So, let's say I wanted to get into design but...
by Aaron Wright · in General Discussion · 06/08/2009 (2:14 am) · 1 replies
Understanding that it takes a ton of people and even more talent to produce many of today's MMORPGs, I still want to take a swing at making something small to get my foot in the door as a world design/environmental artist and possibly even programming. Programming would be something I'd like to have an as option, but not as much of a requirement, as my main focus would be world design.
That said, I've always loved general level design. I started pretty basic back in the half-life days using the hammer editor and then progressed to doing some design for a personal UT3 project.
What I'm wondering at this point is this: How much use am I going to get out of a purchase of the professional Torque3d editor? I understand it is currently in Beta phase 2 (3 now?) but also gather that many have already worked with it.
I don't have an extra grand laying around ready to blow on a software suite that will leave me wondering what I can do next with what I have. So, am I going to be able to produce a private game for myself and a few friends (and maybe an interested employer or two, I hope) that will show off my talent as a world designer while not delving too deeply into programming, 3d modeling, or texture design unless I choose to? I understand that some or all of these may be needed to properly complete things, but surely based on what I saw in some of the editor demo videos I can just jump right in and create a level based on some of the packaged assets?
My apologies if all or some of this has been covered elsewhere, as I am currently on my iphone away from home and really didn't want to sort through all of the posts. ;) I guess all in all, I'm just looking for an idea of what kind of experience most people have who use this. Would it be feasable to pick this up as a first serious platform?
For those that may be curious what I have to work with:
2 years of technical college with software engineering technology as major.
Visual basic 6.0 advanced programming
visual c++
web development (php, html, and light javascript)
light experience in 3d studio max
HAMMER - Value software level editor.
Some Unreal Tournament 3 level design.
No professional experience at this time.
That said, I've always loved general level design. I started pretty basic back in the half-life days using the hammer editor and then progressed to doing some design for a personal UT3 project.
What I'm wondering at this point is this: How much use am I going to get out of a purchase of the professional Torque3d editor? I understand it is currently in Beta phase 2 (3 now?) but also gather that many have already worked with it.
I don't have an extra grand laying around ready to blow on a software suite that will leave me wondering what I can do next with what I have. So, am I going to be able to produce a private game for myself and a few friends (and maybe an interested employer or two, I hope) that will show off my talent as a world designer while not delving too deeply into programming, 3d modeling, or texture design unless I choose to? I understand that some or all of these may be needed to properly complete things, but surely based on what I saw in some of the editor demo videos I can just jump right in and create a level based on some of the packaged assets?
My apologies if all or some of this has been covered elsewhere, as I am currently on my iphone away from home and really didn't want to sort through all of the posts. ;) I guess all in all, I'm just looking for an idea of what kind of experience most people have who use this. Would it be feasable to pick this up as a first serious platform?
For those that may be curious what I have to work with:
2 years of technical college with software engineering technology as major.
Visual basic 6.0 advanced programming
visual c++
web development (php, html, and light javascript)
light experience in 3d studio max
HAMMER - Value software level editor.
Some Unreal Tournament 3 level design.
No professional experience at this time.
Torque 3D Owner Ted Southard
Anyway, there's more than a few teams working on Indie MMOs here, and a few others that have been published successfully, so the engine will get you as far as you can take yourself with it for that kind of project. I have a thread here that is an outline for both how to go about this kind of project, as well as scores of links on MMO creation using Torque and other products. It should clear up a lot of questions for you.
Also, the scripting language is very powerful, and if you have source code (which you would need to add ODBC support), then you can extend the amount of scripting functions rather easily. If you wanted to use this to make a gameplay demo for an employer, then you wouldn't need anything more than the TGEA demo with some clever scripting. You can read in CSV files as your makeshift DB and get all kinds of GUI effects done through script (I just created circular progress bars in script because I just didn't feel like doing the C++ stuff that day).
But so you know, it has a learning curve, and is not just a drag-drop-play engine. Do some searches for MMO and whatnot and you'll see some heavy discussion here. To sum it up, the engine has a lot of power and flexibility, but it also takes some brain sweat to get into.