Torque Game Engine DocumentationVersion 1.3.x
| Torque Game Engine Documentation Version 1.3.x |
Table of Contents
All games require a Graphical User Interface (GUI) of some kind. Whether it's the menu screen, an in-game Heads-Up Display (HUD), or an options dialog, every game needs GUI controls which can receive user input, and display results in a visual fashion.
The Torque Game Engine comes with a built-in GUI Editor, a feature which few (if any) other engines offer. Torque's GUI system is powerful and flexible. It offers precise control over your game's interfaces, and allows you to create most any interface you can imagine. GUIs are important because they are the interfaces users of your game will use constantly, every time they play. Most often, your menu GUI is the first thing players see in a game. Designing intuitive, easy to use interfaces that gamers interact with is a major part of game design and knowing how to utilize the GUI Editor to its fullest potential is very important to your game's success.
As mentioned above, "GUI" stands for Graphical User Interface. It is the summation of all the controls(windows, buttons, text fields, etc) that are used to interact with a game and it's settings. Most GUI interfaces in games consist of buttons to launch or join a game session, editing devices to change user preferences, options to change screen resolutions and rendering options, and elements which display game data to the user as they are playing.
Both of the screenshots below are examples of full-screen GUIs. The background images, and all buttons and text are created on GUI controls:
Figure 1
Figure 2
In this chapter, we'll see how to use Torque's built-in GUI Editor to create these kinds of screens. Our example buttons and controls are simplistic, but don't be put-off. By taking the lessons you'll learn in this chapter, and customizing your GUI graphics and layout, you can create advanced, dynamic GUIs with almost any look and feel you desire.