Press Release: QuadSoftware Grome Editor Now Available with Support for Torque Engine

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Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314)   (Feb 27, 2008 at 00:02 GMT)

So Torque Time Machine is being tested internally?

Quote:

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used since to develop hits such as Marble Blast Ultra, Fallen Empire: Legions

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Awesome!

And Grome looks pretty slick - can I borrow the Time Machine to play with it?

J.C. Smith   (Feb 27, 2008 at 05:33 GMT)

This sounds great, but I haven't been able to find any information on what exactly it exports. Does this export blended terrains or unique terrains?

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Feb 27, 2008 at 14:11 GMT)

The plugin is saving blended terrain to ATLAS. It is not limited to 4 masks (it saves as many opacity masks as necessary to include all the scene layers) since ATLAS can be extended to render 8 (or even 16) layers. The exporter it can also save lightmaps.

Terrain sizes are limited only to the maximum image sizes (65535 by 65355 pixels) ATLAS can process, since the exporter is using the custom Grome swap system. The process is pretty much automated since the necesary atlas generation script is produced by the exporter.

Next versions will also contain objects export (into Torque mission files).

More to come in the next few days...

Thank You,
Adrian L.
Quad Software

J.C. Smith   (Feb 27, 2008 at 14:39 GMT)

Sounds great. Thanks for the answers Adrian. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

Gareth Fouche   (Feb 27, 2008 at 16:52 GMT)

This sounds and looks very impressive. :)

My only real concern is the pricing. The pro version looks a little out of my price range, but I'd like greater than 512 by 512 terrain textures.

Anyway, looking forward to hearing more soon.

PuG   (Feb 27, 2008 at 19:13 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Gareth - the two 512 x 512 limits only apply to the mask textures on a per-zone bases (though remember you can only have 4 in the standard) , and for the actual maximum size of the tiling textures used within Grome to preview/edit the Masks - so though the overall texture resolution is limited on the finial Atlas export, it is still reasonably high and suitable for upto around 4km's x 4km's (so still a sizable area).
Edited on Feb 27, 2008 19:43 GMT

Gareth Fouche   (Feb 27, 2008 at 19:22 GMT)

Awesome, thanks PuG. In that case, I'll definately be picking this up when it's released ;)

JoZ   (Feb 27, 2008 at 20:45 GMT)

Playing with the demo I have to say that grome is really fantastic...
Since the price ($300) of Pro version I'm not sure if I can buy this version, anyway some big plus would be specific info and tutorial about exporting to torque, with detailed info and excerpts of all "you must know" to use it with ATLAS in an effective way...

I really wanna buy it if it will provide this plus...

Zach Gipson   (Feb 28, 2008 at 04:33 GMT)

This looks absolutely brilliant. I can see I'm going to have to make the move to TGEA so I can play with this.

PuG   (Feb 28, 2008 at 08:03 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

The Help guide for the exporter is fairly extensive, and video tutorials will also be available as soon as the exporter is officially released, which takes you through the main steps (creating the heightmap, texturing, exporting, compiling).
Edited on Feb 28, 2008 08:05 GMT

Leslie Young   (Feb 28, 2008 at 09:32 GMT)

Awesome to see this. Played with Grome some time aggo and thought it would be quite nice for Torque terrain editing and I see even object export is in the works.

One question, will Grome be able to load DTS objects since it will be able to export to misison files and how would this apply to shapes that uses script (datablocks) like animated DTS?

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Feb 28, 2008 at 09:37 GMT)

Hi Leslie, glad to hear from you again.

Yes, we do plan to load DTS format. Grome has a storage plugin system that allows 3rd party formats to be browsed, visualized and be spawned as they were native formats. We will try to support as many DTS features as possible, but if there are technical restrictions, you can always use replacement objects (example: objects in COLLADA format that emulate the original objects).

Regards,
Adrian L.

Bobby Leighton   (Feb 28, 2008 at 17:24 GMT)

It seems like a very nice editor, but like others have said this is WAY out of an indie price range, are you planning on making a torque indie user version that is in the cost range of what we all bought L3DT? Honestly I have played with the Grome demo, and I can make all the same terrain shapes with L3DT, but the texturing scheme sounds amazing, i am currently making custom shaders so that I can have as many textures as I want, it would be nice to export things like this "on the fly" as they say, but for 433.00 American dollars is way too much, unless you are only targeting the commercial people only....Not trying to gripe...but they are honest questions:)

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Feb 29, 2008 at 07:25 GMT)

Hi,

The editor also comes with Standard Edition, which is well in the indie price range as this was its main target. In case you don't want very large world, I don't see any reasons why not to use this version. Because Standard supports up to 4 zones, you can also work around the world size limitation by using multiple scenes and sticking the borders.

Professional Edition is what you need if you develop MMO games (or something very similar, with large worlds). It price may seem high to some, but in the end I think it really worth it because you will spend much less time (and have much more creation control) than in other programs. We think its price is the reflection of what the editor can do.

But anyway, you, the clients, must decide. You can play more with the demo, see the video tutorials and see what others have to say to make a proper opinion.

Best Regards,
Adrian L.

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Feb 29, 2008 at 10:05 GMT)

I'm glad to announce you that the Grome / Torque support is now available:

http://www.quadsoftware.com/index.php?m=section&sec=product&subsec=editor&target=editor_torque

We also have a dedicated forum section. Feel free to visit us.

GarageGames.com will also contain more information in the days to come.

Best Regards,
Adrian L.

Rodney (OldRod) Burns   (Feb 29, 2008 at 19:33 GMT)

Adrian - I'm trying to watch the Torque videos you have on your site. I get an error message from QuickTime when they finish loading:

Error -2041: an invalid sample description was found in the movie

Am I missing a codec or something?

*edit* Never mind - I got it to play in VLC
Edited on Feb 29, 2008 19:40 GMT

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Feb 29, 2008 at 19:40 GMT)

Hi,

Do you try to play them in browser? For me they work off line (right click and Save As the files to disk). Then open them in Media Player. I use the following codec:

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm

The movies are using H.264 codec.

There are several users that have problems viewing the tutorials. We may consider recoding them in another format. You can find more info here:
http://www.quadsoftware.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213

Let me know if they work for you.

Adrian L.

Rodney (OldRod) Burns   (Feb 29, 2008 at 19:41 GMT)

Yeah, I tried them in the browser first - they loaded about halfway and quit. Downloaded them and got the error I showed above. VLC plays them fine though, sorry for the bother :)

PuG   (Feb 29, 2008 at 19:42 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

A few people seem to be having some issues, audio is mp3, (mpga, lame) and the video codec is MP4 (MPEG4 X264).

I think they could do with rencoding.

J.C. Smith   (Mar 02, 2008 at 09:43 GMT)

I can't get the TGEA videos to work either, though the older Grome tutorials do work, but are using a different codec.

PuG   (Mar 02, 2008 at 09:54 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Im encoding now into Mpeg4 Xvid & WAV PCM so hopefully should resolve the issues some might be having.

Will post new links as soon as the files are available.

metalliandy   (Mar 02, 2008 at 16:24 GMT)

I tried to run the GromeAtlas mission but i get a pop up saying that i do not have the correct version of Torque or the correct resources to run it.

Any ideas?

Im using TGEA 1.03
Edited on Mar 02, 2008 16:24 GMT

PuG   (Mar 02, 2008 at 16:41 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

you might find theirs something in the mission file thats looking for an object or sky perhaps which you don't have, in which case just update to a suitable .dml.

JoZ   (Mar 02, 2008 at 22:25 GMT)

Grome really looks the best solution around, so I want to buy the standard vers. reserving to buy later when needed the full vers.
About that I just wanna know if there a special price for upgrading from standard to full...
Tnx.

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Mar 03, 2008 at 06:39 GMT)

Hello, you need to pay only the price difference.

Regards,
Adrian L.

J.C. Smith   (Mar 03, 2008 at 07:04 GMT)

I purchased a pro license the other day and have been pretty impressed with Grome. Still getting the hang of it, but the layering and selection options are fantastic. Great to see another program with atlas support.

T Squared   (Mar 05, 2008 at 04:27 GMT)

this is soooo much better then L3DT.

Andy Hawkins   (Mar 05, 2008 at 12:15 GMT)

How does it compare to L3DT? L3DT seemed pretty good at the time. The terrain size seems a little small for standard. I need a solution for BRAVE. Does L3DT support terrain greater than this?

metalliandy   (Mar 05, 2008 at 12:26 GMT)

Hey Andy,

L3DT pro supports terrains up to 128k x128k for the heightfield and 4M x 4M for the texture.

More than enough :)

www.bundysoft.com/docs/doku.php?id=l3dt:editions
Hope that helps
Edited on Mar 05, 2008 12:28 GMT

Andy Hawkins   (Mar 05, 2008 at 14:20 GMT)

Thanks. I will try both. I have tried L3DT on 90 Pro but I could never get a large terrain out of it.

PuG   (Mar 05, 2008 at 14:29 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Grome Pro can support upto the max theoretical texture limit size of Atlas, though you would be working with a good number of zones :)

The difference between the two programs is with Grome not only can you procedural generation the heightmaps and texture masks, but also use real time brush tools to sculpt the landscape, and paint similar to Torques Legacy (as an example).

Another advantage is you load and place Collada objects, flattern out areas for them specifically and bake lightmaps - finally when the instance converter is available take Gromes output into a Torque mission format.

metalliandy   (Mar 05, 2008 at 15:13 GMT)

The only limit of L3DT is that it cant paint textures (yet :) )
You can sculpt landscapes using the built in Sapphire extension :) though the mission output would be a great addition.

J.C. Smith   (Mar 05, 2008 at 23:04 GMT)

Having owned both, they are both very nice editors, my two favorites for both. L3DT's price is a lot more indie friendly, great deal. For generating terrains its a lot easier to work with. It does have terraforming etc with sapphire now, but its realtime editing isn't on par with Grome's. L3DT can directly export to atlas unique terrain in one step, which is an ease of use feature that some may prefer. You get the best looking terrains though by using blended rather than unique, and the L3DT exporter doesn't yet support blended textures properly. Feature wise Grome allows you to do more, it's the best all around terrain editor I've worked with to date. I also own licenses to Leveller and several others, though my preference was L3DT previously, now Grome. L3DT is your best bang for the buck, Grome is IMO most powerful editor if you have the extra money to spend. You can't lose either way though.
Edited on Mar 05, 2008 23:07 GMT

Shon Gale   (Mar 08, 2008 at 16:35 GMT)

This is great!!!! An awesome utility!!! But a lot of owners of TGEA already bought L3DT (including us) and we still can't edit an Atlas terrain in the TGEA level editor (press F11), not even something as simple as leveling an area to place a building has been taken care of. More tools are great but how about finishing the ones we have. The Atlas support in TGEA has been none. We don't need another terrain generator that we can't edit in the level editor and maintain easily. This comes from 2 years of experience and updates with TSE/TGEA (from the beginning) and a world renowned artist working on the terrains (Maylock Stansbury beta tested for L3DT and Aaron is a great friend). Going back and forth between programs that don't work together is a pain in the *^%^. Nothing like it to kill creativity before you even get started.
We are very happy that the Atlas Terrains are prompting 3rd party developers to write additional software, but you know what we need is the capability built right in to TGEA. We thought when L3DT and TGEA were working on a plug-in for L3DT (What happened to that?) we would finally have the same abilities that we have in TGE's level editor and TGEA's legacy terrains.
Ouch just saw the price and at today's exchange rate the $299,00 EU for the pro version (I didn't look at the standard version, but can guarantee my artist won't accept less than the pro version) equals $460.46 USD and that's too much for my indie pocketbook! Nice web-site though.

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Mar 08, 2008 at 17:02 GMT)

Hello,

I'm glad you like our program. Your concern about an external tool is understandable. But when you think about it, Grome is not just an editor, it is a modeler (think of it like a 3DS Max or Maya but more specialized for terrain and game worlds).

I don't think any engine developer has the resources to create such an application. He can make its own mission and scene editor but not a modeler. Many game developers end up with in-house buggy tools that are not flexible enough to be used from one project to another. One of the reasons we've started Grome was our own frustrations with in-house tools (we had several years of creating customized tools) developing process.

Grome has a different approach. It is quite general in editing while allowing (with a very flexible SDK and per entities custom properties) integration into any working pipeline (and engine). Many developers think they need a specialized editor for world creation (note: I'm not talking about mission setup, custom game properties, AI etc, but about world modeling: terrain, dungeons, vegetation etc). My personal view is that this concept is about to be changed. Engine developers will not have time to create such complex tools. We will have more and more third party modeling applications to do the tasks.

And in the end it makes sense. When you have a specialized generic applications for characters like ZBrush, why not have one for terrain and game level? Why this must be game specific?

I personally think GarageGames decision to cooperate with us is very wise. If I am one of their clients, I will want better rendering support in the engine and in the specific tools. For example, you can have ATLAS improved in many ways (more layers, more layer types, vertical texture mapping etc). And I'm sure GG will do just that but using the resources in this direction.

Regards,
Adrian Licuriceanu
Quad Software

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Mar 08, 2008 at 17:07 GMT)

Oh, and another thing. About Pro vs. Standard. Please look at the feature differences:

http://www.quadsoftware.com/index.php?m=section&sec=product&subsec=editor&target=editor_choose

All depends on the projects you need to complete. You may very well don't need Professional.

Andy Hawkins   (Mar 08, 2008 at 22:42 GMT)

I just bought L3DT and it does have a terrain leveling tool. Once you set the height you can erode the edges to blend them with the terrain. I just couldn't spare $150 AUD for the Standard version of Grome right now - but I do like it and will buy when I have more money spare.

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Mar 12, 2008 at 15:52 GMT)

Hello, we've just launched a new version of Grome (1.2) with some new interesting features:

http://www.quadsoftware.com/index.php?m=section&sec=product&subsec=editor&target=editor_ver12

The new update is free for all clients. The current Torque exporter works with this version, too.

Regards,
Adrian L.

Adrian Licuriceanu   (Mar 13, 2008 at 13:41 GMT)

Hello,

We've just posted a new update to the Torque exporter (version 1.1). This new build includes some bug fixes (many thanks to our community members that tested the exporter) and the possibility to export only the selected zones.

It can be downloaded from the Torque support page:
http://www.quadsoftware.com/index.php?m=section&sec=product&subsec=editor&target=editor_torque

Best Regards,
Adrian L.

PuG   (Mar 13, 2008 at 16:08 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Excellent! 1.2 is much faster, can't wait to try it out properly.

Jeramy79   (Mar 17, 2008 at 10:23 GMT)

Great looking product, but it's just too expensive.

Gareth Fouche   (Mar 17, 2008 at 10:42 GMT)

@Will : The indie version is quite reasonable.

Downloaded the demo of Grome this weekend, wow, what a great editor! Love the way layers work, especially the ability to stack height map layers, gives you so much flexibility in editing.

Before long I decided I couldn't go back to TGE's terrain editing, so I bought the standard (indie)version. They don't mention but it also comes with a whole pack of nice terrain textures. :D

I'm looking forward to the update where we can load dts models. But until then I've found a way to guestimate at least scale in Torque. Set your camera to walkmode, set the walk height to 2 units, that's about Kork height. That;s what it will look like for the player.
Edited on Mar 17, 2008 10:43 GMT

J.C. Smith   (Mar 17, 2008 at 11:57 GMT)

One of the cool things about the layer and selection is that you can design your map and get all of the mountain ranges and basic layout that you want done to begin with. And then you can just add some noise through a second layer and blend it over top of wherever you want it to. So basically if you had a zoned setup, you coudl add in the mountain ranges, some flat areas, etc. Then select everything outside fo the flat areas, and add some noise to it to make bumpy ground, cracks etc in those areas, while preserving your basic layout. It's really cool.

Gareth Fouche   (Mar 18, 2008 at 17:54 GMT)

Oh man, the smudge brush is my new favorite tool. So much fun. :D

Adrian Licuriceanu   (May 06, 2008 at 18:01 GMT)

Hello everyone,

I'm glad to announce you that we've made another update to the Torque exporter:

http://www.quadsoftware.com/index.php?m=section&sec=product&subsec=editor&target=editor_torque

The main new feature is represented by the mission file export including object instances. Now you can export the object placements directly from Grome to Torque mission files. There is no DTS importer yet, but you can easily use replacement COLLADA files (you can transform DTS objects to COLLADA with almost any major modeling application, just make sure you use the same names).

Also, one another new addition is that we now offer full source code of the exporter for anyone to modify and extend.

Other thing worth noticing is that you will need the latest Grome version for this to work (version 1.20.09 or newer).

Exporter help was also updated with the new features. For any support or other related questions don't hesitate to post on our dedicated forums.

Best Regards,
Adrian L.

Gareth Fouche   (May 06, 2008 at 18:08 GMT)

That's great news Adrian, looking forward to trying this update out! :)

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