this would really make development faster, and with a mp engine like Torque, it shouldn't be hard at all.
01/16/2009 (8:24 pm)
Seems like some good ideas here.First, I'll say that I have not purchased TGEA yet, but I may wait for T3D seeing as TGEA will no longer have more versions :(. However, I would like to suggest one tiny thing:
The ability for multiple level designers to work on the same level together by connecting to the world builder as clients. It would be really helpful if you could connect to each other on a LAN (I would not put any other connections through the internet for obvious reasons) and build the level together.
An example of this is Hero Engine, it is mentioned as the first feature on the home page: www.heroengine.com
I think this would really make development faster, and with a mp engine like Torque, it shouldn't be hard at all.
#159
Could this be implemented "in-engine" with Torque3D though? Since there are rumors about the price being a bit higher, I think it would be a great idea to make it "in-engine", and not separate.
01/16/2009 (8:57 pm)
Thanks for the link, things are hard to find on this new site, and I never saw it before.Could this be implemented "in-engine" with Torque3D though? Since there are rumors about the price being a bit higher, I think it would be a great idea to make it "in-engine", and not separate.
#160
01/17/2009 (8:53 am)
A more advanced decal projector that I can quickly use to project any texture without having to define a DecalData object. Also, there should be an option to create permanent decals that do not age. (ie. with lifeSpan=0)
Torque 3D Owner Matt Huston
Atomic Banzai Games
+ Better shadows - They're better in TGEA but not quite up to other engines standards.
+ A* Pathfinding - Konrad I know about that resource but I'd like a solution made by GG that can be expanded upon if need be.
+ Some Basic but Common Shaders (Ubiq Visuals Depth of Field & Real Time Ambient Occlusion) should come standard with the engine.
+ Overhauled Shape Base code
Regarding the ShapeBase code - What I mean by this is that I would prefer a cut down ShapeBase system that is more modular. If you look at the ShapeBase or PlayerShape code there are quite a bit of code in there I can just guess is probably from Tribes era and doesn't make sense to have now. Variables like damage, energy, repairRate and underwaterExplosion seem a bit too much for a simple ShapeBase class aren't they?
Regarding Vehicle code - well there is a ton of problems with wheeledVehicles in TGE/A. Vehicles falling through terrain and just not acting very believable - I am guessing htis is the vehicle code that was present in Tribes. The vehicle code could be updated to be implemented from whatever Physics engine is implemented.