New Project under Torque SDK in VC6

#1 Why not make a copy of the Max4 project and rename it?

#2 That works, and that what I did but the renaming is the problem. How do you access the names of the folder with out opening the DSP. Mine now even though its all linked to max5 and all the uotputs are named MAX5 the title of the folder is MAX4. I know its just a small thing but I would really like to just know how to set up a folder.

Thanks
Matt

#3 OH NO!!! Scooby another mystery!

#4 I've edited the .dsw file and changed some names in there without problems (as long as you're careful), but that doesn't change the names of the folders in VStudio. I'd like to know how to do this as well - my project is diverging quite a bit from the demo now and I hate it that it still says "Torque Demo" in the studio :)

#5 I can change a few things in the Dsp or whatever its called but when I go all out I usually loose all the settings. I think we need to bug someone about this. This should be somthing in the docs. When I make a makefile I can't figure out how to change the setting and add new panels and tabs to the settings. I have read alot of the Help files but none seem to help.

Matt

#6 I am going to keep this one up top for a while and hope I can find some one who knows.

Matt

#7 Matt,

I've been researching this, and it looks like you can add a new project to the Torque SDK Workspace, name it whatever you want, then point it to the source files and make all the settings (special compile steps, etc.) just like the Torque Demo project.

I'm at work, so I can't try it right now, but I plan on attempting it this weekend. Only problem will be figuring out what all to set, and how to set it, but looking through the .dsp for the demo should help.

#8 Great.
If you manage to get it could you possibly write a step by step. My biggest road block is getting the settings to appear. I can setup a make file but its settings are different and thats the part I have a problem changing.

I have been working on the MAX2MAP and have got a pretty much to the point its functional (unlike the old version) and I want to be able to compile all three versions as I make changes.

Setting up new projects for it would be nice.

Matt

#9 Ok, here's what I've done so far (I'm attempting to change demo project to something else):

1 - loaded the Torque SDK.dsw file
2 - added a new project to the workspace
3 - Went through the settings menu and skipped back and forth between the demo and my project to copy the settings. Did this on both Release and Debug configurations. Then I edited the directories, output files, etc. to what I wanted them to be for my project.
4 - added the source files and folders under my new project just like the old project had.

Saved the workspace now and went out to windiff to compare the 2 .dsp files. Looks pretty good (stuff isn't in the same order, so it's hard to see) but I can see I'm missing some custom build information that the demo has. Haven't located where that is in Visual Studio yet to copy it over.

I would think that's about all I have left to do, but I ran out of free time :) Not sure I'll be able to get back to it until tomorrow, but maybe that'll get you started. Of course, I haven't tried compiling yet either, so we'll see how well that works...

#10 Ok, I decided to try something else and it turned out to be easier.

Open the Torque SDK and insert a new project, making it a Win32 Console App. Name it whatever you want (MAX5 in your case I think). Watch the directory it puts it in, VS likes to append the name onto the path.

Once it's created, exit Visual Studio.

Open the Torque Demo.dsp and your new .dsp file in a text editor. Copy everything from line 7 to the end of Torque Demo.dsp and paste it into your new .dsp file. Then go through the new .dsp and change any names you want. In my case I changed all the torque demo names to a meaningful name for my project, and changed the \example directory to another.

Save the file. Go back to Visual Studio and check your settings. I had to set the working directory, other than that it was all ok.

Compiled and ran with no problems.

I now have a custom project (with a new name) inside the Torque SDK, using a folder other than \example, and making my own program rather than Torque_Demo.exe. Less painful than I thought it would be :)

#11 >I was wondering if anybody knew a resource or forum thread, >discussing setting up a new project under the Torque SDK. I am >working with VC++6.

As a developer for JBoss and other systems it's seem odd that after 2 years of people asking for things like: a basic hello world or skeleton Visual Studio project creation that this still hasn't been done.

It is unprofessional IMHO to tell new programmers to scrape out code from one project just to get another one going. Nor is not an outlandish expectation for users to want some type of Wizard to accomplish this task, or step-by-step instructions.

Linux distro makers took years for their community to realize that making it easy to get a first success with their products, is critcal to keep newcommers interested and thus ready to buy more licenses.

The GG forums are littered with the same question asked over and over: 'help me get started.' The answer usually is: 'You've got a complete game there, figure it out.' What really happens is the person posts again saying, 'yeah but I have all this code and no clear entry point into a demo game.' Eventually they put the CD away and go elsewhere. What they don't do for a large percentage of potential customers is build something that keeps them hungry for more $100 licenses.

I am working on an add-on product for Torque and I can't believe what I am going through just to get a game client going. I have a powerful IDE system and project manager in my Visual Studio setup, but almost no help in how to get a project started with the absolute minimum pieces needed to run a demo.

Making it as easy as possible to get started with VC6++ should be a priority, not a bother, or an exercise in RTFM. Red Hat learned this with version 5.2 of their installation. I've never bothered with another distro since.

#12 I don't think its all that bad of a problem. I would like to know how to do it clean right through vc6 but as long as it gets done I don't guess there's a problem. I think the one thing thats needs pointed out is that the engine project was fine up until recently but all the tools and methods for doing things are changing so now the question has come up? I for one want to be able to upgrade my tools to MAX5 but at the same time I want to make sure that the upgrades I make are going to work for Max4 users incase I want to share them. Its just one of those things.
@Rodney Thanks for the info

Matt

#13 It's my experience that new technologies prosper when people outside the usual gaming discipline can try it out with success.

The TGE will be more useful when anyone from a network programmer to a graphic designers can easily setup a test world so they can concentrate on what they do best.

Barnes & Noble's computer book section is loaded with $60 800 page books about how to quickly get some game technology or another up and running.

It is not unreasonable to expect that a 2+ year old technology should have well organized docs on how to set up a game, connect to a server and accomplish some useful tasks. 'Look in the forums' for the answer keeps you below the threshold of ubiquity.

At $100 the price point for TGE is low enough that people will pay it just to try it out. I did and my first reaction last year was WTF? Off it went in my stack of 'things to look at later.'

Compare that with JBoss, a highly complex application server architecture that I had running with modified examples in two hours.

The key part that we should look at is that many, many people have voluteered, myself included, to get the information about how to use this product organized into a single document. The JBoss project has turned their docs into a profit center. Why not the same for the TGE?

I again volunteer to work on a team to create a single PDF document with everything you need to do to use the TGE. If you want to see how others are doing it right look here:

http://telia.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/jboss/JBoss.3.0QuickStart.Draft3.pdf

#14 Well I guess thats whats typically wrong with the whole thing. Maybe people just don't understand what they are buying when they pay that 100$.
You are not buying Source code. You are buying an all access pass to a communtity that is working together for the advancement and use of open source game engines and the bonus is they give you one to work with.
People forget that or don't really look into what they are buying. They just complain when they can't get what they want imediatly.
I for one used alot of the "BUILD YOUR OWN GAMES" engine before I join the GG community. I can tell you none of them give you all access source code and the ability to improve or change things. Along with the fact that they don't give you the ability to write and submit DOCUMENTION on anything. Now in years time some have come along that do.

If there is a lack of documentation its not anybodies fault it's everybodies fault.

When I asked the question above I was hoping someone would have a tried and true method for working this out. I wasn't looking for rants on how Torque doesn't compare. I was looking for an answer in one part or many on how to solve the problem !
I for one always try to submit these kinds of things especially if they have not already been submited. Maybe if other people with other skills did the same thing instead of just "putting it in the pile" we would already have this and many other questions anserwed and documented.

One way or the other I am going to get the answer to this and if it is favorable to write up I will make sure it gets in the DOCS. At minimum as Resource.

Matt

#15 >When I asked the question above I was hoping someone would have a >tried and true method for working this out.
>Maybe if other people with other skills did the same thing instead >of just "putting it in the pile"

Sometimes you have to put new technologies on the pile if the infratructure to support it is still being built.

I put Slackware Linux on the pile in 1995. I looked in again in 1997 and found Red Hat's distro a useful technology that allowed me to drop Microsoft's IIS and to make my living using Linux almost exclusively on the server side.

My posts aren't a rant about what's wrong, it is a plea to recognize what others are doing right.

Someone surely has the answer to your question, and I am hoping to provoke the frame of mind that says you are right not only to seek such an answer, but at a certain point in the maturity of the product to expect it.

As for the books I was not refering to 'game engine' in a box books. I am talking about complete coverage and examples for using things like JBoss, DirectX, OpenGL, & SDL.

These books:

Programming Linux Games
The Zen of DirectX 3D Game programming
OpenGL Game Programming
JBoss Administration and Development

have everything needed for someone to evaluate and use all these technologies. Each of these books have grown out of increasing more detailed docs about the technolgy in question.

I didn't buy Torque expecting to pour in a little time and come out with Quake.

It is not unreasonable to expect major portions of the functionality to be spelled out in concise documentation, to have examples of how to create a project from scratch with all necessary support files and have a working demo after 2 years.

Whether this occurs in an IDE evironment like VC6++ or using Ant is irrelevant. Asking me to reverse engineer a working demo may be a way to learn, but it is not the best way to learn IMHO.

Nor do I expect the docs will come out of thin air. The TGE must evolve in order to grow.

What can I do to help?

#16 Okay, I've converted engine.overview.txt using doxygen. Not pretty, but it's useful enough for what I have in mind.

I'm typesetting the document using Quark Xpress. From there I'll export it to .PDF as part of an unofficial manual. I'll setup a web site for distribution.

What I need for the appendix is a step-by-step for creating an empty, or a 'hello world' type TGE project from scratch using VC6++. Other compilers would be useful too. Send to rbottoms@computerplanet.com, as well as posting here of course.

Once I have the scratch project examnple, suggestions for appendices would be welcome: Networking, adding objects to the scratch game space, navigation/mouse/joystick examples etc..

#17 BTW, I can also print to the Adobe Distiller for output as pure Postscript. So users of Ghostscript can print the manual as well from a .PS file.

#18 The first 9 pages of the formatted PDF doc are up:

http://www.hyper-real.com/torque/tge_manual_v.01.pdf

I'll be adding to it as time permits.

#19 Richard,

I'm impressed by the quality of your documentation. I for one would like to see where you can take this.

I do believe that the TGE needs more of this documented "gathered" community knowledge available.

Keep up the good work.

- Melv.

p.s. Might want to convert the file-size references to kilobytes as they are in bytes at the moment. I nearly fainted when I saw your documentation at over 100Mb!

#20 Thanks I'll do that. I'll try to add a chapter every day or two.

BTW, still waiting for VC6++ scratch question to be answered.