Blog for Matt Fairfax at GarageGames.com

TGEA 1.8 on a Mac

Matt Fairfax — 2008-09-20T02:13:21+00:00

TGEA 1.8 runs on Macs!

Running TGEA on a Mac

After years of research, we here at GarageGames have painstakingly come up with a surefire process to run TGEA a Mac! Here is the procedure:

1) First, be sure that you buy an Intel-based Mac (this is critical)
2) Next, install Boot Camp
3) Then install Windows Vista
4) Download and install Torque Game Engine Advanced

And there you go...TGEA on a Mac!

Running TGEA on OSX

What? Wait! When the hordes were demanding that we port TGEA to the Mac, that isn't what you meant?!? Ohhh....

Well...how about we release a new version of TGEA that is designed to run on a Mac under OSX?

Fortunately for you, we were showing off just that very thing at Austin GDC this past week:

TGEA 1.8 running on an iMac at AGDC

Tell me more!

TGEA 1.8 is the next version of TGEA that we will be releasing. It is a FREE update that is aimed primarily at adding OSX support to Torque Game Engine Advanced.

This is a culmination of years of work and research by Alex Scarborough starting with his impressive Modernization Kit. For the last year or so, Alex has been hard at work hacking in a quick OpenGL shader solution into our InstantAction games like Fallen Empire: Legions, Rokkitball, Marble Blast Online, and ThinkTanks so that they are all playable on the Mac version of InstantAction. When he wasn't doing that, he was taking the lessons he learned from that and adding a proper OpenGL Shader layer to our cutting edge research and development engine ("Torque R&D" for now).

GFX2

For the last several months I have been hard at work at merging the next generation of GFX from Torque R&D back into TGEA. This means that we will be picking up a few things more than just an OpenGL layer. It also means that we will be able to directly benefit from the hard work and experience that GG Studios is putting into their next round of games.

You can use the Project Generator on OSX to create your Xcode project

StateBlocks

One of the fundamental changes that GFX2 introduces is the concept of StateBlocks. This is actually something that we borrowed from DirectX 10 and have implemented in software for the DirectX9 and OpenGL layers for now. The basic idea is that an active rendering state is contained in one object and you are able set that rendering state with a single call. The state that you set fully defines the render state. So the idea of a cannonical render state is gone. Which is good, your rendering worries about defining its own state and that's it. This should greatly reduce bugs that are introduced because state hasn't been cleaned up by a previous rendering object/pass (this is the cause of a lot of the graphical glitches you see in Torque and other engines).

Let me break this down into an example. In the past we might have done something like:

// Render time code
GFX->setBlendEnable(true);
GFX->setBlendDest(GFXInvSrcAlpha);
GFX->setBlendSrc(GFXSrcAlpha);

Now, when we are setting up our object we do this:

// Setup code, done once
GFXStateBlockDesc desc;
desc.setBlend(true, GFXSrcAlpha, GFXInvSrcAlpha);
GFXStateBlockRef myState = GFX->createStateBlock(desc);

And then when we render we can make a single call and it properly sets up the entire rendering state:

// Render time code
GFX->setStateBlock(myState);

This practically eliminates state bugs and what is even cooler is that when we make the switch to DirectX 10 this will all be hardware driven (fast!).

ShaderGen

One of the great things about GFX2 is that it has a proper GLSL ShaderGen implementation. This means that if you use Materials on your object (currently defined in script) then they will automatically work on both Windows and Mac. This can save your team and project a ton of time and make it so that your port to OSX is fairly trivial.

Use a Material and your shaders will just work on Windows and Mac

You can use CustomMaterials to specify your own hand written HLSL and/or GLSL shaders (if you want to remain cross-platform compatible you'll have to implement both for CustomMaterials).

Constant Buffers

Another big change that GFX2 brings with it is Constant Buffers. Instead of just "knowing" which register maps to which shader variable, in GFX2 you query the shader for a list of variables and then bind to them by name.

For example, previously if I wanted to set a float to the shader variable scaleLighting, I would have something like this in the shader:

uniform float   scaleLighting  :  register(C14)

and this in my C++ code:

GFX->setShaderVertexConstF(14, myConst);

I would have to know ahead of time that the shader was expecting my value to be in the 14th register and to bind it there. Instead with GFX2, I just query the shader for its "scaleLighting" variable and it hands back a handle for me no matter what register it is bound to.

At load time, I would have something like:

// Setup code
GFXShaderConstBuffer* myBuff = shader->allocConstBuffer();
GFXShaderConstHandle* myHandle = shader->getShaderConstHandle("$scaleLighting");

And then, when I rendered, I would have:

// Render code
myBuff->set(myHandle, myConst);
GFX->setShaderConstBuffer(myBuff);

This allows us to end up with a lot less mismatches between what the shader expects and what we are sending it and has the potential to allow the drivers to do some optimization on the shaders which could change which registers are bound to which variables.

Porting and Documentation

We know this is a lot of changes and it is going to be a bit daunting if you have GFX rendering code that needs porting over to GFX2. That is why our documentation guru, Michael Perry, is already hard at work on a general overview doc for GFX2 and a lot of porting docs and tutorials to help smooth your transition. It is also the reason that we tried to limit most of the changes between TGEA 1.7.1 to TGEA 1.8 to things that GFX2 directly relies on.

Check out a quick walkthrough of T3D on a Mac at AGDC...be sure to watch all the way to the end =)

When do we get it?!?!!

As you can see from the screenshots and videos we have a lot of the initial integration done. However, we do have few more big systems to work through and a ton of smaller spots (mostly StateBlock related) spots to finish merging over.

Our goal is to provide TGEA owners with access to a Beta some time in the next 3-4 weeks. As always, this is only an estimate and shouldn't be taken as a hard and fast deadline. We will be sure keep you posted on the progress if we aren't going to hit this estimate though.

We are really excited to finally provide this to you guys and that it is everything that it should be and that it is FREE!

If you are looking for more information you can read more over in the IRC Hour Chat Log

Barricade Demo

Matt Fairfax — 2008-06-20T22:32:39+00:00

Barricade Demo

Click to see a preview of the Barricade demo or head over to the TGEA demos page to try it out directly

As promised last Friday with the release of TGEA 1.7.1, we have released the Barricade demo!

The Barricade demo is loosely based on the GDC 2006 Tech demo which I know some of you have been asking after for a long time =) Moving forward we plan to use this demo as a showcase of some of the best features and effects in TGEA.

The Barricade demo does have pretty high system requirements. This is both because we wanted to show off the best our tech can do and to give us a nice bar to work against for future optimizations of the engine. It may very well run on a much lower powered system but we can not guarantee that it will not have any odd visual glitches. We recommend these as the lowest system requirements:

Windows XP or Windows Vista
DirectX 9.0c
2.2 GHz Processor
1 Gb RAM
7200 RPM Hard drive
nVidia GeForce 7700 or ATI Radeon 1600 XT with 256 Mb Video Ram
Latest video drivers from nVidia.com or ATI.com

Go check it out!

Follow Through - TGEA 1.7.1 Released

Matt Fairfax — 2008-06-13T19:07:52+00:00

TGEA 1.7.1 is now available!

One of the many gorgeous scenes from the upcoming Barricade demo - click to see the video

I've talked about follow through before and I meant it =) For the last couple of months we have been quietly toiling away on a nice solid bug fix release for TGEA and I happy to announce that you can now grab this free upgrade from your account pages! We really do want our products to shine and we think we are right on track to keep making that happen.

In the video above you will see the Barricade demo that we have also been working on. It still needs a little more polish but we should be releasing it any day now. Be sure to check back often so you don't miss its release!

Rockstars

This update definitely would not have been possible without the help of our community! Please keep the bug reports and bug fixes coming. We are keeping an eye on them!

There are a few people who really stood out above the rest. As always the unstoppable Jeff Faust was on hand to catch and fix many a bug for us. The ever impressive Rene Damm tackled one of the toughest systems in Torque and made it give up its secrets (Atlas). As if that wasn't enough, Rene also put in some long hours tracking down and wacking a ton of the bugs you guys posted on our forums! Our stalwart "BobTheCBuilder" Kabus continued to move the meter forward with his sweet lighting system. Mr. Torque Coding Machine himself, Tom Spilman, managed bring SFX up to the next level (check the list below). Our Documentation black belt, Michael Perry, wrestled a few new docs into place. And last but definitely not least, we have a newly intrepid intern, Robert (with a hand from the indomitable Matt Langley), to thank for the New Project Generator and the revived Terraformer Tool.

Hydraulic erosion is a snap with the Terraformer

So What Changed?

Atlas

Fixed a hard crash in atlasGenerateTextureTOCFromLargeJPEG()
Added a throttle to threaded part of Atlas I/O pipeline to avoid congestion
Fixed some memory leaks in Atlas
The Player's lightmap sampling code now supports Atlas lightmap files (when they are generated by the Lighting Kit)
Fixed multiple miplevel shifting bugs in Atlas
Modified older Atlas CHU mesher to prevent collision meshes from exceeding internal limits
Added a GUI control for monitoring the performance of Atlas instances
Atlas better handles scenarios where the clipmap size is less than the base tile size of the texture TOC
Separated the Atlas and TerrainBlock blended terrain shaders so that the Atlas blended lightmaps wouldn't be oversaturated by the X2 multiplier needed by TerrainBlock
Split Atlas out into its own separate Project Generator code module so that platforms that don't support everything in Atlas can generate clean projects without it (or if someone doesn't need Atlas). Note the TORQUE_ATLAS define that allows Atlas files to register with the ResourceManager.

You can achieve truly beautiful vistas with Atlas

SFX

Added the beginnings of an XAudio2 SFX layer. Microsoft is depreciating DirectSound in favor of the much better XAudio sound system which is cross-compatible with Windows and Xbox. In the near future it will be Torque's default audio layer on Windows and we wanted to allow you guys to start getting comfotable with it. There are still a few issues that need to be worked through but we will be providing directions on how to enable it if you are brave and want to start poking at it. Note: To properly compile TGEA 1.7.1 with XAudio2 support you will need to update to the latest Microsoft DirectX SDK (March 2008).
Added is3D parameter to SFXDevice::createVoice() for XAudio2 implementation.
The XAudio2 system now has basic 3D positioning support
Big cleanup of misnamed, missing, and misued sound assets
Removed a bunch of script references to alx functions (now handled by SFX)
Added more docs for SFXDescription and SFXProfile
Added some tips from Robert Blanchet for SFXProfile and SFXDescription to the docs
SFXProfile::getResource() properly handles resource that haven't been preloaded
Merged latest stable release FMOD Ex 4.14.06 (Mac includes not updated yet!)
Replaced the depreciated MOD_System_GetDriverName() with FMOD_System_GetDriverInfo()
Fix for SFX FMod stereo sounds playing too fast
Fixed voice cleanup in SFXNullDevice that was causing shutdown assertions
Fixed incorrect "hasHardware" flag in SFXFMODDevice
We no longer initialize 3D parameters on non-3D sounds.
Removed unused parameter from SFXSystem::_updateSources().
SFXSystem::_update() now uses proper TickMs constant.
Fixed channel setting in AudioGui and AudioMessage SFXDescriptions
Removed duplicate audio type globals in audioProfiles.cs
Fixed OptAudioUpdateMasterVolume() to play test sound again
Fixed OptAudioUpdateChannelVolume() to take a description and not a channel
Disabled "Use Hardware" toggle in options screen and now force $pref::SFX::useHardware to false in sfxAutodetect(). Software audio has largely exceeded hardware in all aspects and we no longer recommend using hardware audio with Torque (Vista doesn't support any hardware audio). You can easily re-enable hardware audio if your project requires it.
Added sfxMetricsCallback() to allow metrics( sfx ) to bring up audio metrics
Added cone support to SFX and all existing devices
Fixed bug in SFXEmitter that caused sound resource to not reload when changed
Fixed old cone support in SFXEmitter
Fixed crashes in sfxPlayOnce() and sfxCreateSource()
We now apply any deferred commits before playing a SFXDSVoice (might solve dsound glitches)
Removed old AudioEmitter code
Fixed bug in OptionsDlg that caused providers with the same output devices to not switch when selected
Major cleanup of SFXEmitter removing broken features and large sections of commented out code
Added 'playOnAdd' option to SFXEmitter to control initial playback state
Added play() and stop() console methods to SFXEmitter for controlling the playback state over the network
Fixed Mission Editor to support new SFXEmitter changes
Added more docs to SFXEmitter

New Project Generator

Creating a new Torque project has always been a bit of a hassle (I documented 11 steps just to get everything named correctly) so we have added the New Project Generator. It takes most of the pain out of setting up you new project and should let you get on your way in no time!

Docs

Added a Migration Guide to the official docs that should greatly help when bringing TGEA 1.0.3 and TGE projects over into the new directory structure and methodologies of TGEA 1.7
Further refined the Getting Started section of the docs (including coverage of the New Project Generator)

General Fixes and Improvements

Added GuiIdleCamFadeBitmapCtrl which makes it easy to do nice popup fading bitmaps
Fixed a warning being generated by the Crossbow files in T3D
Re-enabled the ResourceManager's ability to find files outside of the modPaths when not in TORQUE_SHIPPING mode. This can be very helpful when in development mode.
Increased the number of nodes that a PathCamera can use from 20 to 128
The Unified Shell menu now pulls its background from <YourGame>/scriptsAndAssets/client/ui/unified_background.jpg instead of from <YourGame>/scriptsAndAssets/data/skies/skybox_1.jpg
Added the option to not use an icon for highlighted rows in a GuiGameListMenuCtrl
Fixed SimDataBlockGroup::compareModifiedKey() so that the SimDataBlockGroup will properly sort
Removed the sort we were doing in transmitDataBlocks since it could still cause problems if datablocks have duplicate names and I would prefer to not impose the restriction of unique names on datablocks at this time
You can now enable NVPerfHUD functionality using a pref ($Video::useNVPerfHud) instead of a C++ define/recompile. Check out common/main.cs for an example.
Upped the FrameAllocator size to 16 Mb so that we can handle textures larger than 1024x1024
Disabled allowPlayerStep on the T3D station so that you can't walk up its walls
Reordered initialization of cursors so that GuiCanvas correctly finds its default cursor
Decoupled mouse locking from cursor on/off. Makes using custom ingame cursors possible again.
Added optional auto-deletion (reference counting) to SimObject
Fixed bug that caused left/right versions of all modifier keys to be swapped
Fixed a number of Unicode-related issues
DSO generation once again properly respects the TORQUE_NO_DSO_GENERATION define
Fixed Platform::makeRelativePathName()
Fixed wrong number of arguments in definition of GameConnection::getServerConnection()
Fixed various issues that prevented Visual Studio 2003 from compiling out of the box
Removed Visual Studio 2008 Express' reliance on the Windows SDK since it has its own version built-in
The Terraformer Editor is back and mostly functional (few things may still be broken)
Changed the WaterBlock and shaders to be able to detect the depth of the water at the shore (improves the look of the shorelines) and to detect when it is being occluded from the sun (improves the look of the specular on the water)
Fixed crash where some variables in LangFile were incorrectly being freed as non-arrays
GuiMLTextEditCtrl is now functional
Fixed some out of date onStaticModified() implementations that was causing them to not be called
Fixed a potential source of stack corruption in the Player code
Fixed incorrect deallocation of temporary buffers and incorrect dSprintf calls in winFileIo.cpp
Re-enabled CrossbowSplash in TGEDemoAdvanced since it now works correctly
The application now registers the $defaultGame script global with a default value just to make sure we have it for other uses (like in the ResourceManager)
GFXTexHandle() now takes an optional parameter that will cause it to suppress a missing texture warning for objects that want to test for multiple files before giving up. This was used to greatly reduce the amount of console warnings generated by GuiBitmapButtonCtrl.
Added EMITTER to the reserved texture name list for Interior's so that we don't get console warnings about it
Made it so that Lightning does not attempt to load strike textures that have not been set (reduces console spam)
The script function connect(%server) actually connects to the server again

GFXTexHandle.set() now also has an optional noWarning flag for code that wants to handle the error messages separate from the resource system
Changed the ShaderGen "Failed to open Shader Stream" to something a bit more verbose and useful to the end user
Made it so that the Precipitation code doesn't try to load the textures or shaders if they aren't specified in the datablock
Tweak to the customProfiles so that they will properly override the common profiles and so that they won't double declare datablocks (reduces console spam). GuiControl's should now properly update their pointer to their GuiControlProfile when it is changed on the fly (previously this was causing a number of unpredicatable crashes).
Added a way to allow Platform::makeFullPathName() to expand any ~'s it finds in the path to be $defaultGame
Made a small modification to the FlyingVehicle that makes it more stable
GuiCanvas::renderFrame() properly handles a NULL render target (like from a Null GFX device)
The server now properly sends over a relative path to the mission (rather than the fully qualified path...which was causing lighting issues on the client)
Re-enabled the About dialog in Stronghold
Added Atlas as a creatable object in the Mission Creator
Added a working version of map2dif_plus_tgea.exe to engine\tools
Changing the name of a dynamic field in the Mission Editor no longer causes a crash
Set a better default visibility distance in the Mission Editor
Fixed a case where the GameConnection was not properly getting named ServerConnection (was causing problems with setFirstPerson())
Fixed bad rendering logic in GuiSliderCtrl that would cause a GFX assert
Cleaned up a lot of the code surrounding DDS files so that the TextureManager and other code can properly treat them as GBitmap's. This means that you should now be able to use DDS files anywhere you could previously use JPG/PNG/BMP/GIF files (like as a texture on the Terrain).
Added the handy functions stripExtension() and addExtension which allows you to easily swap out the extension of a file for another extension. You can also have it validate the extension that is to be replaced with a valid texture extension (so that it won't strip off part of the file name).
GBitmap::findBmpResource() and GBitmap::load() now properly attempt to load the file with the given name and then will try to load with all of the other valid texture extensions. Before it was simply appending the different extensions to the full file name so you would get things like "demoWindow.jpg.png". This code was made a lot cleaner by using the stripExtension() and addExtension helper functions mentioned above.
Removed some extra console spam from GBitmap::findBmpResource() and GBitmap::load() for when it couldn't find a specific filename (it was spamming all the possible variations)
Removed the warning/assert about non-mipmapped dds files since we are generating mipmaps for the ones that don't have them
Disabled the console spam that the DDSFile loading code was spewing out about the header info
Added an "Optimized" build configuration to all of the visual studio solutions/projects templates. This is for doing debug builds that are optimized in the same way as release builds. Very useful for debugging problems that only occur in release builds (uninitialized variables usually). The data values aren't always accurate but it does give you a useful callstack most of the time.
Multiple dynamic lights should work again inside of Interior zones
The red and blue channels of the Interior lightmaps no longer get swapped on relight

Fixed a texture leak in the GuiBitmapButtonCtrl
The texture leak dump now attempts to show the texture name (little better formatting)
ShapeBase::setImageState() no longer tries to start an emitter when it doesn't exist
Renamed the previously unused "Products" folder to "Projects". This is the recommended location for your new TGEA projects (and the default output location of the New Project Generator).
All of the GameExamples (and Template) now allow you to bring up the more in-depth OptionsDlg with "ctrl o"
Dedicated servers should now work properly
Added the ConsoleFunction getTerrainUnderWorldPoint() which returns the TerrainBlock that is directly under a point in world space
Updated getTerrainHeight() to work with multiple TerrainBlock's in a mission. It will defaulty get the height of the highest terrain at an (x, y) world position. You can now pass in an optional z world position and have it get the terrain height of the first terrain it finds that is lower than that z position (like in a cave).
Added swap() to tAlgorithm.h
Fixed the Gui Editor to allow you to drag items into groups like you could before

Heads Down

We've really cranked to bring all these changed into TGEA this quickly. As you can see, it's an immense list for a point update and we're really proud of the improvments. The entire team including the awesome associates we work with are shifting our efforts to the next big feature additions to TGEA. Remember some of that stuff we talked about in deep R&D? Yeah...big changes coming. Expect to be shocked, we're aiming very high. Even though we'll be a little less active smashing bugs this round, we still want to hear from all of you. Grab this release, tell us what you love. Tell us where it hurts. We're listening and we're applying all your feedback in this and future releases.

Big thanks to everyone involved in helping with this. Getting this much done would be impossible without you!

TGEA 1.7 is Officially Released!

Matt Fairfax — 2008-04-05T04:18:10+00:00

TGEA 1.7 is Officially Released!

After an extremely successful beta test (Beta 1 and Beta 2, TGEA 1.7.0 has been officially launched!

We absolutely could not have done it on our own and owe a huge thanks to our community and to some individuals who have helped us immensely: Tom Spilman, Michael Perry, John Kabus, Jeff Faust, Rene Damm, Joseph Greenawalt, Kirk Longendyke, Stephan Goebels.

I also have to give a huge thanks to Clark Fagot, Joe Maruschak, Brian Richardson, Andy Maloney, Pat Wilson, Robert Blanchet, Justin DuJardin, Dave Wyand, and John Quigley. They are the giants whose shoulders we stand on to bring you TGEA 1.7.0.

Lastly, I want to say a very special thank you to Brett Seyler, Deborah Marshall, Eric Fritz, Derek Bronson, Matt Langley, Ken Holst and Josh Engebretson. Ken and Josh in particular have been living and breathing TGEA 1.7.0 alongside me for the last few months. They have been there through the good, the bad, the ugly, and The Awesome and it has been an honor for me to work with them.

Cool New Features!

This FREE update to TGEA includes a ton of updates and new features. It is easier than ever for game developers to get up and running with the latest and greatest technology.

TGEA 1.7.0 brings:

1) GFX Power - TGEA 1.7.0's rendering is faster and more powerful than ever offering huge speed increases, full screen anti-aliasing, and support for non-shadered video cards. You can deploy your games to a much wider audience and trust that it will "just work."

"Gears of Torque" Video
2) MegaTerrains - The new MegaTerrain system includes all the amazing real-time terrain editing features of the original Terrain system along with the larger size that the forward thinking game developer demands.

MegaTerrain Flythrough Video
3) Polysoup Collision - We've taken Ben Garney's OPCODE Polysoup Collision implementation and extended it to better integrate with the environment and lighting. Quickly drop in your mesh objects and levels and get up and running with them in no time.
4) SFX Sound System - The brand new sound system provides proper abstraction and tools for using sound in games including a robust FMOD implementation.
5) New Content - There is a ton of new content in TGEA 1.7.0 including the jaw dropping Forge Demo and three new Player characters!

Forge Demo Video
6) Torque Build System - The new Project Generator automates generating up-to-date projects files. This powerful, modular system makes maintaining new code and staying in sync with your team a snap.
7) Getting Started - A primary focus of this new release is making sure that new users can get up and running on TGEA as quickly as possible. We have done this by making sure that TGEA owners have top notch docs available to help them hit the ground running. We are also providing a great selection of game examples to show tried and tested implementations of the most common problems you will encounter when building your game.

Hit the ground running! Get it? =P

Awesome Support

I touched on it above but I will reiterate: we could not have done this without the amazing GarageGames community. Your support for our Beta program was overwhelming. We really appreciate how professional and thorough your bug reports and bugfixes were. Moving forward we are going to continue to work closely with our customers, community, and Associates.

Your encouragement was so inspiring to us that I simply have to share a few of the comments that most warmed my heart:

Quote:

"I just got that "lump in my throat", "feel like I'm gonna burst" sensation that you get after getting out of an engineering final that you thought was going to be super hard, but you feel like you did really well, and now you're leaving the building with this joy and relief welling up inside that makes you want to scream and dance in the middle of campus, but you can't 'cause you might scare the other students. Yeah, that's kinda what it's like. :) I'm at work, so no screaming or dancing allowed."

- Ryan Mounts

"I have to say, even though I am at work right now I have gone through the new documentation and it is amazing how much difference a well organized set of docs can make. It looks great guys! Thank you and Congrats again!"

- Syllus

"Matt, Michael, Stephen, Jeff and the rest of you guys!
You simply make this place worth lingering in, totally great and awesome work (brushes off nose).
Im so pleased that I found, and choosed to use your engine -keep it up folks!"

- Christian S

"I just recently bought TGEA and was having a bid of an headache going through all the tutorials in TGEA. Then trying to convert some of the sample demos from TGE to TGEA. This new update is extremely helpful. Just wanted to say Thank You!
The documentation is great a help to new comers like me! :-)"

- Lathieeshe Thillainathan

"Now THIS is what I'm talking about! Kudos to the TGEA dev team, this is absolutely amazing!
This beta release of TGEA is what I've been needing for a long time wrapped up in one little neat package.
This is definitly a milestone for GG as a whole, and gives some great insight on what to expect in the future."

- Trenton Shaffer

Did you know that the Penny Arcade Adventures are being made with a version of TGEA?

What's Next?

GarageGames is committed to producing quality products. We will continue to work long and hard to improve our engines and our tools. You are going to start seeing far more frequent releases and bug fixes being pushed out to our customers. But we need your help! Keep offering us professional bug reports, keep giving useful feedback, keep pitching in to make things better for all of us. In that spirit, we would love to get to know you and your needs better and ask that you take a few minutes to fill out a quick survey for us:

Survey

* I know those of you who have been paying attention have seen some of the same features highlighted in my previous blogs =). Since we are putting some major effort into marketing TGEA 1.7.0, this blog is going to be reaching a much wider audience and we felt it was important that they get to see all of the cool things that are in TGEA 1.7.0.

Torque Game Engine Advanced Open Beta 2

Matt Fairfax — 2008-03-29T02:09:34+00:00

Full of Awesome!

What an amazing community! It has been just over a week since we released the TGEA 1.7 Open Beta 1 and it is hard to believe how much you guys have pitched in and helped!

We've been working hard to address your bugs and to roll further improvements into TGEA 1.7 and I am proud to share that with you as the TGEA 1.7 Open Beta 2!

You can go grab it from the TGEA download link on your My Account page. Quickly! Go get it!

What am I getting myself into to?

We've managed to pack in a ton of fixes into this release!

I could not have done it without the amazing help of Josh Engebretson, Tom Spilman, Michael Perry, John Kabus, Jeff Faust, and Stephen Zepp. These guys have really pitched in to help, going above and beyond the call of duty!

You can see a list of all of the changes we've rolled into the release here:

Sound files (.ogg) are now being properly included in the installer (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73290)
fxShapeReplicator should now clean up properly when applying changes (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73281)
The lighting system now correctly samples the lightmaps underneath the Player for its ambient lighting (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73224)
Changed to TGE message boxes to work correctly in fullscreen (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73287)
Fixed the mipmap wrapping related terrain edge seam (fixed function and shader) (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73224)
Added some code to GuiCanvas::setVideoMode() to handle 0 sizes for the resolution dimensions (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73259)
Fixed a typo in the configureCanvas() script code that was causing the resolution width to be blank when having to fallback from a resolution too large in windowed mode
Fixed a comparison in configureCanvas() that was causing it to falsely think fullscreen was windowed (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73289)
Applied fix for when Player SplashEmitter is not present (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73340)
Fixed some of the incompatibility issues with integrated Intel video cards (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73350)
Fixed problems with ganerating a new mission (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73304)
Fixed dynamic field rename and deletion in the Inspector (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73245)
Now validating TerrainBlock clipMapSizeLog2 and texelsPerMeter settings (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73473)
Terrain Texture Editor now properly handles multiple TerrainBlock's (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73465)
Made it so that you can't walk up walls on polysoup collision TSStatic's (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73244)
Fixed all of the references to #include "game/<file.h>" (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73510)
The WheeledVehicle wheels render again (with shadow) (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73352)
Removed the unused buildresults.html (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73226)
Fixed weapon push back and aim being affected by Trigger's (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73348)
Fixed multiple Atlas issues (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73515)
Shadows no longer project through polysoup TSStatic's (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73243)
- The TerrainBlock rendering code will skip the detail texture pass if no detail texture is specified (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73325)
Fonts now correctly generate themselves on non-US English versions of Windows (www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=73257)
PrimBuilder::end() now takes an optional argument which can be used to override its default behavior of calling setupGenericShaders(), (which calls disableShaders())
Fixed translucent material handling to work correctly when 'mMaterial->translucent' is set, but 'mMaterial->translucentBlendOp' is set to None. This enables pure alpha test materials without any blending.
Fixed mMaterial->alphaTest and mMaterial->alphaRef to be set on CustomMaterial.
Fixed an incorrect use of IF in the compile.bat files
Added game/shaders to include path for relative imports
Clean up InteriorSimpleMesh's on Interior deletion
Fix the incorrect network packing of mConeOutsideVolume
Added a fix for getting the client side SFXDescription
The Weapon Picker in T3D is now functional
Fixed the mounting code in GuiObjectView
Fixed off center text in the loading bar
Majorly sped up mission loading for singleplayer and hosting servers
Datablocks were not being sorted correctly before transmission
Debris was not rendering correctly
Fixed dynamic lighting attenuation for non-normal mapped materials
Added better Inspector fields validation
Fixed some uninitialized data on the TerrainBlock that could cause a crash on in the WheeledVehicle
Added the buggy data and scripts to T3D (have to add it in the Mission Editor or spawn as it)
Improved the Terrain Painter functionality: left-click to select active block for painting. This avoids the Terrain Painter from going crazy as you mouse over terrain.
Fixed dynamic lights bug with CustomMaterials
Beefed up the GFX device creation code to handle falling back from incompatible settings and attempt to find something that works
Added toggle to allow you to enable DRL as long as FSAA isn't turned on
Cleaned up the version numbers and versioning scheme in the engine and application
Fixed stack overflow in Mission Editor selection (deselection via script was disabled)
Container::castRay() was not properly filling in the distance parameter
Did a nice polish pass on the Documentation
The TerrainBlock's will now send position changes across the network (like when applied in the Inspector)
The Inspector datablock fields should properly filter according to datablock type
Applying a new datablock in the Inspector now works properly

A little goodie for you!

One of the most exciting things that this release brings, is a solid version of the Forge Demo that we are happy to be able to share with all of the people who have yet to purchase the TGEA SDK (shame on you ;).

Click here to download the Forge Demo

What's next?

One of the coolest things that Brett hit on in his recent blog about the whole IAC deal is that we finally have the resources to properly follow through on our releases and to continue development. We no longer have to immediately move on to something totally unrelated in order to keep the company afloat. This means that you are going to be seeing a lot more frequent updates to our products (measured in weeks and months rather than in years).

Our bug list for the TGEA 1.7 Release is getting pretty short and Beta 2 is very nearly a release candidate. Assuming no show stopping bugs pop up (*knocks on wood*) we will be launching TGEA 1.7.0 really soon! But don't worry if your particular issue hasn't been fully addressed. We are going to continue active development on TGEA and you will be seeing the fruits of that labor much sooner rather than later.

Final Stretch

With all of that in mind, I want to further encourage people to help us find bugs and to continue to offer feedback. You have our ear and our attention...now it is up to you to put it good use!

Torque Game Engine Advanced Open Beta

Matt Fairfax — 2008-03-19T01:19:51+00:00

Did you say Open Beta?

I am happy to announce the release of the TGEA 1.7 Open Beta!

We, here at GarageGames, have decided to go out on a limb and allow all owners of the Torque Game Engine Advanced to get their hands on the TGEA 1.7 beta as we continue nail down the remaining issues.

Still early screenshots from our Oasis demo

Why is this a Beta?

At this point we consider TGEA 1.7 feature complete and of a quality and readiness that we trust TGEA owners to take a look and test things out with the understanding that it's...well...a beta :) There are still some known bugs. We'd *love* to get everyone's help identifying and squashing these and as many other bugs as we can. Early access to this, one of our biggest releases ever, will allow us to keep an open dialogue about the direction of our products and their features.

Michael Perry has done a ton of work on the Getting Started, Mission Editor, GUI Editor, Using Art Asset documents but we still have a ways to go on some other areas of the documentation. We will continue to work actively on this while TGEA is in beta and look forward to getting feedback as we add the final touches to make this a full release.

What will you get (for FREE!)

I covered a lot of things in my previous blog, so I will only hit the highlights:

1) Major code cleanup and refactor - The GG Game Studios team put nearly a year of work on the underlying engine code and their effort shows in the number of bugs fixed and how much simpler it is to work with the code.
2) MegaTerrains - As you may have seen in Josh Engebretson's recent blog, the legacy terrain system in Torque has been extended to allow for *much* larger and much more detailed terrains. These new MegaTerrains include all the amazing real-time terrain editing features of the original Terrain system. It should make getting the terrain you want for your game in place easier than ever.

Creating a MegaTerrain Video
3) Polysoup Collision - We've taken Ben Garney's OPCODE Polysoup Collision implementation and extended it to better integrate with the environment and lighting. The improvements are looking sharp! Quickly drop in your mesh objects and levels and get up and running with them in no time.

Using Polysoup Video
4) SFX Sound Layer - The new sound layer is getting a thorough testing over in the games on InstantAction and has already proven to be enormously easier to work with. Tom Spilman will continue to roll in cool new features and improvements over the course of the beta.
5) Getting Started - A primary focus of this new release is making sure that new users can get up and running on TGEA as quickly as possible. We are doing this by making sure that TGEA owners have top notch docs available to help them hit the ground running. We are also providing a great selection of game examples to show tried and tested implementations of the most common problems you will encounter when building your game.

Why TGEA 1.7?

Version numbers are a funny thing...What metric do you use to determine how big of a jump in version number you should make? The number of features? The amount of time spent on it? The amount of money?

By all these metrics, this release warrants a very big jump. The changes, though not all of them sexy, are together an enormous improvement over TGEA 1.0.3. Users digging into the code or really banging on the stability and performance of this new release will notice right away that, though this is a TGEA release, it's much different than any Torque engine ever released before. Some of you have heard us refer to "Juggernaut" as our internal repository of the latest and greatest tech. Well, in many ways that's true, but there's a lot work that has to go into a release like this one before it's really usable by Torque developers outside GG offices. That's the work I've been doing for the past few months. We're releasing this under the TGEA banner because it is the most advanced stuff we've got. It's been mentioned before, but Legions, ScrewJumper, Marble Blast Online, Buccaneer, and many other titles forthcoming have all been built on exactly this tech, so it's very battle-tested.

Some of you might be looking at our version number history in the past and saying "hmmm..." Well, if you look back over the development of TGE, it is fairly easy to see the snail's pace of version numbering next to a mountain of features and bug fixes between each version of the engine. Looking back over the last 7 years of TGE development, it is pretty obvious that we have easily more than doubled the functionality and usability of the engine (just ask some of the old timers ;). Taking the longview and looking at other new engines that have run through 3 full version numbers in one or two years before fading away, it makes us sometimes wonder why this release shouldn't be called Torque 2 or even Torque 3!

There are certainly people at GG who'd rather keep a release like this low key...maybe roll out with a small announcement as we have in the past of TGEA 1.1 etc. As a developer, I sometimes fight my own cautious nature in talking enthusiastically about my own work. I think most devs are the same. But TGEA deserves more of a splash than that. Or at least that's what the marketing dudes keep telling me. =P Ultimately, how did we settle the version number debates at GarageGames? With lively discussions and guerilla nerf battles!

Let's get cracking!

Grab your vey own license to TGEA, hop over to your account page to download the Beta from your TGEA download page, and start sending us feedback and bugs!

With your help, we can make this the best release of Torque yet!

Big Update to TGEA on the way!

Matt Fairfax — 2008-01-18T22:38:35+00:00

Hi GarageGames Community! I know I have been awfully quiet recently but trust me...it was worth it!

Ever since I handed off community management to the supremely capable hands of David Blake, I have been jamming away on the next big update to Torque. As many of you know, we spent much of 2007 merging the Torque C++ engine products into one code base which we've been referring to as Torque Juggernaut. There are big opportunities here to update both TGEA and TGE. I focused on TGEA 1.0.3 as a start here, but as you'll see below, we've made some *big* moves.

Huge credit goes to Clark and his team working on the core engine for all their hard work on Juggernaut over the past year. Juggernaut includes lots of updates, bug fixes, and feature additions to the Torque line up. What we're looking to release here will look a lot like TGEA, but it's really another stepping stone to our longer term goal of a fully componentized Torque Engine.

TGEA...more is on the way

What you'll see:

All the features of TGEA 1.0.3 PLUS 99% of TGE 1.5.2 PLUS:

1. A brand new completely abstracted sound system (SFX) with a DirectSound and OpenAL implementation (credit to Tom Spilman).
2. Major reworks of GFX layers and the addition of a D3D8 layer
3. All of the rendering objects should now support fixed function fallbacks for non-shadered video cards
4. Introduction of the Project Generator - a system that automates generating up-to-date Visual Studio projects files based on which "modules" of code you want to include
5. Significant directory reorganizations with an eye towards making it easier to work with for both experienced and new users
6. A ton of bugfixes done by the internal development team as they worked towards a fully componentized version of Torque
7. Lots of refactoring and general code cleanup
8. Port of some of the missing TGE classes including Lightning, fxShapeReplicator, and RigidShape
9. The famous Ben Garney's OPCODE polysoup collision implementation
10. Support for multiple legacy terrain tiles (including full editor support) - this should make building a paging terrain manager for massive environments a lot easier and will support realtime editing

Multiple Terrain Tiles (with full editor support)

11. Ports of the TGE demo and starter.fps with performance tweaks

Stronghold (starter.fps)

TGE Feature Demo

12. A couple unreleased demos! A small team is slaving away to bring you a never-before-seen feature demo that will knock off those socks.

Tim Aste's Forge demo

Shhhh... early yet, but this new demo is going to be BEAUTIFUL

13. Previously unreleased Player models bringing the total count up to 6!

Release will include SpaceOrc, TorqueOrc, Elf, Forge guy, Spacesuit guy, and BoomBot

14. Clipmapping support for legacy terrain allows higher resolution terrain textures and gives a general performance boost
15. Jeff Faust's fantastic AFX Kit should be updated for compatibility with this new version and he's already brought over most of the excellent bugfixes he posted on the TGEA forums including multiple particles per emitter
16. Reworked Material system is easier to use and performs better
17. Improved functionality in the Mission Editor with work from Dave Wyand, with a few new features that make it much easier to use
18. GUI Editor improvements making it easier to use
19. TGB-style offline docs and tutorials for better / faster accessibility

TGB-style Offline Docs

20. Abstracted Lighting allows you to plug in different lighting systems of your choice. Current built in options include:
a) Basic Lighting System (really simple)
b) John Kabus' Synapse Gaming Lighting System

I wanted to greatly smooth the transition from TGE to TGEA, so making sure that TGEA supports nearly all of the same features (no OpenGL or Mac support) you have come to expect from TGE, converting over most of the TGE content and mission, and including a lot of tools and functionality that will greatly ease porting a pre-existing TGE project have all been a primary focus. Right now this update will automatically handle unmapped textures and converting older file formats of things like TerrainBlocks and Waterblocks. I have also spent time working on pulling together the best of the Torque documentation and getting it far more organized. The goal here is to make getting started with this next release of TGEA to be comparable to getting started with TGE, if not even easier. TGEA is still a powerful and complex game engine but we're working hard to make it a lot more approachable.

At this point I am sure that there are a few questions on everyone's mind!

How much will this cost? This is a free update for TGEA owners. It doesn't get much better than that!

Will this include OpenGL? Sadly, no, this update will not include OpenGL. All of the work we have done on OpenGL is still not ready for release.

When will this update be ready? As always, this is a hard question to answer. GarageGames is more committed to high quality releases than ever before so this update will not go out the door until it is polished and ready. The Associates are already participating in a closed Beta and have been giving great help and feedback. I expect to have a fairly complete version of it demoing at GDC next month but I will not hesitate to put in a couple of extra weeks on documentation and bugfixing if it needs it (please email me if you would like to help with docs). There is still a lot of ground to cover but we are making rapid progress on it!

Hopefully everyone reading this is as excited as I am about this update! Be sure to go check out the awesome things that the game teams are doing with it in Fallen Empire: Legions

Fallen Empire: Legions

A Week in Oregon

Matt Fairfax — 2007-09-15T00:43:04+00:00

Since IGC is coming up fast, I figured I would give you guys and gals a glimpse into the very cool town and surrounding area that GarageGames calls home =)

Conveniently, my cousin visited Eugene for the first time since I moved here 3 years ago and we tried to pack as much sightseeing and fun into his too short week. And, we took pictures! Lots and lots of pictures!

As soon as Kory landed at the enourmous Eugene Airport ("we kept circling over cow pastures so long I was wondering if the pilot was lost and looking for the airport") he was quick to let us know that he was starving so I bustled him off to the very uniquely Eugenian experience that is
.

This is an odd little fast food joint that only exists in Eugene that caters to health nuts and vegeterians with its main dish of rice, beans, and a special sauce (very rich). Very tasty! I was sad when they had to close the one near the office although, ironically, their main corporate office is just the other side of the wall of our "garage".

We let him rest up that evening (we did introduce him to the concept of a mongolian grill) so that we could get up early on Saturday and head up to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum which is the home of the famous "Spruce Goose" (largest plane ever built).

The museum is about an hour and half north of Eugene and, while I had driven by it a few times, I had never taken the time to actually go visit it. Let me tell you, I really wish I had before! It was amazing! Imagine a huge building with tons of windows (the whole front is glass) built around an eight story airplane with tons of cool aircraft tucked comfortable under its 319 ft wingspan. They had everything from early planes and dogfighters to WW2 craft (including a B51 bomber you could go inside) to modern jets like an SR-71 Blackbird and an A-4 Skyhawk. They even had a P-38 Lightning which is one of my favorite designs of all time =)

Meet my cousin Kory...he's the goofy guy in the last picture =P

On Sunday we headed up to Portland to see Spamalot which is a musical based on the Monty Python movie "The Quest for the Holy Grail".

On the way up we introduced him to Frys (think Sam's Club or CostCo for electronics). We then took him around the city a bit, back and forth across the numerous bridges in the middle of Portland. From there we wandered around downtown and ended up at Powell's Bookstore (the world's largest used bookstore...literally a full city block). Unfortunately, we forgot the camera that day so you will have to imagine it all =(

On Monday, Kory ended up coming with me to the office and I gave him a quick walking tour of downtown Eugene. At some point he grabbed my camera and wandered around taking pictures of various things in downtown that caught his interest like the 5th Street Market just down the road from GG, a cool looking tattoo place a couple blocks away, and a lot of the flowers lining the streets in the heart of downtown.

Tuesday was also a pretty low key day for us. Kory bounced between our office and the Eugene library (which is an amazing library). Later that night we took him to see the "Simpsons Movie" in the real Springfield.

I ended up taking a half day on Wednesday so that we could take Kory out to the Oregon coast. It was the prettiest I have ever seen the coast: 77 degrees, sunny, light breeze. My wife immediately ran up and stuck her toes into the 50 degree water just to verify that we were on the right side of the country =P Normally going to the coast involves jeans, shoes, and a sweatshirt. We decided to take him just north of Florence (an hour west of Eugene) to the Heceta Head Lighthouse (most photographed lighthouse in the world) since it gives you a good glimpse of the sandy beaches, cliffs, sea caves, mountains, and forests all in the same place that is the standard on our state's coast (baffling to me who grew up where the mountains are 4-5 hours from the beach).

Thursday night was board game night at GG for the group of people I am currently working with. We ended up having a lot of fun with Carcassonne, Apples to Apples, and Once Upon A Time.

Sadly, Kory had to leave on Friday so he ended up missing out on going to the Oregon Ducks game on Saturday with me and my wife (who is a rabid fan of the Ducks =).

He also missed out on getting to see one of the weirder Eugenian tradions...rock stacking in the Willamette River:

Not a comprehensive coverage of all of the things you can see in our wacky little city. I didn't get into the rock climbing, camping, rafting, Saturday Market (hippie fest), volcanoes, lava fields, and hot springs for example. There is a ton you can see and do and I am often surprised at the things I don't even know about yet after being here for 3 years.

Hopefully I will be seeing some of you at IGC and I can point you in the direction of something fun to do!

Great Strides

Matt Fairfax — 2007-04-10T06:27:12+00:00

As many of you know by now Constructor has shipped!!!

Now I can finally turn my attention to other things (ok...I can turn my attention *after* the 1.0.1 patch ;)

One of the things I have on my mind and close to my heart is the charity walk that me and my wife are participating in this May.

The walk is called Great Strides and is the number one fundraising event for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Not many of you know it but my wife was born with Cystic Fibrosis which is a fatal genetic illness that primarily effects the lung and digestive system. It causes her to have frequent lung infections, poor absorption of food, and a myriad of other symptoms. She has been hospitalized a few times already and will be put back in more and more as her symptons progress. Eventually she will have to face a full lung transplant.

When she was born the average life expectancy of someone born with CF was 18 years. Largely through the efforts of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the money they raise for research, that life expectancy has climbed to 37 years and continues to get higher every year. The CFF is listed yearly among the top most efficient charities, with the vast majority of the money going straight into research.

If you would like to lend a hand please visit my wife's team page at www.cff.org/great_strides/talanalydaairfax. Any size donation would be hugely appreciated and if you are in the Eugene, OR area you are more than welcome to join us in our walk!

Thanks!