T3D 1.1 Preview and Our New Office
by Eric Preisz · 04/08/2011 (4:46 pm) · 124 comments

April is upon us and I finally have a free hour to provide an update. First though, I’d like to take the time to thank everyone for the kind words regarding the $99.00 price tag. We are going to continue to offer the promotion since it has been so well received by the community. Selling Torque products below our original price (early GG price was $100) has been rewarding for us in many ways. Please take the time to welcome all of our new community members!
The iTorque 1.4.1 release went really well. We released a preview early in the QA process and many of you contributed by testing the release and reporting bugs on the forums. It was really successful and there’s no doubt that you were a big part of that release. We plan on increasing the release frequency for iTorque by providing smaller feature updates that aren’t necessarily QA certified.
Torque 3D 1.1 final is on the horizon. This release looks to be our most stable ever. We have a full time art team of four banging away on the engine and supporting them has ultimately helped us find bugs and build a better product. For example, they begged us to update our deferred renderer to include Jorge Jimenez’s MLAA solution. We complied, and we think the results speak for themselves. Thanks to Jorge -I'll send you some screen shots with our new art soon. Thanks also to Manoel Neto who did the first Torque implementation.

MLAA removed the jaggies common in DX9 deferred rendering.
This release is targeted at more than just bugs though. We are managing a coordinated effort across marketing, art & demos, web dev, documentation, and engine development. The new art looks amazing! And while it’s sad to see Gideon depart, I think you will enjoy our new friend.

Quick, strong, sleek, and intolerant of Gideon and improperly scaled
We released a preview of 1.1 yesterday. If you already own T3D, you will notice the preview in your account. This is your chance to influence and guide our focus from now until release. Please test the engine and report your bugs in the forums. You will find that we are collecting and prioritizing them every weekday. We are especially focused on any crash or performance bugs you may encounter. There are some known issues that are in development still, so there’s no need to report bugs on the following:
-Occlusion, zones & portals
-Physics demo crash on exit
-Things that are the result of levels being in a WIP state (i.e. the current texture on the terrain)
The Mac side of the engine will most likely require an update after 1.1 final. If you are a Mac focused dev, you will notice that there are a lot of Mac updates, but there are some known issues that we will need to address after the release.
Now that the quarter is behind us, we have been reflecting on all of the change that has been going on inside our walls. Firstly, the walls have changed. I’ll put some pictures below this blog so that you can enjoy our new office space. It’s really professional and I think that the building and location represents the professional business and best practices we are constantly refining.
![]() The GarageGames sign on the top of our new building. | Our new home. |
Finally, we also have a lot of new employees and full time contractors helping us maintain momentum: Victor Penman, David Montgomery-Blake, Elie Arabian, Star Shaw, Doug Poston, Matt Wood, and Jennifer Robbins. We have two other hires confirmed for the month of April and one in May. More will follow. The sum of our new experience includes dozens of AAA shipped titles and over seventy professional years of experience in the game industry.
We are excited about our future. I feel confident that our royalty-free, full-source offering, at an incredibly low price, is the best value in all game engine middleware. Keep working hard and making great games!
About the author
Manager, Programmer, Author, Professor, Small Business Owner, and Marketer.
#42
04/11/2011 (5:31 pm)
Need help... I can't download the preview fully as it is too big and the link expires at downloading.
#43
04/11/2011 (5:40 pm)
Make sure that you are not using any download accelerators. If your internet provider is constantly resetting your connection, you will run into problems attempting to resume since the link will change after 15 minutes. However, if you ensure that you have a constant connection, even at lower speeds, you should be able to download it. It will just take longer.
#44
I like where the new owners are going with Torque. Eric G. showing love for the old Kork; moving the company in the right direction yet showing us they remember where it came from in the begining.
Advancements yet still for the everyman.
Keep igniting dreams I dare you ;).
Much appreciated, rock on GG.
04/11/2011 (5:58 pm)
http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/20941/2#comment-174603I like where the new owners are going with Torque. Eric G. showing love for the old Kork; moving the company in the right direction yet showing us they remember where it came from in the begining.
Advancements yet still for the everyman.
Keep igniting dreams I dare you ;).
Much appreciated, rock on GG.
#45
Ok understood, it was because of this sentence
Will we see a release of Mac at same time than for PC for the 1.1, or later?
04/11/2011 (5:58 pm)
@ScottOk understood, it was because of this sentence
Quote:If you are a Mac focused dev, you will notice that there are a lot of Mac updates, but there are some known issues that we will need to address after the release.that I thought this preview is also for Mac.
Will we see a release of Mac at same time than for PC for the 1.1, or later?
#46
04/11/2011 (11:48 pm)
Same question as Frank : what is in detail the status of the Mac version of T3D ?
#47
04/12/2011 (2:13 am)
New office looks amazing! Congrats guys. Pretty soon you will be better than cryengine and unreal. Just hope you still take care of us indies after that ;).
#48
04/12/2011 (6:49 am)
Congrats guys
#49
We are quite sure we are weeks away, not months. The preview has a lot of known issues that are scheduled and the unknowns so far haven't been that bad. If anything changes wildly, I'll update this thread.
04/12/2011 (3:07 pm)
@Everyone - A mac update will lag behind a release of 1.1. At this time, there are two many moving parts for us to hit both on the same date. I will be able to comment more on the Mac plans when we get closer to 1.1. There are a couple of reasons we are splitting it, but mostly it's a QA issue. You will notice that work has been done, but there have been some recent breakage that we will need to go back and fix up.We are quite sure we are weeks away, not months. The preview has a lot of known issues that are scheduled and the unknowns so far haven't been that bad. If anything changes wildly, I'll update this thread.
#50
04/13/2011 (3:27 pm)
Before release 1.1 final, there will be any 1.1 Preview 2 or 1.1 Release Candidate?
#51
04/13/2011 (6:12 pm)
I've been pretty happy with 1.01 on Mac so far but the new features look awfully shiny. Could anyone provide me with an idea of what Mac stuff is broken in 1.1? Xcode is my development environment of choice (though of course I have VS as well).
#52
@Thomas - known issues include stability, imposter rendering, performance in billboards that are rendering incorrectly, glow. There are a reasonable number of big issues we need to address. We share the desire to fix them as soon as possible.
04/13/2011 (7:24 pm)
@Dmitry - both are possible. We've discussed both if we feel that we aren't getting a broad enough picture internally. But we are balancing the fixing of bugs with the need for a timely release. And what good is it to ask for you to report bugs if we can't fix them.@Thomas - known issues include stability, imposter rendering, performance in billboards that are rendering incorrectly, glow. There are a reasonable number of big issues we need to address. We share the desire to fix them as soon as possible.
#53
04/13/2011 (7:52 pm)
Well, when the Mac version gets closer to a releasable state I'll be happy to provide feedback and patches to any problems within the scope of my knowledge. I haven't run into any issues yet with 1.01 where I felt an immediate desire to upgrade 1.1, but I'm certainly looking forward to playing with some of the new features.
#54
I think I finally got the comment about the new guy being intolerant of kork or gid, if you look at his siloute he's got gid's head gear and korks shoulder pad.
Ha ha nice. A nice way to show GG's growth into the new GG.
Idk why I didn't get that before...
*shakes head*
Sidikian <--immune to the obvious
04/13/2011 (10:45 pm)
Oh snap,I think I finally got the comment about the new guy being intolerant of kork or gid, if you look at his siloute he's got gid's head gear and korks shoulder pad.
Ha ha nice. A nice way to show GG's growth into the new GG.
Idk why I didn't get that before...
*shakes head*
Sidikian <--immune to the obvious
#55
Other than that the preview assets look fantastic, i haven't encountered any real bugs so far.
Oh yeah, we still need some kind of linux server for Torque3D.
04/14/2011 (10:17 am)
Any chance about getting an actual, working documentation? We are gone from TGE, to TGEA, to T3D and the reference "manual" is still "The game programmer guide to torque" which is from 2006 and we are in 2011.Other than that the preview assets look fantastic, i haven't encountered any real bugs so far.
Oh yeah, we still need some kind of linux server for Torque3D.
#56
04/14/2011 (11:08 am)
Quote:Any chance about getting an actual, working documentation?What are you looking for Kyrah? Can you elaborate what in the documentation is "not working"?
#57
(Kyrah, if I'm misinterpreting you, feel free to correct me).
04/14/2011 (11:30 am)
My guess is that what Kyrah really means is that the documentation available is far from documenting every aspect of the engine's functionality. I haven't had any problems at all with the documentation you've produced so far being quite helpful, readable, workable, and to generally do what it says on the tin. I've just found that the majority of the engine components that I have an interest in working with are woefully undocumented. For example working with the ResourceManager, or how one would go about extending AppMesh for their own purposes (which, ostensibly is what AppMesh is actually *for*), or the workings of the Material system from a coding (rather than artistic) perspective. In my view this isn't a horrific oversight on your part - I understand the time-intensive nature of writing quality documentation, but it would certainly be nice to see these things documented eventually (preferably sooner, rather than later). (Kyrah, if I'm misinterpreting you, feel free to correct me).
#58
http://www.humus.name/index.php?page=3D&ID=86
04/14/2011 (1:11 pm)
Eric.. regarding MLAA, this might interest you:http://www.humus.name/index.php?page=3D&ID=86
#59
04/14/2011 (1:24 pm)
Been a while since I've been there. I liked the interior mapping shader implementation.
#60
So far in my time toying with torque i never managed to dive in very much because i get stuck very early on not knowing what to do and how.
There seems to be a "gap" to me between removing the training wheels and riding on my own.
That or there is this massive pile of information on the engine that i somehow missed for all those years?
04/14/2011 (2:22 pm)
Documentation teaching simple modifications, both in torquescript and the engine itself, tutorials for simple game concepts (how to re create the classic "pong" in T3D)So far in my time toying with torque i never managed to dive in very much because i get stuck very early on not knowing what to do and how.
There seems to be a "gap" to me between removing the training wheels and riding on my own.
That or there is this massive pile of information on the engine that i somehow missed for all those years?


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