Torque 3D Development - Pricing and Licensing ANNOUNCED!
by Brett Seyler · 03/20/2009 (7:53 pm) · 496 comments
Hey everyone! I know some of you saw the Gamasutra story that revealed some previously unreleased details about Torque 3D. I'm going to to try to clarify the whole picture, and fill in any gaps with this post here. Because it's GDC week, I'm already down here in SF doing some PR, talking about iTorque, and talking to some local studios about Torque and InstantAction. Needless to say, definitely keeping busy, so I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible and focus on the stuff I know you most want answered. We've got a big week ahead of us :) I'm guessing we'll get a lot more questions answered in the comments, so feel free to throw out anything I don't cover here.
When I first started blogging on our dev progress in December, I really didn't think we'd get as far as we have, as fast as we have. Torque 3D is really a huge step up from TGEA, particularly with respect to the toolset, usability, and content pipeline. I think users will react most to the effort we've put into the tools, and we'll be showing much more of that in the next few weeks. Of course, we've done some major subsystem updates as well (Web publishing, Terrain, Post processing, Particles, etc).
Licensing
I posted twice on pricing & licensing (one of which is still probably the most commented on post in GG history) and we definitely listened. These were the main takeaways from the roughly 400 comments (and numerous emails) I got since.
Quote:1. Support, especially ticketed support is in high demand. If GG can find a way to provide this, there are Torque developers willing to pay for it.
2. A low entry point to Torque is important, even if it means some restrictions in the EULA or deprecating some features.
3. Greater polish, usability, stability and overall quality are paramount attributes for a high-end Torque product.
4. A focus on tools, and particularly usability in the World Editor, is the most important area to address in Torque 3D.
So we took all that, and really put your opinions into action, both from a development standpoint, and with respect to pricing & licensing. Here is what we decided on:
1. Two versions available on the website, Basic and Professional, each with an Indie EULA.
2. Basic and Pro have a feature delta, with the Pro package being targeted at existing TGEA owners, or pro / prosumer developers and studios who might need to create custom code modifications for their game. The Basic package is targeted at new users, who want to learn the tools, and see what the engine is capable of. You will be able to us Basic to create a game, even though we expect it to ship as a binary only. When working on a larger team, artists and designers often don't need access to the source code, and in these cases, the Basic package will probably be a better fit, given that team members can share compiled binaries with one another.
3. For those looking for a custom EULA, perhaps for an entire studio or for a single project that doesn't qualify for our "Indie" license, we'll respond to inquiries to licensing@garagegames.com. I should note that we probably won't touch any requests to this address that aren't from developers serious about a more expansive license and with the means and ability to pay for it. For example, our typical Studio licenses start @ $6k for a small team, and go up from there.
Features
The Professional version of Torque 3D will include everything we've talked about thus far, and a lot of what still hasn't been revealed. For example, we're planning to include updates to Physics, new Terrain, a Decal Editor, a Datablock Editor, River / Road / Path tools, and a Material editor in the final release.
The Basic version will not include Web Publishing, Advanced Lighting, or the River & Road Tools, but everything else is in there. It will also be binary only. Again, this version is probably not a good fit for most of you who currently own TGEA. We're offering the big discount during the pre-order period only on Pro, and TGEA owners will not be able to apply any of their TGEA license fee to Torque 3D Basic. Only to Professional.
We've been talking about Genre Kits and Add-ons a bit as well. There's some really good stuff coming there, but we don't have any pricing to announce with that yet. There's the Luma Racing Kit (based on their game "Rev" published on InstantAction, and including some of those production assets). There's a much updated FPS Starter Kit with work from Max Gaming and Apparatus. There's Sickhead's Forest Kit (not sure if that name is final or not) which is *really* cool. It will let you paint down foliage, or just random objects to the terrain or into a scene. I've seen this in action. It's going to impress the hell out of people. There's also Gerhard's expansion (unnamed at present) which will probably include a lot of custom assets and functionality on top of what you've already seen.
The takeaway w/ Genre Kits and most of these Add-ons is that they will likely be Pro-only.
Pricing
So, let's break this down just a bit more clearly.
What will Torque 3D cost me?
If you own TGEA Indie (and I think this is most of you now), your cost to upgrade to Torque 3D Professional is $1000 - $200 (pre-order discount) - $295 (TGEA Indie contribution = $505If you own TGEA Commercial, you can apply your license to Torque 3D Professional the same way an Indie owner can with a final cost of $505. If you'd like something similar to a Commercial TGEA license for Torque 3D, you'll need to contact us directly.
If you own any other Torque products, you can still purchase TGEA and get the same discount described above for a limited time. The pre-order discount will expire when we release release the final Torque 3D build (expecting this to be in May at the moment). The first beta will be delivered to Torque 3D owners in April.
There is no pre-order available for Torque 3D Basic, and there is no discount on Basic for existing TGEA owners.
Why Pre-order?
Access to the Torque 3D Closed Beta -- First delivery in April An exclusive Torque 3D T-Shirt Torque 3D private forum access on GarageGames.com Up to $495 off the full version priceAs I mentioned before, I'm going to keep posting blogs all the way up to our release, and probably for a while thereafter. We've still got a lot to show.
More sidebars and development blogs to come. This is post #15.
Torque 3D development blogs:
- Post #1 - Kickoff
- Post #2 - Apparatus and Warrior Camp
- Post #3 - Luma's racing kit
- Post #4 - Josh Engebretson and Web Publishing
- Post #5 - Pricing and Licensing
- Post #6 - Pricing and Licensing CONTINUED
- Post #7 - Wetness & Precipitation
- Post #8 - Screeen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)
- Post #9 - Matt Langley and the Torque Launcher
- Post #10 - Chris Robertson and Collada
- Post #11 - Depth of Field
- Post #12 - Advanced Lighting
- Post #13 - Soft Particles
- Post #14 - World Editor
- Post #15 - Pricing and Licensing ANNOUNCED!
- Post #16 - GDC Live Edition
- Post #17 - River & Road Editors
- Post #18 - Beta is UP!
- Post #19 - Light Rays, Undercity, Material Editor
- Post #20 - Mass Market Hardware
- Post #21 - Beta: Part Deux
- Post #22 - Marching Towards Beta 3
- Post #23 - pureLIGHT
- Post #24 - Lighting, Terrain, and Cloth
- Post #25 - Beta 3!
- Post #26 - Coming Soon!
About the author
Since 2007, I've done my best to steer Torque's development and brand toward the best opportunities in games middleware.
#102
And what, if any, are the plans for the T3D AIs and navigation? ...Navigation meshes? :)
03/21/2009 (5:36 pm)
What are the plans for new genre kits? I am really hoping that there will be a 3D adventure game starter kit (similar to Telltale Games' Sam and Max).And what, if any, are the plans for the T3D AIs and navigation? ...Navigation meshes? :)
#103
03/21/2009 (5:38 pm)
Unfortunately, even though the tgea owners preorder is a good price, the economy has gotten us where even that good price is just a bit too much for now. So, for now, t3d is unattainable for us since source is a must. I do have a question though, about the Torque 2D engine. Now that t3d is coming out, any word on T2D pricing? Is T2D coming out this year? Can someone please detail what T2D's feature set will be? Or have these questions been answered somewhere already? Just curious... Thanks.
#104
Re: Splash screen stuff...
We're flexible on this. It is important for us to build a strong brand if we're to keep our current business model. As a few have said, even the AAA guys who charge ordres of magnitude more than we do, still require a splash screen in most cases. This is especially true when trying to build the brand in the beginning.
I actually really like to see a good artist do a custom treatment on our logo so that it fits better with their game. I don't like to see this done poorly, since that reflects worse on both GG / Torque, and on the game, so we have to approve any non-standard use of our brand. If you're worried about the splash screen, there are lots of options though, so really, don't. We'll work with you.
03/21/2009 (6:30 pm)
Whew! Just grabbed a bit of a nap here and waking up, lots of new questions :) Please let me know if yours doesn't get answered.Re: Splash screen stuff...
We're flexible on this. It is important for us to build a strong brand if we're to keep our current business model. As a few have said, even the AAA guys who charge ordres of magnitude more than we do, still require a splash screen in most cases. This is especially true when trying to build the brand in the beginning.
I actually really like to see a good artist do a custom treatment on our logo so that it fits better with their game. I don't like to see this done poorly, since that reflects worse on both GG / Torque, and on the game, so we have to approve any non-standard use of our brand. If you're worried about the splash screen, there are lots of options though, so really, don't. We'll work with you.
#105
03/21/2009 (6:31 pm)
@Rubes: Quote:I just have one question: is the water in that river actually moving and following the course of the river?With any water simulation in game, movement is always an illusion of course. Real dynamica water simulation is *extrememly* resource expensive. That said, good, believable movement simulation with a shader and particle effects on the river is very achievable. I don't know yet what will come stock in Torque 3D in this regard. I'll definitely provide more definition here as we get closer to release. I need to ask James Ford and Tom Spilman just what it is that we have there :) Those guys are barricaded in a room working on GDC demos for the next 3 days, so I probably won't had a good answer for you until post-show.
#106
03/21/2009 (6:31 pm)
yah. now that we know the cost items, lets here about these Genre Kits. what else is going to be a "genre" kit. We have seen the forest kit, the fps kit and the racing kit, what else is going to be a genre kit. so will that be where GG will make their dough afterwards, sure we give them the kit at a 500 dollar discount, then offer a tree pack, 6 genre packs, some other packs for 99 bucks? What assets will be included in the basic package vs the Pro package?
#107
03/21/2009 (6:31 pm)
@Kevin Mitchell:Quote:1. Will I have to re-add some of the old statics I have into T3D like the advanced cameras, climbing, walking, swiming.We're integrating the advanced camera resource and animations for walking / swimming / crouching (not sure about climbing). You may need to re-add some stuff, but we've integrated a lot of the most popular and useful TGEA resources.
Quote:Yes and Yes.
2. Will the addition of the advanced lighting auto calculate shadows on the terrain or just DTS and DIF objects. AKA Will Day/Night Transitions be more realistic?
Quote:3. Will the load time of zoning into a different map be faster now?Hmmm....I don't know the answer to this. My guess is that it will depend on your Lighting and Shadowmap seetings (how much memory you allocate for example, to achive a certain shadow quality). All assuming you'll be using Advanced Lighting of course.
Quote:4. For the new gui editor will there be any way of dynamically making Gui's as in Having DockPanels, Flow Panels, or Horizontal and Vertical Panels to place Object entities into?I know the GUI editor's been touched, but I don't know if these are features that have been added. We added a lot of improvements to suppor the changes we wanted to make to the World Editor. Will try to circle back to this question.
Quote:5. With the new Collada format are DTS and DIF going to become obsolete. And would using Collada exported file types be faster of a process vs making DTS exports that fail or not create texture problems.Not obsolete, no. Collada just provides a way to get assets into Torque (which Torque sees at DTS) much faster and easier. I definitely recommend reading more about the Collada process in the forums and in the Collada documentation. It's quite powerful.
Quote:6. Will the terrain system be able to make horizontal pushes to make cave entrances or cliffs with out rigging other DTS objects in a certain fashion to create this effect?There's no voxel terrain tools, if that what you're asking. However, you'll be able to achive *much* better looking vertical or near vertical surfaces with the new terrain system. It allows for side projection of detail textures, as well as much higher texel density.
Quote:7. If video integration and play back is in the idea stage would it be something that PC only based or for something that can be ported to other systems.I'm sorry, I don't think I understand the question. Multimedia playback in engine is supported cross-platform.
#108
03/21/2009 (6:36 pm)
I just saw an article on the news that even though the economy is bad, people are buying consoles and computer games rather than saving money.. Sounds like a perfect time to try and release a game!
#109
03/21/2009 (6:37 pm)
Thanks, Brett. I figured as much, but since you specifically mentioned a river "tool", I was wondering if there was a more advanced method for implementing rivers.
#110
Hope that makes sense. We definitely want to see as many of you as possible go from Indies on a shoestring to kickass, well-funded game developer rockstars. We've seen this happen with a few community members. We're not trying to get in the way, just make sure that we can continue to provide a powerful, low-price option to developers without a big wallet.
03/21/2009 (6:41 pm)
@Roland Orr: Quote: just reading threw the feature list of the engine. one thing i am confused on, well maybe not but would like clarification on:This is actually not a change from our existing Indie EULA at all. The Indie EULA is for self funded projects by entities with less than $250k in annual revenues. If a small studio, or even a single person, has low revenue, but a big budget from a 3rd party to work with (like if Electronic Arts does a publishing deal with you where it's their money, but your labor), the Indie EULA does not provide for this. Self-funded means just what it says. You're not making a game based on funds from a publisher, VC, or parent corporation. If you are, we're not necessarily going to ding you for a higher license fee, but we want to know it's not just some huge corp. gaming our license targeted at empowering Indies. This has happened in the past as a way around even paying GG for a Commercial license, as inexpensive as our licenses are, but the EULA never allowed for this.
Allow for Externally Funded Projects
What is GG's Defenition of this??
Hope that makes sense. We definitely want to see as many of you as possible go from Indies on a shoestring to kickass, well-funded game developer rockstars. We've seen this happen with a few community members. We're not trying to get in the way, just make sure that we can continue to provide a powerful, low-price option to developers without a big wallet.
#111
03/21/2009 (6:41 pm)
you want to know why that is Randy Hearn its because they are out of work and cant find any with this economy so they buy games to give them something to do wile they got no work. people say selling games at this point of time is bad i think its the best time to sell games. :P people used to not have as much time when they worked now that over 600k is out of work they have more time then they know what to do with it. 
#112
As it seems more and more often we're paying for updates.
How much will the genre kits be?
T3D looks great, but is it? When can we expect to see what it can really do?
Are there any improvements to the AI (like is there AI)?
I can't help feel that this price tag is for the cost of all the porting the engines to iPhone etc which I have no interest in.
I think I would like to see some good examples of this before I fork out more which at the moment is another TGEA EA.
03/21/2009 (6:42 pm)
mmm interesting. Well I brought TGE (when it was V12) and then its upgrade the EA for TGEA etc etc and now I'm wondering when will the next engine after this be out? in 12 months?As it seems more and more often we're paying for updates.
How much will the genre kits be?
T3D looks great, but is it? When can we expect to see what it can really do?
Are there any improvements to the AI (like is there AI)?
I can't help feel that this price tag is for the cost of all the porting the engines to iPhone etc which I have no interest in.
I think I would like to see some good examples of this before I fork out more which at the moment is another TGEA EA.
#113
03/21/2009 (6:42 pm)
@Neill: Quote:With $1000 you could buy a few cheap, but good, programs for things like texture creation, modeling, and audio producing. Then use the Source engine to create your game, and if your work is good enough, see about licensing Source with Valve. (This works under the assumption that your game will create enough profit to pay off the licensing cost for the Source engine.) While not 100% sure to work, you do get full source code to the engine and probably the best level creation tool I have used outside of engines such as UE3+. All free.I'd call that modding, not game development, but that doesn't make it a less attractive alternative for some. I just think it's nice to know that you own what you create.
#114
First, the price. This ended up working out better than I'd expected. I think most of us saw the $1000 price coming, but I'm glad that TGEA owners are getting basically half off of that.
While I was a big fan of the original GG ideal, providing a AAA engine for a price that any hobbyist could afford, we did eventually hit a reality check there. 16 year old hobbyists (no offense intended) aren't likely to produce a finished product, and the GG model relies on users shipping finished games. There's also a stigma; for years I've had to dispel the idea in people I've talked to that TGE is a "beginners engine," a sentiment that came mostly from its price.
I wouldn't support the price increase if it was just to change the engine's image, however what GG has been showing us convinces me, at least, that we're also getting a substantial increase in engine quality which justifies this change. I've gotten enough out of Torque over the years, it's honestly worth more than another $500 to me to stay on board. That said, I'm also glad it didn't go any higher; it wouldn't help anyone to completely alienate the existing community.
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The Basic vs. shipping editors vs. mods concern.
This actually seems to be a well thought-out system. I honestly can't see many people who are serious about game dev working exclusively with Basic, but I can definitely see how this would work in a team scenario, with the programmers owning Pro licenses and shipping binaries to artists and level designers holding Basic licenses. I also think many of the people who bought TGE for $100 just to basically play around with it would probably feel at home with a script-only version of T3D
I am a little disappointed that we can no longer release a game with intact level and terrain editing, as I feel this is an important feature in any competitive multiplayer game, but I understand how allowing this would completely compromise the Basic license concept.
However this works out, it's far from a deal breaker for me. And obviously if you had a project large enough to really gain attention from mod-makers, it's entirely likely you'd have the resources to negotiate a custom arrangement here.
--------
The logo issue... I find to be a confusing concern. I've never been even remotely bothered by the requirement to display the GG logo on startup. I would understand being annoyed if the logo needed to be displayed for an excessive amount of time, but that's simply not the case. Your players are used to seeing these logos in literally every product. No offense intended, I honestly just don't understand the issue. I also don't believe $1000 warrants the removal; even with the price increase, the GG model still relies on people seeing commercially released games and knowing that they were made with Torque. To remove that logo, you basically have to pay for the advertising you're denying the company.
I almost teared up a bit. Seriously, though, this is great news. Everything I've read about T3D so far has been very impressive, but I was kind of upset about comments that physics were "not a priority" or would be left up to end users to implement beyond the Rigid system.
I really have to salute whoever in the team has been hacking away at this. Network sync for these types of physics packages is far from a simple task. I'm also inclined to apologize for any harsh comments I've made regarding the advertised physics functionality on the new product info page.
Seems like good news all around. There's a lot of code out there that has been begging to go into the official pool. This is probably too specific a question for this discussion, but.. would hitboxes be broad enough for integration? There's an excellent, easy to use hitbox resource that's been on the site for years and has worked with every version of Torque I've ever tried it on, from 1.3 to 1.8x. I'll edit with a link as soon as I dig it out.
03/21/2009 (6:43 pm)
I'll try not to let this become a massive text wall. I've held off on any real comments on T3D until now because, well, there just wasn't enough info out there.First, the price. This ended up working out better than I'd expected. I think most of us saw the $1000 price coming, but I'm glad that TGEA owners are getting basically half off of that.
While I was a big fan of the original GG ideal, providing a AAA engine for a price that any hobbyist could afford, we did eventually hit a reality check there. 16 year old hobbyists (no offense intended) aren't likely to produce a finished product, and the GG model relies on users shipping finished games. There's also a stigma; for years I've had to dispel the idea in people I've talked to that TGE is a "beginners engine," a sentiment that came mostly from its price.
I wouldn't support the price increase if it was just to change the engine's image, however what GG has been showing us convinces me, at least, that we're also getting a substantial increase in engine quality which justifies this change. I've gotten enough out of Torque over the years, it's honestly worth more than another $500 to me to stay on board. That said, I'm also glad it didn't go any higher; it wouldn't help anyone to completely alienate the existing community.
--------
The Basic vs. shipping editors vs. mods concern.
This actually seems to be a well thought-out system. I honestly can't see many people who are serious about game dev working exclusively with Basic, but I can definitely see how this would work in a team scenario, with the programmers owning Pro licenses and shipping binaries to artists and level designers holding Basic licenses. I also think many of the people who bought TGE for $100 just to basically play around with it would probably feel at home with a script-only version of T3D
I am a little disappointed that we can no longer release a game with intact level and terrain editing, as I feel this is an important feature in any competitive multiplayer game, but I understand how allowing this would completely compromise the Basic license concept.
However this works out, it's far from a deal breaker for me. And obviously if you had a project large enough to really gain attention from mod-makers, it's entirely likely you'd have the resources to negotiate a custom arrangement here.
--------
The logo issue... I find to be a confusing concern. I've never been even remotely bothered by the requirement to display the GG logo on startup. I would understand being annoyed if the logo needed to be displayed for an excessive amount of time, but that's simply not the case. Your players are used to seeing these logos in literally every product. No offense intended, I honestly just don't understand the issue. I also don't believe $1000 warrants the removal; even with the price increase, the GG model still relies on people seeing commercially released games and knowing that they were made with Torque. To remove that logo, you basically have to pay for the advertising you're denying the company.
Quote:We'll probably do one of these blogs just on physics too, but physics is one of the least well-defined features for release. We have a sort of PhysX custom hybrid system (aslo based on networked ODE, which nearly got finished in and of itself) thats mostly networked.
I almost teared up a bit. Seriously, though, this is great news. Everything I've read about T3D so far has been very impressive, but I was kind of upset about comments that physics were "not a priority" or would be left up to end users to implement beyond the Rigid system.
Quote:As you probably know, networking is what makes physics hard. Doing single player physics using existing libraries is easy.
I really have to salute whoever in the team has been hacking away at this. Network sync for these types of physics packages is far from a simple task. I'm also inclined to apologize for any harsh comments I've made regarding the advertised physics functionality on the new product info page.
Quote:We're integrating the advanced camera resource and animations for walking / swimming / crouching (not sure about climbing). You may need to re-add some stuff, but we've integrated a lot of the most popular and useful TGEA resources.
Seems like good news all around. There's a lot of code out there that has been begging to go into the official pool. This is probably too specific a question for this discussion, but.. would hitboxes be broad enough for integration? There's an excellent, easy to use hitbox resource that's been on the site for years and has worked with every version of Torque I've ever tried it on, from 1.3 to 1.8x. I'll edit with a link as soon as I dig it out.
#115
Thanks for the Reply. It not that i plan on sy EA publishing my current project. I want that to be released as a Indie item. Because that is where my studio is at right now and i am happy with that. I wa sjust curios as i bad i did not read fully the previous EULA's. Thanks for clearing that up though. :D
Now when did you say that pre-order was opening ????? :P
03/21/2009 (6:47 pm)
@Brett Thanks for the Reply. It not that i plan on sy EA publishing my current project. I want that to be released as a Indie item. Because that is where my studio is at right now and i am happy with that. I wa sjust curios as i bad i did not read fully the previous EULA's. Thanks for clearing that up though. :D
Now when did you say that pre-order was opening ????? :P
#116
03/21/2009 (6:51 pm)
@ChristianS: Quote:a: Is there a whitepaper awaliable showing the engines capabilities, features in full and requirements.We'll be publishing a feature spec on the pre-order page when that goes live. It's more detail than what we've provided so far.
Quote:b: are those trees in the OP out of the box foilage or from a 'additional buy'Not sure which trees you mean.
Quote:c: are the water abilities really as one gets the impression in those pics (small streams, waterfall, etc)Yes. We're not "faking" anything if that what you mean :)
Quote:d: what is GG's planned price range for expansionsI would like to get Torque 3D (and Torque 2D starting with the next release) on an annual version update schedule. That means that we'll probably release another major version every year around this time if we can swing it :) It's very hard to say what might change, if anything, around pricing. There are no set plans. We really need to see what the adoption of Torque 3D looks like. We want everyone on the same codebase too, that's part of why we've made it as attractive as possible for TGE and TGEA owners to move to Torque 3D.
Quote:As mentioned earlier it is a 'killer', to not know the full list before handing is cash.Understood, or course. If you look at our history though, we don't consider paid upgrades lightly. For an early adopter, there is some level of trust in us to provide a lot of value in the new product. We don't intend to let anyone down :)
Quote:Note: One of the things that makes a game stand out beside content, mechanics and eye candy is a community. One of the things that can make a 'indy' application stick out betwwen the 3k or so games published every year. Making mod supporting tools a cash cow sucks in my book as it's hard enough to spend cash already on door breakers.Well, it's never going to be any kind of "cash cow" for us. We do need to protect against a licensee of Torque being able to redistribute our full toolset, or something potentially competitve, under the EULA. I think that's totally reasonable. We want to support modding, but we have to protect what we've invested so much in too.
#117
03/21/2009 (6:58 pm)
@Andrew13: Quote:I understand that the Mac and PC version may be out of sync however does Torque remain committed to delivering feature equivalent Mac and PC versions ?As long as there continues to be interest in a Mac version of the tools, we'll continue to support it, and target full feature parity.
Quote:If we own Mac TGEA 1.8.1 can we pre-order and receive the same discount price ,even if the Mac version is delayed ?Yes, definitely. I don't expect the final release to be at all delayed. Matt was just hedging a bit on the first beta. We've got really good people working on the Mac version solving OSX and OpenGL specific issues. I'm very confident we'll be shipping an equally solid and useful SDK on the Mac as we will on PC.
Quote:Does T3D contain a Mac version of a terrain tool L3DT ? Or is this tool no longer required?GarageGames doesn't own the L3DT tool, and we didn't buy it to integrate with Torque 3D. It's been mentioned that Atlas terrains will not be supported, but the unified terrain system we're going to should be capable of nearly everything Atlas was, but with much better tools for real-time editing. Check out the 3/19 IRC log for more terrain details.
#118
But i quess that is something i would have to contact you guys directly about?? or is there any type of concesus that you guys have come to in regards to this??? it is a sore topic for my one project which will determine whether or not i release it on T3D or not. God i want it on T3D, but again modding is a 'KEY' feature that mu target audience 'Expects' and at this point all but 'demands'.
03/21/2009 (7:05 pm)
I understand GG's stance on modding and what tools are available for that. However my concern is the same as others here, i hav ea project that is due to be released under the TGE 1.5.2 codebase and one of the major attactions for my potential users of this game is the modding. I really want to be able to release this project under T3D as i think it would add more benefits that outweight the upgrade costs. BUT like a few others here there are a few tools that would be required mod tools that are ingame editors, for the project i have in question it would simply be the world editor, Road/Path editor, adn whatever ships as default with T3D Basic. But i quess that is something i would have to contact you guys directly about?? or is there any type of concesus that you guys have come to in regards to this??? it is a sore topic for my one project which will determine whether or not i release it on T3D or not. God i want it on T3D, but again modding is a 'KEY' feature that mu target audience 'Expects' and at this point all but 'demands'.
#119
03/21/2009 (7:07 pm)
@Edward: Quote:If I buy the Basic version for example. What do i get with content wise? As i am reading, i see genre kits, like the forest kit, FPS kit, and the Racing kit all being mentioned as add ons. So how does one go about using or purchasing these kits, will they be intergrated in a precompiled and Source versions.We're expecting to ship with several sample projects, but the genre kits will be sold separately. The FPS Genre Kit, which you'll all used to getting with Torque, will probably be partially included. That is, we'll probably include one level from the Kit, with the complete Kit and the rest of it's content sold separately.
Quote:So if i buy the source version say in 6 months, I can get access to a source version of say for example the FPS kit. Or is all the Genre kits going to require all persons to have a source version to integrate and use them. Im a bit hazy on this non source issue. Particularly things that need changes, like the swimming and player animation additions that are almost certainly not "out of the box".If you have Torque 3D Pro, you will be able to purchase source versions of the availalbe genre kits. For Basic owners, we're not quite sure yet. We may provide a pre-compiled option. Since the genre kits are 3rd party products in many cases, it will probably be up to the developer, but it would make sense to me to provide an option for Basic licensees as well.
Quote:Has anyone resolved the DIF art question. I have yet to see that question being answered.I'm not sure if this has been answered for you or not. Probably a question for MattF to weigh in on if possible. I know that our long-term inclination is to move away from DIF and toward complete polysoup objects. Something like a DIF-->DTS has been considered and worked on.
Quote:And will the current 1.0.5.1 Constructor be compatible with the new t3d setups?It should be, yes.
#120
hmm thanks for answering some of the questions.
03/21/2009 (7:10 pm)
The issue with a team of folks say for example the core team of 3 guys have the proversion, and they have say 2 artists that want to join, but the other 3 guys have got the genre kits and such all tied in. How does the basic license cover this kind of intergration? Sure its a project to project basis as stated, but no offense there is going to be a few folks that will take advantage of this.. genre intergration being a source code only option, just spells of bad things happening.hmm thanks for answering some of the questions.
Associate Steve Acaster
[YorkshireRifles.com]
If it's anything like the TGE/etc you just don't include the editor specific script files, delete the editor keybindings and exec commands, and compile the cs files to dso (so they can't be edited) - and voila, one application that no longer has editors.
At least that's the way I did it for my TGE released demo a year ago. look through my old blogs if you want to play it - It'd be rude to spam link off-topic here