Torque 3D Development - GDC Live Edition
by Brett Seyler · 04/04/2009 (2:31 pm) · 333 comments
Wow...another GDC behind us. This was a big one. I dare say it was GG's biggest ever. Josh Williams and I gave a talk on Thursday titles "The Future of Web Games" which ended up being packed full with standing room only. There was a tremendous amount of interest in both InstantAction Technology and Torque 3D. That went off fabulously. We did some private demos for the big gun studios. The GG booth was jam packed for 3 days straight, and despite bringing a full staff of GG'ers to San Francisco to help, I think everyone was overloaded with excited questions and lots of "when can I get that!!??" The really exciting part for Torque 3D stuff (which was absurdely well recieved) is that we've still only shown probably 50% of what we're working on. Some of you saw Tom Spilman's uStream walkthough of the "South Pacific" demo. That's all been captured and posted for you relentless viewing and scrutinizing below =) Obviously a lot of people put hard work into Torque 3D, but we really owe a lot to Sickhead Games for helping us SHOW rather than tell all of what Torque 3D is capable of.
Tom's gone way above and beyond creating a new terrain implementation (as you'll see in the videos), physics, procedural object placement brushing tools (called "Forest Kit" after the original tech it's based on), and of course, the new Advanced Lighting. It's not just Tom though. Russell Fincher, a great artist, is responsible for making most of this look as good as it does. James did the River and Road tools and Ross worked a lot on bending the World Editor to make all this stuff easily accessible and easier to use. That's just the high points, but they really are a great crew. We're lucky to have their help.
So, in this blog, I'm just posting the Torque 3D relevant footage from GDC. You'll see two demos below, both pretty ground-breaking stuff. There's a lot more on the way. This shakey cam stuff is great, but the video is low resolution and I want to get some straight-from-the-machine captures out to really show how good this all looks and how easy it all is to use.
There truly is a lot more to come. There's a more in depth look at the World Editor, a focus on the Road and River tools, Gerhard's AI and GPU Cloth, Physics, new demos, genre kits, and more. We're also going to try to get a live demo embedded on the website so you can see this stuff for real. All that, and our first build for pre-order customers is just around the corner. Since we opened up the pre-order promotion last week, you guys almost broke our ecommerce system with the flood of purchases. Sorry to those of you who were turned away while we tried to patch things up last week. Hopefully everyone who wanted in got in. Shirts are on their way, and the Torque 3D private forums are alive with anticipation. I can't wait to see what you'll all do with this new technology. I have high hopes :)
I also know that there a lot of unanswered questions from the nearly 500 comments on the last blog. I'm going to re-read those thoroughly this week and try to answer them all. Thanks for you patience and thanks again to everyone whose kept the faith and stuck with us. It's great to know there's still such a huge community behind Torque.
More development blogs to come. This is post #16.
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.
#42
04/04/2009 (9:05 pm)
The Forest Kit looks amazing. Any idea when that will become available? Is it something that will be shortly after T3D launch, or is this something that could be some time further in the future? 
#43
04/04/2009 (9:08 pm)
I still cannot believe my eyes, this is remarkable. This product if anything is under-priced, I cannot believe this. When you look at quality of this engine, it is actually cheaper than TGEA for what your getting. This is amazing, I am officially a GG - Groupie! 
#44
J.C., we are shooting for as close to Torque 3D launch date as is humanly possible.
04/04/2009 (9:31 pm)
Quote:The Forest Kit looks amazing. Any idea when that will become available?
J.C., we are shooting for as close to Torque 3D launch date as is humanly possible.
#45
Now I really feel justified in going with T3D as my gaming engine of choice.
Beautifully done guys...what more can I say?
04/04/2009 (10:16 pm)
WOW! VERY nice demos...Now I really feel justified in going with T3D as my gaming engine of choice.
Beautifully done guys...what more can I say?
#46
Can you clear up something for me?
In your blog near the top you say: "Tom's gone way above and beyond creating a new terrain implementation..." and in post #29, you say "terrain - INCLUDED" and finally in the audio of part 1 of the South Pacific demo we hear tom speaking about the limitless terrain and its arbitrary sizing.
I just want to clarify that the new terrain engine (terrain block / mega-terrain block etc.) is part of T3D, not part of the forest kit and that it includes the "limitless" feature.
How does the new terrain compare to Atlas in speed and max size?
I was utterly impressed by that demo and the new terrain. I can't wait to get my hands on that and start making levels using the new world editor.
04/04/2009 (10:18 pm)
Brett,Can you clear up something for me?
In your blog near the top you say: "Tom's gone way above and beyond creating a new terrain implementation..." and in post #29, you say "terrain - INCLUDED" and finally in the audio of part 1 of the South Pacific demo we hear tom speaking about the limitless terrain and its arbitrary sizing.
I just want to clarify that the new terrain engine (terrain block / mega-terrain block etc.) is part of T3D, not part of the forest kit and that it includes the "limitless" feature.
How does the new terrain compare to Atlas in speed and max size?
I was utterly impressed by that demo and the new terrain. I can't wait to get my hands on that and start making levels using the new world editor.
#47
@Entire T3D Team: I had high hopes for T3D, and these videos still blew me away. Nice work.
04/04/2009 (10:23 pm)
@Russel: That's great news, looking forward to it.@Entire T3D Team: I had high hopes for T3D, and these videos still blew me away. Nice work.
#48
A few questions:
1) When the barrels start floating down-stream, is it due to a water-current system or something else?
2) in response to the first video, could you technically play a T3D game inside of a browser that's inside of a T3D game that's inside of a browser?
Please make sure the included foliage systems are bearable, I'd rather not be forced into buying the forest kit if I decide a mission could use a tree or two. Considering that even TGE can handle some basic foliage, I hope I can assume this won't be an issue.
My concern with T3D is that I am not an artist, and I keep getting this feeling that a lot of the features will be useless to me because of this. Here's to hoping it goes away once we get a wider look into the non-graphical updates(i.e physics).
04/04/2009 (10:27 pm)
Very impressive demos, I especially like how the physics is working.A few questions:
1) When the barrels start floating down-stream, is it due to a water-current system or something else?
2) in response to the first video, could you technically play a T3D game inside of a browser that's inside of a T3D game that's inside of a browser?
Please make sure the included foliage systems are bearable, I'd rather not be forced into buying the forest kit if I decide a mission could use a tree or two. Considering that even TGE can handle some basic foliage, I hope I can assume this won't be an issue.
My concern with T3D is that I am not an artist, and I keep getting this feeling that a lot of the features will be useless to me because of this. Here's to hoping it goes away once we get a wider look into the non-graphical updates(i.e physics).
#49
The embedded browser technology is some experimenting I was doing right around GDC. It is really cool stuff and opens up all kinds of possibilities for things like in game ads, integrated community (think Steam), flash game GUI elements, etc. We won't be rolling this out as part of the engine proper this close to release... but, if there is enough interest we'll see about packing it up as a resource.
Thanks for all the encouragement guys, we appreciate it. Torque 3D is quite simply THE game development platform to use :)
04/04/2009 (11:32 pm)
The web demonstration video is using the Torque 3D Pro web deployment feature (in this case running under Firefox). We provide the full source code to the plugin and integration and you can fully customize/brand it. This includes setting your own MIME type (or ActiveX CLSID), setting up TorqueScript <-> Javascript for in the page scripting (powerful stuff), and security features such as locking which domain(s) your plugin allows itself to run from...The embedded browser technology is some experimenting I was doing right around GDC. It is really cool stuff and opens up all kinds of possibilities for things like in game ads, integrated community (think Steam), flash game GUI elements, etc. We won't be rolling this out as part of the engine proper this close to release... but, if there is enough interest we'll see about packing it up as a resource.
Thanks for all the encouragement guys, we appreciate it. Torque 3D is quite simply THE game development platform to use :)
#50
04/04/2009 (11:43 pm)
Embedded browser would be great, as Josh mentions, it opens up a ton of possibilties.
#51
04/05/2009 (12:17 am)
@David: Quote:Can you clear up something for me?Yes. All of what Tom is descirbing in that video is included in stock Torque 3D. The terrain is not streamed from the hard drive like Atlas, or handled on the CPU the way the old terrain system was. It's GPU terrain, so when Tom says it's "limitless", he means is based on how much GPU memory you can throw at it. You can easily do terrains that are HUGE though, far bigger than anything the old terrain system can do, but it's not a streaming system yet. That's something Rene Damm has done research on, and something we may be able to roll into a mid-year update.
In your blog near the top you say: "Tom's gone way above and beyond creating a new terrain implementation..." and in post #29, you say "terrain - INCLUDED" and finally in the audio of part 1 of the South Pacific demo we hear tom speaking about the limitless terrain and its arbitrary sizing.
I just want to clarify that the new terrain engine (terrain block / mega-terrain block etc.) is part of T3D, not part of the forest kit and that it includes the "limitless" feature.
How does the new terrain compare to Atlas in speed and max size?
I was utterly impressed by that demo and the new terrain. I can't wait to get my hands on that and start making levels using the new world editor.
#52
@Steve - The foliage you see in the vidoe is part Ground Cover and part Forest Kit. With the kit, you can paint very small trees and bushes that look like foliage. With Ground Cover, you can specify certain types of foliage to appear on specific materials (terrain textures).
04/05/2009 (12:18 am)
@David - The new terrain is part of Torque 3D@Steve - The foliage you see in the vidoe is part Ground Cover and part Forest Kit. With the kit, you can paint very small trees and bushes that look like foliage. With Ground Cover, you can specify certain types of foliage to appear on specific materials (terrain textures).
#53
04/05/2009 (12:37 am)
@Steve, regarding the river flow, it's a simple directional flow that goes in the direction of one node pointing to the next.
#54
This was the deciding factor in my sending (some truly hideous) flowers to their office to show my appreciation. However, I think the gesture was lost on them being dudes and all :)
The flowers:
Hahahahahahaha :)
04/05/2009 (12:38 am)
... and not just far bigger, far more detailed with the possibility to get some really tight polygonal control too... and Sickhead's terrain work also includes multiple detail map support with customized materials. This was the deciding factor in my sending (some truly hideous) flowers to their office to show my appreciation. However, I think the gesture was lost on them being dudes and all :)
The flowers:
Hahahahahahaha :)
#55
Since it seems that you guys are moving at the speed of WOW; (I was mid editing my post when you guys answered my question...) I wanted to add a related question to large terrains... (and thanks for the answers so far!)
With the new terrain system and "limitless" terrain; Does that mean the dreaded "jitters" problem is gone? (Long distances from the origin the camera begins to jiggle slightly)
04/05/2009 (1:03 am)
Brett, Since it seems that you guys are moving at the speed of WOW; (I was mid editing my post when you guys answered my question...) I wanted to add a related question to large terrains... (and thanks for the answers so far!)
With the new terrain system and "limitless" terrain; Does that mean the dreaded "jitters" problem is gone? (Long distances from the origin the camera begins to jiggle slightly)
#56
I can see this becoming an expensive hobby with more people looking to release packs they can earn from rather than free resources, hey I'm considering if that's an option I can take to generate some funding.
All that said it's an exciting time for Torque and I'm looking forward to having some much nicer tools to play with.
04/05/2009 (1:30 am)
The demo's are looking fantastic and it's great to see some more details on the engine and how it's looking (especially since handing over a chunk of cash), like some others I still have some niggling concerns about costs of the kits and add-ons, especially in the current economic climate.I can see this becoming an expensive hobby with more people looking to release packs they can earn from rather than free resources, hey I'm considering if that's an option I can take to generate some funding.
All that said it's an exciting time for Torque and I'm looking forward to having some much nicer tools to play with.
#57
04/05/2009 (1:34 am)
Yeah the videos don't really show off just how much detail you get in the textures on the new terrain. It's a *vast* improvement in quality over the old clipmap stuff.
#58
04/05/2009 (2:25 am)
I plan to implement a facial animation system upon the Yack pack dialog system in the near future. So just wondering if Torque 3D would support shader driven skinning or morph targets on the GPU? 
#59
I got this big, stupid grin on my face seeing those shadowed forests, watching the sunrise, seeing buildings fall apart. Amazing stuff.
I'm convinced now (and convinced about the Sickhead forest kit too, those trees are fantastic). Time to whip out the credit card. :)
04/05/2009 (2:37 am)
Everyone involved : That was mindblowingly cool. I got this big, stupid grin on my face seeing those shadowed forests, watching the sunrise, seeing buildings fall apart. Amazing stuff.
I'm convinced now (and convinced about the Sickhead forest kit too, those trees are fantastic). Time to whip out the credit card. :)
#60
04/05/2009 (3:05 am)
@Steven, if by "support" you mean "will have it out of the box with a GUI to edit it all in" I'm going to guess no.... If you mean you can do it, sure. 
Torque Owner Dennis in 3D